“Boy, that guy could run. Won the eight hundred meter at state two years in a row. He was a couple of years behind me at high school, but he was smarter than anyone I ever hung around. And he loved pickles.”
“No, I know all about when he was young.” Except the pickles part, which finally explained Gran’s surplus in the pantry. She was hoping her son would be coming home to eat them. “But what can you tell me about him after he got married?”
Mr. Simon let out a low whistle.
Monica twisted her lower lip between her teeth. “Tell me.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but he really never should’ve married your mom. Not with his lifestyle.”
Monica seized on the opening she needed. “What about his lifestyle?”
“Come to think of it, that boyfriend of yours reminds me of Fidel in a lot of ways.” Mr. Simon tapped his chin and Monica felt every muscle inside of her coil at the comparison. Ethan most definitely was not her boyfriend, but she wasn’t going to argue the small details when she needed to understand the bigger picture.
“Why? Is it because of his...” She had almost said addiction, but at the last second caught herself. Talking about Ethan’s alcoholism would’ve been a violation of his trust. “Lifestyle?”
“Fidel was one of those macho hero types. Always good at sports and always wanting to save the world. He was this happy-go-lucky guy who was the life of the party and could fit in with anyone. Nobody was surprised when he joined the DEA after college. But when he started taking on those undercover assignments, your mom was not having it. And who could blame her?”
“DEA? You mean Drug Enforcement Administration?” Maybe Mr. Simon had read a few too many true crime books. “Are you sure?”
“You mean your grandma didn’t tell you?”
Monica shook her head. Nobody had told her. “I thought he was on the other side of the law, so to speak. My mom took me to visit him in prison before she died. He got so mad at her and wouldn’t even look at me, let alone hug me.”
“Yep, your gran told me about that. That was back before we had a local police force. I had to organize the neighborhood watch so we could take turns keeping an eye out to make sure none of his associates came looking for you.”
“What do you mean his associates?”
“The kind he was infiltrating. Fidel had gone so deep undercover, even the prison guards didn’t know he was a special agent. Your mom drove you down to Florence, Colorado, to show him that his work was causing him to miss out on your childhood.”
“They fought in the visiting area,” Monica said softly. “He yelled at her.”
“It was actually a pretty reckless thing for your mom to do. Fidel was investigating a major drug ring that ended up taking down a dozen or so guards, four supervisors and the assistant warden. By bringing you to that prison, she was painting a target on both of your backs and providing his enemies with the perfect means to exact their revenge. Even when the case was over and he was done testifying, he still stayed away just to make sure you were safe. He died shortly after that in a routine drug bust that went bad. At least, that’s what they told your grandmother.”
“Is that why I wasn’t allowed to go to his funeral?”
“That would be my guess. He was Lydia’s only son and she was already devastated. You were all she had left after that.” Mr. Simon jabbed a finger in the air. “Actually, I have some pictures of him and you when you were a baby. The neighborhood threw a big party when he came home from the academy. Things were a little tense around here after he died so your gran asked me to hold onto some of his awards and the newspaper articles just in case any of those bad dudes he put away came looking for you. There’s a Law and Order marathon on tonight, but I can look for them tomorrow and bring them over.”
Monica thanked her neighbor and returned to the house in a daze. Gran hadn’t avoided talking about her dad because she was too sad. She’d done it to keep Monica safe. Now that she thought about it, even her mother had never come out and called Fidel a drug addict. But they’d never filled in any of the blanks either, and Monica had been left to think the worst.
The pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t known existed began clicking into place. Her father showing up late for her birthday party and her mom yelling at him for missing it. Her father disappearing for stretches of time and then reappearing out of the blue with disheveled hair and an overgrown beard that made her mom complain there was no way she was going to take family pictures with him until he “cleaned up his act.”
Her entire childhood, she’d thought her father was some lowlife, some criminal. That his addiction had come before anything else. Apparently, his addiction hadn’t been to drugs, but to his career.
She saw a missed text from Ethan, but Monica’s head was still swimming and she didn’t want to think about anything but how wrong she’d been about everything in her life up until now.
* * *
The entire weekend went by and Ethan didn’t hear from Monica. He knew she’d been stressed out about that incident at Legacy Village the previous Friday, so he hadn’t wanted to push her.
On Monday afternoon, he was going to send her a text asking her whether he should make alternate arrangements for Trina, but when his daughter came home from school, she said Kayla Patrelli invited her to Bring a Friend night at the Snowflake Dance Academy. He’d been hoping she would express some sort of interest in an extracurricular activity that involved actually being active.
Plus, maybe Monica was right. They’d been getting too involved in each other’s lives lately.
On Tuesday afternoon, when he brought Trina to tutoring, Monica kept her distance. However, several times he caught her watching him, her expression leery as if he had suddenly grown two heads.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked her when he passed by the checkout desk.
“Like what?” Monica kept her eyes averted, as though she was now suddenly too busy to notice him standing right in front of her. She was opening book covers and scanning barcodes and stacking them on the same metal trolley where he’d made love to her a few mornings ago.
