“Like I said after you told me she came ’round, I ended our détente this morning to give her the info on the scene with Ash. She says she’s also noticed the deterioration, came by to check in, talk to me, maybe speak with Ash. She forgot about the council meeting. Now she says, when she gets her back, she’s gonna give it a go.”
“That’s good,” I whispered, my phone chiming.
I looked to it and saw, ‘Night sweets. Cuddle your hottie for all the single ladies.
I grinned, set the phone on the nightstand, but stopped grinning when I turned back to Mickey.
“Have you seen the movie Dogfight?” I asked.
“Nope, it new?” he asked back then offered immediately, “You wanna see it?”
I adjusted myself so I was facing him fully, feeling my features soften at his offer but also in preparation for what I had to do. “No, baby, it’s an old movie. Ash has a movie poster for it on her wall.”
His eyes went unfocused before they refocused on me. “Try not to pay too much attention to her room. Place is a sty.”
It was and a strict-ish dad should probably do something about that but I didn’t address that.
I asked, “Do you know what a dogfight is?”
His brows drew together. “Everyone does, Amy.”
“No,” I replied quietly, leaning toward him putting my forearms in the bed between us. “A dogfight in regards to a nasty game a pack of boys play on a girl.”
His entire body stilled and his eyes started burning into me.
“You know,” I whispered.
“Do not fuckin’ tell me…” he trailed off like he couldn’t finish.
“I don’t know. I brought it up with Aisling, didn’t get very far. I asked if that movie spoke to her and she just said ‘obviously.’ I didn’t get more out of her before Cill interrupted us.”
Like the words were difficult to say, he ground out, “If some fuckwads played that game with her, you’re a chick, you think she’d have that poster on her wall?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. If it was me, no. I wouldn’t want the reminder. But, Mickey, in that movie, the boy falls in love with the girl. He goes to war and he comes back to her.”
“I’m not—”
“My fear, honey, is that she identifies with the plain, overweight girl in that movie and maybe looks at it in a twisted way as hope for her future. I’ll say that saying that the actress in that film is extraordinary and she was beautiful in so many ways. But my concern is, Ash doesn’t see all of them.”
“Been worried about her weight,” he muttered.
“Don’t. That’s not the issue,” I stated firmly. “She carries extra weight but not that much. And she’s pretty, she’s sweet. She’s a little shy, but it’s cute. And she’s probably supremely aware of her weight when she’s far from obese. You mentioning it at this juncture would not be a good thing. From you, she has to feel she’s nothing but beautiful no matter what. The issue is that’s one symptom in many and some of those include overall not caring about her appearance. For a girl her age, that concerns me. It isn’t that she has to cake on the makeup and spend an hour doing her hair every day. But I don’t think she’s showering, Mickey.”
“Yeah, me mentioning that was when things blew up last night,” he reminded me.
I nodded. “I hope Rhiannon can get through to her. But I’d like to hang out with you guys this weekend, just in case I have another shot.”
“Then you’re here, babe, happy for that for more than the fact you wanna look after my girl.”
I smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back but lifted his hand and sifted his finger through my bangs.
“You didn’t say much about meeting Rhiannon, Amy,” he noted after his hand dropped.
“It went fast and was a surprise for both of us,” I told him.
“And she was cool with you?” he asked, even though I’d already told him she was.
I nodded again.
“She’s worried about our girl,” he said. “Think that’s a good sign. Maybe she’s gettin’ her shit together.”
“Worry about your kids can kick a mom’s ass right into gear,” I reported.
That got me a grin. “Yeah.”
“If my crew can go through what they did and bounce back, Mickey, then really, anything can happen.”
His grin died as he repeated unconvincingly, “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I stated more firmly.
He changed the subject.
“You gonna sit there all night like that, or you gonna get in bed with me?”
“Get in bed with you.”
“Then do it.”
I sat up. “You do know that kind of thing forced me to go on a date with the slimy Boston Stone.”
He stared at me and asked disbelievingly, “Now that shit’s my fault?”
“It was always your fault,” I retorted haughtily then I cried out when he reached out and yanked me to him.
I landed on his chest. He curved an arm around me as he rolled into me and yanked the covers from under me. He then flicked them over, moved to his back and turned out the light, then rolled my way and gave me his weight when he reached out to turn out mine.
He then arranged us tangled in the middle of the bed.
“I take it discussion of Boston Stone is over,” I remarked.
“That name said in this bed again gets my woman spanked.”
I shut up.
For a second.
Then I asked, “Can we finish this discussion in my bed?”
I heard the smile in his voice as he muttered, “Smartass.”
I smiled right into his chest as I cuddled there.
We were snuggled, quiet and I was drooping when Mickey called, “Amy?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“You find out boys did that to my girl, you don’t tell me that shit. You sort it. You dig deep in there with her and you dig it out. You get her to share it with her mother. But you do not bring that to me.”
I knew what he was saying.
“Mickey,” I whispered.
“She’s beautiful,” he stated.
“I know,” I replied.
