Keep Happy

by A. C. Bextor

  Rather than ever spending what little time together we have enjoying a quiet dinner and a movie, Thomas and I have learned to expect what is actually expected.

  Fevers.

  Sleepless nights.

  Cranky fits and tantrums.

  The last time Thomas and I planned a night alone outside the house, Amelia came down with a high fever just hours before the sitter arrived.

  We should’ve been disappointed, devastated our time together was crushed, or frustrated in not sharing company. We weren’t. I was happy to stay home. Thomas was happy to go out with his friends.

  Between his long hours at the office, and my fluctuating between baby weight and loss, neither of us has cared much about being so close in the way a wife and husband should. Sleep seems to always be the savviest offer.

  Leaning down to grab Averie from her bouncy seat, I catch an unwelcome glimpse of my reflection in the sliding glass door across the room.

  I wince.

  My dark brown hair, which needs a healthy cut and some color to cover gray, is falling out of my ponytail. And my standard white tee shirt is drooping low in the front. So much so, you can see my tan-colored maternity bra. I don’t wear this over-stretched material because I’m still breastfeeding, because I’m not. It’s worn in comfort only.

  When a warm blast of soured milk hits my chest, I look down. Averie threw up again.

  Hell and Damn.

  “Mama!” Amelia cries, walking toward me with her arms extended. She’s spinning one of her dolls in the air. “Look! I painted Jessie’s fingers.”

  Shit.

  The little cloth doll’s hands are covered in chocolate. Amelia’s small clutches are smothered in it, as well. The streaks of the sugary snack don’t just coat her hands, but her wrists, neck, and face see some chocolaty goodness, too.

  I was occupied on the phone with Thomas’ mom for all of five minutes.

  Five minutes.

  Maybe my meddling mother-in-law is right. Maybe I need help.

  “Come help Mama, will you?” I ask, and she turns her big, beautiful blue eyes to mine. “Grab Averie’s blanket and follow me upstairs so we can get you both cleaned up.”

  When the front door unexpectedly opens, I lose Amelia’s focus and she squeals. She drops the blanket and takes off toward Thomas, who’s setting down his briefcase on the foyer table as he enters.

  Checking the clock over the fireplace mantel, I note it’s only four thirty. He’s home hours early.

  “Hi,” I greet, eyebrows furrowed. Averie struggles in my hold. “Why are you home?”

  Thomas takes a look around the room, then down at Amelia standing at his feet. Her dirty hands claw his business pants. In reaction to her adoration toward him, he pulls her tiny fingers away and steps back. He takes a look at me, eyes my body up and down and sighs.

  This is different.

  Thomas, when relaxed and home, adores his girls. They never have to ask or want for his attention. If they’re all not camped together on the couch, he’s got Amelia in tow with whatever errand he’s running.

  Looking at him now, staring down at his first daughter with concern, the room shifts.

  Something is wrong.

  Though it’s been months since my husband has touched me. And he’s never looked at me the way he is now.

  As the unwelcome stranger in his home.

  As the unwanted fossil he can’t seem to bury.

  As the constant reminder of the life he never got to experience.

  My stomach sinks with worry.

  “Thomas, honey? Are you all right?”

  “Daddy, up!” Amelia exclaims, lifting her tiny hands in the air and waiting for her father to do as asked.

  “Thomas?” I call again. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he says first. “I just—”

  A twisting chill runs the length of my spine, stabbing my scalp with an eeriness I can’t control. Through our last few years together, there have been many moods to my husband. I know them all. He’s sweet when he wants to be, short with others when he’s tired, but mostly he’s honestly content in whatever he’s doing.

  The expression on his face now is as unexplainable as it is troublesome.

  With concern, I hold Averie closer to my chest and prod, “You didn’t mean to what?”

  “I can’t do this to you anymore,” he tells me.

  What?

  “You can’t do what to me anymore?” I push.

  If he’s changing his mind about our marriage, family, and plans for a future, I never saw it coming.

