by Miley Maine
There wasn’t much I could say to that, because it was true. But I hadn’t been perfect either. “We’ll make it work,” I insisted.
She lifted her head. “I see how good you were with him. That’s when I knew I had to tell you soon and not wait until his fifth birthday.”
“I’m glad you think so.” I sighed. “Thanks for talking to me about this. I know it’s not easy.” I glanced at the clock. “It’s late and we’ve had a tough day, but I’m not wild about leaving you all here alone. I’m going to sleep on the couch.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “Goodnight.”
I watched her go upstairs, and my stomach was like a rock. Last night, I’d been on top of the world. I’d told Bree I loved her, and I’d contemplated how to make a relationship between us work again. Now, what had been growing between us was crushed. I’d lost a girlfriend—again—but gained a son.
I was a father. It felt like a big job, even compared to my career.
Before I laid down, I tucked my unloaded Glock under the couch with the ammunition right beside it. I’d already felt protective of Ian, but now the feeling was a million times stronger. I’d be calling to have a security system installed tomorrow.
If Bree had kicked me out of the house, I’d have slept outside in my car before leaving him here unprotected.
21
Bree
I was grateful that the day after James found out about Ian was a ranch day and not my day with the fire department or at the vet’s office, so that I could lose myself in the chores and not have to interact with anyone from town.
My boss was perceptive, and so were all my peers at the volunteer fire department. I had no doubt each and every one of them would have noticed I was acting weird. My eyes were still puffy, even after I’d stuck ice cubes on them this morning.
I’d had trouble sleeping, knowing James was downstairs on the couch. So much had happened so quickly, it was hard to process. One minute, my ex-boyfriend was telling me he loved me and the next he was telling me we could work out a custody plan for Ian.
The whole thing was shitty, but I was grateful James had been reasonable. He could be at a lawyer’s office right now, drawing up papers to petition the court for custody. Instead, he’d acknowledged that taking Ian from me would harm him. Some guys would have been much bigger assholes about the whole thing, but he was at least trying to work out things amicably.
Walter and Mary also seemed to know something was up, because they kept catering to me and trying to give me food. Mary had already made homemade biscuits for me at lunch, and Walter cooked fried eggs and bacon. I didn’t need that kind of heavy food for lunch, but I ate it anyway, because it seemed to make them both feel better.
Only Ian was oblivious, asking if the three of us could go out again tonight. “It was fun, Momma. You need to come, too. I asked James. He said yes.”
“When did you ask him?”
“Last night. During ice cream. I said, ‘Momma should come with us next time.’ He said okay.”
To Ian, it was just that simple. Why couldn’t it be that simple for me, too?
At just after six pm, James showed up while I was finishing stacking hay bales in the barn. Even in his perfectly tailored suit, he looked frazzled.
“Long day?” I asked. Maybe we could have a mundane conversation.
He took his suit jacket off and laid it over his arm. “Yes. Lots of intel came in, but none of it panned out.”
Ian bounced as he jumped from one hay bale to the next. “Can we go to the park?” Ian asked James.
“Let’s ask your mom,” James said.
“Can Momma go, too?” he asked.
“Sure. If she wants to,” James said, but he looked like he was getting a root canal as he said it.
Ian jumped from a hay bale onto my back. “Momma, come to the park!”
The weather was so nice. It was the kind of day we wouldn’t have in a few weeks, once the blistering heat and the humidity arrived. “That sounds fun,” I said.
Once Ian had scaled the higher stack of hay bales and was mostly out of earshot, James leaned in closer. “We can call a truce.” James said, and I nodded. “We can just take our kid to the park and not worry about anything else.”
I agreed. We were both Ian’s parents and I was going to have to get used to sharing him.
So off we went, all three of us. I drove us in my truck, with Ian in the back seat and James in the passenger seat next to me. Near Laurel Bay Lake, we had a pretty decent playground for a small town. Some of the residents had ordered the parts and put it together a few years ago. It was wooden with little fort-like structures all connected with bridges and slides at the ends.
“Come with me,” Ian begged. “Both of you.” So James and I spent the next forty-five minutes crawling through the wooden structure, bumping our heads and banging into the posts.
Finally, after squeezing ourselves down the slide, we got to take a break when Ian ran into my boss’s daughter and they took off to swing together.
I sat down on a bench near the swings and James joined me. “I want to pay for his preschool,” James said without preamble. “I’ll also find out what the child support amount is and I’ll start paying that.”
“You don’t have to do that.” While I was fine with James paying for Ian’s preschool and other things that benefited him, I was uncomfortable thinking about him paying me a monthly sum.
“I want to. There are a lot of ways I can help. I’ll have him added to my health insurance, too. And if there are any camps he wants to go to or costumes he wants to buy, then let me know,” James said
I couldn’t stop my throat from locking up. All this time Ian had needed extra speech therapy. All this time I’d had to take him to the health department for his vaccines. And all this time he’d missed out on preschool, all because I tried to do this on my own. Maybe he would be better off with James.
