by Karen Cimms
Her mouth opened and he was certain a sharp retort hung on the tip of her tongue, but at the last second, she snapped it shut. She returned to the suitcase sitting open on the bed and began emptying the drawers she’d filled less than an hour ago.
There was a sharp rap on the door. Doug pulled it open.
“Dinner’s ready,” Devin said. “The boys are already eating, if you want to go up and join them.”
Doug looked at Rhiannon, who kept her back to both of them, and tilted his head in her direction: What about her?
“Rhiannon,” Devin said. When she looked up, he tossed her jacket to her. “You have five minutes to get ready, then you and I are going out to eat.”
She glared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Doug wondered if maybe she was right.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going home.”
Devin leaned against the doorjamb, his arms folded. “You can go home if you want, but not until you listen to what I have to say. Bring your suitcase. I’ll even drive you to the airport. But not until we talk.”
“Fine.” She angrily tossed the rest of her things into her designer luggage, then zipped it shut. She glared as she pushed past him, but not before giving Doug a look just as evil. “I need to get my things from the bathroom.”
When she was gone, Doug sank down onto the bed.
“You really think you can make her listen?”
“Dunno. She’s stubborn and pigheaded, but I’m gonna try.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that. She had a meltdown on the way here because she was convinced your dad was going to tell us he’d found someone else, so now she flips out because the exact opposite has happened.”
Doug toyed with the strap on Rhiannon’s suitcase. “She’s my wife, and I love her, but god knows if I’ll ever understand her.”
Rhiannon finished packing. Doug had gone up to dinner, and Devin was nowhere to be found. Figures. She lugged the heavy suitcases up the stairs, grunting loudly. Hours at the gym each week more than enabled her to carry her bags, but the fact that no one bothered to help her pissed her off. She dropped the bags in the foyer with a crash and crossed through the kitchen to kiss the twins goodbye, ignoring her parents and her husband. Traitorous bastard.
Devin stood at the window, looking out into the soft dusk that had fallen since she had stormed inside. The horizon was stained with pink, purple, and indigo, and if she weren’t in such a hurry to leave, she might have wanted to slow down to appreciate it. No matter. She was leaving, and if having to listen to Devin for an hour before he would take her to the airport was the price she had to pay, then so be it. And if he thought she was paying for dinner, he was in for a rude awakening. The aroma of vegetarian chili made her mouth water. She was starving. Squares of cornbread beckoned from a covered basket on the table, but she wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of taking one, knowing she’d probably made them because they were one of Rhiannon’s favorites.
She dropped kisses on the two little blond heads. “Mommy’s got to go, but you be good for Daddy, okay?”
“Look, Mommy,” Dayton pointed a chubby finger in her mother’s direction. “It’s Nonna.”
She cupped his cheek. “Yes, sweetie. You be good for Nonna and Poppy too. Okay?” Her voice cracked. Damn it. With a bit of effort, she pulled herself together and addressed her brother.
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Devin didn’t budge. The bastard just raised his eyebrows as if pointing out that she wasn’t done.
She pursed her lips and stood her ground. As far as she was concerned, there was no one else she needed to speak to. And if he still didn’t believe that, she stalked out of the dining room and into the foyer, where she struggled excessively with her luggage.
Devin grabbed his jacket and followed.
“Don’t wait up,” he called over his shoulder, pissing her off even more. “This might take a while.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
They drove in silence to a little tavern in Freeport. Devin ordered a Shipyard ale for himself and a cosmopolitan for Rhiannon.
“I’ll have the beer,” she snapped. She’d be damned if he would order for her. She wasn’t really a fan of beer, but it was the first thing that popped into her head.
The waitress gave her a quick smile, then hastily retreated.
“Well?” She folded her arms and pressed herself into the back of the wooden booth. “Start talking. When we’re done, you’re taking me to the airport. I have a plane to catch.”
He lay the salt shaker on its side and gave it a spin. “You don’t even know if there’s a plane heading back to Jersey tonight.”
“I don’t care. I’ll sit in the airport all night if I have to.”
He shook his head and kept spinning the salt shaker. She snatched it up and slammed it next to its counterpart, then gave him a look to let him know she wasn’t in the mood for his childishness, in case he was too dense to have figured that out.
The waitress brought their drinks. Rhiannon grabbed hers and took a cautious sip. Not bad, for beer. When Devin ordered appetizers of mussels in garlic, shallots, and white wine, and two steamed lobsters, she didn’t argue. She was in Maine; might as well eat a lobster while she was here, especially since it would be her only chance.
Thanks to the beer on an empty stomach, she began to unclench. Devin ordered a second round, and she kept her mouth shut. When the mussels arrived, she tore off a hunk of crusty bread and dipped it into the garlicky broth. Fuck carbs.
She took a bite and groaned. God, this was good. She closed her eyes and swallowed. She really needed to learn how to cook.
Devin grinned, the fucker. He was probably thinking he’d somehow won. It made her angry all over again.
“You better start talking.” She tapped on the face of the David Yurman watch Doug had given her last month for her birthday.
