The Absence of Olivia(26)

I was frozen in place. Stuck in what seemed like an important moment. I didn’t know what to say, how to move forward, or if I should even acknowledge what Devon had said. Then, making my decision for me, he stood up from the table and walked down the hallway toward his room.

I exhaled as soon as he was out of sight, feeling a tremendous weight lift from my shoulders. For the rest of the weekend Devon made obvious efforts not to be alone with me – not obvious to everyone, but plain enough to me. And I tried to convince myself he hadn’t meant what he’d said, and I didn’t feel what I felt.





Chapter Eight


Present Day

“Evie, I’m really sorry, but there’s another late meeting I’ve got to attend. If you can’t stay late with the kids, could you maybe see if Mrs. Welner from next door could sit with them? I don’t have her phone number handy. Thanks, Evie. Let me know what’s up.”

I swiped the screen of my phone to the left, deleting Devon’s voicemail. “Sure,” I said to no one since I was in my car all alone. “I’ll just leave your children with the woman next door who is so old she can’t even walk from room to room without assistance. That sounds safe.” I flung my car in reverse, taking all my frustration out on my poor gearshift. “How in the hell did your wife live with you all these years?” My own breath caught at my words. Liv hadn’t lived with it. In fact, she’d died. But I knew she’d give anything to be here with him, being the one he called when he was going to be running late home from work.

I took in a deep breath trying to push away the sadness I felt at the thought of Liv, and the disgust I felt with myself as I took everything I’d been given for granted. Liv, in essence, had given me a family. I loved Ruby and Jax, and I needed to recognize that Devon could very well have hired a nanny, and I’d be stuck with weekend visits to the children I loved dearly.

I sighed as I merged into traffic, pulling my sunglasses down to cover my eyes. Knowing full well I’d be going to his house to be there when his daughter got out of school, then going to get his son, I silently cursed Devon for having such wonderful children who would always have a hold on my heart.

After I’d wrangled both kids, we walked up the driveway as I tried to text Devon to tell him the kids and I would wait at his house for him – no need to bother his elderly neighbor.

Ruby unlocked the door and Jaxy ran in ahead of us. As usual, the kids headed for the kitchen because they hadn’t eaten in over forty-five minutes so, obviously, they were starving.

“I’m hungry,” I heard Jax yell from the kitchen at the same time I heard the sound of the refrigerator opening. I heard the hum of the freezer, but something else was catching my ear. I put my purse down on the table and stood still, trying to figure out what was making me uneasy. I looked around and nothing looked out of place, and then I zeroed in on the noise coming from the laundry room.

I walked down the hallway and immediately knew something was wrong. Halfway down the hall, my feet were met with water. Standing water. Water that was slowly making its way toward the kitchen.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, trying to make my way through the lake that used to be the hallway. When I opened the door to the laundry room, I couldn’t stay calm anymore. “Holy shit!” My yells were heard by the children and somewhere in the back if my mind I registered they were coming toward me, but couldn’t think past the sight of water spraying out of the wall behind the washing machine. The water was freezing cold and ankle deep by the time I’d made it into the laundry room. The water was spraying out from behind the machine, sending water everywhere. It was coming straight at me. It was falling from the ceiling, and it was running down the walls. And I could tell it was coming out fast and I knew soon it would be flooding the whole bottom floor of Devon’s house.

“Yay! We’re going swimming!” I heard Jaxy’s excited yells from behind me and could see him jumping up and down near the door. I brought my hand up to shield my eyes from the water coming at me from all angles and shouted to Ruby.

“Get your brother and go upstairs! I’ve got to find the valve to shut this off.” Ruby followed my instructions and I noticed Jaxy’s face fall in disappointment, realizing it wasn’t a fun event. I waded through the water toward the washer, trying to find where the water was coming from. I pulled on the back corner, trying to move it away from the wall, but it only gave an inch. I squatted and pulled harder, trying to leverage my weight against the machine.

Water was still spraying everywhere, and all of my clothes were drenched and sticking to my skin. My shoes were completely filled with freezing water, and my fingers and toes were starting to go numb.

I adjusted my hold on the backside of the washer, now able to squeeze my arms between the two machines, and pulled hard. It took at least ten tries. Me tugging on the machine as hard as I could, feeling it barely budge, but move enough to motivate me to try again. Eventually, the machine was pulled far enough away from the wall that the plume of water spraying out was smaller and there was enough room between the machine and the wall to fit my body. I hopped on top of the machine and then squeezed my body down, feet first, still trying to assess where the water was coming from.

I was not familiar with anything I was looking at, made only more foreign to me by the water spraying everywhere, but I did spy a turn dial that looked just like the ones I’d usually seen outside of houses to turn hoses on and off. I reached for it and started turning furiously. After what seemed like a million rotations, the volume of water flowing from the hole in the wall finally tapered off and eventually turned into a trickle.