I wiped at my eyes. I didn’t need my boss seeing this and trying to get involved.
“What’s wrong?” James asked.
“There are so many things he needs. And I couldn’t give them…any of them. It was selfish.” I got up from the bench. It wasn’t his fault, but I couldn’t sit there with James for another second.
I found a shady spot under a tree and stood where I could still see Ian, who’d moved to a giant sandbox with his friend.
Not long after, James joined me. “Tell me what’s wrong?” he asked again.
“Just needed a minute,” I said.
“I thought about what I said. About paying for stuff for Ian. Was that the problem?” James asked.
“Yeah. But you’re not wrong. I want all those things for Ian. But I can’t give any of them to him. I’ve pretty much failed at all of it.” Jeez, I was being pathetic. It was time to get my shit together and get my head back in the game. I snuck the corner of my shirt up to my face and patted at my face until it was dry.
“You’re a good mom, Bree. I don’t want to imply you’re not.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” I said.
“Don’t you think all this will be easier if we got along?”
“Yeah, it would be a whole lot easier if we got along. Why are you willing, though? Why are you being so nice?”
“Because I thought about it. I can see how you feel about Ian, how deeply you love him. I never had that. But I see that in you and I respect it, even though I don’t agree with your decision,” James admitted. “I can see why you made it.”
“Thank you. For trying to see my perspective.”
“I don’t like it, but it makes sense.” He crossed his arms. “I tried to think about how you must have felt when I left for Michigan State and you couldn’t leave Laurel Bay. You were trapped here.”
“You’re right. And our situations were different. Think about the fact that my mom was sick and your dad was fine, plus he had Mary. If he’d been alone and ill, you might have stayed. If my mother had been well, I don’t know what I would have
done.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t like being left behind.”
“No one does,” I said.
“Listen, I don’t want to overstep, but I don’t want to stay in this weird limbo. We’ve called a truce, but that implies we’re going to start fighting again. Why don’t you come out with me tonight? We can actually talk through this.”
If he was offering an olive branch, then I was willing. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s do it.” There was nowhere to go but up, right?
I certainly didn’t think things could get any worse at this point.
22
James
Once we spotted Ian yawning at the park, we took him back home. Mary was happy to take over, and then Bree and I headed to the Laurel Bay Diner. The name wasn’t creative, but the food was good and the diner hadn’t changed at all in five years.
As soon as we were seated in a booth, Bree whipped out a notebook and pen.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Strategy,” she said. “We can each come up with what we want as far as custody and visitation goes, and then work from there.” She gave me a half-smile. “A lot of people around here have given mediation a try before going straight to court. It works if they both are willing to compromise.”
When I’d suggested this dinner, I’d had something different in mind. Bree was right: using lawyers and the court system would only make this more difficult, and working it out ourselves would be ideal.
I was still too pissed off to really consider it, but what if we didn’t go through the courts? What if we started dating—really dating—and we shared custody? I’d wanted Bree to marry me years ago, maybe I could get there again eventually. But there was no way I was ready for that yet.
Was it crazy to try dating again? There was a lot of friction between us, but if we were committed to the same goal, I thought it was worth a shot.
“So,” she said. She picked up the pen and clicked it on. “The baseline is Ian living with me, so we should start with what you want.”
She stared at me expectantly. I had no experience with this. I’d pulled kids out of filthy apartments during drug busts early in my career, and more recently, I’d called social workers after I’d found their parents hacking into bank servers. For two fully functional adults? I had no idea.
“What’s recommended for a four-year-old?” I asked.
“Well, for parents who live separately, I’ve seen a couple of ideas. We can do every weekend or every other weekend. Weekends do get harder once they’re older and have sleepovers and baseball practice, but we’re not there yet. For holidays, the mom can get odd years and the dad gets even years, with the exception of Mother and Father’s Day. For birthdays, we can share the day or split it. We’d probably both want to ask permission before taking him outside the state, and we’d both want to say no dates can spend the night while Ian’s in the house, and…”
What the hell. I was clearly at a disadvantage, not having any friends with kids who’d gone through divorces.
“How do you know all this?” I knew when social services needed to be called and that was it.
“My boss, the veterinarian, is divorced,” Bree said. “I was one of her character witnesses in the custody case. I helped her stay organized with all the documents. In her case, they both share legal and physical custody, so they can’t make major changes, like switching schools or doctors, without consulting the other.”
Wow. It would be so much easier to date instead of working out a schedule like that. Not that I was going to say it like that. Not out loud.
And it wouldn't just make my life easier. I did love Bree. I’d always loved her. I wasn’t ready to move past what she’d done just yet, but she’d had her reasons and she loved her kid. Having a partner who was a good mother devoted to her kid? That was worth more than just attraction. Now I’d just have to find a way to trust her again.
And I’d have to find a way to broach the topic without sounding insane.
