by Whitley Cox
Since Jenny only worked weekdays—ten-hour days, but still only Monday to Friday—one of the other senior partners at the firm’s teenage daughter came over every Saturday to babysit the girls so Atlas could go to poker night.
Kimmy seemed like a responsible enough sixteen-year-old. Captain of the debate team, mathlete, honor roll student. She seemed trustworthy enough—though that didn’t mean Atlas didn’t have a nanny cam anyway, one he made sure Kimmy was well aware of—because, you know, lawsuits and crap.
Aria usually loved it when Kimmy showed up and some nights was even kicking Atlas out the door.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight, Aria had done nothing but glare at Kimmy the moment the girl showed up. His daughter then proceeded to throw a steamed broccoli floret at Cecily across the dinner table, beaning the poor child between the eyes, and then run screaming to her room, where she slammed the door.
All this took place as Kimmy fed the children dinner and Atlas showered and got ready for poker. Though the screaming and door-slamming could be heard even through the walls and the pummeling water. His kid had a set of lungs on her.
“You can’t leave, Daddy!” Aria protested, gripping him by the back pockets of his jeans and letting her feet slip out from under her. He heard a rip. Fuck, had she wrecked another pair of his pants? “I hate Kimmy!”
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She’d come home with that word, hate, from preschool last week and now proceeded to use it to describe a fair number of things.
I hate bedtime.
I hate Cecily.
I hate broccoli.
I hate bath time.
I hate yellow.
“Yellow what?” he asked.
“Yellow everything,” she replied.
According to some of the single dads who also had children either older than Aria or around her age, this behavior was totally normal.
Didn’t make it any less freaking frustrating though.
Once he pried her off his jeans pockets, he flipped her around and plopped her boney butt on his hip. She grabbed his face between her tiny human hands and smooshed his lips together so he would be forced to speak like a duck. “Aria Elaina Stark, you know the drill.”
She scowled, reminding him so much of her mother. His heart tightened inside his chest. “What drill?” she asked, playing coy. “I don’t want you to go.”
“This is my one night a week where I get do something for myself, honey.” Why was he reasoning with a three-and-a-half-year-old? He rolled his eyes inwardly at himself. He knew better. Before he became a father, he’d been a hard-ass. Took no shit from anybody.
Having a child—a daughter—had turned him soft.
And now he had two little girls.
He’d be a fucking marshmallow by the time they were off to college. God forbid they give him granddaughters. He’d have no spine left by the time he died.
“But you can hang out with me and have some time to yourself,” she said, full of confidence. As if she’d just solved all his problems. Her shoulders bounced on a shrug. “See, easy solve.”
“No, sweetie.” He pecked her on the nose, forehead and cheek. “You go upstairs and see Kimmy. And no throwing food—or anything else for that matter—at Cecily.” He plunked Aria down on one of the steps leading up to the living room, her pout out and her hands on her hips.
“I hate you!” she declared. Then she spun around and stomped like a sumo wrestler up the stairs, her feet equally thunderous as she sprinted down the hall.
“Don’t you dare slam that door, young lady!” he called after her, hating that this was how he was leaving things with his daughter but also knowing he couldn’t let her get away with her behavior.
Wasn’t the art therapy supposed to be helping with these outbursts? She’d colored nearly all day. Why hadn’t she channeled her frustrations? Wasn’t that how it worked?
He stepped up the stairs a few steps and craned his neck around the corner to look down the hallway toward Aria’s room. She was standing in her doorway, arms crossed, glaring at him.
Within five strides, he was crouching down in front of her. “I’ll be home before you know it, okay?”
Her chin jiggled, and her lips twitched. She was trying so hard to be strong and not break down. God, it still floored him how much she was like her mother. Samantha had been stubborn as hell too.
“I don’t want you to go,” she managed through clenched teeth. The tears began to well up in her eyes, then she lost her battle and flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in the collar of his light blue polo shirt. “Please don’t go, Daddy,” she muffled against him. “I don’t hate you. I’m sorry I said I did.”
He stroked her back and let her get her tears out, her sobs causing her entire body to quiver. Eventually, she calmed down and loosened her vice grip on him. With his hands on her waist, he helped her stand up tall. “Feel better?” he asked, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from her blotchy cheeks.
She nodded. “Will you wake me up when you get home and let me know you’re back?” she asked, sniffling and wiping the back of her wrist beneath her nose. Her hazel eyes shone bright from all the tears, and her lips and nose were puffy.
He nodded. “I will, sweetie. I will come and give you a super-big hug and a kiss when I get home and wake you up and tell you how much I love you.”
He watched as she visibly relaxed, and the frustration that had consumed her dissolved into the air around them. It was almost like a mini-exorcism really, the way his child flipped her switch so quickly. Her radiant smile illuminated the dimly lit hallway. Every muscle in his body relaxed too, and at the same time, they both took slow, deep breaths.
