A Little Too Late

by Staci Hart

  She stepped toward him, everything about her screaming, but her voice was still. “You know me better than that, Charlie.”

  “You never did take no for an answer. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow, I always think you’ll be better than you are.”

  “Oh, don’t play high and mighty with me, you arrogant prick. You’re the one fucking the help.”

  “That’s enough!” he roared, stepping into her, arching over her. “Kidnapping the kids isn’t going to get you what you want, don’t you realize that? If you would play by the fucking rules, you could have anything you want. But if you won’t, you’re going to end up with nothing. I’ll make sure of it. Do you understand me?”

  Her face bent in furious desperation. “I can’t have what I want, Charlie! I can’t! It’s all gone, so I’ll take what I want. I’ll take it back from you, from her,” she spat the word in my direction.

  “No, you won’t.” He grabbed her by the arm and steered her away, their arguing unintelligible as they headed for the door.

  I stayed put, my hands icy and heart thundering. Their fight reached me in waves from the foyer as the volume grew and lessened, and when Maven reached for me, I picked her up, taking her to the sink to clean her up.

  The door opened and slammed closed, and Charlie was in the room a few seconds later, rushing to me.

  Maven was on my hip, the two of us in the circle of Charlie’s arms, his hand cupping the back of Maven’s head, his lips pressing a kiss to her hair, then my forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  He knew what I’d asked without any explanation. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, his voice miserable and pained. “Hannah … I …”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  He looked into my eyes, his truth plain and clear. “I do. But Hannah, I’ve never … I don’t know what I’m doing.” The words were tight as he fumbled with what to say and how to say it. “I’m afraid. That’s the bottom line. I am scared that I’ll do all of this wrong, take a wrong step, and I’ll lose you.”

  “You’ll lose me if you keep things from me.”

  He nodded, his eyes down. “It’s too much to expect that you would put up with all of this for me, not when you could have so much more with someone else. Things could be easier. I … I don’t know that things will ever be easy with me, Hannah. Not with Mary. Not now that she’s come back after all this time just to drag us both through hell.”

  I shook my head, my heart aching. “I care about you, that’s why I’ll put up with this. But you kept this from me when I’d asked you not to. I’d told you I didn’t want to be surprised again, not by her. Not because of something you could have avoided just by trusting me.”

  “I know,” he said miserably. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  We were quiet for a moment, Maven curled up between us, the silence heavy with our thoughts.

  I backed away and passed Maven over. “I’m going to go check on Sammy.”

  His face was pained and sorrowful. “Are we … are we all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered as honestly as I could. “Let’s talk later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I kissed him on the cheek and left the room, looking for Sammy, lost in my thoughts. I found him in his bed and climbed in with him, not really listening to his cartoon.

  The last hour replayed in my mind, the swing of emotions—from fear to relief to anger to hurt—leaving me feeling exhausted and confused. Because even though I was upset with Charlie, I understood why he hadn’t told me. It was no excuse—he should have told me—but if I’d been in his shoes, I would have grappled with the decision too.

  Not to mention, I had my own secrets.

  But Mary was a lot to handle. I wondered how he’d dealt with her for so many years, though I imagined when she got her way, she was more compliant than she’d been of late. Now she felt threatened—that much was perfectly clear—and she was making a stand, showing Charlie she would throw anything she could at him, and me too. I was just another tool for her to use to hurt him.

  Because that was also perfectly clear. She wanted to hurt him. She didn’t love him whether she said she did or not. She only wanted the thing she couldn’t have, the thing she felt entitled to, regardless of what choices she’d made.

  Charlie left me alone with my thoughts the rest of the afternoon.

  I took Sammy downstairs, finding Charlie in the living room with Maven in his lap, reading her a book. Sammy joined them, and Charlie passed me a small smile. I returned it but didn’t stay.

  I headed into the kitchen. Katie was there, her face lined with worry. She’d come home from grocery shopping just after Mary left, finding Charlie and the story of what Mary had done. She had questions—many, many questions—and I answered them all as I gathered up ingredients and began to mix them together. Sugar and flour and eggs and water and questions and answers and conflict and confusion—all were poured together and folded and combined and kneaded until they were unrecognizable from their beginnings.

  During dinner, Charlie filled the air with questions for Sammy, who answered them with exuberance. It was an effort on Charlie’s part to let me be, and I appreciated that allowance more than he could know.

  He put the kids to bed that night, but before he went upstairs, he stopped at the sink where I stood washing dishes and asked me with his words and his eyes if we could talk when he returned.

  I waited for him in the living room, sitting on the couch with my eyes on the dark fireplace, not sure how I felt or what I wanted or how we’d gotten here. It was such a simple request—to tell me the truth. It was all that I’d asked and the one thing he hadn’t given me.

  Charlie came in a little while later and sat next to me, facing the fireplace, our eyes forward and the room silent.

  He didn’t speak for a minute. Neither did I.

  “I should have told you,” he finally said.

  “Yes, you should have.”