“You haven’t returned any of my texts. Did something happen on Friday after I left Legacy Village?”
Her hands stilled over a cellophane-covered copy of The Great Gatsby. When her eyes finally rose to his, they were somewhat vacant behind the lenses of her glasses. “I found out that my father wasn’t who I thought he was. My grandmother never told me the truth. And now she’s at the point where she can hardly remember what the truth is anymore.”
“Mon, she’s still your family even if you’re not related by blood.” Ethan leaned his elbows on the polished wood counter separating them. “When Trina first showed up, I thought about getting DNA tests. But even if I didn’t already believe deep down that she was mine, I would’ve wanted her anyway. I’m sure your grandmother feels the same about you.”
The creased V appeared above her nose before she shoved her glasses back into place. “No, I’m not talking about biologically. I mean my dad wasn’t some drug dealing criminal. He was actually an undercover DEA agent.”
“Oh yeah. I read that he took down one of the biggest drug operations in the federal prison system.”
Monica’s head drew back. “How did you know that?”
“I did an internet search. I wanted to know more about the guy your gran was mistaking me for in case I needed to get her settled down again.”
“Why have you been so good to her?” Monica asked. “You have all of your own issues with your meetings and your job and becoming a full-time single dad overnight. You’ve already got me to sleep with you. So why are you still hanging around and being nice to Gran?”
“Because I want to do more than just sleep with you, Monica.”
“Why?” she asked, her neck stretching back as she looked up at him. He realized the mist
rust he’d thought she’d overcome was back in full force. “What does an adrenaline junkie like you see in a bookworm like me?”
“Because you’re smart and you’re serious and you’re stable.”
“Stable? Wow. You really know how to get a girl’s pulse racing.” She turned to look at the same boy who had been asking her for the frog book a couple of weeks ago, and was now on his tippy-toes, using the second shelf of the medical section as a stepladder. “Do you need me to help you find something, Choogie?”
With a final stretch, the boy toppled over a hefty volume on human anatomy. “Nope, Miz Monica. I got it.”
Choogie kept the cover turned toward his chest as he ran-walked to a back table where the Gregson twins were eagerly awaiting them. Monica groaned under her breath. “Last week, they found a stash of National Geographic magazines in the Friends of the Library donation pile. I’m going to have to go check on them before they get to the chapter on reproductive parts.”
“Then I’ll make this quick.” Ethan remembered what it was like to be curious at that age and wanted to tell the boys that no book was going to make the opposite sex any less mysterious. Taking a fortifying breath, he continued. “I moved around a lot when I was a kid. Then, when I was in the Navy, I never slept in the same bed longer than six months at a time. Usually way less than that. So when I say stable, I mean I like the fact that you were born and raised here and that you’re established in the community and not going anywhere. I want to settle down, Mon. I want to belong somewhere and I want my daughter to have what I never experienced.”
“Most of the single women who live in Sugar Falls are just as stable,” Monica challenged.
“But it’s calm when I’m with you. More importantly, I’m calm when I’m with you. Like I don’t need to jump out of a plane or dive off a cliff or race down a mountain when you’re around. I’m not saying I won’t do those things in the future. But when we’re together, I’m not looking for anything else to stir my blood. I liked you before Trina ever showed up, but then I saw you with her and I was an absolute goner. You know what to do for her before I can even figure out the right question to ask. She needs you almost as much as I do.”
“Ethan, I don’t think I can be needed by anyone else right now. Between my jobs and Gran, I’m barely keeping my head above water.”
“So then why don’t you depend on someone else for a change?” he asked.
“Like you?” She rolled her eyes and his chest filled with disappointment. “You’re renting a furnished apartment by the month and you haven’t even unpacked those boxes in your bedroom yet. You said that you wanted stability. Well, so do I.”
Monica hadn’t even tried to ease the blow before walking away to retrieve the book Choogie and the Gregson twins were now hovering over. She’d left Ethan standing there to contemplate the absolute reality of her harsh words.
He needed her, but he had absolutely nothing that she needed.
* * *
On Wednesday morning, Ethan was supposed to run electrical wiring to Freckles’s backyard gazebo for her new hot tub. Kane was Freckles’s nephew by marriage and, when the café owner told him and Ethan about some of the best hot tub parties she’d attended in the seventies, Kane had picked up his tool bag and told Ethan, “You’re on your own.”
So when the dark clouds finally opened up to deliver the spring showers the weather channel had predicted, Ethan rolled up the conduit and wires and decided not to get electrocuted that day. There was an AA meeting he could attend at Shadowview at ten, but when Ethan went home to change into some dry clothes, he saw Tootie sitting on top of the cardboard boxes, gnawing at one of the corners.
Well, he thought, pushing up his sleeves, if he wanted Monica to think he was stable, maybe he should take her advice and finally unpack these boxes once and for all.