“I’m going to go find Kimmy,” she said as he stood up from his crouched position, groaning from how it made his knees pop and grind. He’d feel that twinge in his back tomorrow for sure.
She skipped off down the hallway calling Kimmy’s name.
Phew.
Crisis averted.
Or was that crisis handled?
Either way, he waved at Kimmy, who was wiping up a filthy-faced Cecily, and headed down the stairs. He needed to make a quick and clean getaway before Aria decided to rip his other back pocket and start the histrionics all over again.
Her mother had always had a penchant for the dramatic as well.
It was one of the things he loved most about Samantha. Her zest for life and fun. And even though right now, Aria’s emotions and dramatic behavior were taxing on him, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she was going to grow up to be one incredible, passionate human being.
He swung his long legs behind the steering wheel of his Land Cruiser, turned on the ignition, rolled down the windows and let the sunroof slide open all the way. It was a hot May evening, and he needed the breeze around him to blow away all the thoughts that seemed trapped inside his brain.
As he was about to pull out onto the road, his phone began to ring in his pocket.
Please don’t let this be Kimmy saying that Aria is losing her shit again and just coldcocked Cecily over the head with a frying pan.
Thankfully, it was not Kimmy.
“Hey, McGregor, what do you have for me?”
“Atlas.” The way McGregor said his name with his deep Southern drawl made it sound like Atlas’s name was five syllables rather than two. “Found the guy and girl you’re looking for. Holed up in an apartment in Greenwood.”
His heart hammered in his chest. “And the dog?”
“There too.”
“Is the dog okay? Are they taking care of him?”
“Seem to be. You only called me yesterday, so I’ve only been watching them since this morning. Took me a few hours to track ’em down.”
A few hours. McGregor was one of the best PIs in the freaking city. He did in a few hours what took other PIs days if not weeks. The man could find a needle in a haystack and not even break a sweat.
“I’ll send you their address and info via
text,” McGregor said, the sound of seagulls and waves crashing in the background competing with his words. The guy was probably somewhere down by the water enjoying a cool beer after a hard day of spying on people.
“Thanks, McGregor,” he said, surprising himself with his chipper tone. He finally got a win, and it felt damn good.
The line went dead, because McGregor never said goodbye, and Atlas pulled out of his driveway. He needed to hit the liquor store before he headed to Liam’s. Even though their host was flush with cash and kept his bar stocked, not one of the guys showed up empty-handed.
He shifted into third gear and headed off down the road only to nearly drive clear off the road when he caught a glimpse of himself in his side mirror. He was fucking smiling.
Holy shit.
He hadn’t smiled in a while, and yet the thought of bringing somebody he didn’t even really know good news had him smiling like an idiot.
He’d wait to text her until later tonight though. He didn’t want to be distracted at poker, and he certainly didn’t want the guys asking questions about who he was messaging.
Yes, tonight, he was going to take his win all the way to the bank. He was going to help his new friend get her dog back. And he couldn’t believe how good that made him feel.
“Hi, Mom,” Tessa whispered, stepping into her mother’s bedroom at the nursing home for seniors with Alzheimer’s and dementia. “How are you doing today?”
“Gotta finish this,” her mother muttered, most likely to herself and not Tessa. As always, Lily Copeland had paint all over her fingers, a couple of smudges on her cheeks and neck and all over her painting smock. At least she wore her smock now. It had taken months for Tessa and the staff at the home to convince her mother to wear the smock. Otherwise, she got acrylic paint all over her clothes, and it didn’t always wash out.
Tessa tucked her motorcycle helmet under her arm and wandered deeper into the bedroom to where her mother stood in front of the window with her canvas. Tessa had pulled a lot of strings and greased a lot of palms to get her mother that room with all the natural daylight coming in. It had more windows than other rooms and faced southwest, so her mother got all the natural light she needed to paint from ten thirty in the morning until sunset.
She no longer needed to brace herself for what was undoubtably going to be on the canvas. A baby in its mother’s arms. Sometimes the painting was sweet and serene; other times it made Tessa want to curl up in the corner and cry. Sometimes her mother painted a dead baby.
How did she know the baby was dead?
She just did.
And then the mother would be full of sorrow, crying or sometimes even wailing.
It took her a while to not let those paintings affect her.
It was times like those that she really wished her father was still alive to shed some light on why her mother was so obsessed with painting babies—dead and alive. Had her mother had miscarriages? A stillborn? Did they occur before or after Tessa was born? Was that what had triggered the depression?
These were questions that plagued her thoughts morning, noon and night. Questions she knew she’d probably never get the answers to.
She made sure her mother saw her before she leaned in and pecked her on her cool, papery cheek. “Hi, Momma. I’ve missed you.”
“Needs more blue,” her mother murmured, dipping her paintbrush into the indigo and swirling it around the background behind the mother’s head.
