One Good Thing

by Wendy Wax

“I understand that it would be uncomfortable for you,” her mother said gently. “But I don’t believe that Daniel would allow her to threaten or harm Dustin in any way, and given her role as costar and investor in the film, she has every reason to treat Dustin and his mother with kid gloves. It would put you back on your feet financially and lighten some of the load you’re carrying.”

  “But he threatened me!” Kyra protested, ashamed of the tears she could feel gathering behind her lids. “And treated me like a child.” She stopped just short of stomping her foot.

  “I understand, Kyra.” Her mother lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “It’s a difficult decision. But you need to give Daniel’s request serious consideration. Being a mother isn’t always easy and neither is being an adult.” Her smile and the softness of her touch took the sting out of her words. “But both of those positions require you to fully understand and consider your options and all their ramifications.”

  • • •

  Avery was still pacing and Kyra was still avoiding Maddie when Bitsy arrived for sunset with Sherlock trotting at her heels. Maddie sent Bitsy after Kyra, brought the pitcher of margaritas and snacks she’d prepared out to the wrought iron table on the loggia, then walked out to the seawall, where she took Avery by the shoulders, led her into the shade, and pressed her gently into a chair. Maddie slid the bowl of Cheez Doodles in front of Avery before taking a seat.

  Sherlock stretched out on the concrete while Bitsy poured the icy red concoctions and passed them around.

  Maddie waited for Avery to take a Cheez Doodle. When that didn’t happen, she raised her drink and waited for the others to raise theirs in toast.

  “It feels weird without Nikki,” Kyra said. “Especially when we know she’s just down the beach.”

  “If I’d thought she’d have the energy, we could have done it at the Sunshine,” Maddie said.

  “I stopped by their cottage on my way to the car,” Bitsy said. “And I don’t know. I haven’t really been around many new mothers or newborns, but she seems pretty overwhelmed.”

  “Overwhelmed goes with the territory even when you only have one baby. Twins at forty-seven?” Maddie fingered the stem of her goblet. “I can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

  “Well, I say we make a toast to getting through the sleepless nights and the constant feedings and diaper changes,” Kyra said.

  “Wow, I’m getting overwhelmed just thinking about those things,” Bitsy said.

  “Yeah.” Maddie had recognized the panic that Nikki had tried to hide but been powerless to alleviate it.

  “Am I allowed to say that I hate that Bertie is having a baby with someone else?” Bitsy said. “For all I know, Delilah may have already given birth.” She seemed to gag on the exotic dancer’s name. “I mean Bertie never even seemed interested in having children. He used to say that I was his baby and he didn’t need anything or anyone else. What a crock of shit.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. She covered what sounded like a small sob by taking a long pull on her drink. “I used to fantasize that I’d hear from him. You know, that he’d call to tell me how unhappy he was, how much he wanted to come home, what a mistake he’d made.” She raised her glass again, swallowed deeply, set it down. “If he’d just told me he wanted a divorce, he would have had half of almost everything and I’d be free to go about my life. Instead he took everything and left me here in no-man’s-land.”

  She pulled a stack of paper out of her purse. “These are responses from all the attorneys I approached, all of whom have made large sums of money from me and my family over the years. Every one of them said no when I asked them to try to find Bertie and my money and help me divorce him on a contingency basis.” Sherlock sat up and placed his chin on her lap. She stroked his head absently. “I can’t let him get away with this. Losing half in a divorce would have been one thing. Having everything stolen? No!”

  Sherlock woofed as if in agreement.

  “What will you try next?” Kyra asked.

  “I don’t know. But there must be someone out there who’s willing to go balls to the wall, you know? Someone who’ll help bring him back and put him in jail, so that I can divorce him.”

  “Maybe you need to look for a smaller firm that deals with extradition? Or specializes in missing persons?” Maddie suggested. She’d barely looked at the sky as Bitsy had shared her distress.

  Kyra raised her glass to Bitsy. Maddie and Avery followed suit. “Here’s to finding Bertie and hauling his ass back,” Kyra said.

