Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(38)

“Well …” Ben seemed dubious, though he clearly thought this was a philosophical conversation because he knew Charlie always took her birth-control pills. “I used to think Ryan was this manly man because he went to war and all that, but the thing is, a man doesn’t treat his wife that way. Or his kids.”



“What do you mean?”

“He’s always running her down. You heard it last weekend. His daughter is standing there, and he’s yelling at Belinda like she’s a moron.”

Charlie remembered. Belinda had just sat there, publicly humiliated, while Ryan loomed over her. For all her tough talk, she never seemed to stand up to him. Maybe because he spent so much time wearing her down.

Ben said, “If you’ve got problems, I get that. Everybody has problems. But you don’t talk that way in front of your kid. Especially if it’s a girl, because you’re saying it’s okay for men to talk to women that way, and it’s not.”

Charlie wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.

He said, “You know, scratch that. It’s the same if you have a boy. He’s going to learn from his dad that it’s okay for boys to be assholes to women.” Ben got up and went to the fridge for a beer. “And another thing, look at how Ryan talks to her when they’re in public. Can you imagine what happens when they’re home?”

Charlie watched him open the bottle. Ben had never yelled at her. He had raised his voice plenty of times, but he never really yelled at anyone, especially Charlie. Even when they fought, which didn’t happen often but happened enough, he didn’t try to tear her to shreds. He made his point. He said that she was wrong, or unreasonable, or crazy, and she said he was wrong, unreasonable or crazy, and they kept doing that until they ended up having sex or watching a movie.

Charlie said, “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about this.”

“Let’s just say my dad was a perfect example of how not to treat his wife and kids.”



Like Belinda, Ben wanted to do things differently.

Charlie gave her husband a better shot at accomplishing the goal than her friend.

She said, “I had this client today. I can’t tell you her name.”

Ben listened as he drank his beer.

“She’s a teenager, but she played me. Big time. I haven’t been fooled like that since my sister convinced me that our neighbor across the street worked for the CIA.”

“The CIA? Was there a Russia connection?”

“Focus, babe.”

He waited.

“Dealing with this girl, it made me wonder what kind of parent I would be.” Charlie thought about the small white box in her purse. She had stuck to the plan. Mostly. On the way home, she had swung by the drugstore and bought the test. She had peed on the stick in the dirty public restroom. And then she had lost her nerve and shoved the thing back in the box before the little plus or minus could show up.

She told Ben, “This client today, who is probably a straight-up psycho, I believed every word that came out of her mouth. She played me like a fucking fiddle. And it made me wonder, if a stranger can fool me like that, what happens if it’s my own kid?”

“Well, probably it’ll be worse.” Ben sat back down at the table. “Think about how many parents you and I have talked to in our jobs where they say, ‘Not my boy.’ You could show them video footage of their kid stealing a bike out of the rack, then breaking it down for parts, and they’d say, ‘Oh, he must’ve thought that was his bike,’ or ‘Somebody must have tricked him into doing that.’ Their brains automatically come up with an alternate explanation. They can’t accept that their babies can do wrong. Hell, even guys on death row still get visited by their mothers. They won’t give up on them. I guess that’s how it is. You never give up.” Ben smiled. “So, if that’s the criteria, that you never give up, then your whole life has basically prepared you for motherhood.”



Charlie reached out for his hand. An hour ago, Ken Coin had used the same type of example to tell Charlie that she was stupid, and now her wonderful husband was using it to show her that she would be a terrific parent.

She asked Ben, “What about you? Are you prepared?”

“Me?” He laughed. “I was the biggest nerd at my high school and now I’ve got a smoking-hot wife.”

“That’s your character reference for being a father?”

“Babe, if a guy like me can land you, what can’t I do?”

Charlie couldn’t tease him back. “What if I’m really bad at it?”

“You’re not bad at anything.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re perfect.”

“You didn’t feel that way Friday.”

“Okay, except for Friday when you were being annoying, you’re perfect.” He squeezed her hand again. “Why are you worrying about what kind of parents we’ll be? Because Belinda and Ryan are the worst examples in the world?”

“I guess.”

“We’ve got a lot of other friends who are good parents. Or at least trying to be.”

He wasn’t wrong. So why had Charlie spent so much time focused on their most miserable friends instead of their happiest ones?

She told Ben, “This is why I need you—to remind me that there are good things in the world.”