  “You need to know I don’t love her. I never loved her.”

  Oh, my God. Please, no.

  My voice cracks as I parrot, “You don’t…love her?”

  “No.” He shakes his head then points to the kitchen. “Can we talk?”

  My voice is shallow, my heart breaking beyond measure, but now my breathing is uneven as well. “You want to talk?”

  “Katherine, please. Let me explain.”

  He means to confess.

  Looking around the living room, suddenly everything is only a shadow compared to what it had been five minutes ago. Rather than noticing the light colors in blankets, bottles, and toys, I see only dark-shaded tones of ruin and betrayal.

  The rows of family pictures that hang on the walls surrounding us, now hold faceless images. The flowers Thomas had sent last week to ‘cheer me up’ appear dead.

  Were they sent in guilt?

  “Are you leaving me?” I ask, turning to face him again.

  “Fuck no,” he returns. “Baby, that’s why I’m here.”

  Baby.

  Thomas doesn’t call me anything but Katherine. Kat, if a jovial mood strikes him. The fact he uses the endearment now, adds to my siege of loss.

  “Let me get the girls fed, bathed, and put to bed,” I insist.

  As I pass him on my way to the stairs, Thomas grabs my wrist. His touch burns, but I allow it. My vision is hazy from unshed tears.

  Turning to him, I don’t recognize Thomas as the man I married. Nor the father of my children.

  I see only the bane of my young life’s betrayal and regret.

  “I don’t love her,” he says again, as I start to pull away.

  As if that matters at all.

  “THESE UNDERAGE TEENAGE PARTIES GIVE me a headache,” Rob complains, while looking out the windshield of the cruiser, focused on the road ahead.

  He’s also dwelling over what’s really on his mind.

  “Consider these parties practice. Little Evie will be a teenager sooner than you know.”

  “Fuck that. My girl will always be a sweet, quiet angel.”

  He’s oblivious.

  “We’re here,” he confirms, lifting his finger from the steering wheel and pointing to the brick house on the corner of Pratt and Stanton Avenue.

  All the lights are on—inside and out. Expensive cars, foreign and domestic, line the street, blocking most of it on either side.

  These kids aren’t trying to hide their underage activities. More so, they’re inviting any others driving by to join. When the call for a disturbance came in, Rob and I were the closest to scene. He’d been pissed as it’s been quiet most of the night.

  Throwing the cruiser in park, then unbuckling his seat belt, Rob insists, “We’re in and we’re out. Let’s not take in any rich bitches or bastards in tonight.”

  “So you want a lazy party breakup, then,” I surmise.

  “No, we’re just gonna be cool cops. Didn’t you ever have run-ins with law enforcement who were the good guys?”

  No. Never. Not one fuckin’ time.

  Rob calls in to station that we’ve arrived and grabs the handle of the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

  As we walk up the front steps leading to the house, it’s clear this won’t be an easy party to break up. Those standing out in the yard aren’t boys. These bastards are men.

  The younger ones immediately start t
o scatter on our approach. Some beat feet to their cars, others out into the yards bordering this one. A few boys are rattled enough their running under the streetlights, screaming to each other by name.

  But the men? Those who probably purchased and delivered the alcohol? They’re too stupid or arrogant to flee.

  “Fuck me,” Rob hisses, already grabbing a pair of his cuffs from the back of his belt.

  “Yeah,” I reply, grabbing my own. “A long night just got longer.”

  “I’ll call this in again,” he groans.

  Half an hour later, we’re standing in the living room of a rich city politician’s home. Four men sit on the living room couch, hands cuffed behind their back.

  Deke Dennison, the oldest at twenty-four, hasn’t lost his smug smirk. He’s told anyone who will listen that his father is the district attorney, and he’ll never see the inside of a jail cell.

  Unfortunately for him, this motivates Rob and I to ensure he does. Not because I want to teach him a lesson and learn from it, but because I’d enjoy watching the terror in his eyes come when he sees what real criminals look like.

