“You’re on,” Mac agreed. “Hey, we’re just doing pizza and a movie at home. We can watch the little tyke.”
“You serious?” Rick asked.
“Of course, I’ve been listening to Ava talk about this anniversary celebration all bloody week. I’d hate for you to have to cancel.”
“It’ll only be for a few hours. How about I drop Owen off on our way to the restaurant? Is around seven all right?”
“Seven it is,” Mac said. “See you then.”
“See you then.” Rick gave him a hardy pat on the back, then picked up his bag and disappeared out the door.
“Sorry, I probably should have checked with you first,” Mac said.
Jennifer shrugged. “It’s not like we had a date. We’re not dating. It’s just pizza and a movie.”
Mac wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yup. I definitely should have checked with you. Want me to call and cancel?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s just…”
“What?”
Jennifer lowered her voice. “I don’t know anything about babies. I mean nothing, nada, zip, zilch.”
“I get the picture. How about this?” Mac reached for her hand. “I promise to take care of Owen, you take care of me?” He laced his fingers through hers. “What do you say?”
“I don’t know, you seem pretty high maintenance.”
“High maintenance,” Mac scoffed. “I need to take a quick shower. I won’t be but a few minutes. You’ll wait?”
“Of course we’ll wait.”
Chapter Nine
“Now, admit it, using the pallet for a fire was a good idea.”
Jennifer and Mac were settled comfortably on a blanket at the beach. They’d been there for a few hours already. The sun was now low in the sky and there was a chill in the air. But the fire Mac had built in the pit was blazing and keeping them plenty warm.
“It was a good idea,” Jennifer acknowledged.
Mac had spied the pallet in the parking lot of the deli where they’d stopped to buy sandwiches and insisted on commandeering it.
“Told you.” He gave her a nudge with his shoulder.
Jennifer pulled a marshmallow out of the bag that sat between them and popped it on the end of the stick he held in his hand. “The meatball sandwich, however? That was a bad idea, a very bad idea. I can hardly move.”
“You have room for one more marshmallow though, right?”
“You swear roasting them takes the calories out?”
“Oh yeah!”
Jennifer groaned as she shifted to lie down on the blanket. “This is the last one, anymore and you’ll have to carry me back to the car.”
The soft sounds of a child’s laugh drifted back to them. Jennifer leaned up on her elbows and followed Mac’s gaze. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes and watched as Sara chased the seagulls on the beach. She would stealthily approach first one unsuspecting bird and then another.
Mac grasped Jennifer’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “See that smile?”
“It’s only been a day and already I feel like I’ve made a difference. Not a big difference, but a difference.”
“She’s got a long way to go,” Mac said. “But you have to celebrate every incremental gain. It’s all good, Jennifer.”
The marshmallow caught fire. He blew out the flame then carefully slid the confection off the end of the stick. “Made to order, black and crispy on the outside, white and gooey on the inside. You have very discerning taste.”
Instead of taking it from him, this time, Jennifer opened her mouth. Mac shifted closer to her and she stretched up, blowing gently on the sweet before wrapping her lips around the top half of the dark outer layer an pulling it off, leaving much of the sticky center behind.
“Hey, you’re leaving behind the best part!” Mac popped the remainder into his own mouth and then sucked greedily on his thumb and forefinger. “Did you bring the picture?”
“Yeah.” She reached for his wooden art-supply box. “What is it you asked her to draw?” Jennifer opened the case, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to him.
“A picture of her family.” As Mac studied the sketch, his brow creased. “She didn’t use any color.”
“Did you ask her to?”
“She had all the colors in the box at her disposal. She chose not to. Look how empty it is, how little detail.”
Jennifer shifted so she could see more clearly.
“And this is interesting.” Mac pointed at the two, obviously adult, figures. “No ears.”
“Maybe she forgot them?”
Mac shook his head. “It’s significant. I’m certain of it. Maybe she feels unheard.”
“You think that’s why she doesn’t talk.”
“We’ve assumed she stopped talking when your mother died, it could go back farther. Let’s call her old school on Monday, and see if we can find out anything. She has ears on herself. And look, see how they’re disproportionate, almost too big?”
“Yeah.” Jennifer examined the drawing more closely. “Check out the size of Cliff’s mouth.”
“He was a yeller?”
“As far as I know,” Jennifer said. “I wasn’t really around him very long.”
Mac set the drawing aside. “Why did you leave?”
“Why did I leave?” she repeated.
“Tell me.”
“I guess I left because…because she chose him over me.”
“It was that simple?”
Jennifer shook her head. “It was far from simple. From the minute Cliff moved in, he wanted to control everything.”
“Including you?”
“Including me.”
“And you didn’t like that.”
“I’d been taking care of myself for a long time, doing my own wash, getting groceries, keeping up with schoolwork. Hell, I was taking care of myself and Mom.”
“You didn’t need some stranger telling you what to do.”
