At Peace

by Kristen Ashley

  Then silence.

  I kept my eyes closed, waiting, but he didn’t come back.

  Somehow I fell back to sleep, telling myself that whole thing was a dream.

  Now I was awake, hoping the same. But I knew he’d gotten into bed with me.

  The bastard.

  I stared at the ceiling wishing I hadn’t encouraged the girls to go with Dane and his parents. They’d wanted to cancel and Dane had said it was okay, even that he’d stay and not go with his brother and parents to the lake which they’d done every year since he could remember.

  But a month ago, when they asked Kate to come along and to bring Keira that was all either girl could talk about. I hadn’t been able to give them a summer vacation and Dane’s parents rented a cabin for four days, Thursday through Sunday. It was all water-skiing, tubing, lying out by the lake and getting a tan, fishing and barbeques every night. An end of the summer blast. A vacation, not a long one, but it sounded like a fun one. Something, not much, but it was something and I wanted them to have as many somethings as they could get.

  They didn’t want to leave me and I didn’t want them to, but I didn’t want them to miss it either. I didn’t want them to miss out on anything in life. I wanted them to live their lives while they had a chance and remember it could be a blast. Even now. Even so soon after Sam.

  Especially so soon after Sam.

  And Sam would want that too.

  Now I realized my mistake. It was too soon, way, way too soon for me and, probably, for them.

  I looked at the clock again.

  They were probably already there or close. I’d call them after I had breakfast.

  I got out of bed and padded to the bathroom, using it, washing my face, brushing my teeth, I padded back out and into the kitchen. There was a note by the coffeemaker. I picked it up and read it.

  Hi Mawdy,

  We left. We didn’t wake you. Joe said to let you sleep. Call us, you need anything. Love you to pieces.

  xoxoxoxox Kate

  PS: Coffee’s made, just flip the switch.

  PPSS: Joe made it.

  I gritted my teeth.

  Fucking Joe.

  Under that:

  Hey Momalicious,

  I’ll keep my phone with me, even on the boat.

  Love you.

  xxooxxooxxoo Keirry

  PS: Joe gave us each a hundred dollars! Isn’t that cool?

  PPSS: Don’t forget to go get Mooch.

  Fucking, fucking Joe!

  He was buying Keira which would work in a flash and the bastard knew it.

  I pulled in breath and, instead of screaming, I sighed, dropped the note and flipped the switch on the coffeemaker.

  Bobbie had given me until Monday off paid which was nice. Being hourly, she didn’t have to do that.

  However she had also talked to me a couple of weeks ago about making me a manager. That salary would mean I’d get paid regularly what I got paid overtime which would be good, having that kind of money steady. But it also came with a load of responsibility which meant I’d still be working the overtime and have a bunch of headaches to go with it.

  But she was through, she told me. She’d opened the garden center thirty years ago and she was plum tuckered out, (her words).

  “Gotta take a break and you’re the only one I ever hired I can trust with the place. So, now’s my time. If you take the promotion, I get to have my time,” she said and, I had to admit, since I liked her despite her being ornery (or because of it), I wanted her to have that time. Not to mention the steady pay.

  But she still hadn’t hired anyone to replace my part-time work. So if I became the manager, that meant I had to get trained to do what Bobbie did, none of which I knew how to do, and also find someone else and train them. Not to mention, there was a reason Bobbie didn’t trust anyone else who worked there. Most of them were good but it was just a job, they weren’t like me, what they did was not something they loved. The others who worked there, they were pains in the asses, even for me and the rest of the crew, and I didn’t have to supervise them and I didn’t relish the idea of doing it.

  And on top of that, Mrs. Cousin’s yard that I’d redesigned and planted had gone over great. Mrs. Cousin loved it so much she showed it off and told all her friends all about me. Now I had two of her friends and her neighbor who all wanted me to work in their gardens, planting fall flowers and setting it up with bulbs for spring then coming back and sorting it out for the summer. Mrs. Cousin wanted me back too.

