Like so…
“What happened to the new diary?” he asked as soon as the kid was out of earshot. “That was good reading.”
“I burned it,” she answered, her tone clipped. “And if this game you’re currently playing is about trying to get me to hate you. You’re winning.”
Before he could answer, Max came bounding back out, with energy a kid who’d just gone through a grueling all-day practice and several drill sessions shouldn’t have. As Keane was finding out was typical with the kid, he already seemed to be over the disagreement with his mom. That was one quality he hadn’t inherited from his old man. Even before his mom left, Keane used to be able to hold on to shit that pissed him off for days.
No, you don’t care. About anyone or anything but your ego, which is apparently so fragile, you hold onto grudges for years for something someone said to you over a decade ago.
Keane shook that memory off and instead reminded the kid, and by extension his mom, “See you at five tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure to go to bed on time,” Max said with an easygoing grin, and Keane’s heart panged at the thought of not being able to see him most days if he moved back to L.A.—that wasn’t going to happen. Keane had already made sure it wouldn’t. But still….
“Max, our ride’s here,” Lena said, hustling Max to the public alley, like they were escaping a monster and the Toyota Camry that had just pulled up was their lifeboat off Keane’s island.
Maybe she thought he was a monster. Who cared. She’d been right about one thing. He was winning. All the battles so far. And eventually the war. So why didn’t it feel like a victory when the car drove away?
Chapter Twenty-One
Lena, never thought she’d say this, but thank God, for her period. The cramps, the bloat, the horrible mood swings, they were all worth it for a good excuse not to have to interact with Keane for the rest of the week. Not to mention getting to skip out on what probably would have turned into another messed up weekend-long beg and fuck session. Hot—but severely messed up. By Sunday, she always felt completely drained, like Keane hadn’t only managed to conquer her body but her mind.
But not this weekend. By the time Saturday rolled around, she not only got to say good-bye to the Red Fairy, but she’d also gained some much needed perspective on what had happened with Keane that Monday….and what she needed to do about it.
“What are you doing?”
Lena looked over her shoulder to see Keane standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She’d been so deep in her thoughts, that she hadn’t heard him come in.
“Hold on!” she called over Drake rapping about “God’s Plan” on the kitchen’s Echo show. Then she asked the device to stop.
“Hi,” she said when the music switched off. “The boys had their last game this afternoon, and I think Max got sick of staying in the hotel with me. He asked if he could stay in the dorms tonight.”
He came further into the kitchen. Set his messenger bag down on one of the island’s seats. “So he ditched you after you upended your whole weekend to come out there because of his shower thing?”
“Yes. Kids are like that. They can’t live without you one moment and are wondering why you’re still there the next. Maybe you remember what it was like at that age?”
“Nanh, I would’ve fucking killed to have my parents come to one of my games. Even one.”
Her heart twisted. “But they never did?”
“Once. During the Stanley Cup playoffs. She showed up at the back door of the arena where the puck bunnies hang out. Told me I did great, then asked me for money.”
Geez. No wonder Keane has trust issues, she thought, not for the first time since the summer when he told her about the mother who’d left him and his brother behind to run off with a second-string hockey player.
Keane had never used the term abusive to describe his father, who’d made his living as the kind of mafia envelope collector Lena abhorred. Just said, “He made all his points with his fists.” But she’d gotten the picture. The trust, abandonment, and anger issues had already taken full root early on for Keane.
And from what Lena could tell his wounds had scabbed over but never fully healed—
Don’t Lena, stop it! A chastising voice inside her head cut her off mid-empathetic-thought. Don’t empathize. Don’t make excuses for him. Remember what happened the last time you did that?
She inwardly nodded, agreeing with the voice. She had a plan for tonight, and she needed to stick with it. Tamping down the urge to delve further into the topic of his mother, she pasted on a bright smile and said, “I made some chole. It’s a chickpea curry. Not too spicy. Want some?”
“Yeah,” Keane answered, eyeing her like she just handed him a grenade not a polite offer of dinner. “My service doesn’t deliver on weekends. Usually I order takeout.”
“You don’t go out on Saturdays?” she asked, scooping out ladles of the flavorful curry into two bowls. “I mean shouldn’t you be on some billionbro’s party yacht right now?”
He chuckled. Apparently, he also remembered the time he’d convinced her to accompany him to a party being thrown by one of best bros who was only in town for the weekend. The best bro turned out to be a young Arab tech billionaire, who’d attended boarding school in Connecticut with Keane, back before he transferred to Boston Glenn. And “in town” turned out to be docked in Boston Harbor on a super yacht. Apparently Rashid was due to both get married to a nice Muslim girl and had decided to spend his last few weeks of freedom partying it up.
The party had been memorable for a few reasons, starting with the copious amounts of local celebrities, professional escorts, and drugs in attendance. And Lena had spent much of it wrapped in Keane’s blazer, awkwardly nursing a glass of sparkling water, while he easily broed it up with Rashid and a few other friends, wondering if she’d ever fit into his world. The answer had felt like an ominous no that night.