The first one was easy. Mostly papers and files. He scanned over his performance ratings from the Navy and his father’s last banking statement that the attorney had sent him after his old man had passed away. Between his small inheritance from his dad and all the extra deployment pay he’d stashed away, there was no reason why he couldn’t buy one of the older Victorian homes over on Pinecone Court and fix it up for him and Trina. That would definitely demonstrate to him and everyone else that he was just as stable as the next person.
The second box had some photos and several plaques and awards from his days on the team. Maybe if he found a place with a den or an office conversion, he could hang some of these on the wall.
When he got to the third box, though, Ethan wanted to close it back up as soon as he opened it. Standing up, he went to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee. Tootie meowed, as she always did anytime someone got close to the refrigerator. “The vet said no more snacks. If I have to become stable, then your digestive tract needs to become stable, as well.”
He downed half the cup before carrying it back into his bedroom and facing the box that contained some of Damon Boscoe’s personal effects. The ones he was supposed to send to his buddy’s family more than two years ago. The faded T-shirt advertising the Recovery Tour he’d gotten when he and Ethan snuck off base to go to an Eminem concert. The sweat-stained bandana printed with the Texas flag that Boscoe always wore under his helmet. The tied stack of letters from his mom that smelled like vanilla cookies. He shifted through more pictures and then his eyes landed on it. Boscoe’s lucky shell he’d found in the sand after barely passing their combat dive phase. It still had his friend’s blood on it from the night Ethan had held him in his arms as the desert sky lit up with gunfire rounds and missiles while they’d waited for backup to arrive.
Losing a team member in battle was something Ethan had been through before. But with Boscoe it had been different. Both of them were from Texas, they’d ridden together on the same bus to recruit training and they’d been stationed to the same destroyer after graduation. They’d even received their letters welcoming them to BUD/S training on the same day. Boscoe had been the only brother he’d ever known.
And Ethan had killed him.
Or at least, he hadn’t saved him.
After a full investigation, the inquiry board determined that Ethan hadn’t been at fault for the attack that had taken Boscoe’s life. But Ethan hadn’t been at his best either. He’d polished off a bottle of vodka the night before, after celebrating the capture of one of the top ranking terrorists in the area. His head was still fuzzy and his entire body was hungover when the base commander had ordered them to follow up on a tip about a possible retaliation attack. If Ethan had been thinking clearly, he never would’ve walked into that marketplace without suspecting a trap.
Ethan’s responses had been slower and his best friend had paid the price. He’d like to say that he got sober the very next day. But it wasn’t until Luke Gregson was standing on the tarmac beside him back in the States as they lowered Boscoe’s casket from the plane. Luke told Ethan about his first wife dying in a DUI and how he’d always blamed himself for not speaking up sooner and getting a loved one the help they needed. Luke had then handed him a flyer listing all the local AA meetings near the Coronado base.
Ethan now dug in the cardboard box again and picked up the piece of paper that Luke had given him that day. It was crumpled and stained with pizza sauce and had been covering half a bottle of Jim Beam.
That’s right, the memory slammed into Ethan. He’d been drinking when he’d originally packed this box. He’d gone to refill his cup with ice, and saw the list of AA meetings he’d thrown in the trash. He’d been completely sloshed when he’d called the number on the flyer and didn’t remember taping the box closed that night.
Now, as he held the glass neck of the bottle in his hand, he realized that day eighteen months ago was the first time Ethan hadn’t finished a bottle. So much had changed since that night and he would like to think he was strong enough in his recovery to keep the half-empty bott
le as some sort of trophy. Some sort of reminder that he’d stopped mid-drink and never needed a drop of booze again.
But then he looked outside his bedroom door, at the floral quilt covering his daughter’s bed, and he knew that nothing would be worth losing her. He wasn’t even going to risk the possibility of temptation. Standing up, he didn’t bother taking the time to walk all the way to the kitchen sink. Instead, he went straight to the bathroom and began pouring the contents down the toilet.
Unfortunately, he’d left the door open too long and Tootie decided it was the perfect time to attack the unattended toilet paper roll. The kitten missed her target, though, and knocked into Ethan, causing him to splash a fair amount of bourbon all over the front of his clean T-shirt.
He was about to change into another, but his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Hi, Dad.” Trina’s voice echoed off the acoustics of what must’ve been the girls’ bathroom.
“Trina, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you in class?”
“Can you come to the school? I really need you.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Ethan said, already halfway down the steps outside before he disconnected.
Chapter Fifteen
When Monica arrived in the girls’ bathroom at Sugar Falls Elementary, Ethan was already there and sitting on the counter between two sinks, apparently not caring that a gaggle of schoolgirls could walk in at any second.
And he smelled like a distillery. Had he been drinking? Disappointment made her legs turn to lead as she walked closer to the sinks, but she’d deal with him later.
“Where’s Trina?” Monica asked. “What happened?”
Ethan used his thumb to gesture toward one of the closed stall doors and that was when she noticed his daughter’s shoes underneath.
Had Ethan shown up drunk at the school and made some sort of scene?
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