  This meant I was working forty-five to fifty hour weeks and I had a shitload of other work. Money was coming in which was good and it didn’t feel like work which was also good. But I could feel burnout coming. I knew it.

  And, on top of that, what was next for me?

  I thought through this as I slid the lever to turn the flow of coffee off and got myself a cup then slid the lever back to let the rest of the coffee fill.

  Mike was ready to take it to the next level. I knew it. I fucked that up, I’d lose him. I knew that too. He might be a nice guy but he also wasn’t one you messed about and I didn’t want to be the type of woman who messed a man about. He was going to lose patience and I sensed that was soon.

  And, Sam was gone. Gone. There was nothing to be close for anymore, not even four hours away close.

  And Daniel Hart was out there. He’d murdered my husband and my brother and he thought, even doing that, he could toy with me. He’d do it still, I knew it. I just didn’t know what I’d do when he did. My choices were to unravel or go berserk, hunt him down and shoot him in the head. Neither were good for my girls (or for me, for that matter).

  Joe was a wildcard and an infuriating one. I had no idea what was happening there but I knew what wasn’t going to happen. I also knew I needed to let him in on my feelings about that and I needed to do it soon.

  At that thought, I took a sip of coffee, looked out the window toward his house and stared.

  There was a dumpster in his front drive and a man was walking from the house to the dumpster carrying Joe’s old carpet, rolled up and tossed over his shoulder. He got to the dumpster, did a hitch with his body and the carpet went into the dumpster, creating a cloud of dust.

  What on earth?

  I was so enthralled by watching this, I jumped as my phone rang and then I reached out to it, not taking my eyes from the window as I watched the man walk back into Joe’s house.

  “Hello?”

  “Vi, honey?”

  My eyes dropped to the sink.

  “Bea,” I whispered.

  Tim’s Mom.

  “Oh honey,” Bea whispered back and I put my coffee cup down and clutched the sink.

  She heard my breath hitch.

  “Oh honey,” she whispered again then I sucked in another breath, this time without the hitch and she went on. “We wanted to go, Dad and me, but I couldn’t face her. Dad said that Sam’d understand, knowin’ how it was, but I felt so bad and I wanted to see you and the girls.”

  I understood this. My mother had been hideous to Bea and Dad, what I called Tim’s father Gary because he refused to respond to me calling him anything else. My Mom had been so hideous I remembered it like it was yesterday.

  When it was all going down, when I found out I was pregnant and we had that awful family meeting where Bea and Gary were trying to talk my Dad and Mom into understanding and finding ways to help us out, my mother had been ice cold and downright ugly. Mom honed right in on Bea’s frailties and the things Mom said, the way Bea was, Bea felt small, insignificant, worthless and she did because Mom wanted her too. Mom was such a bitch she was almost gleeful, making Bea feel that way.

  Right in the middle of it, Gary had grabbed Bea’s hand, pulled her off my parents’ couch, tipped his head at Tim who’d grabbed my hand, we all walked out and that was the last I saw of them for three years. They didn’t come to my wedding. They didn’t come to the hospital when Kate and Keira were born. They only came at Sam’s urging to
Kate’s birthday party and that, too, had not been pretty (so we didn’t see them again for another two years).

  Bea had never forgotten. She was sensitive but it was also that bad.

  “I understand,” I told her.

  “I figured you’d be… you’d… everyone would want a piece of you. I wanted to wait until later so we could spend some time. Dad and I, we’re gonna come down, stay the weekend, is that okay?”

  My heart leapt then sank.

  “Oh Bea, the girls are at the lake. I wanted them to have something fun and normal.”

  “Next weekend then,” she said instantly.

  I nodded. “Yes, I’d like that and the girls’ll love it.”

  “Good,” she replied softly then she hesitated and said, too casually, “Pam called.”

  Oh shit!

  My head came up and my eyes saw the man walking out with more carpet.

  “Bea –” I started.

  She cut me off. “Says his name is Joe.”