  “His skinny ass,” Bitsy corrected.

  “To bringing Bertie’s skinny ass back!” they proclaimed.

  “Balls to the wall!” Bitsy said.

  “What do you think, Mom? Does Bitsy need to turn that into a good thing?” Kyra asked.

  She was about to remind them all that she was not the “good enough” police, when Bitsy raised her glass once more. “I think it would be a very good thing to find a ‘balls to the wall’ attorney who will find Bertie and drag his skinny, cheating ass back. At this point I don’t much care whether they bring him back dead or alive.”

  They clinked and drank. Maddie poured them another round. “Kyra?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a good thing to share?” Maddie prompted.

  Avery eyed the Cheez Doodles for the first time, but made no move on them.

  “Well,” Kyra said. “I think I’ve figured out a way to share the Sunshine Hotel documentary with an audience.”

  Avery seemed to rouse. “How?”

  “I’m cutting it into short video segments for streaming.”

  “Interesting.” Avery drained the final sip from her glass.

  “What are you going to do about Daniel’s movie?” Bitsy asked.

  Maddie held her breath as the sun slipped in the pinkening sky. A lone pelican spread his prehistoric wings.

  “I don’t know,” Kyra said. “I’m mulling with a mind my mother thinks I need to open.”

  Maddie forced herself to stay silent as the pelican left its perch on the pier to fly low over the still surface of the water.

  Bitsy continued to contemplate Kyra. “If the money weren’t a factor, would you consider letting Dustin be in a movie with his father?”

  Maddie held her breath when Kyra tilted her head in thought.

  “Maybe,” Kyra said. “I don’t know.”

  “If you were married to Daniel and he wanted your child to be in his movie, would you say yes?” Bitsy asked.

  Kyra opened her mouth, closed it.

  Once again, Maddie was careful not to speak. But she did fill Bitsy’s empty glass to the brim then did the same for Avery.

  Above them the sky went from pink to purple and the golden red sun hovered over the Gulf.

  “What’s happening with you and Chase?” Maddie asked Avery.

  “Nothing. Nothing’s happening because he’s not speaking to me.”

  “Really?” Bitsy asked.

  “Really.” Avery looked as if she might jump up and start pacing again at any moment. “I’ve apologized repeatedly but he won’t forgive me. So we seem to be finished.”

  “Surely that’s not what he wants,” Maddie said. Her heart twisted for Avery, but her thoughts turned to Will. Whom she’d texted about the twins’ arrival the night he’d left and had made no time to speak with since.

  “Jeff doesn’t think so,” Avery said. “He thinks Chase is just being stubborn. But it hurts, you know. To be ignored by someone who used to love you.”

  “Tell me about it.” Bitsy raised her glass to her lips and drank half of it in a few gulps.

  “Anyway, Jeff invited me to come see Jason off—he’s going to be in the Blue Ridge Mountains for an Outward Bound program that’s helped other kids turn their lives around. But I don’t know. I don’t think Jason wants to see me any more tha
n Chase does. It’s such a mess.” Avery lifted her glass to her lips but took only a few tentative sips. She hadn’t touched a single Cheez Doodle.

  “You should go,” Maddie said. “And at least tell them how you feel about them.”

  “Do you really think so?” Avery set down her glass and wiped the red froth from her upper lip.

  “I do,” Bitsy said firmly. “That’s one of the worst things about what happened with Bertie. I never got to beg him to stay, or yell at him to leave, or even understand why he did what he did.” Her voice dropped. “I didn’t get to ask him why he stopped loving me. Or if he really ever had.”

  Kyra’s eyes were pinned to Bitsy’s face. Maddie hoped her words had gotten through.

  “I think it’s way better to say what you think, and how you feel,” Maddie found herself agreeing. “It’s better to know and face the truth than to run from it.”

  A car pulled into the drive. A car door slammed, another opened. Sherlock’s ears perked up at the sound of Dustin’s piping voice.