But tonight, she set a spoon and a bowl of chole in front of Keane and asked, “How is Rashid by the way?” As outsized as his yacht and party was, she’d found Rashid himself really nice. A fellow nerd with glasses, he’d greeted her warmly and asked Keane how he’d tricked such a lovely girl into dating him.
“Pretty good,” Keane answered as she pulled the naan out the kitchen’s built in pizza oven. Yet, another item she’d become too accustomed to using since moving into the brownstone with its state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen. “He moved back to Jahwar to become the CTO of his family’s conglomerate, the Tourmaline Group.”
“Tourmaline? Like, those really nice hotels and resorts? Max used to beg us to take him to take him down to the one in Ixtapa.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Keane confirmed. “He’s also got a kid now. A little girl. He seems pretty happy.”
A slight wave of jealousy washed over her, hearing about all of Rashid’s good news. What would that be like, she wondered. To be pretty happy and settled with a family? Plus, as she loved Max, but had to admit she’d often long for a little girl with long hair she could braid. One, who liked to dress up in saris and asked for ballet classes, just so she could wear the pink leotards.
But no, that was a useless fantasy. Max would have to be enough, she decided again, using a spatula to put the wood fire naan on a plate. That ugly argument on Monday had proved this arrangement with Keane just wasn’t going to work.
“Yeah, speaking of kids, I need to ask you about Max again. This weird shower thing of his. What’s up with that? Did somebody do something to him? Hurt him?”
Lena carefully set down the plate of naan halfway between their chairs, not happy about Keane’s subject change for more than one uncomfortable reason. “Did you ask Max about it?”
“Yeah, I did. Tuesday morning.”
“And what did he say?” Lena did her best to keep her voice casual as she went back to the oven to prepare a bowl of rice and curry for herself. And she was glad he couldn’t see how she had to squeeze her hand to stop it fro
m trembling before she picked up the ladle.
“He acted the same as you,” he answered behind her. “Asked how I found out?”
“Did you tell him the truth?” she asked, coming back over to the counter to sit down across from him.
“Yeah, I told him Con thought I already knew about it. And he said, ‘Oh.’ Then asked me not to tell anyone else about it. And I was, like, ‘Lockbox kid, but I still want to know why you got shower PTSD or whatever this issue of yours is.’”
“Did he answer?” Lena tucked into the curry, then blew on the spoon.
“Kind of.” Keane picked up his own spoon. “He said he just didn’t like it—that’s exactly what he said. But it didn’t explain anything.”
Sensing and even empathizing a little with his frustration, Lena said, “You know how you have a hard time trusting? He does, too.”
“Yeah, but I have a hard time trusting because my parents were pieces of shit. What’s his excuse?”
Instead of answering his real question, Lena said, “That’s an ongoing question in psychology, and there are some fascinating studies about which psychological traits are heritable and which ones might be purely due to the environment in which kids grow up.”
“You mean like me being a 24/7 asshole, while Bono’s out here trying to save the world through donations and not cursing too much. Even though we both got beat the same.”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling, despite his heartbreaking example. “Give him some time. Maybe he’ll eventually feel comfortable enough with you to open up.”
She doubted it. Keane was very…well, Keane, no matter how you sliced it. She didn’t see Max lying with his father on his little bed and having late night heart-to-hearts about all his anxieties and fears, like he did with Lena after his relationship with Rohan fell apart. But you never knew.
Keane seemed to consider her words for a few moments. But then he said, “Maybe’s not good enough. If he won’t tell me, you should. I’m his father and I have the right to know if somebody hurt him.”
She shot him a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid that’s where we differ in our parenting philosophies. You think you have the right to know everything, and I think it’s Max’s story to tell.”
“Fuck that,” Keane grumbled.
But thankfully, he finally took his first bite of the curry. “This is fucking delicious,” he said after a few grumpy bites. “I should sue your ass for not making it for me sooner.”
Lena laughed, but then tamped down her natural inclination to answer his version of a compliment with an offer to make it again. She stuck to safe topics for the rest of the dinner. Like the summer team’s win against Merriweather that afternoon.
At least she thought it was a safe topic. Just as she was clearing the dishes from the table, Keane said, “You know Merriweather’s not a bad commute. And they’re one of the few elementary-aged privates around here with a really good hockey program. Might be worth Max staying in Boston.”
She stiffened at the suggestion that she might change her mind about Max coming home with her to Pasadena because of a hockey program. But instead of reminding him about their written custody agreement, she set the dishes to soaking in the barnyard sink and asked, “Do you mind coming with me into the living room? There’s something I want to talk with you about.”
Keane’s eyes narrowed, but he followed her into the living room, and took a seat when she invited him to sit down across from her on the opposite side of the couch. However, in typical Keane form, he took the conversation back over before she could even open her mouth to tell him why she’d invited him in here.
“This about you still being on your period?” he asked.
“No, that’s…ah…ended,” she answered, cheeks heating. Not even a Psy.D. made it less embarrassing to speak casually with a man about her period.
“Yet, you didn’t volunteer that information to me,” he noted with an ugly frown, like he was filing that away, too, on his mile-long list of things to hold against her.