  “Oh Bea, it isn’t –”

  “She liked him.”

  Fuck!

  My mouth got tight, so tight I stayed silent. Then again, I didn’t know what to say.

  Bea went on. “Said he’s real good with the girls, sweet to you. Big man, she said, a man you don’t mess with.”

  “Bea, let me –”

  Her whisper interrupted me. “I’m glad, honey.” I closed my eyes and she continued. “Dad and me, we’ve been worried, you down there all alone. We know you wouldn’t tell us, worry us, if it was still happening. What Pam said about this Joe, well, me and Dad, we’re both glad.”

  I didn’t speak because what could I say?

  “Will we meet him when we’re there?”

  No they would not.

  “He’s out of town a lot,” I told her, hoping he would be and willing to buy him a ticket to Timbuktu, drug him and put him on a plane if he wasn’t.

  “How does he look after you and the girls if he’s out of town?” she asked, her voice rising a bit, she was getting scared.

  “There’s a guy across the street, a cop, a lot like Tim, good man. They take turns looking out for us,” I assured her.

  “That’s good,” she replied, her voice settling.

  The man with the carpet had disappeared into Joe’s house but I saw an SUV on the street, I focused on it and my breath caught in my throat.

  Mike.

  “Bea, I think I have to go,” I said into the phone, not wanting to, wanting to talk to her. I hadn’t had a good talk with my mother-in-law in ages and now, with Sam dying, it was the kind of time she was at her best. She might be timid and sensitive, but she was a great mother-in-law, a better Mom, a stellar Grandma and a good friend.

  “That’s okay,” she told me. “We’ll make a reservation in that hotel by the highway.”

  “You can stay here, have Kate’s bed,” I told her as I watched Mike pull into my drive. “She’ll bunk with Keira.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t.”

  “You did when you were here before.”

  She was silent while I watched Mike get out of his car, his eyes on my house and then I felt that sock in my gut when I saw he was angry, very, very angry.

  Then Bea said silently in my ear, “That was before Joe.”

  I blinked, unable to keep track of Mike, Mike being inexplicably angry, Joe’s carpet removal, Joe’s truck in his drive and Bea.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He might not like –”

  “You’re stayin’ here.”

  “We’ll wait to meet Joe.”

  “It isn’t like that.”

  “That’s not what Pam says.”

  “But –”

  Mike was walking to the front door and my heart was skipping a beat.

  “I’ll make him my chocolate cream pie, win him over,” Bea decided.

  Yeah, like chocolate cream pie could win Joe over. My cupcakes, pancakes and risotto hadn’t made a dent in his armor. Bea’s chocolate cream pie was the bomb but Joe Callahan was unwinnable.

  “Bea –”

  My doorbell rang and it sounded loud, louder than it ever sounded, too loud and I jumped.

  “You’ve gotta go,” Bea told me.

  “I –”

  “See you soon, honey.”

  I was walking to the door as I said, “Bea –”

  “Give my babies squeezes.”

  I sighed then I hit the alarm code in the panel by the door.

  “Give Dad a squeeze.”

  “Of course, honey. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I hit the button on the phone for off, unlocked the door and opened it to face my next drama.

  And drama it was, for I’d forgotten I was wearing Joe’s shirt.

  This was bad, I knew it because Mike’s eyes went from top to toe and his face went from angry to enraged.

  “Mike –”

  He cut me off too, by putting his hand in my belly, pushing me into the house, keeping his hand there even after he stepped in and closed the door.

  Then he dropped his hand and stared down at me.

  “Mike –”

  I cut myself off when his hand came up, palm out and facing me and I waited. He dropped his hand, looked away and a muscle in his jaw jerked.

  Then he looked back at me.

  “Been patient,” he said softly, I opened my mouth to speak, he shook his head and I closed my mouth. “Please tell me, while you been draggin’ me along, you didn’t start fuckin’ him again.”

  “I wasn’t dragging you along,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, sweetheart, you were.”

