Complicated

by Kristen Ashley

  “I get it, Hope. It doesn’t change things.”

  She leaned his way. “It does.”

  “You should have told me. I’d hurt you, you felt I was taking you for granted, that was something I needed to know.”

  She nodded repeatedly and quickly. “I should. I know that now. I should have told you. And from now on, I will, Hixon. You have my promise.”

  “Hope, you broke it. It can’t be fixed. It’s done.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again as gently as he could. “It is.”

  The tears started flowing over when she reminded him, “We vowed forever.”

  “Then you filed for divorce.”

  She slapped a hand against her chest. “This isn’t just on me. You have your part in it.”

  “Maybe I did but then it got done and there was nothing left but our kids.”

  “That’s not true. You promised me forever, so if it’s broken, you have your part in fixing it.”

  “Hope—”

  She surged to him, grabbing both sides of his neck and pressing between his legs. “I love you, Hix. You’re the only man I ever loved, and I’ll never love anyone else because I shouldn’t have to.”

  Again, Hix wrapped his fingers around her wrists, both of them this time, and he pushed her back but held her not too far away with their hands between them as he dipped his face in hers.

  “I tried to fix it,” he reminded her quietly.

  “I should have let you, but now—”

  “You didn’t,” he told her. “And now, it’s over. There’s nothing to fix.”

  “We can get it back,” she begged, tears still flowing.

  Hix used his hold on her wrists to pull her gently to her feet as he stood but he held her in front of him and kept at her.

  “I know you’re hurting and that doesn’t make me happy. I know what you want and I lived so long wanting to give you what you want, it’s hard, even now, to say you can’t have it. But you did what you did and then you acted the way you acted, and it sucks I gotta remind you, but that was even worse than what you did to put yourself where you are now. For me, Hope, it sucks to share this with you too, but I’m not where you are now. I’m somewhere else and I’m not turning back. I’m not because you threw away our lives the way you did. I’m not because you played the games you played and pulled the shit you pulled after you did that. And I’m not because I just don’t love you anymore in a way I know I’ll never do it again.”

  “Her,” she spat.

  “Yes, Greta. And also you, Hope. You let it die and now it’s dead, and if you can’t understand that, I’m sorry. But it’s the God’s honest truth.”

  She yanked her wrists from his hold, stepped away several paces, lifted a hand, dashed it on her cheek to wipe away the tears and hissed, “And you’re blameless.”

  “Probably not. But what I’m trying to say is it doesn’t matter now.”

  She squared her shoulders, tossed her pink champagne hair and sniffed. “Right. Then you can get out of my house now.”

  “You wanted this talk, I’m here and we should take it where we’re at least good to raise our children healthy and happy and not runnin’ away and walkin’ across town at seven in the morning because that shit is whacked.”

  She opened her mouth and he knew it was about to come spewing out.

  But surprisingly she shut it and looked again to the fire.

  She crossed her arms on her chest and declared, “I miss my son.”

  “I’m sure and we’ll work on that.”

  She looked to him. “And I want that woman not staying the night when my children are with you.”

  “Don’t go there,” he growled.

  “It isn’t right.”

  “What it isn’t is your business.”

  She dropped her arms but held them out to her sides. “They’re my children.”

  “They’re mine too and Greta’s gonna be in their lives, the way things are goin’, for the rest of them, so no reason for her not to be in them now.”

  Her face froze in shock with her mouth open.

  She unfroze to stammer, “You’re go-go-gonna . . . you’re gonna . . . you’re gonna marry her?”

  “I don’t know. But I know if you take a second and think about it, you’d know that I wouldn’t have a woman around them that I didn’t have feelings for. You also know you can trust me to do the right thing by our kids. So we don’t have to have this conversation not only because it’s not your business but because I’m a good father who loves his kids so you shouldn’t insult me by saying anything.”

  She crossed her arms on her chest, protectively this time, and stated, “You’ve got to know that hurts me, Hixon.”

  “I can imagine, Hope,” he murmured. “But it is what it is, it’s happening, and you’re gonna have to get used to it too.”

  She looked to the fire and declared, “I think you should leave.”

  “Hope, you need to stop talkin’ shit around Mamie.”

  She turned again to glare at him but he kept going before she could say anything.

  “You can be pissed at me. You can hate me. You can hate Greta. You can do what you want, say what you want, talk all you want. That’s your prerogative. But not in front of our daughter.”

  “I’m sure Greta went tattling to you about our conversation this morning,” she spat.

  “She called me when she got to work, yeah,” he told her. “But you’re an adult, she’s an adult, I can’t control you, and because of that, I can’t protect her from you. Do I want you never to do that again? Hell yes. Can I stop you? Unfortunately no. Can we put up with your shit and carry on? Fortunately yes.”

  “My shit,” she murmured, her lip curling.

  Hix sighed and prompted, “Mamie?”

