She'd put on her best game face and told them what she knew and what she understood. At one point, she even told the designer, "My guess is that a gossamer won't hold up to the program. I mean, they're going to really dance in these, right? Do they get on the floor at all?"
The designer, a tall thin woman who had the figure and fashion style of an ex-ballerina herself, looked at Shay down her nose.
Right then, Shay felt the job slip through her fingers, just like the gossamer they'd wind up being disappointed in. Maybe they'd call her back in three months, when the costumes showed dirt from the stage floor and had snags from lifts and from the sequins she also wanted.
"Well, what else will move like that, and be sheer so the light shows through?" The woman asked.
Still in the game apparently, but maybe giving away all her trade secrets, Shay went on to describe how she would make the flowing outfits. By four thirty, they'd offered her the job. And it had taken until five to discuss what they wanted, what colors were necessary and what could be changed due to pricing of options. They worked out some deadlines and fitting times, with Shay taking furious notes.
Then she'd gone to Craig's to pick up the boys and offer to take everyone out for pizza. She could afford it now. Ecstatic, she'd used her key and thrown open the door to find Craig looking like he'd survived a tornado.
In the middle of the living room sat a new bin full of toys. Owen was on the couch, curled up with his kindle, while Craig and Aaron played with a swank set of drums. They didn't even hear her until she yelled. Despite the fact that Craig was obviously trying to win her kids over with cool toys, she'd felt tired and elated. She couldn't compete, but she could get them all pizza now. It was only later, as she'd put them to bed, that the boys had told her what happened while she was out.
She hadn't slept at all. It had been a trial all morning, to seem chipper and easygoing in front of the kids when she'd been anything but. Eventually, she dropped Aaron off at daycare and, even though she should have been online ordering bolts of fabric, she was trying not to speed to Craig's house or squeal her tires in the driveway. This time, she knocked. And knocked, and knocked again, until a sleepy-headed Craig came to open the door.
"Hey," he smiled and greeted her, "Why didn't you use your key?"
Then he blinked. Must have gotten a good look at her face. Not wanting to do this on the front stoop, she walked in, trying to hold her anger back. She didn't want to make judgments, but she was pissed.
"What's wrong?" He was frowning now, much more awake and focusing on her.
She blurted it out. "Did you hit Aaron?"
He jerked back as though she'd slapped him. "No." He shook his head at her, like she was crazy.
Her heart rate started to settle. "Because Aaron said you hit him."
Craig managed to look even more offended. "No. I didn't hit him." Then he paused. "Is he talking about when I smacked his hand?"
"You smacked him!?" Her blood boiled again. That time it was just an accusation more than a question. She couldn't see straight. Clearly, he had done it. He was the one who brought it up. "You can't hit a child, Craig!"
His face changed. This time he no longer looked offended, just confused. "I didn't hit him, Shay. There's a big difference."
"Not in my book, there's not. You can't hit him!" Her fists clenched. Her breathing and heart rate jacked up. Her mouth opened, and words spewed out, she was so furious. "You don't touch my kids! Do you hear me?"
He jerked back. "Shay, it wasn't like that."
She felt her eyes narrow, saw that he saw the anger in her, and she yelled. "You have no right! You may not think it's anything, but my little boy only knows that you hit him! You don't know what it's like to have someone bigger than you and stronger than you hurt you."
His mouth fell open. For a moment Craig just stared at her.
Her lungs heaved with anger, and she wondered why fire didn't shoot out with her breath. Then his expression changed. Craig's face mottled and his own hands formed fists at his side.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Shay? Do you hear yourself?" His words weren't loud like hers, but low, deep. Only then did she realize her mistake.
Craig didn't let her speak though, didn't let her try to take that back. "I don't know? Are you serious? Do you know how many nights I prayed I would grow taller or stronger so I could fight back?"
She stepped back. She'd stepped in it and it was her own fault.
He didn't advance on her, but he didn't shut up either. "I know Jason hit you, I know he beat you up. But . . ." He paused as though he wasn't going to say it, but then he did. "You think I would hit a child? You can fuck off!"
Her head snapped back then, and stayed back with the spew that fell from his mouth. "I get it. It sucks what Jason did to you. It's awful, and I don't want to make light of it, but you have no fucking clue. You were a grown woman. You could have left at any time. You could have chosen someone else and not gotten involved with that asshole in the first place. I was five, Shay. Five. It's one of my earliest fucking memories, having that asshole beat on me. And I was smaller than Owen is now."
He sucked in a breath even as Shay felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes. She'd stepped in it for sure. But now her anger had turned to anger for Craig, not at him.
"He was the one who was supposed to be taking care of me. And when I started to say something, my case worker told me how happy I should be that I was there. Later, when it happened again with another family, I ran away. I went back to the family that had been good to me. I told them about it. And they sent me back. They didn't believe me." He breathed in again, almost pacing a short circle in the room, not looking at her as he talked. It made it a little easier to take, but then he focused on her face again, and it felt like physical touch to her.
"So don't you dare come into my house and accuse me of hitting a child. And don't you even for one second drag out that shit about abused people becoming abusers. You’ll fall right down that same damn rabbit hole, sweetheart."