“Or who I could date. Or…so I thought at the time. This guy, an older guy, had asked me out and I’d accepted. Only when I was getting ready to go, Cliff said I couldn’t. We argued and he sent me to my room.”
“But you went anyways?”
“Yes,” Jennifer admitted. “Come early morning I tried to climb back in through my bedroom window. I couldn’t. He had nailed all the windows shut. I used my key and entered through the front door. The house was dark. I went back to my room in time to hear my morning alarm going off for school. He was waiting for me. He had searched the entire place, went through all my things. He was sitting there, reading my diary and…and he was laughing. He was laughing at all my hopes, my dreams.”
“Your innermost thoughts,” Mac added.
Jennifer swallowed. “I tried to snatch it from him. He held it out of reach, taunting me. As I jumped for it I inadvertently scratched him. He backhanded me. I fell, crashing into the nightstand and breaking the table lamp. The noise, coupled with the yelling, was enough to break through Mom’s latest stupor. I remember being so glad to see her, standing there in the doorway of my room.”
“You thought she would protect you, take your side.”
“It’s what a good mother would do, right?”
“Only she wasn’t a good mother. She didn’t protect you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“You’re so rebellious. Apologize to Cliff.”
“You want me to apologize to him?”
Her mother wearily rubbed her temples. “It’s because you haven’t had a strong father figure, isn't it?”
“I’m sorry, Mom, but I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to get to school.”
“That school is just putting ideas into your head.”
“She thinks she’s going to college,” Cliff interjected.
Her mother looked up, surprised. “College?”
“She thinks she’s smart enough to get a scholarship,” he chuckled.
“It’s worth a try,” Jennifer said,
her voice barely a whisper.
Cliff removed his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the scratch on his cheek. “You’re grounded.”
“I’ll come home right after school.”
He shook his head. “You’re not going to school.”
“Mom, I have three tests today. My grades, they’re important,” Jennifer pleaded.
“I am not letting you out of this house,” Cliff declared.
“You can’t stop me from going to school,” Jennifer shouted, tearfully. She started to stuff her books into her backpack.
“You walk out of this house, don’t even think about coming back!” her mother shouted.
Mac brushed a tear from her cheek. “You realize she probably didn’t mean it.”
“Doesn’t matter now. I believed she meant it at the time. I never went back. I…I couldn’t.”
“There’s that stubbornness. Where on earth did you stay?”
“In a garden shed, in back of the school.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. The guy I was seeing, Joe, his father was in charge of the grounds at the high school. Joe worked there too. He let me stay in one of the storage sheds.”
Mac reached for his sketchpad and a pencil. “So, Joe turned out to be a nice guy?”
Jennifer laughed, bitterly. “Hardly.”
“What happened between you?”
“It got bad, really bad.” She wiped away the remaining tears. “Frankly, that’s a story for another day.”
“Okay.”
“Your turn, tell me about something you find absolutely terrifying.”
“Mimes.”
“You’re afraid of mimes?”
“Uh-huh.” Mac continued to sketch.
“Why?”
“I have no idea. But they’ve always…”
“Creeped you out?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a weird guy, Mac.”
“We’ve all got issues.”
“We don’t all have mime issues. Seriously, mimes?”
He just nodded.
“How do you feel about charades?”
“Never played.”
“What about Kabuki? Maybe it’s the makeup.”
“I don’t think so. But you’ve got that great red silk robe. You could dress up like a Geisha after Sara’s tucked in tonight and we can test the theory.”
“What are you drawing there?” Jennifer peered over his shoulder.
Mac lowered the sketchpad and blocked her view. “Nothing yet, it’s really rough.”
She climbed onto her knees. “Come on, show me,” she coaxed, dragging a finger up and down the side of his neck.
“Are you coming on to me?”
“No!”
“You sure? ’Cause this feels a bit like flirting.”
“You wouldn’t know flirting if it bit you in the ass.”
“Are you kidding? Women flirt with me all the time.”
“Yeah, well this isn’t flirting.”
“What is it?”
“Merely a distracting enticement meant to cloud your mind so you forget you’re not wanting to show me the picture.” Jennifer continued to drag her finger up and down the side of his neck. “Is it working?”
He looked out across the sand again at Sara and the seagulls. “Do it with your tongue and we have a deal.”
When Mac returned his attention to his sketchpad he felt it. The tip of her tongue as she slowly dragged it from the base of the side of his neck all the way up to behind his ear. The ocean breeze quickly cooled the trail of warm moisture she left behind, causing him to shiver. Or perhaps he had started to shiver as soon as he realized her mouth was on him, tasting him.
“Was that a cold shiver?” she whispered in his ear.
“One thing I can guarantee you.” He twisted around and looked her in the eye. “You’re touch will never leave me cold.”
Jennifer blushed.
He tossed her the sketchpad. The drawing was of Sara, chasing the seagulls on the beach. “Next time I’m upping the ante.”
Jennifer looked down at it. “You’ve given her wings.”
“It’s still really rough.”