“You better start listening.” He sucked the meat from a mussel, tossed the shell into an empty bowl, picked up another mussel, and launched into his lecture. “When Evelyn found out she was pregnant with Mom, she wanted an abortion, but Arthur stopped her.”
Rhiannon stopped chewing. How odd it was to refer to their grandparents by their first names. They hadn’t really known either of them. She had been two when Arthur died. She’d seen her grandmother a handful of times after that, but there was no particular memory that stuck with her. Evelyn had died a few years after he did. As for her father’s parents, she knew nothing.
“Who told you that?” She pushed a soggy mass of bread to one side of her mouth, afraid to swallow for fear it would get caught in her throat.
“Dad did, a few months ago. Sometimes I think he needed to talk about Mom, to keep her close. Other times, I think he wanted me to understand some of the reasons she might have left.”
A small snort escaped.
The look he gave her was positively ugly. “Why don’t you reserve your judgment until I finish talking, okay?”
She was about to snap back, but she realized she had no idea where they were, and she still needed a ride to the airport. She picked up her beer. “I’m listening.”
He took a long swallow of his own beer. “Not too long after they met, Mom came across one of her mother’s journals. In it, Evelyn had written that she didn’t want to be pregnant and had never wanted a child. Arthur talked her out of the abortion, which was illegal at the time, and promised if she still didn’t want the baby after it was born, he would agree to put it up for adoption. Good old Grandma never changed her mind but was too concerned about how it would look to give her own child up for adoption, so they kept her. But she never forgave Arthur, from what Dad says. He says Mom grew up feeling unloved and unwanted, believing it was her fault, that she just wasn’t good enough.”
A random image of her mother popped into her head; singing at top of her lungs, curlers in her hair, driving a vanload of cheerleaders to Cherry Hill for a competition at five o’clock in the morning.
“She’d only known Dad a few weeks when she found that journal, but she still called him. He came and got her that night. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“Did she ever confront her mother?”
It was Devin’s turn to snort. “No, but she did take the journal. She showed it to Dad right before you were born. He told me he tossed it in the incinerator. That night, they went to a tattoo parlor.”
Her dad was covered in tattoos—his back, his chest, his arms. As a little girl, she’d sit on his lap and point, and he would tell her the story behind each one. But there was one in particular on his rib cage he’d told her was his favorite.
She recited it as if she were reading it off his body. “‘My precious Katie. Always wanted. Always loved. Always adored. Always forever.’”
That lousy lump of bread had turned into a rock in her stomach.
Devin nodded. “Eat.” He motioned to the mussels. “They get chewy if you let them get cold.”
But she couldn’t. Her mother’s face swam before her—the expression she’d had right after Rhiannon had demanded how she would feel if her mother had turned her back on her; how her mother hadn’t been able to answer.
She slid out of the booth. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
In the bathroom, she leaned against the wall, willing the nausea to pass. When she felt she could manage, she stood before the mirror. Blond and blue-eyed like her father, with the same temperament, it had been her mother who’d raised them. Her father was gone for weeks at a time, but her mother had always been there, hovering, a helicopter parent before her time. It had driven Rhiannon crazy.
Had she been that way because her own parents hadn’t cared at all? The nausea threatened to return.
She slowly made her way back to the table.
“You okay?” Devin asked.
“I guess.” She finished her beer and frowned at the empty glass. “Maybe I need something stronger.”
Admonishing her not to mix her drinks—as if she didn’t know—he signaled for the waitress and ordered another round.
“I don’t know why Mom called me. Maybe she just thought it would be easiest to start with me.”
Of course he was right, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“She was still pretty frail-looking when I got here. But she looked a hell of a lot better than the last time we saw her. She told me she’d been having one of those recurring dreams with some kind of monster. She thought some part of it was her mother and the other part was Sedge Stevens, the guy who shot all those—”
Her head snapped up. “I know who Sedge Stevens is, Dev. Give me a little credit, will you?”
“I’m just saying. Chill.” He took a swig from the freshly filled mug.
“The night she called me, she said she woke up feeling like she’d won. She might not have called if she hadn’t had that dream or hadn’t been half asleep. Who knows?”
“Why didn’t she call Dad?”
Devin fidgeted with his napkin, tearing it into long strips. Then he crumpled them all into a wad and tossed it into the center of the table.
“Because, Ree, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Dad cheated on Mom. She was hurt, and as far as she was concerned, it was over.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe it.” She jutted out her chin, but his words were like a punch to the gut.
Devin shrugged. “Ask him. When he told me he thought that might be part of the reason Mom left, I hated him for it. He swears it was just once. Turns out it was the night I was born, the night he won his Grammy.” He reached for the balled-up paper napkin and pinched it between his fingers. “Did you know Mom almost died that night? Both of us, actually. They were cutting me out of her before she was even under anesthesia.”
“Oh god,” she whispered.
“He also told me he refused to have any more kids after that. Mom wanted a big family, but Dad refused. He had a vasectomy without even telling her. When she found out, he said she didn’t talk to him for a week, but he didn’t care. He refused to risk losing her with another pregnancy.”
