Along Came Trouble(95)

“I’m being a bitch because nothing else works,” she told Richard. “When I’m nice to you, you walk all over me. You use me, and you use my son.”

“Screw you, Ellen.” Richard’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. Caleb closed the last steps between them and clamped one big hand onto Richard’s shoulder. Richard glared at him, twisting out from under his grasp. “Screw both of you.”

He clomped to his car in his motorcycle boots and drove away, leaving in search of a drink or somebody else to make miserable.

Ellen went inside. Henry was using cookie cutters to make stars and hearts with Play-Doh, and Maureen was weeping gently while loading the dishwasher.

She wiped her eyes when she saw Ellen.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know he was going to do that. I went out to the store to buy some diapers—Richard said we were out of diapers—and I guess we were, though I could’ve sworn . . .” Her face went slack for a moment, heavy and doughy. She looked older than her age. Older than Ellen had ever seen her.

When she spoke again, she sounded like exactly what she was: a mother whose son had broken her heart a hundred times. “And when I got back, that man was here, and Richard said he wanted everyone to see what a beautiful family he had.” She sniffled. Ellen handed her a tissue from the box on the counter. “He said he hoped that you—”

“Don’t,” Ellen said. She didn’t want to hear Richard’s justification. She didn’t really want to leave her son with Maureen right now, either, but what was she supposed to do? She could hardly take him home. There were hundreds of people crowding her cul-de-sac. Strangers getting handcuffed in the driveway. He’d be safer with his grandmother, provided Caleb’s agents stayed on site and Maureen located her good sense.

“You’re not supposed to leave him with Richard.”

“I know. I’ve never done it before. I hope you know that.”

“I thought I did. Just . . . just don’t let him do it again. Until I tell you different, Richard doesn’t see Henry at all.”

Maureen nodded. “I understand. I . . . It’s hard, you know?”

“Sure.” She didn’t know what Maureen meant, but she was willing to agree. Everything was hard.

“I want to be a good grandma to Henry. You know how much I love him. But I try to be a good mother to my son, too.” She gave a shaky sigh. “He doesn’t make it easy to do both.”

“No.”

“He’s not an easy man to love.” It clearly made her sad to say it.

“I know.” Ellen did know. She’d loved him. It was like throwing yourself at a rock. It f*cking hurt, and you never got anything back except whatever twisted sense of virtue came from glorifying your own abasement.



Back in Caleb’s car, she looked out the window as they drove by the neat houses of Camelot, each one distinct, tucked into its own wooded patch of property. She wondered if her life would ever be normal again. How much of the last few days’ craziness was temporary, and how much of it was simply new?

Surely it couldn’t go on like this indefinitely, with the press hounding Jamie and Richard hounding her. There wouldn’t always be an SUV parked outside.

She wouldn’t always have Caleb in her bed.

As a mother, she was used to saying goodbye to the old routines and scrambling to recognize and make peace with the new ones. Raising a kid was a chaotic process, change its only constant. But in the past few days, her life had transformed more rapidly than even she could handle. It would be one thing if she knew how it would all come out, but she didn’t. She couldn’t control it—couldn’t control anything.

She hated that.

“Are you okay?” Caleb asked as they passed the water tower that marked the end of Central Path.

“Sure,” she said, still gazing outside. She was okay enough. A more sophisticated mental inventory was well beyond her at the moment.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It never should’ve happened.”

“It’s not your fault. That was all Richard.”

He inhaled deeply, and she glanced over at him. Caleb looked tired and tight and unhappy. Her fingers wanted to sink into the muscles at the back of his neck, an automatic reaction to the tension in his body. But wasn’t that exactly her problem, this impulse to rescue the men in her life? To help everybody else, when she barely had the energy to keep herself going?