“First of all, I want to thank you for helping me with my father on Monday,” she said, forcefully pushing on to the next subject. “You were right in a way. He’s doing much better now that the store has been demo-ed. I think he’s moved on to an acceptance phase. He’s even talking about coming back to California with Max and me at the end of the summer, so again, thank you for helping me pick that lock and get him home.”
Keane didn’t answer. But at least he didn’t spew hate all over her father or threaten to take his house again like he did on Monday, so Lena pressed on.
“I also called you in here to tell you I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a lot of time to reflect this weekend, and I came to the realization that you were right to be upset with me. No matter how it ended between us, I should have told you about Max. From the beginning.”
“Yeah, you should have,” he agreed with a harsh nod. “But you didn’t. Not even when you and that ass tool broke up. Why not?”
She let out a deep breath, and did something she hadn’t done with Keane since returning to Boston. “I came home to study a different approach to therapy, but in my regular practice I find I have a natural affinity for counseling children who grew up like I did. Over controlled by their parents with a lot of pressure put on them to make their parent’s sacrifices worth it. I also had the extra component of survivor’s guilt over my mother’s death. But becoming a therapist, and more importantly a mother, eventually made me realize that I was living out the same dynamic in my marriage. Because I was already pregnant when Rohan asked me to marry him, I let him control everything. Where we lived, what schools we sent Max to, when I could go back to university after Max was born. I knew…I knew that if I didn’t divorce him, he’d do the same thing to Max.”
She shook her head, recalling how Rohan had thrown Max in her face whenever she tried to go against his wishes. He’d reminded her often that he was the one who’d agreed to raise her child as his own.
Then she confessed to Keane, “You think I’m still being manipulated by my father, and I do love my father and appreciate everything he gave up for me. But the truth is, there’s a reason I stayed on in L.A., even after the divorce. I liked…I like being a single mother. Not being controlled by anyone but myself. It’s been hard having to do everything alone in California, but Max makes it worth it—not that I’m ever going to make him feel like’s he’s obligated to pay me back for being his mom.”
Lena paused, peeping up to see if any of this was resonating with Keane.
However, his expression was unreadable. A stony neutral that let her know while she’d decided to make herself vulnerable, he’d decided to stay right where he always was. Behind a wall.
Sighing, she circled back to her original point. “I’m sorry, Keane. I’m sorry for not telling you about Max, and I’m sorry for not apologizing for my actions as soon as you found out. I wish I had tried to see your side of things, instead of letting things escalate into this unorthodox custody agreement. That was ill-advised. I can see that now. You also have a controlling dynamic, because of your parents. I’m both attracted and repelled by it, which I believe has been confusing for both of us. And before Monday, my desire to have a baby wouldn’t let me see just how toxic this arrangement was becoming.”
She took a deep breath. “With that, in mind, I’ve decided that it would be best if I move out. You can still pick up Max from practice. But I think we should end the sexual part of our relationship and start negotiations for a more formal custody agreement.”
She stopped again. Waiting to see how he would respond.
“Toxic…” he said after a whole lot of silence. Like that was the only word he heard in her entire speech. “So you’re saying we’re both too fucked up to make this deal work?”
She tilted her head at his crass, but disturbingly accurate summary of her well-reasoned argument. “I would never term it like that.”
“Yeah, I think we’ve established there ain’t an o
unce of real Boston in you. You don’t know how to be direct,” he answered. “But that’s what you’re trying to say. That there’s no chance of this working out, because you’re afraid of how explosive shit gets between us whenever we fight or fuck. Take your pick.”
Wow, Keane still had a way of putting things, but she once again found herself agreeing with him, with some added translation. “No, I don’t think it’s a healthy dynamic.”
“Gotcha.” Keane rolled his shoulders. “So what we got to do to make this deal healthy?”
“What?” she asked.
“You’re trying to back out of this agreement all gentle like. But you’re right about me being a controlling bastard, so the general fact is, I’m not going to let you.” Keane shrugged like keeping her locked into their deal was just a part of his animal nature. “Now we can have another fight about it. Maybe do some more hate fucking after all’s said and done, or you can tell me what it’s going to take to make you stay in this deal with me.”
Lena’s heart jerked. However, she’d imagined Keane responding to her refusal to go on as they were, it wasn’t like this. “I don’t…I don’t think you understand. You’re approaching this as a snag in a business deal, which, by the way, pushes us even further into a transactional dynamic I’ve never been comfortable with—”
Keane cut her off right there. “Yeah, I was aware from the start that you didn’t like me blackmailing you into sex, if that’s what you’re trying to say. And you already know I gave exactly zero fucks about your comfort zone as soon as you showed up in Boston with a kid who plays hockey even better than me. That’s going to happen when you forget to tell somebody he has a kid.”
Lena stared at him. She’d tried. She tried so hard to stay calm. But Keane still had a way of pushing her buttons, like no one else on this earth. “Okay, that’s why we can’t continue to do this,” she said, irritation slipping into her voice. “I want another baby more than anything, but all you want to do is hate on me.”
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 16