  “Since the girls are both desperately in love with her because of her hair and her stupid heels, not to mention she’s buying their love by giving them gift certificates to make their room in your house nice, I won’t mess with that,” she gave in ungracefully.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “But it’d be nice if you’d also have a few words with Shaw.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And I’ll curtail discussing on my phone in my house about how I feel about your new slut when the children are around.”

  “Now see,” Hix whispered, holding his body perfectly in check, and Hope didn’t miss it, he knew it when her face paled, “that’s stepping over a line I’ll state plain right now you just crossed and you better never fuckin’ cross it again.”

  “I—”

  He took one stride to her, getting in her space and dropping his head so they were nose to nose.

  “Do not ever speak about her that way again, Hope. Not ever. Not fucking ever.” He pulled his head back and bit out, “Now we had our talk and you got a choice. You get your head out of your ass and get with the program or you don’t. I can’t say what’ll happen if you don’t. I’ll have to deal with it if it happens. What I will say is, right now, we got eight months with Shaw, two years with Corinne and five years with Mamie. Five years to make our kids happy, teach them what they gotta know to live their lives, take on the world and be decent human beings. If I gotta do all that on my own, I will. But it’d be nice to have your help.”

  Her head moved like he’d slapped her, but he was done.

  And he communicated that by sidestepping her and walking right out of her house.

  He was in his garage having just shut down the Bronco when she called him.

  He sucked in a breath, grabbed the phone, hauled his ass out of his truck, slammed the door and leaned his back against it before he put the phone to his ear and greeted, “If this is ugly, I’m hanging up and blocking you until you have the girls again.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that about her,” Hope declared.

  Hix went silent.

  Hope, unfortunately, did too so Hix had to end it.

&n
bsp; “Hope, it’s late and I wanna—”

  “I messed things up, didn’t I?”

  Hix fell silent again.

  This time, she didn’t.

  “I won’t say anything in front of Mamie, and I know Corinne’s upset with you so I’ll sit down with her and . . . and, I don’t know. Share a few things.”

  “Make them the right things, Hope,” he ordered.

  “They will be, Hixon.”

  He sucked in another breath.

  “It wasn’t about the ring,” she whispered in his ear. “I just . . . thought you knew me better.”

  “In eighteen years there’s nothing I learned about you that you didn’t tell me or show me, Hope. Marriage is not a guessing game. It requires constant communication to keep it strong. That said, I probably would never have bought you that ring. I’d want you to have it but with what we were facing financially, it couldn’t happen. But if I got where you were, I would have done something big if you needed, or small every day so you’d get what you meant to me.”

  “I know.” She was still whispering.

  “We gotta settle this shit down for our kids.”

  “I know that too.”

  “I need you with me on that, Hope.”

  “I’m with you, Hix.”

  Christ, could this be the end?

  “I really need to trust in that,” he told her.

  “You don’t call me babe anymore.”

  He looked to his boots.

  “Or peaches,” she went on quietly, hurt in each word.

  He said nothing.

  Hope did.

  “I did that too.”

  “We need to move on,” he said gently.

  “Mamie says she makes you happy.”

  He looked to the wall of the garage. “Let’s not do that, Hope.”

  “I just . . . it’s just gonna take some . . .” She paused for several long beats before she finished, “It hurts a lot and it’s gonna take a long time to come to terms with the fact that I messed this up.”

  “That might go faster we can work together to get our kids to a place where they’re good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll work on Shaw this week, see if he’s willin’ to go back with the girls next week,” he promised. “He’s not, I’m not gonna push it now but I will if it starts takin’ too long.”

  “I appreciate that, Hixon.”

  “Right. So we’re here, good talk.”

  “Yeah.”

  He pushed from his truck, saying, “Later, Hope.”

  “Hixon?”

  He didn’t want to say it. He heard it in her voice.

  But the truce was about two seconds old, he had to say it.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “Hope—”

  “Just that. Just know that. Just know I always will and I’ll always be so, so sorry I messed this up, you can’t even . . . you are . . .” He actually heard her draw in breath before she said softly, “You’re the best man I’ve ever met. You’re a fantastic father. And I . . . I did this to us. I lost you. So you’ll never imagine how sorry I am.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that and it was lame but it was all he had when he replied, “Right.”

  “All right, I’ll uh . . . maybe see you at Corinne’s game?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Okay, Hixon. Tell the kids hi from their mom.”

  “I’ll do that, Hope. Later.”

  “Okay, later, Hix.”

  He hung up.

  He stared at his phone.

  Then he walked to the wall, hit the garage door opener so it’d go down and went through the door into the mudroom, starting down the stairs to the basement.

  He hesitated halfway down when he heard Greta shout, “Holy crap, Corinne! You got this! To your left! That’s it. Yes! Now clear the perimeter!”

  He was pretty sure he heard a slap of flesh that would herald a high five.

  And therefore he was shocked as shit after all that had just happened that he walked into the basement with a smile on his face to see his three kids and his woman arrayed on his new couch, all of them on the edge of their seats as Corinne and Shaw played some war game on the Xbox.

  “Hey, Dad!” Mamie cried, looking at him then looking back to the action on the new TV.