It all sounded so dire. Living without her mother this past year had been difficult, but she couldn’t imagine having to grow up without her: No one to make doll clothes or play dress-up. No one to drive her to ballet, voice, and cheerleading practice or sit in the audience or the stands at every performance, every game. No one to lead her Girl Scout troop. No one to bake two hundred cookies to hand out to her classmates when she ran for student council president or homecoming queen. No one to cry when she walked out of the dressing room in her wedding gown and tell her she would be the most beautiful bride in the world.
No one to pick up off the floor unconscious in her own wedding gown, her beautiful hair lying in handfuls on the bathroom floor.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
Devin kept talking. “And while Mom had it bad growing up, Dad had it a lot worse, I think. Maybe someday he’ll tell you about it. He’s shared a lot of things with me over the past few months. It hasn’t been easy to hear, trust me, but it’s helped me understand him and, eventually, forgive him.”
He drained the rest of his beer and motioned for the waitress.
“I gotta tell you, Ree. It’s amazing either of them turned out as good as they did, because their childhoods sucked. Despite that, look at us. We turned out just fine. You may think Dad was the best, but he wasn’t, and if you really think about it, you have to agree. He was never around, and he left everything to Mom. She was a mother and a father to both of us. Now that I know Dad better, I can forgive him. Yeah, this past year sucked, but you need to remember what Mom did for us and move on. You need to forgive her.”
The waitress finally showed up with the lobsters and two more glasses of beer.
“Why didn’t anyone bother to tell me anything?” she croaked. Her throat was dry, despite the half gallon of beer she’d downed. “How come you know all this?”
He toyed with the red lobster cracker next to his plate. “Dunno. I asked? I listened? I didn’t judge? I don’t really know. What I do know is that she left us in order to survive. Give her a chance. You’ll see that not only did she survive, she’s stronger. So is Dad. They’re different—new and improved. There’s something about the both of them you’ll have to see yourself. If you leave now, you’re only going to be mad at yourself in the end. And you’ll hurt Mom.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hmph.”
He waved her off. “I know she’s hurt you. She hurt all of us, but she didn’t mean to. And hasn’t she been hurt enough? Uncle Joey’s death was the worst thing she’d ever been through, and then a few weeks later, her world got completely ripped apart. All this on top of finding out that the one person she could count on other than Uncle Joey had betrayed her. Who wouldn’t shut down? She tried to hang in there—you know that. But she couldn’t. So she did what she had to. It’s as simple as that.”
He cracked open a claw, so she did the same. Forgetting all the drama for just one moment, she pulled a piece of tender white meat from her lobster, dipped it in the butter, and popped it into her mouth. She closed her eyes and savored it, remembering just how good butter tasted.
When she opened her eyes, her brother was watching her.
She swirled another piece of lobster in the butter-filled ramekin. “I’ll try. But I’m still hurt.”
“So am I. But we can move past this. I promise.”
It was past midnight when Rhiannon climbed into bed next to Doug. She was drunk, but she managed to keep quiet right up until the moment she stubbed her toe on the corner of the nightstand. She muttered a curse, then clapped her hand over her mouth. The twins snored softly, but Doug was silent.
She slipped under the covers, and he looped his arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest.
“Welcome back,” he whispered into her hair.
She grunted her acknowledgment.
“
You okay?”
“I’m drunk.” She muffled a burp. “I’m not sure if I’m okay or not.”
“You’re here. That’s a start.”
Rhiannon woke to an empty bed and two empty cribs. Footsteps pounded overhead. Small ones, running, and loud ones, chasing, followed by the sweet sounds of her boys’ laughter. If her head hadn’t been throbbing so badly, she might have smiled. She rolled over and buried her head beneath her pillow. Ugh, she hated hangovers.
What the hell had she been thinking? Four beers? Six hundred calories. And then all that butter. How the hell was she going to eat turkey and stuffing? She dragged herself upright. Maybe she should go for a run. The little silver clock on the nightstand said 1:17.
Holy shit! How the hell had she slept so late?
She threw off the covers and searched for her watch: 10:08. She squinted at the clock; the second hand wasn’t moving. Jeez, Mom. Her mother and clocks were like oil and water.
She dug through her suitcase until she found her Lululemon running tights and jacket and got dressed. She laced up her sneakers, praying there was coffee and aspirin readily available.
With more effort than normally required, she hoisted herself up the stairs and followed the aroma of roasting turkey. She rarely ate meat. Today she would make an exception.
She found her mother in the kitchen rinsing cranberries.
“Morning,” Rhiannon mumbled.
“Morning. How did you sleep?”
“Good.” It was an honest answer, despite waking up with a hangover. “Is there coffee?”
“I can make a fresh pot if you’d like, or you can use the Keurig if you don’t want to wait.”
“Keurig.”
“There’s aspirin in the cabinet next to the refrigerator, and there’s a mug for you by the sugar bowl.”
Rhiannon slipped a K-cup into the Keurig and set the mug in place. She cleared her throat. “Is there anything you’d like me to do before I go run?”
The smile her mother gave her was tentative but genuine. “No, we’re all set. Devin’s in his room. I think he wants to go for a run, but he’s waiting for you. Daddy took Doug and the twins to show them the boats in the marina.”
