A Missing Heart(24)

I freeze for a minute, hoping Gavin didn’t hear the noise. No such luck, though. Crap. Gavin’s up, and he’s definitely feeling that pain in his ear now. Shit, shit, shit.

Just as I kick the door one last time, my phone buzzes on the bed. It’s Mom. I forgot she was coming over with the prescription for Gavin. I’ve forgotten everything in the last thirty minutes.

With a couple of deep breaths, in and out, doing my best to calm the redness that’s likely splotched across my tell-all face, I leave my bedroom, walk past my screaming baby’s door, and head downstairs to greet Mom.

“Coming,” I shout, even though she didn’t ring the bell.

I need to take one last breath before I let her in, but none of the breaths I’ve taken in the past few seconds have done anything to ease my anger and frustration. I open the door and let it fly wide as I make my way back upstairs and into Gavin’s room to pick him up. “AJ?” Mom calls from the front door.

“Tori isn’t home; you can come in,” I shout back, in between hushes to Gavin.

Mom meets me in the hallway outside of Gavin’s bedroom. “Oh, my poor grandbaby,” she coos.

“Holy cow, your grandson has a load in his pants,” I say, getting a whiff of something rotten. “Give me a sec while I dispose of whatever crawled into his diaper.”

Mom laughs, a knowing little chuckle reminding me that she’s been here, and she’s done this. “Honey, I think you dropped a note or something out here. Want me to throw it away?”

“A note?” I question. “I don’t have any notes.”

Dear God, this is bad. I’ve been proud of myself for keeping my dad guts where they belong whenever I get puked on, shit on, drooled on, and peed on. I definitely get peed on at least twice a day even though I try to be faster than Gavin’s skill at hosing me down during the exact second the diaper is removed—he usually wins. I haven’t found a good method to stop the madness yet, so I’ve come to terms with his inhumane behavior, and I have convinced myself it is a normal part of life. “Being peed on should never be a normal part of life. Right, little dude?” I ask Gavin.

“What does, ‘Today was the last day. Maybe, tomorrow we’ll be safe,’ mean?”

“Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pull up Gavin’s little jogging pants and scoop him into my arms.

As I walk out of Gavin’s bedroom, I see exactly what she’s talking about. One of those damn pink pieces of paper somehow escaped out into the hallway. I take it from her hand and crumple it back up. “I have no idea what this is, nor do I want to know,” I tell her.

“It looks like a child’s handwriting,” Mom says.

“I know. The notes sort of fell from a box in the closet—one I was ‘cleaning out’,” I explain, using air quotes.

“Oh,” Mom says. With everything she’s been through in the past seven years with Hunter and losing his wife, she’s learned not to ask as many questions as she used to. Mom and I have a different relationship than she and Hunter, though. Hunter is a private person and I’m not. I tell her everything and anything she wants to know because frankly, I don’t really care if she knows. I’ve always told her everything—well, almost everything besides the whole having a baby at seventeen, thing. Whatever the case, if she judges me, it’s usually because I deserve it, and I’ve come to terms with that.

“Tori left here a few minutes ago, telling me she needed to go talk to her therapist. It’s a little weird, but not as weird as her having a complete meltdown on the side of the highway while we were heading home from the hospital.”

“On the side of a highway?” Mom repeats, concern lacing each word.

“Yeah, it’s exactly how I’m making it sound. She had no clue what she was doing, and then she apologized when she got back into the car.”

“I don’t understand.” Mom sweeps her hand up the side of her face and walks slowly down the stairs and into the living room. “It’s like something happened at some point in the past year. She is not the girl you first met, and I feel so confused about it. I just wish we could help her.”

“You’re telling me,” I agree, following her to the couch. This is why I tend to be open with my mom. She gets things. She gets me and doesn’t judge.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

I hand her Gavin and she hands me the prescription she’s been holding in her left hand. “What am I supposed to do?” My last marriage ended because…well…neither of us were exactly 100 percent honest with each other, but it was mostly due to the fact that the woman had my balls sealed in a glass jar that she perched on her nightstand, ready for use when she needed them. I don’t think divorce is always the answer, and I was willing to try and make my last marriage work, until I found out about her infidelity and resulting impending love child. That was pretty much the clincher for a divorce. My life in a nutshell—I live in a nutshell, surrounded by bad nuts, at least where romantic relationships are concerned. Regardless of knowing that some marriages are just never meant to be, I’m willing to do what I have to with Tori, seeing as we have a son together—one whose life I’d like to avoid destroying. Plus, I don’t want to be divorced for a second time in two years, which I realize is a bad reason not to get divorced but it’s a legitimate reason for me to want to avoid it.