  So Shaw could set up a TV and an Xbox and apparently a receiver because the surround sound Hix also bought was absolutely functional considering the grenade explosions and ­rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire were ear-splitting.

  “Hey, Dad,” Shaw said to the TV.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Corinne said, then stuck her tongue out and jabbed the controller at the TV like it wasn’t her modified fake gun but she was hitting assailants with it.

  Greta was just looking at him.

  Or, more aptly, examining him.

  “Hey,” he said to them all, but his eyes were on Greta.

  She tipped her head to the side and her face got soft.

  That beautiful woman shouting encouragement to his daughter to do well in a violent videogame then staring at him with that look on her face was falling in love with him.

  This was good.

  Because Hix was all in for that ride.

  “Your mom says hi,” he told his kids.

  That got him stares from all of them, though Shaw had the wherewithal to pause the game.

  “She did?” he asked.

  “She did,” Hix confirmed.

  Corinne was studying him and he figured with her mom also her best friend, she probably knew about the cooking and the vacuuming, which was most likely why he was getting hit with her attitude.

  He didn’t know what to do about that and figured he’d have to trust Hope would do something about it, so he just held her gaze and said, “It went good, honey.”

  “Should I, uh . . . call Mom?” she asked.

  Hell no.

  Hope in her state sharing with their daughter?

  Shit.

  “She always likes hearing from you. But now maybe it’d be good she got a call from her girl.”

  Corinne nodded, handed her controller to Greta and got up.

  She left the room as Mamie asked, “Is Mommy okay?”

  He looked to his youngest and moved to the sectional, sitting next to her and scrunching her as he did so she had to dig into him until she was nearly on his lap.

  He held her there and said, “She’s okay and things are gonna get better.”

  He felt her thin arms around him and he memorized that feel as she asked, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, baby,” he murmured.

  She dropped the side of her head to his shoulder.

  “Greta, do you wanna learn how to play?” Shaw asked.

  “Maybe you should save Corinne’s score because she was killing it,” Greta replied. “We can start a new game.”

  “Sounds good,” Shaw muttered, looking edgy, like he didn’t know what to think and he couldn’t get a lock on how he was feeling.

  Hix couldn’t help with that either.

  Time.

  That was what they all needed.

  And if Hope was finally with the program, it would start working.

  Mamie scrambled out of his lap to crawl to Greta and sit on her knees behind her, hanging over her shoulder and pointing out things even as Shaw pointed out things on the controller, teaching her how to move her character in the game, shoot her gun.

  Mamie kept hanging over Greta’s shoulder as Shaw started a new game and Greta got shot to shit within five minutes, giggling herself sick the entire time, jabbing her controller at the screen just like Corinne had done.

  “You’re terrible at that!” Mamie yelled happily.

  “Go again, Shaw. I’m gonna get this,” Greta declared determinedly.

  “Your funeral,” Shaw replied but he wasn’t done. “Videotastically literally.”

  Greta burst out laughing, Shaw joined her, Mamie collapsed on Greta’s back and di
d it too, and for the first time in fourteen months, Hix sat back and watched, enjoying the fuck out of the ride of life.

  Well Done

  Greta

  THE DOORBELL RANG.

  I tottered to it on my high heels, the girls moving in behind me.

  I then hit the outside light switch that meant the porch went dark, but the revolving lights that Hix had put out that displayed dead trees and cats with their backs arched and witches flying across full moons could be seen, the images covering both sides of the porch along with hanging fairy lights with ghosts on them.

  Everything at the ready, I opened Hix’s front door for the umpteenth time that Halloween night.

  I bent low, and in a ghoul’s voice, said through my fake fangs, “Good eeeeeeeevening.”

  I then stepped aside.

  That was when Mamie and three of her girlfriends, all in tattered tutus and leotards with blood dripping down their fronts from two fake holes in their necks, faces made up pale, eyes shadowed, hair in perfect ballerina chignons (makeup and hair courtesy of me), flitted out with arms gracefully held out to their sides.

  They arrayed themselves, two by two on either side of the door. They then got up on pointe, arms curled in front of them, and did a pirouette. They stopped and raised their arms over their heads, but with heads drooping to the sides, staring down at the five trick-or-treaters (a Harry Potter, two Reys from Star Wars, an Elsa and a Captain America).

  All five trick-or-treaters stared among the dancers in awe.

  “Oh no! The sheriff and his deputy!” I cried, and all the ballerinas flitted back into the house as the kids whirled around and watched Hix and his deputy, Bets, walking up the front steps wearing jeans, boots and their sheriff shirts, both carrying big, orange jack-o’-lantern, handled buckets filled with candy.

  “The sheriff,” Captain America breathed.

  “Hey, kids,” Bets greeted, coming to the top of the steps.

  She got a couple of waves (from both Reys) but the other three were staring at Hix.

  “Candy after you promise to look both ways when you cross the street, always let your parents know where you are, brush your teeth morning and night and you never talk to strangers. You with me on all that?” Hix asked.