Loving Her (Mitchell Family #9)(63)

“It’s not babysitting if they’re your kids, dude. Even I know that shit.”

Conner shook his head. “Whatever. It’s still watchin’ kids, which is called babysittin’.”

When I walked back in the house, Miranda was in the kitchen. She gave me a funny look, and I got close to figure out what her expression meant. “I guess the ride didn’t go well?”

“She didn’t talk if that’s what you’re asking.”

Miranda dried a dish and put it in the cabinet above her head. “Did you mention Kentucky?”

“No. I didn’t want her stabbing me in my sleep.”

She leaned on the countertop and made sure Izzy wasn’t coming in the room. “Don’t say that, Ty. She’d never hurt you or anyone else. That sweet little girl is still in there, you know.”

“I hope so, baby. I really do, because this shit is ripping me to pieces. I just want it to be over with. She’s punished me so much that it almost feels like I’m being stabbed over and over.”

We held hands, but I couldn’t look at my wife. There wasn’t anything she could say that could make the pain less for me. Only one person could heal my heart, and this last Hail Mary was either going to work or kill me more.





Chapter 34


Miranda


Love.

It makes us do so many desperate things and as ridiculous as they may seem to someone else, they make sense to the person whose heart is aching.

I guess I’d always been selfish and never considered myself one of the lucky ones. I didn’t understand how someone who was seemingly normal at one point, could take their lives in a completely different direction.

As the week started to go by, we had the obligation to start packing up Bella’s things to make it look like we were really shipping her off. To lighten up the load, we convinced her that she could only take half of her clothes and only her favorite things. Four rubber totes later, she was all packed up.

I could tell she was not happy about it. In fact, I’d heard her crying and found her in her room sobbing. It broke my heart, but she still refused to acknowledge that Ty was in the same house. There were even a few times when I felt like taking my mother’s advice and putting her over my knee until she admitted that she was doing all of this on purpose to hurt him. It would have been a lot faster than putting us all through hell just to prove a point.

My mother kept reminding me of all the times she’d threaten to ship me off to my aunts, which was pretty funny considering that I ended up living with her for a while anyway.

Even though I knew it was temporary, it still gave me some reassurance knowing that she’d be with family. I wasn’t sending her off to a boarding school, or leaving her on a stranger’s doorstep. To Bella, we were trying to come up with a solution to the animosity in our home. She knew that she could come back, and I think she even knew that this was all because of her actions, yet she still ignored her father.

The child refused to admit that he was nothing more than the man I was married to.

An entire month of having his daughter disown him had caused Ty to break. You could tell when Bella was around, because he’d clam up or go into another room. It was as if just seeing her broke his heart, over and over.

One good thing was having the boys. They kept Ty going and loved him regardless with what was going on with anyone else. Ty seemed to even get closer to them. He’d always been great to all three of the kids, but now he was just doing special things for them, instead of having to include Bella. The funny thing was that even though he’d invite her, she’d still decline and then go cry in her room. The more I paid attention to her actions, the more I saw that she was broken in her own way.

I called my mom, crying to her the day before she was supposed to go. I knew that it was really a visit, but it was killing me to even have to pretend to be moving her out.

“Miranda, this was what you decided. You can’t go back on your word after going this far with it. Besides, you said yourself that you can see that it’s working. Let Ty take her to Kentucky. Let them be alone and have that time to talk. I bet that by the time they arrive, everything will be alright again. It’s not like you’re getting rid of her. For goodness sakes Miranda, she’s only staying with them for a few weeks. She’s done that every summer since she was five.”

“What if she doesn’t want to come home? This could be a terrible idea. I don’t want to lose her.”

“Do you hear yourself? Sweetie, you’ve all been through so much in the past couple of months. First the illness and now this big blow-up. I think you need a break. Bella needs to miss you. She needs time to understand that he’s her father, no matter what the doctors could ever prove. You have a family and she needs to respect him. That’s the rules, or she’s going to be punished for it. Stop feeling bad about this. If anything, it will give you all some time to breathe. If she comes home still acting like a brat then you’re both going to have to deal with it. Some girls are brats. You are still the worst one I’ve ever known.”

I rolled my eyes when she reminded me of how much of a snobby little brat I was. “I thought girls were supposed to be easier.”

“Your brother was way easier, even when he was at his worst. I don’t think you want to admit the things you used to do. Let’s not get into how sneaky you were. Your daughter gets it naturally, if you ask me.”