“Gotta be responsible. That’d make me not be able to be responsible.”
Yes, I knew what he was saying.
“Okay, Mickey. But, just to say, honestly, I don’t think that poster would be on her wall if that actually happened.”
“Right,” he grunted.
“Right,” I repeated.
“Okay, Amy.”
“Let that go and go to sleep, baby.”
He drew in breath, drawing his arms closer around me as he did.
He let the breath go but not me.
“’Night, babe.”
I kissed his chest and replied, “Goodnight, Mickey.”
It took me a lot longer to get droopy because I spent a lot of time hoping in all that was happening with Rhiannon and Aisling that I hadn’t lied and the Donovan family could bounce back.
And be happy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luck o’ the Irish
The next day, late morning, I knocked on Ash’s door.
“Yeah?’ she called.
I opened it and stuck my head in, seeing her on her side in her bed, earbuds in, book open in front of her, still in her shapeless PJ’s, thus no shower.
At her dad’s call, she’d come out for breakfast, ate it with us, then went right back in.
“Hey,” I started. “We’re about to go outside to toss around the Frisbee. It’s chilly but it’ll be fun. Wanna join us?”
“Naw,” she replied. “I’m into this book and I’m almost done.”
I looked to the book she was reading and saw this was not a lie.
I looked back to her. “Okay, blossom. But you get done, come and join us if you feel like it.”
“Okay, Amy. If I feel like it.”
She wasn’t coming.
“Right. Hope to see you outside.
”
She didn’t reply.
“Enjoy the book,” I bid her.
She nodded, touched her iPhone likely to restart her music playing and looked back down at her book.
Since I wasn’t blind, my eyes again took in her room before I closed the door. But when the door latched, a thought came to me.
My daughter, too, had a pretty little girl room (hers had been peaches and pinks). Starting at eleven, she’d begun begging for an update, and because I was me, but also because we were in the first throes of divorce, by the time she hit twelve, I’d given it to her.
This thought made me move down the hall. I saw Cillian’s door partially open, knocked, didn’t get an answer, so I stuck my head in.
Seeing it for the first time, I learned he’d had a bent toward careening down the highway to the danger zone even prior to seeing Top Gun. I knew this from the motif of airplanes that was in his room.
But it was little kid airplanes for a little boy. They weren’t cool. They were primary colors and cartoony.
His room was also untidy but nowhere near the mess of his sister’s.
I pulled my head out and moved swiftly down the hall to the back room where Mickey was standing alone behind the sectional, an MFD sweatshirt on to go out and play Frisbee, but eyes aimed to the college football game on TV.
“Hey, where’s Cill?” I asked.
He looked to me. “Bathroom. Ash coming?”
I shook my head.
His handsome face turned worried and his eyes drifted to the hall.
I got close. “Before Cill comes back, can I ask something?”
He looked back to me and invited, “Shoot.”
I got closer. “It’ll be asking a lot, honey. And you can say no.”
“Is it about Ash?”
I nodded.
“Then shoot.”
Yes, worried.
But such a good dad.
I nodded again and spoke. “When I went in to talk to her, I noticed she still had her Aisling-as-a-little-girl decoration in her room under all that mess. And I remembered when Olympia hit eleven she started wanting something more grown up. So I just wondered if you might have a teeny-tiny budget,” I lifted my hand to do a thumb and forefinger inch, “that we could use to update her room. Go to Target. Get a new comforter. Maybe a lamp or two. Buy some paint and she and I can paint her walls. Nothing extravagant, just a new look.”
“You think she hates her room?” he asked.
“I think she’s growing up and it might be nice she knows you have a mind to that. But mostly, I just want to see if I can get her excited about something.”
He appeared keen about this idea before that slid out of his features.
“Do it for one kid, babe, gotta do it for both. Can give you the money for Ash but with all that’s goin’ on, not sure I’d wanna push that to doin’ it times two.”
“I agree,” I replied. “But if she wants that and then Cill asks for it, you can tell him he can have it when he hits Ash’s age.”
“Good plan,” he muttered on a nod.
“So, can I suggest that? You can give us a budget.”
He looked to the hall again then to me. “Yeah, Amy. Good idea. Run with it.”
I smiled up at him.
He lifted a hand to wrap it around the back of my neck before he leaned into me and touched my mouth with his.
He moved back an inch and asked, “You gonna get your jacket?”
“Yeah.”
“Go,” he ordered.
Since he’d agreed to allow me to do some decorating, I decided not to take him to task for being high-handed and went to get my jacket.
* * * * *
Late afternoon, after Ash didn’t come out and play Frisbee, I was back at her door.
“Yeah?” she called at my knock.
I stuck my head in. “Hey. You finish your book?”
She clearly had or had given up. She was now on her stomach facing the foot of her bed, still in her PJ’s, and I could see on the small TV on its stand at the end that a movie was paused.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Any good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she answered and gave me no more.