  The other three men are pissed and sitting quietly. One asked for his Miranda rights and immediately pleaded the Fifth. They’re not pissed because they’ve been busted, but because the party is over and they’re left to clean up the mess.

  Idiots.

  “Did you already check the rooms upstairs?” Rob asks, grabbing his radio to cancel the third callout.

  All the guests are gone. Either they cooperated, were scared shitless, or fled just in time. They were lucky.

  “I haven’t checked yet.”

  Nodding to the stairs, he chin lifts toward the new guy and invites, “Go see what else we got. Take him with you. Stay alert.”

  “Got it,” I reply, signaling the no name newbie, who appears to be enjoying every second of his new job, to follow.

  As we round the stairs, I hear someone crying. The door in the dark hallway is closed. Jason, Jed, whatever the fuck his name is—flips the hall light on. When I test the handle, it’s locked but the crying stops.

  “Officer Cole. Open the door,” I introduce and instruct, bracing my hands against the doorjamb and blocking any kid who’d be stupid enough to try a quick exit. When no one answers and I hear a female sniffle then curse, I knock again. “Open the door. Party’s over.”

  “No,” the young voice utters, then cries again. “I’m not opening until everyone is gone.”

  “Fuck, how old is this girl?” newbie questions.

  “No idea.”

  Standing straight, I run my fingers over the top of the door ledge. That’s where I’d put a key if I had an active, troublemaking teenager in my house. Hitting luck, I find one and unlock the door.

  Once it swings open, my eyes scan the large bathroom over to the closed toilet near the small window. It’s open, sending a humid draft through the room. A young girl who looks a lot like her mother sits alone, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

  Her makeup is fucked six ways to Sunday. Long streaks of mascara cascade down her cheeks—some wet, some dry. Her clothes look like something out of a teen Goth magazine and her feet are bare. Her toes painted black.

  Fucking hell, Amelia Dyer.

  “What the hell took you guys so long?” she hisses, standing and tossing the tissue in the trash. “I’ve been sitting in here for over an hour.”

  “You called the disturbance in?” Newbie asks, pointing to her in surprise. “You called this party to get rocked?”

  Hands to hip, no longer crying, Amelia looks even more like her mother as she sasses the officer who’s questioning her.

  “Well, yeah, I called it in.”

  “From the bathroom?” he returns, adding, “Why’d you do that?”

  Jesus Christ.

  If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s to not fuck with a crying, likely heartbroken, teenage girl who made a bad decision and made an effort to correct it.

  Looking at me, tilting her head to the side, Amelia’s expression changes again. She’s thinking.

  “Figures it’d be you to find me here,” she clips. “The one cop who knows my parents.”

  “You know this girl?” Newbie questions, turning to me and again pointing to Amelia.

  Moving her gaze to his, she clips, “Why are you still in here?”

  Hiding my smirk, but cutting her off from saying more, I state, “I’ll take you home. Your mother is probably worried sick.”

  “She’s not,” Amelia expels. “She’s not worried about anything. She’s too busy doing whatever she does and being too miserable to care about anything.”

  Fuck, I didn’t need to hear that.

  “Come on,” I call, stepping back and giving her room to exit the bathroom.

  Newbie walks out into the hall and down it to check the rest of the rooms. I put my hand on Amelia’s shoulder, guiding her down the stairs and toward the living room.

  “We good?” I ask Rob, standing in front of the four pricks who hosted the party.

  Looking down at Amelia, he returns a question without answering mine, “She good?”

  “Yeah. I know her. I’ll take her home.”

  “Bitch,” one of the idiots hisses from his seat on the couch.

  This asshole has at the very least five years on her. Amelia I already know is fifteen, making him a dead son of a bitch if I find he’s the reason she’s in tears.

  “Fuck you,” Rob turns to address him. “Shut up and stay still.”

  “Bitch is a tease. Ryan’s been trying to get into that pussy so long he can’t see straight.”

  Ryan?

  “Shut up, asshole,” Amelia orders, clearly pissed off, but now add embarrassed.