  I always liked it when he called me sweetheart but the way he did it then, I didn’t like.

  “No, Mike, I wasn’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’ve been honest with you.”

  “You fuckin’ him again?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not,” I answered.

  “Why you wearin’ his shirt?”

  I considered lying, telling him it was Tim’s but Mike and I weren’t about that and, I pulled this through, I didn’t want to do it by making us about that.

  “It’s comfortable.” At least this was true.

  “He take you to the funeral?” Mike asked and how he knew that I didn’t know.

  I nodded. “Only because Kate asked him to.”

  “You wouldn’t let me do it, but you let him?”

  “Mike, Kate asked him to.”

  “And I asked you to let me do it.”

  “Honestly,” I whispered, beginning to lose it, beginning to wonder why I cared, beginning to wonder why I fucking got out of bed at the same time throwing the phone on the couch. “I don’t have the energy for this.”

  “I know life’s shit for you now, Violet, but serious to God, this shit is fucked.”

  “What shit?” I asked.

  “You bein’ with me but him takin’ you to the funeral and him leavin’ your house the morning after.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Tina Blackstone stopped by the Station, felt the boys needed donuts, even though the bitch has never done that before in her fuckin’ life. Brought three dozen of them from Hilligoss, stayed while the boys ate, ran her mouth, enjoyed doin’ it.”

  That bitch!

  I stared at Mike a minute, allowing my blood pressure to drop.

  Then, deciding to deal with Tina later, I affirmed, “He spent the night.”

  “But he didn’t fuck you?”

  “No, Mike,” I told him, losing patience, it was slipping away and it was doing it fast, “he didn’t fuck me. Kate’s attached to him, she asked him to spend the night. She’s feelin’ a bit unsafe, seein’ as her father and uncle have been murdered by the man who’s stalking me. So we got home in the middle of the night and she wanted him to stay. He did. This morning he made sure the girls got off safe with Dane and his folks and he left. I didn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t even say good-bye to my
babies.”

  My voice was choked when I finished speaking and Mike’s face changed, the anger ebbed out, gentleness swept in and he took a step forward.

  I took two back and he stopped.

  “Sweetheart,” he murmured.

  That’s how I liked him to call me “sweetheart”.

  But I shook my head and I told him, “It’s over.”

  He blinked, slow, then asked, “What?”

  “I’m sellin’ the house. The girls and me are movin’ to Arizona.”

  “Honey.”

  I was still shaking my head. “He’ll fuck with me, Mike. He killed Tim, he killed Sam and, still, he’ll fuck with me.”

  Mike moved forward, I moved back but he came at me faster and caught me in his arms. I forgot why I was retreating, put my hands to his chest and dropped my forehead between them.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered. “You, Joe, Bea, Mel, Mom bein’ a bitch, buryin’ Sam, Vinnie, Theresa, Manny, Benny, Daniel Hart, it’s all too much. I can’t do this anymore.”

  Mike was quiet, he just held me in his arms as I fought back the tears.

  When I won and did it on a sigh, he spoke. “Darlin’, I don’t even know who half those people are.”

  The way he said it, I laughed, turned my head and pressed my cheek to his chest.

  Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and his arms got tighter.

  “I was a dick,” he said into my hair, “comin’ in here, givin’ you that shit.”

  I let him off the hook. “You weren’t. You were just a man.”

  “Well, yeah, I am that.”

  I pressed my cheek closer and gave him a squeeze. “Yeah.”

  “Girls aren’t here, want you with me tonight.”

  I closed my eyes and didn’t lift my head, nor loosen my arms when I said with all seriousness, “Mike, I wasn’t joking. I need to let you go.”

  I felt his body grow still when he asked, “Why?”

  I tipped my head back then and said, “In case you hadn’t noticed, men in my life end up with bullets in their heads.”

  “Sweetheart –”

  “And I’m entirely fucked up.”

  “Vi.”

  I took an arm from his waist, placed my hand against his cheek and whispered, “And you deserve better than that.”