“It’s amazing. Can I keep it?”
“It’s not finished.”
“When it is?”
“Sure. And, just for my own information. If I had set the price at a blowjob?”
“A world of no.” She continued to study the drawing. “Tell me, how can you be drawing something this sweet and beautiful and be thinking about blowjobs?”
“Blowjobs are sweet and beautiful,” he said earnestly. “At least I’ve always thought so. Besides, guy here, remember?”
“Mac? Have you always been so forward about sex? You do realize it’s a bit unnerving, don’t you?”
“Sorry. And no. I’ve had to develop a comfort level. There was a time when things between Patricia and I… Well, they weren’t good anymore. We had been together for years but I found I was having a hard time communicating with her, expressing my needs.”
“What did you do?”
“I spent months being embarrassed. I struggled. I didn’t want to leave her, I didn’t want things to end.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted to recapture something I believed we once had. Now, in retrospect, I wonder if I was essentially just another drug of sorts to her. I went to see a therapist finally. Patricia wouldn’t come with me, so I went alone. I worked on it, being able to express myself. I worked on it a lot, actually.”
“I thought maybe it had to do with your work.”
Mac shook his head. “Not really. That’s not so much about being able to talk about it as it is about being empathetic. When I started I was in Initial Services, so I was often the first one to go out and interview a kid. They’re scared. Many of them are so young they don’t even have the vocabulary to describe what’s happened to them. The last thing they need is someone who’s going to get skittish on them, make them feel judged or uncomfortable in any way.”
“You must hear some horrible things.”
“Far too many, truth be told.” Mac leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the darkening sky. “We should probably get going, especially if we’re going to stop at the video and grocery stores on the way home.”
“How about I drop you off after we pick out the movie just in case they’re a bit early? Sara and I can run back for the pizza.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Mac waved to a group of kids who’d just walked onto the beach, blankets, coolers and a couple bundles of wood in toe. “We’ve leaving. Want our spot?” he called out.
Several of them waved back and the group started to head in their direction. Mac stood and started to pack up.
Jennifer gathered up the last of the trash, then scrambled to her feet to help him shake the sand out of the blanket. “I wish you had been there then.”
“When?”
“When I called the hotline.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell. It was right after I left home.” Together, they folded the blanket in half. “I told them about my mom’s drinking and how she was pregnant. I told them about Cliff hitting me. I told them I was safe with friends, but worried about the baby.” They walked toward one another, meeting in the middle.
“And?”
Jennifer handed Mac her end. “The person I spoke with said there really wasn’t much they could do. Oh, they told me I should call back if I witnessed anything further.”
“But in order to witness anything else, you would have had to go back.” He stowed the blanket in the canvas bag along with the leftover marshmallows and potato chips.
“And I couldn’t. I just…couldn’t,” Jennifer finished.
Mac pulled her into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her protectively and kissed her on the top of her head. “You feel guilty.”
“And ashamed. Once I got out of Los Angeles, I was so focused on myself,
my future, I never bothered to look back.”
“You were a child, blondie. Your response was understandable. Don’t judge yourself too harshly. You’ve done amazingly well, considering.”
“Thanks.” Jennifer pulled back slightly and called for Sara. “I want to make up for it. Do you think that’s possible? Do you believe I can change things for her?”
“Absolutely.” Mac said it with complete conviction. “Don’t you realize? You already have.”
Chapter Ten
“Mac, this is Owen.” Ava handed him the car seat.
He placed it on the dining room table. “Oh we’re going to have a great time. Aren’t we, Owen?” he cooed.
“I’m afraid he’s not much of a talker yet. Everything you need is in this bag,” Rick said, hoisting the enormous bag off his shoulder and onto the table.
“He’ll need to eat probably soon after he wakes up,” Ava explained. “The car always puts him to sleep. I suspect this will just be a short catnap.”
Sara and Jennifer entered the apartment carrying a large pizza box. “Hey!” Jennifer set the pizza on the table.
“Jennifer, Sara, you remember Rick. This is his wife, Ava.” Mac rocked the car seat slightly. “And this is little Owen.”
“He’s so tiny.” Jennifer peered down at the slumbering babe. “How old is he?”
“Three months,” Ava answered. “I’ve been back at work for a couple of weeks now. This is actually going to be our first night out and…”
“He’ll be fine,” Mac assured her. “You have our number. I’ve got Rick’s cell. Go and enjoy yourselves.”
“We really appreciate this, Mac.” Rick extended his hand.
Mac grasped it firmly. “No problem.”
As soon as the couple walked out the door, Owen woke up.
“He may be little, but he’s awfully loud,” Jennifer observed.
Mac carried the pizza into the living room, then headed for the kitchen. “Does he need to be changed?”
“Changed?” she asked, a puzzled expression on her face.
“His nappies.” Mac pulled out a beer from the fridge and held it up. “Want one?” “No, thanks.” She shook her head. “Beer tastes awful.”
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