  Avery raised her glass. Maddie and the others raised theirs.

  “To telling and hearing the truth,” Avery said.

  “And to facing that truth head-on,” Bitsy said.

  “No matter how unpleasant that truth turns out to be,” Kyra said.

  They clinked glasses and downed the rest of their drinks. As dusk gathered around them, Maddie felt a bit like Custer might have felt as he rallied his troops at Little Big Horn. With Bella Flora hunkered behind them, she offered a silent prayer to the darkening sky that none of the people she cared about would be faced with truths they couldn’t handle.

  Thirty-one

  Avery arrived at the Hardins’ that Friday minutes before Jeff had said they were due to leave for the airport, and she parked the Mini Cooper in the driveway behind the boys’ Explorer. Although she’d raced to get there in time, she didn’t get out of her car or even turn off the engine. She sat with her eyes pinned to the front door as she tried to work up the courage to walk right up to it and knock so that she could do what she’d come to do.

  She was still sitting there when the garage door rumbled up. A shimmer of anxiety snaked up her spine, turning her mouth dry and setting her nerves jangling. She’d never wanted to turn and run this much.

  Now or never. She was actually leaning toward never when Josh Hardin emerged from the garage and tossed a large duffle bag in the back of the pickup. She lowered her window as he walked down to her. Surprise showed on his face.

  “Hi.” Avery couldn’t tell whether he was glad to see her or not. Her palms turned sweaty and she debated her next move. Stay and do what she’d come for? Or spend a few minutes with Josh and ask him to tell his dad and Jason that she’d stopped by?

  When he opened her door, she got out. “Granddad and I were afraid Dad drove you away for good.”

  “Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying. But you guys are the only family I’ve got. Whatever happens with your dad and me, you’re not going to get rid of me so easily.”

  His lips turned up at the corners as she cricked her neck to look up at him. “Since I don’t see a stepladder anywhere . . .” She crooked a finger and watched the smile widen as he bent down so she could hug him. She clung for a while, still contemplating flight but reluctant to let go of him. When she did, he straightened.

  “How’s everything going?”

  He shrugged. “Jason’s pissed at having to go forth into the wilderness, but he’s been pissed about pretty much everything for a while. And I guess this is better than what could have happened.” His voice had grown even deeper since she’d last seen him and his face bore the stubble of a full-grown man, but she could still see signs of the gangly, uncertain boy, who’d lost his mother too early and been forced to watch his little brother go off the rails.

  “From what I saw online, the program’s a good one,” she said. “And I don’t see how spending time in the Blue Ridge Mountains could hurt.”

  “Yeah. Leave it to Jace to get an expensive vacation out of all the shit he’s pulled.”

  “Feel free to take my place, bro.” Jason swaggered down the drive with a backpack dangling from one hand. “Looks like hard labor to me. Dad’s just paying out so he doesn’t have to deal with me anymore.”

  “Asshole. You’re lucky he didn’t have you locked up,” Josh said to his younger brother. “Try not to fall off a mountain or anything before you get rehabilitated, okay?”

  “Yeah. Whatever.” Jason’s tone and words were tough, but Avery had the sense the swagger was mostly for show. He dropped the backpack into the bed of the truck then watched Josh until he disappeared into the house.

  “Did you come to gloat?”

  “No, I came to say good-bye. And to tell you that I’m here if you ever need me.”

  Jason snorted. “Yeah, well, maybe you can send me a cake with a saw in it or something in case I decide to make a break for it.”

  She had to look up at him, too. She wished she could reach his face so she could wipe the smirk off it. “I thought you had to agree to go. And I don’t exactly see you in handcuffs.”

  “It’s not like I had a choice or anything.”

  “You always have a choice, Jason. And this is the perfect time to start making some good ones.” She thought about their last sunset. “Try to keep an open mind and take advantage of the opportunity. And maybe you could think about someone besides yourself occasionally while you’re gone.”

  “Like you?” he taunted.