I stepped fully into her room, announcing, “Listen, your dad and Cill dragged the fire pit to the deck. They’re out getting firewood and hitting the grocery store. My mission is to start dinner. We’re going to have dinner and do s’mores outside later.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
At least that was something.
I tipped my head to the side and asked her, “Wanna help me make dinner?”
Her eyes drifted to the TV. “Kinda in the middle of this movie.”
I wanted to push.
I didn’t push.
“Okay, kiddo.” I then looked around the room trying to pretend it was nonchalantly before I turned back to her and teased, “Under the mess, your room is cute.”
She shrugged.
I shifted through the clothes and touched a daisy decal on the wall, continuing to tease, “Not sure Imagine Dragons goes with daisies.”
“Yeah, well,” she stated and stopped talking.
“Hey!” I cried, like the idea just struck me. “Bet we can talk your dad into updating this place.” I threw out a hand. “I’m almost done decorating my place and I’d love to help. Throw up some paint. Hit Target and get a new lamp or two. Make it Imagine Dragons worthy.”
She gave me no indication she found this exciting. “Not sure Dad’ll go for that.”
I moved slightly toward her. “He loves you to bits, blossom. And he knows you’re growing up because he leans on you to look after Cillian when he’s not around. I bet he’ll be happy to do it.”
“Seems like a lot of work and money when I don’t really care there’s still daisies.”
I studied her wondering if perhaps her decorations reminded her of her mother or if she worried about the state of her father’s finances and how much of a hit that would be if he did that for her.
I saw no emotion on her face, discomfort, hurt or even hesitancy.
She just didn’t really care.
What girl didn’t care about her room?
“Can I ask your dad anyway?” I requested.
She looked back to the TV then to me, making a mute point that she wanted to get back to her movie, and replied, “Sure. But I’m not really big on that kind of stuff.”
I wanted to know what she was big on, outside of losing herself in books, movies and music. Not that any of that was bad or unusual for a teenage girl.
It was just that I couldn’t use any of it to get in there.
Another idea struck me and I moved to her dresser. I ran a finger along a bottle tipped sideways and not righted, scoring a line through the dust.
Then I looked back to her and grinned. “See you’re not big on makeup either.”
“What’s the point?” she asked.
“I hear you,” I replied. “You’re so pretty, it really isn’t needed.”
Her eyes, having drifted away, shot to me.
Telling.
Sad and telling.
God, I needed an in!
I glanced at the makeup before looking back to her. “You’ve got a lot of it for not being into it.”
“Mom made a big thing of it when I turned fourteen,” she told me. “She and Dad agreed I could wear it when I did, so she took me out and bought me a bunch, had some of her friends over. They all showed me how to use it, made it into a party.”
“That sounds really sweet,” I said softly, and it did. Rhiannon had done that up right.
She shrugged again.
“Do you wear it when you’re at her place?” I asked.
“Not really,” she answered.
She was giving me nothing and I was beginning to feel like I was encroaching on her time and space, and maybe being a bit creepy, so I started to make my way to the door.
“Okay, then, enough chitchat, I got
ta get on making dinner.” I stopped with my hand on the door and looked to her. “You get done with your movie, honey, jump in the shower and put on some clothes so you’ll be warm when we have s’mores time. And I hope it finishes early. I cook by myself a lot. I like to have company.”
I was a mom. I had kids. I was a master at subtle mom-guilt manipulation.
“’Kay, will do if it finishes early,” she said.
She wasn’t coming out until dinner. I knew it.
Even oblivious to guilt manipulation.
This was bad.
I beat back a disappointed sigh and instead smiled. “Right, blossom. Enjoy the movie.”
She nodded and looked back to the TV.
But being Ash, I didn’t hear it go back on until I’d shut the door.
* * * * *
An hour and a half later, after Mickey shouted dinner was ready then went back outside with Cillian to tend the fire, Aisling wandered out.
She was no longer in her PJ’s but she still hadn’t showered.
I said nothing about this and instead beamed at her. “Great news!”
She gifted me with her eyes twinkling and her lips quirking at my excitement before she asked, “What?”
“Your dad said we could redecorate your room. We don’t have a massive budget, but I’m sure we can get some paint, some new bedclothes, maybe some new rugs for the floor. Not that I know if you have rugs on your floor since I can’t see your floor,” I ended on a tease.
The twinkling stopped as she hauled herself up on a stool and replied without enthusiasm, “Cool.”
“So, when you come back from your mom’s, you wanna go out with me?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she answered. “I’ll let you know.”
“Ash—” I started but was interrupted when Cillian threw open the sliding glass door and did it speaking.
Or, actually, yelling.
“She lives!”
Ash didn’t have much of a reaction to that either, not even a retort to her brother’s teasing.
“You missed Frisbee,” he informed her, sauntering in, straight to his own stool.
“You’re the Frisbee king, Cill,” she replied. “I’m the movie queen.”
“Whatevs,” he muttered then looked to me. “Dinner ready, Amy?”
“It is, kiddo.” I looked between them. “You guys wanna help me with plates and stuff?”
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