  He took a deep breath. “She came to work the other day. Why, I’m not sure. Just to … I don’t know. Press me to give her what she wants. She thought … she thought when she came to the house on Sunday that I’d let her in, that I’d give her whatever she asked for. And when I said no, it triggered all this. Her coming to the firm, her taking the kids, her showing up here.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Charlie kept talking. “She tried to tell me she didn’t want a divorce, that she wanted to make it all up to me. Said she wanted to make it up to the kids. And that’s the hard part, Hannah. As much as I don’t want to see her, as much as I would love to cut her out of my life forever, I can’t. They’re her children. She’s not going anywhere, no matter how badly I want her to. Technically, I’m still married to her. And that fact is why I didn’t bring it up. I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid of losing you. I have nothing to hide, no secrets to keep, but I’m scared that it will all be too much.”

  “You’ll lose me if you lie. You’ll lose me if you shut me out.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Hannah, it will not happen again. I promise you that.”

  “You promised me that once before.”

  He nodded. “But now I understand what I’m promising.”

  My eyes were forward, but I reached for his hand. “She won’t leave you alone. None of you.”

  “No, she won’t.” His thumb shifted against mine. “I don’t know what to do about her. I have custody of the kids, and that won’t change, especially not after her behavior—from her leaving us and staying gone for so long to her taking the kids without telling me. I emailed Pete, my lawyer, and told him what happened. I can bar her from picking up the kids, but I can’t stop her from showing up here. I can’t stop her from confronting you, and that makes me feel so sick and angry and helpless.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can deal with
her if I have you to stand behind me.”

  “I’m here, Hannah,” he said gently.

  I turned to meet his eyes. “Even when it’s hard? Even when you worry about how I’ll react?”

  He nodded. “I just want to protect you from all this.”

  “But I don’t need protection. I need you to trust that I’m here, that I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I know. And I do.”

  I touched his cheek, felt his worry. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “I wasn’t—until I had something to lose.” He turned his face to kiss my palm. “You make me feel safe. You make me feel right, like I can be what you see in me. And I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to that place, back to that life. I just want you.”

  My heart beat against my ribs like it was reaching for him. “I’m here, and I’m yours.”

  And he kissed me with thanks and longing that I hoped would keep him from closing me out again. Because I could forgive a great many things, but if he didn’t trust me, we would be lost before we truly had a chance to begin.

  18

  Say the Word

  Charlie

  I sat at my desk the next afternoon, feeling like a stranger, feeling split. There were two versions of me—before Hannah and after Hannah—and the version whose chair I sat in had become so foreign to me, I didn’t even recognize him anymore.

  The other version of me, the version I wanted to be, was focused only on the kids, on Hannah. The afternoon before replayed in my mind over and over—from the moment I’d heard the paralyzing fear in Hannah’s voice to the moment I’d slipped into sleep with her arms around me and her heart wounded, my children safe in their beds.

  But questions plagued me, worry occupying every thought. Would Mary show up again? Would she leave us alone? Would it ever be over? Were the kids safe? Was Hannah safe?

  I’d removed Mary’s name from the daycare list with the help of my custody ruling, and I’d called to have the locks changed, which helped my peace of mind. Just not enough. Not enough to allow me to pretend I was all right with leaving them.

  Hannah had said they’d be safe at school with Mary’s name off the list. And she’d assured me that she and I were fine, that we’d be all right.

  I wanted to believe both things were true, but I didn’t, and there was nothing anyone could say to convince me.

  Everything felt wrong, as if I’d taken a turn onto a street I didn’t recognize.

  As I sat there with my imagination running away from me in the last place I wanted to be in the entire world, I couldn’t find a way to believe it was all right. I couldn’t find a way to stop the chugging anxiety, the circle of thoughts. My eyes stared through my computer, the alerts from my emails unnoticed as they dinged and animated the top of the screen. My phone rang, but I barely heard it. Someone walked by, calling me in for a meeting. I didn’t look up.

  Everything was wrong, I realized. And I had to fix it.

  There was only one way, and decision and action rose in my chest.

  What I wanted was at my fingertips, and I could have it.

  All I had to do was reach out and grab it.

  The old version of myself didn’t even put up a fight, just stepped aside. Because I knew what I wanted, and I knew how to get it.

  I wanted to be home with my family. I wanted to protect them. I wanted to give them my time and my love. And I couldn’t do any of that from the cubicle where I sat with my phone ringing endlessly on my desk.

  I gathered my things, assessing my finances in my head. I wrote an email to my boss and resigned. I stood and pulled on my coat, ignoring my colleagues as they passed by my desk, staring. I never picked up my phone.

  Instead, I walked out of the room, out of the building, away from my old life and into my new one.

  With every step, I felt the weight slip off my shoulders. With every block, I thought of Hannah and the life I wanted, the life I wished for. As I ran down the subway steps, my smile stretched so wide, my cheeks hurt.

  Because I was going to do what my heart wanted. And there was only one person who I wanted to tell. I wanted to tell the girl who had changed my whole life from the second she walked through the door and showed me what love could be.