The last word was not an endearment but an indictment.
She saw his eyes blink as though he were fighting back something too big for him. His shoulders heaved, his fists clenched and opened, but she could see there was no violence in him. Her own shoulders heaved and sagged and when he turned and stared at her, his eyes glassy and hurt at her betrayal, she felt her own tears tip and fall.
"I'm sorry." But she only mouthed the words. Sound wouldn't come out, even when she tried again.
He'd turned away and was shaking his head like he had something awful in him to get out. Feeling like complete shit, she crossed the room to him. As she reached up to put her hand on his shoulder, he shrugged away, somehow knowing she was there.
It was a punch in the gut. She remembered that. The subtle, small movements, involuntary twitches that pulled you away from someone you thought would strike you. She deserved it. She'd stormed in here, full of anger and righteousness, both guns blazing. So she reached out and took his hand in hers and tugged him toward the couch. When he resisted, she pulled harder, until he sat down beside her. He didn't touch her, not even the brush of a knee against hers. It might not be conscious, but it was deliberate. She knew that, too.
She'd sat on a couch much like this, swollen lip, handprint blooming on her arm, hip growing sore from hitting the corner of some piece of furniture. She'd stayed still while Jason apologized, words in her ears that she swore she wouldn't listen to.
Never had she thought she'd be the one on this side of the couch. What she'd done was nowhere near as bad as what had been done to her, she knew that, but the very dynamic of it frightened her. She owed him an apology.
"I'm sorry." This time the words came out clear.
The other side of the couch was a hard place to be, too, apparently. She'd been coddled and manipulated enough to know she didn't want to do it. Craig had probably never been apologized to. Jesus, he didn't even have that, didn't even have someone who t
old him he was loved and that they were sorry when it happened to him. She reminded herself not to be manipulative, but to be clear.
"I shouldn't have accused you of that. I really am sorry."
He nodded. But that was all. His eyes stayed straight ahead, focused on the front door.
"I was scared. I've worked so hard to protect them from what I experienced. Owen even saw it when he was an infant and I don't know how much of it got through. He doesn't seem to remember it." She sighed, as though her explanation just might make sense to anyone other than her. But Craig nodded, and she kept going. "Owen and Aaron heard the way Brian talked to me. He was almost neglectful of Owen."
She felt the punch of Craig's still silent response. "And you're right, I could have left. I didn't see it at the time. But I put myself—and eventually my boys—in those positions. So please understand that I feel so very guilty about that, and I've worked hard every day to make up for being a bad mother to them then."
He nodded again, then he spoke, his words pushed out as though rubbed across sandpaper. "I understand that. But I wouldn't hurt your kids, Shay."
This time, she was the one who nodded. "But I don't spank them or smack them. I talk to them. I put them on time out. I have to be sure you won't do that again."
He shook his head, not as if to say 'no, he wouldn't do it' but as if she were trying his patience. He didn't say anything, and she was out of words, so they sat in silence for long moments that drew out into eternity. She was considering getting up and leaving when he finally said something. The rasp of his voice telling her she'd hurt him deep.
"You know, you left me with them and you told me when to pick up Owen at the bus stop and what to feed them, but you didn't tell me this. How was I supposed to know?" He turned and looked at her, truly asking why she thought he should have been psychic about this topic.
She didn't know, and a shrug was all she could offer.
"You know, you've had six years to get this all down. I've had six weeks."
Chapter 35
It took Shay three days to convince Craig to come back to her house, to spend Saturday night with them like he always did. Even if it meant calling Kelsey and Daniel. Even if it meant Kelsey and JD knew when she was having sex and when she wasn't. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, she had to nearly beg to get him back.
He was still angry. Or hurt. Or maybe both.
With Craig, it was sometimes hard to tell. With this situation, she deserved every bit of anger he was throwing her way. She knew it. It was fully her fault that she hadn't told him what her boundaries were, what the boys were used to. So she went about trying to make it up to him.
As he woke up in bed next to her, gloriously naked, she pushed up on her elbows and stroked his chest. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"More of what I had last night." He grinned at her. Real and deep, it helped push her heart back into place, sweep out some of the lingering fear that she'd screwed up too badly.
She was leaning over to kiss him when a knock came at the door. "Mommy?"
Her eyes looked to the ceiling. "Timing is everything. Get dressed and I'll make you food. It's the best I can offer."
Tugging the covers over that fabulous body of his, she rolled out of bed and called out. "Coming."
She was already dressed. She had two small kids, and you didn't lie in bed naked when someone might knock on your door at any minute during the night. Or worse, just open a door you might have forgotten to lock. Sneaking through the door, she slid it shut behind her and looked down at her youngest. "What do you need, punkin?"
"I'm thirsty." He rubbed his eyes, though she suspected by the noise coming up from the living room that he and Owen had gotten up and turned on the TV a while ago.
She headed down the steps and checked the station as she passed by. Totally kid appropriate. Well, she'd slept in an extra half hour later than usual. That had to be marked as progress, right?