  A swift smack comes to the back of his head, and I look up to see Sykes, another cop in uniform deadpan as he bites out, “They aren’t teasin’ if they’re too young to know what you’re wantin’ from ‘em.”

  “Right,” the guy snarls, sitting back uncomfortably due to the cuffs behind his back. “Cunt.”

  At this word directed to Katie’s daughter, I lose my shit.

  Releasing Amelia’s shoulder, I take two steps, reaching the offender.

  “Call her a cunt again,” I seethe in a dare, albeit doing so calmly. “See what happens.”

  The son of a bitch smiles.

  “You wanting a taste of her too, old man?” he snarls. “Good luck with that. Bitch keeps her shit tight.”

  That’s when Amelia moves to strike. She passes me in a rush, her hair flying all around as she slaps him hard first.

  Continuing with her rant, her fingernails tear at his face and she shrieks, “You are such a dick!”

  Oh fuck.

  “Get her out of here,” Rob orders, shouting over the ensuing chaos.

  “Let’s go, Amelia,” I encourage, grabbing her as she fights my hold. Looking to my exasperated partner, I question, “Newbie can give you a ride back to the station?”

  “Take her home,” Rob agrees.

  Amelia doesn’t say much as we ride in my car on the way to her house. Not for herself for being at the party or her attack of the man on the couch. I don’t question how she knows him, or how well. That’s not my place to understand, but her parents’.

  “You’re going to tell my mom,” she finally gets out, accusingly so. “You’re going to tell her everything.”

  “Yes,” I don’t deny. “I think your parents need to know what you’ve been up to. Don’t you?”

  Looking out the window, she crosses her arms over her chest and murmurs, “Like they’ll care.”

  “They’ll care.”

  “Who are you to her?” Amelia turns her head toward me to interrogate. Once I take my eyes from the road and give her my attention, she continues, “I mean, she’s never talked about you before, yet here you always seem to be. Always around.”

  “I’m not always around. This is a small town.”

  “Does my dad know you?”


  “I know Thomas,” I give her, leaving out I’m not his biggest fan, nor is he mine.

  “Well, whatever. They won’t care. Dad’s always gone, so he really won’t care.”

  “Wanna tell me why you were at that party in the first place?”

  “No,” she musters, again gazing out the passenger window.

  “Was this about a guy?”

  Silence holds. When I turn, she’s biting her bottom lip and tears are filling her eyes.

  “This was about a guy,” I say again, this time knowing my mark is true.

  Sighing, Amelia wipes her eyes and murmurs, “I thought he liked me.”

  With no true experience with teenagers, I offer what I can. “You’ll know when a boy likes you.”

  “How do you know?”

  Fuck, I don’t, but I add, “No boy or man would ask the woman he cares anything about to sneak off behind their parents’ backs.”

  “I didn’t want to. But Mom said I couldn’t go.”

  “Right,” I agree. “And look who was right and who was wrong.”

  Amelia hears my truth, whether she accepts and understands it, I don’t know. She turns her gaze out the window again and keeps quiet.

  “You’re a lot like your mother,” I give in, testing her curiosity. “I found her at a party like the one you were at once.”

  “Are you sure you’re talking about my mother?” she questions with surprise. Her tone changes to accusation and she says, “The mother I know has always been perfect.”

  Countless images of Katie Morris finding herself trouble, and not knowing how to find her way out, pass. I should explain to Amelia that her mother, just like every teenager, made her fair share of mistakes. I should tell her how great of a woman, a mother, that she has. And that she shouldn’t take her family for granted.

  Not that Amelia would believe a word I said anyway.

  As we pull into the driveway, Katie’s dad is standing just inside the front door. He’s holding a mug of what I assume is coffee. Under the light of the eave, he gives me a small one finger wave, and I catch the smile on his face.

  If this had been my daughter, I’d have her on her way to her room, grounded for eternity. But David Morris raised a stubborn hellion himself, so I understand what happened tonight didn’t come as a surprise.