  “No. Like your father and your grandfather and your brother. They love you, Jason, and you’ve got this chance now to turn things around. I hope you’ll take advantage of it.”

  He nodded but made no reply. She crooked her finger at him. He resisted at first, and for a long moment, she thought he was going to say something nasty. Reluctantly he bent over. When she wrapped her arms around him, she felt the air whoosh out of him. He didn’t hug her back, but he didn’t shake her off, either.

  When he straightened and stepped aside, she saw Chase standing next to the truck. Jeff sat beside him in his wheelchair. She went to Jeff. As she hugged him, he whispered in her ear, “Don’t let my boy intimidate you. You are the best thing that ever happened to him. He’s just too damned angry and stubborn to say so.”

  “Well, I’m feeling a little angry myself,” she said. “Can you give me a minute?”

  “I can give you five.” He straightened and motioned to Jason. “I need you to help me with something inside.”

  Jason muttered briefly, but went to his grandfather, turned the wheelchair, and pushed it toward the garage. As they disappeared, Avery moved toward Chase, replaying Maddie’s words of advice. When she reached him, she went on tiptoe and grasped his sunglasses.

  “Hey. I need those.”

  “Well, I need to see your eyes more.” She slid them off, her hands no more gentle than her voice. “Because I need to be sure you’re paying attention.”

  His jaw stiffened along with his body. But it was his eyes that almost made her turn and run. The twinkle that had always resided in them was gone. They were filled with worry, their brilliant blue faded. The new lines cut into their corners had not been caused by smiling. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen his lips turn up in anything that resembled humor. Nonetheless she squared off in front of him and cricked her neck back to meet those eyes. God, she wished they weren’t all so tall. But she didn’t crook her finger.

  “There are a few things I want to tell you.”

  He stood as still as a statue, neither nodding or moving. The urge to turn and run back to her car was almost irresistible. If Maddie were here, she would say what she’d come to say and live with the consequences. She drew a deep breath and forced herself to begin.

  “First of all, I want to apologize one more time for not sharing what I knew as soon as
I knew it. You should know me well enough to know that I would never harm you or your children intentionally, but I was wrong and I regret the harm it caused.” She paused but didn’t look away. “That’s the last time I’m going to apologize. You can accept or not. That’s up to you.”

  One dark eyebrow sketched upward but he didn’t speak.

  “I also think the Outward Bound intervention program is a great idea. Not that you asked my opinion or even told me.”

  He watched her through an unblinking gaze, stiff and silent. It took everything she had not to look away or flee.

  “Which brings me to how much it hurts that you push me away and cut me out instead of sharing your hurt and letting me try to help.” She drew one last breath. “I love you. My life would probably be a whole lot easier if I didn’t, but I do.”

  Still he said nothing.

  Her neck had begun to ache and the slow, painful thud of her heart was almost unbearable. Dread, cold and heavy, began to seep through her. “I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this to you before, but love is supposed to be a two-way thing. You know, reciprocal.” She watched his face for some sign of his feelings for her, but he might have been chiseled in granite. “So this would be a good time for you to say, ‘I love you, too.’ Or even ‘I’m sorry, Avery, but I no longer have feelings for you.’”

  She waited, barely able to breathe, for him to tell her he’d chosen option two. At which point she would run back to her car and peel off before the tears came. A shadow of what looked like regret clouded his eyes, but still he said nothing. Was he really going to let her walk away without so much as a response? Was his hurt and pride that much more important to him than she was? A tiny spark of anger flickered to life at the thought. She fanned it.

  “Okay,” she said without so much as a waver in her voice. “That’s it. I know you’ve got a ton of shit going on, but I can’t be in a relationship with someone whose first move when things go wrong is to cut me out. I don’t think that’s what love, real love, is about. So once Jason’s settled in the program, I suggest you find some time to think about your feelings and whether you want our relationship to continue.” Her step back was intentional and measured. “Because I’m not going to wait forever. If I have to learn how to stop loving you, I will.”