“You’re making a face,” she said.
I realized I hadn’t said a word.
“That sounds intense for a little kid,” I said.
She unclicked the pen and rolled it around in her hand. “I’d already seen some people go through this when Ian was born. I couldn’t imagine handing my new baby over for two or three days at a time.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I know that doesn’t make it okay, but for the first few months, I hated even leaving him to go take care of the cows.”
“I understand.” I wasn’t sure I really did, but I knew she felt strongly about this. “Do you plan to stay here in Laurel Bay?”
“I have your parents here and Lacy, so there’s a support system.” She frowned. “Are you asking if I’d move closer to Houston?”
“No, I was just thinking out loud.” I picked up the salt shaker to have something to do. “Are you interested in going back to college?”
“Yes, I am. I plan to one day.”
“Hear me out,” I said. “If we can get the ranch taken care of, would you want to go back now? Like I said, I don’t have a huge salary, but you and Ian could live with me, and you could work part-time and go to school. Or go to school full-time and try to get done as soon as possible.” The thought of living three hours away from Ian was not sitting well with me, and neither was the idea of living that far from Bree again.
“Why would you offer that?” she asked.
“Because it seems like it would be easier for Ian,” I said. “I’m not saying sharing custody is terrible. If we get along, then he’ll learn to go back and forth. But being in the same town seems like it would be a lot easier.”
“Have you considered moving to Dallas? Isn’t there a field office there?”
“Yes. I would be willing to consider that.”
“Really?” she asked, blinking at me a few times.
“Yes. I regret that I gave you the impression I’m so rigid I can’t compromise.” I huffed. “And I mean that in a non-sarcastic way.”
“Wow. That’s really great. Is it even a possibility?”
“It depends. I’ll have to check with my supervisor.”
“If we could get your dad and Mary taken care of, I’d consider moving to Houston. They may not be your favorites, but they’ve really saved me over the last few years.”
I was stunned at how easily she agreed to think about moving to Houston. “I get it,” I said. “I’m glad Ian has grandparents like that.”
When I’d found out that Ian was mine, I’d only been able to think about how I’d been robbed of his early years and how I wanted to see him all the time now. I hadn’t taken the time to think through the actual, day-to-day logistics or the practicality of sharing a child.
It looked like I had a lot to learn.
23
Bree
“Is today a fire department day?” James asked when we were all sitting at breakfast the next morning.
He’d slept on the couch again last night. Despite our successful dinner last night, my nerves were still prickly, as if they were all outside my body. They’d been like that since the moment James said he wanted to be a permanent part of Ian’s life.
Of course I wanted Ian to have his father be a part of his life. I never wanted him to suffer the same despair I felt waiting on an absent father to show up for him. But even with James’s reassurances, I couldn’t relax. I couldn't stop thinking he’d change his mind and want full custody of Ian. Even partial custody, which seemed fair when you heard other people talk about it, seemed insurmountable to me.
It meant days and days without Ian. Without seeing his costumes change hour after hour, without hearing him ask if he could have another pop-tart, watching him turn the water hose on and try to drink from it even after I told him not to.
I had been very encouraged after hearing James talk about moving to Dallas, or having Ian and me move to Houston with him. I hadn’t been prepared for that level of accommodation from him.
“Yep. Every Friday,” I said.
At nine am, I was the only one on duty at the fire station. We didn’t usually work alone, but one person had a stomach virus and the other had been called for jury duty. The radio buzzed to life. The Johnson family—who lived near the elementary school—smelled smoke in their kitchen.
I grabbed my gear and hopped in the truck. Outside the Johnson’s house, I didn’t see any smoke or smell any smoke. I grabbed my fire blanket and small extinguisher just in case. Even in the summer air, the skin on my arms turned cold with a shivery chill.
The house was completely quiet. Too quiet. Usually when I’ve arrived at the scene of a domestic fire, people are outside the house, screaming and waving their arms. Sometimes the front door is open and people are shouting at me to hurry. Around here, dogs are usually barking, too.
Today, there was nothing. Reluctantly, I got out of the car. I thought about calling for backup, but if there really was a fire, someone could be trapped inside. I got my axe, tucked it under my arm, and headed for the front door.
Fuck it. I was calling the sheriff and waiting for backup. Then the screaming started and I changed my mind. From inside the house, someone let out a second, desperate screech.
I shoved the door open. “Mrs. Johnson?” I called out. No answer. “Anyone home?”
In the kitchen, everything was in order. No charred dinner on the stove and no flames trying to escape the oven. James had warned us about fake 911 calls. Had I fallen for one? Just as I was about to get the Hell out of there, a voice sounded behind me.
“Not so fast, Bree.”
Dr. Smith.
I turned to face him. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “I think you know why I’m here,” he said.
“Yeah. But it doesn’t make any sense. You’re a doctor. Why get mixed up with criminals? You don't need the money that badly.”
“You’re right. I don’t need the money. I do, however, need revenge.”