At Peace (The 'Burg #2)(105)

Keira had done an about face. Cal didn’t come up hardly at all. In fact, in the house he ceased to exist, even Dane had obviously been handed the edict that he didn’t talk about Cal. But when Tina mentioned Cal at that barbeque, Keira called him Mr. Callahan like he was a shadow in our lives, nothing more.

Kate refused to talk about him, switching the subject when he came up at the barbeque and it seemed almost that she hurt even more than her sister. Keira had always been Cal’s champion but they’d formed a bond somehow, Kate and Cal. Maybe over music preferences and pancakes, I didn’t know. What I did know was that Kate was cut to the quick, just like her Mom.

And Cal came up only when Tina brought him up at the neighborhood barbeque Jeremy and Melinda had a month ago and she’d brought him up three times in front of me and my girls, the stupid bitch.

Not taking Cheryl’s advice, I didn’t reel Mike in. I kept him on the line but I’d put my hand way too close to the fire and got burned. I was trigger-shy.

With patience, he stayed as close as I would let him. We dated. He even came over for dinner with the girls who were both very nice to him. I made him my pork chops and he’d said he’d loved them and ate them like this was true, something Keira approved of greatly and let this fact be known to Mike effusively. We made out and it was as good as ever. I’d even spent the night at his place when both of the girls were at a sleepover and his kids were with Audrey. We’d watched a movie in his room, fooled around in his bed but we hadn’t had sex. It was just that it had gotten late so he’d invited me to stay. I’d slept in his big bed, in one of his t-shirts and in his strong arms and I liked it. It felt healthy, it felt safe, it felt sweet but it didn’t make me vibrate, it didn’t electrify me, it didn’t make me feel alive.

But I didn’t need that shit. Healthy and safe I needed, sweet was a bonus. I didn’t need to vibrate and feel alive because, when it was gone, it led to feeling dead and that was no fun at all.

Mike didn’t push it. I suspected that he’d sensed things had changed with Cal. And he knew I needed it slow, he knew this because I told him, so we took it slow.

He didn’t introduce me to his kids, he wasn’t certain which way I’d lean and he knew they didn’t need that shit in their lives. If I leaned the wrong way, they shouldn’t be caught up in that. He was a good Dad. A better Dad than I was a Mom, I knew that for certain.

So it was bad timing that Cal was home when I was dusting in the living room and I saw the Jag turn into my drive. I knew who was in that Jag and I knew why they were turning in my drive. There was only one reason they’d come all the way down here to turn in my drive and I knew that reason.

Just seeing the Jag I knew it.

I knew it, knew it, knew it.

And it burned a hole in me.

I walked to the door, Keira’s new puppy, Mooch, following on my heels, yapping his puppy yaps. I disarmed the alarm and opened the door, dust rag still in my hand and Mooch ran out into the yard but I didn’t really notice.

The situation was worse; I saw the minute I walked out.

Feb was kissing Colt good-bye by his GMC, Jack in the crook of her arm.

Myrtle was trimming her rose bushes.

Tina was sunbathing in her front f**king yard when there was no need to do this, considering she had sun loungers on her back deck, and I knew why.

She was in a bikini in her front yard because Cal was washing his truck in his drive.

All of them were looking at the shiny, burgundy Jaguar in my drive. I knew this because I swung my head around to take them all in.

Then I looked at my Dad who was walking across the yard toward me, his face sharing the news before he said a word. My Mom, slower, unfolded out of the car, her eyes on my house, her face not communicating hideous loss like my Dad’s but registering dislike.

“Sweetie…” Dad said when he got close and it burst out of me.

It was loud, shrill, high, so much of all of those, it was a wonder all the windows didn’t explode in every house in the block.

“No!”

Then I turned, ran through my door and slammed it, locked it and stood with my back to it, looking around my living room.

I dropped the dust rag and, mindless, I ran to the shelves, picked up the photo of Tim, the girls, Sam, Mel and I that Tim and Sam took for-f*cking-ever to set up on that stupid f**king tripod and then another f**king age to program the stupid f**king timer to take a picture of us all that Christmas day. Mel and the girls and I had laughed at them, laughed and laughed at their antics, how long it took, teasing Tim and Sam, giving them stick.

Good times.

The best.

I threw the frame across the room and the frame cracked, the glass shattered.

Then I grabbed the next one, me in my hospital bed, a newborn Keira in my arms, Tim on one side, his arm around me, he was holding a squirming Kate, Sam on my other side, his arm around me too, both of them had one leg on the floor, one leg on the bed. All of us scrunched up in that damn hospital bed. I looked tired but we were all smiling (except Kate, who was squirming). Sam had sat with Kate and Tim’s parents in the waiting room the whole time Tim was in with me and Keira in delivery. The whole time, he never left. Not for a second. He didn’t tell me that, Tim’s parents didn’t, I just knew.

I threw that too and the glass shattered.

“Violet!” I heard my father shout, pounding at the door. “Honey, let me in.”