She poured milk in a cup and snapped on a lid and straw almost automatically before handing it to him. Then she checked the fridge. She had plenty of eggs and lots of random stuff. Omelets, then. Opening the vegetable drawer, she found breakfast sausage, because who put vegetables in there anyway?
Well, apparently Craig did. While her fridge had bare patches, his was always stocked to the hilt these days. It hadn't been when it had just been her coming around, but now it had finger foods and three flavors of juice boxes. Even she didn't keep three kinds on hand.
She wondered if he was trying to buy her kids' affections even as she set the eggs on the counter and started pulling out anything she could chop to add in. There was that new bin of toys in his living room. There was a kid’s guitar, too. It had arrived after their fight, and when she asked about it, he told her he'd ordered it the week before.
The parenting books on his bedside table still rotated, though she noticed some of them didn't last long. Maybe she needed to be going through them, giving him more input.
"Morning." His voice behind her as he greeted the boys startled her. She hadn't heard him come down.
Turning, she smiled at him. "Are omelets good? With sausage?"
"Sounds great." He smiled back but his attention was on Aaron. "What show is this?"
It took a moment to turn away from watching him patiently listen to Aaron's description of what was a relatively dumb kid's program. He'd dressed in the change of clothes he'd brought with him, refusing to leave anything here. She got the impression that he didn't like the rental townhouse so much. And he didn't like the idea of her buying a house either. But she truly had no idea what else to do.
She needed the house. She needed to own something, to give her boys something more permanent than they'd ever had. But she needed the man on the couch, too. And she couldn't afford a house big enough for all of them. Not one that would fit a man of his means and talent. His house had three bedrooms, and one was a small music room. She was still debating if she could give her boys separate rooms or give herself a sewing office.
With a sigh, she pulled her gaze away from the man on the couch. She turned her focus to the kitchen, her brain secure in the understanding that her kids really were safe with Craig. She chopped and diced and then took individual orders for omelets.
Though breakfast went well, she could feel the tension had come back into Craig now that he had rolled out of bed. He thanked her for cooking, put his dishes in the sink and kissed her on the forehead. Though he touched each of the kids before he went—a rub on the head for Aaron, a hand on the shoulder for Owen—it was a little absent. He went upstairs to grab his things from her room and then waved goodbye at the front door.
Then he was gone.
It didn't feel right, though she didn't know what 'right' really felt like. There were times she'd had it, and she hadn't paid enough attention to know what was different now. Each time she'd had it had been with Craig, though, and she knew enough to know she needed to get it back.
Nothing she could do right now though. So she went about their usual Sunday routine. They did the grocery shopping for the week, picking out things for packed lunches—five for Owen, three for Aaron. As she made the boys decide together on one flavor of juice boxes, she thought of Craig's stash, but quickly put her jealousy out of her mind. When they got home, they packed lunches in bags to be quickly put into the one cooler style lunchbox each boy had. They planned a few dinners, then cleaned the boys' bedroom with Shay doing most of the work. After that, they picked out clothing for the week and did as much as they could ahead of time. All the things a single mom learned to make life as smooth as possible during the week.
She called Zoe to check in on her little sister. Not that Zoe needed it, but it was something Shay liked to do. She wound up confessing. "Zee, I went into his house, guns blazing, and accused him of hitting my kid."
Zoe didn't know the whole truth about Craig's past, and Shay didn't tell it. She was pretty sure she'd mentioned he grew up in foster care, but she'd told
no more of it than that. He didn't run around telling people about it, so neither would she.
There was a pause. Even not knowing the whole truth about Craig's past, Zoe gave him more credit than Shay had. "Do you really think he'd hurt Aaron? Because if you do, then you shouldn't have had him over last night. And never again. But I really don't get that impression of him."
"The only impression you have of him is the one I've told you." Her words were a little harsh, but it pissed her off that her sister was reading the situation better than she had. "Aaron told me Craig hit him."
"Honey."
Oh shit. Shay didn't think she ever liked what Zoe had to say when she started by calling her older sister 'honey.' This proved to be no different.
"Aaron is small and has no vocabulary to explain what happened. Craig is an adult that you've tangled yourself up with for over six months now. You've never complained about him before."
"Yes, I have!" Shay returned. It irked her that Zoe seemed to see things more clearly right from the start.
"No, you only complained when you thought he was being too good to you, or you designed some ulterior motive when he really seemed to have none. This is on you. You have to consider the source, and yours is a toddler. Did you even ask Craig what happened?"
"Eventually." She felt her shoulders slump. Zoe was right. She'd been a complete tool. If she was honest, she still didn't know what happened. What she did know was what he'd volunteered in self-defense and it wasn't the whole story, only that he'd just smacked fingers. Not why. Not how.
After she hung up with Zoe, she felt worse than she had before. She went through the motions of putting the boys to bed, going in later and taking the Kindle out of Owen's hands and insisting he get some sleep.
He really needed his own room. No sewing room, she figured. Maybe she'd get lucky and find a house with a den, or an eat-in kitchen and she could use the dining room for her own. She'd figure it out. She'd been figuring it out, step-by-step, from the moment she'd left Brian and decided she didn't need a man to make her whole. From the second she'd decided that her kids were better off with just her than with a father who wasn't a good one.
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