  I wanted to tell Hannah, and I wanted to ask her to stay with me. Not as my au pair and not for the kids.

  For me.

  Hannah

  Katie and I parted ways at the sidewalk outside the house with a kiss on the cheek and a promise to see each other after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The days were growing shorter, the sun slipping away earlier and earlier, painting the sky in fiery colors that matched the leaves left on the trees.

  I kept myself busy rather than think too much over everything between me and Charlie or Charlie and Mary, instead spending the day preparing for Thanksgiving, which was the next day. Katie would be off; the kids out of school; Charlie away from work. And we had a long weekend ahead of us with food and togetherness. And I was looking forward to it, hoping we could begin to mend the fissures between us.

  But the silly, foolish girl in me hadn’t quite gone; she’d just been hiding. And the moment I felt hope was the moment I was reminded that hope was a trap.

  Mary was leaning against the brick wall outside of the school, watching me with her hands in her jacket pockets and her ankles crossed in front of her. The sight of her sent adrenaline racing through me and my heart knocking against my ribs in warning.

  But I held my chin up, setting my jaw. “Hello, Mary,” I said flatly as I approached and stopped in front of her.

  She watched me for a moment.

  “I can’t quite imagine that you have nothing to say, so go ahead and say it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “They wouldn’t let me pick up the kids.”

  “It’s not my doing.”

  “No, it’s not. You don’t have any rights,” she said, as if I didn’t know.

  “He doesn’t want to keep you from them. You must know that.”

  She shrugged, not meaning it. “He told me he’d keep me from them unless I worked with his lawyer. He also told me to stay away from you. I almost believed he actually cares about you.”

  I stood a little taller against the jab but didn’t speak.

  “I hope you enjoy playing house with my family. You can be the pretend mommy to my kids and the make-believe wifey to Charlie. But they’ll never be yours, not really.”

  “I don’t know that they’ll ever be yours either. At least one of us knows it.”

  Her lips flattened. “Live it up while it lasts, pretty little nanny. Because it won’t last long.”

  I held her eyes for a drawn-out second. “Anything else?”

  She pushed off the wall. “I’ll see you around. Same time, same place?”

  Everything about her was tight and hurt, wounded and angry, and I realized it then, understood the flint in her eyes and forgave her for it. I didn’t like her—I never would; we would never be friends—but I forgave her.

  “I’m sorry you’re unhappy,” I said quietly, sincerely.

  Mary froze, her eyes hard as diamonds. “You don’t get to feel sorry for me. You have no idea who I am or what I’ve been through.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just hope you find a way through it.”

  “Well, aren’t you just a fucking angel?” she shot, though her voice shook just a little. “How does the world look from up there on your high horse?”

  I shook my head. “Mary, I don’t want to hurt you. None of us wants to hurt you.”

  “Too fucking late,” she said as she blew past me and away.

  It wasn’t until she was gone and I’d made my way inside that the initial shock wore off, leaving me with the fear and anxiety that seemed to always follow encounters with Mary. She’d come for the children again and waited for me, waited just to hurt me, told me without completely saying so that she’d do it again.

  She wanted to hurt me because hurting me wo
uld hurt Charlie. She wanted to hurt me because she saw me as a threat. She wanted to hurt me because she was hurt.

  I was shaken, gathering the children and signing them out, talking to Sammy as if nothing were wrong, as if it were a normal day. I thought Maven might know different. She asked me to hold her, and when I picked her up, she wrapped her little arms around my neck and hung on to me, the comfort and warmth of her so overwhelming, it took everything I had to stave off my tears.

  I was so lost in emotion that I didn’t hear my name, not at first. The second time he said it, a chill worked down my spine.

  I turned to the sound, finding Quinton trotting across the street toward me.

  The blood rushed from my face; I knew because it tingled, prickling cold splotches across my skin.

  He was tall, dark, gorgeous. Dangerous with that razor-sharp smile.

  “Hey, Hannah,” he said when he reached me, stopping close to me, too close.

  I took a step back, trying to move around him. “I’m sorry. I’m in a hurry,” I said, shaken and desperate to leave, to get home where it was safe.

  But he moved to block me. “Come on, Hannah. You don’t even have a minute?”

  “No, I don’t.” I tried to step around him again, but he wouldn’t let me. “What do you want?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  He reached for my arm. “I think you know. I’ve missed you.”

  I jerked away, but he didn’t let me go. Sammy squeezed my hand.

  “Please, leave me alone. Let me take the children home.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  I glared at him, fighting back tears. “My answer hasn’t changed, and it won’t. I’m with someone.”

  His dark eyes rolled with thunder. “The blond? Your boss?”

  My panic rose with the bile in my throat. He’d seen us. He’d followed me.

  “Hannah?” Sammy asked, his voice small and afraid.

  I looked down at him, squeezed his hand. “It’s all right. We’re just going.”

  But when I tried to pull away from Quinton again, he wrenched me into his chest.