She let out a small sigh of relief. At least today’s painting had both mother and child alive and seemingly happy. That must mean her mother was having a good day.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been by all week. It’s been …” She swallowed. “It’s been a really awful week, Mom. I wish I could talk to you about it.”
Her mother’s gaze pivoted to her, and for the first time in a while, it didn’t appear as though she were looking through Tessa but actually at her. “You need to talk?”
Was she having a lucid moment?
Eagerly, she nodded and reached for her mother’s hand. “I do, Mom. So badly. My life just feels like it’s falling apart. Carlyle left me, and he stole Forest. I have no idea how to find either of them. I mean, truth be told, I miss Forest more than I miss Carlyle, because how can I miss a man who would steal somebody’s dog?” Her throat grew painfully tight, and the back of her eyes stung with unshed tears.
Her mother’s light blue eyes squinted, and her nose wrinkled, which only accentuated the already deepening lines at the corners of her eyes and on her forehead. “Forest … ” she whispered. “Forest … ”
“My dog, Mom. Remember Forest? You used to love him.”
“Forest … ” She blinked a few times, then turned back to her painting. “I knew a Forest once. Dreadful boy, always pulled my ponytail in algebra class. My mother said it was because he liked me. I think it’s because he was an unmannered fool. If I ever have children—girls in particular—I will teach them that the pulling of ponytails and shoving in line is no way to show affection. That’s just perpetuating the ideology that violence is akin to love. And if I have sons, you bet your booty I’ll teach them not to pull girls’ ponytails.”
She swirled the blue-tipped paintbrush into some white and then added highlighting around the baby’s head.
Tessa chuckled and wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “You will raise a strong daughter, Mom. Believe me. I love your feminist ways. They certainly rubbed off on Dad.”
“Dad?” Her mother’s eyes shifted to the side. “Whose Dad?”
“My dad, Mom.”
Her mother shook her head and continued painting. “Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve never met your father before. I’m not married yet, but I will say that there is a very charming man who saved me the last chocolate croissant at the bakery the other day—even though somebody else ordered it before me. I think he works there. Looker. Blond hair, blue eyes, dimples. And boy, is he tall.” Her cheeks pinked up, and she got a glassy look in her eyes. “I wonder if he’s seeing anybody?”
Tessa smiled. That was her father. He’d worked at his family’s bakery on the weekend while going to flight school during the week. It wasn’t long after that first meeting that her parents started dating. Her mother was an art teacher at one of the middle schools, her father in flight school training to be a helicopter pilot.
She loved hearing about their courtship. Fairy tales and romance novels could learn a few things from the budding love of Lily Pendergast and Bruno Copeland.
“If you’ll excuse me,” her mother said, shooting Tessa an almost irritated look, “I really need to finish this before I lose my light.”
Right. Because her mother had a million other things to do tomorrow and couldn’t finish the painting in the new light of the new day.
Exhaling in defeat, Tessa nodded. “Okay, Mom. It was good to see you.” She ran her fingers over the stack of blank canvases leaning against the wall. She counted fifteen. Enough to get her mother through at least a couple of weeks. Lily usually only painted one a day. Leaning in, she kissed her mother on the temple. “Could I have a hug, Mom?”
Her mother was engrossed in her painting and didn’t even lift a brow or twitch a lip to acknowledge.
“Mom? Could I have a hug goodbye, please? I promise to come back in a few days.” She rested her hand on her mother’s shoulder and felt it tense beneath her fingers.
“I don’t have any idea who you are. Why would I hug you?” She flinched until Tessa removed her hand from her mother’s shoulder. Her mother’s body began to tremble, her head to shake, and the paintbrush fell out from between her fingers. “Why are you here? Why are you here? Who are you?” Her voice rose.
“Everything okay in here?” A nurse popped her head around the corner. “Hi, Tessa.”
Tessa’s bottom lip jiggled, and she crushed her bottom lip between her teeth to keep herself from breaking down. She swallowed and bobbed her head vigorously. “Everything’s fine. I just … overstayed m
y welcome is all.”
“I don’t know who this woman is,” her mother said, becoming even more distraught. “But she interrupted my painting and now … ” She looked frantically around for her paintbrush, then her eyes pivoted out the window. “And now I’ve lost my good lighting.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just … ”
I just wanted to hug you.
It’s not your mom, it’s the disease talking. It’s not your mom, it’s the disease talking.
She repeated her mantra over and over again in her head. It was the only way she was able to leave her mother without letting the anger take over.
Red filled her mother’s cheeks, and she bunched her fists. “I’ve lost my light all thanks to this … woman! This intruder.” Then she drew her hands down the canvas and over the wet paint. Scraping her fingers through the image until it was indiscernible and Lily’s nails were caked in paint. “It might as well be ruined. You ruined my work. You ruined my painting.” Her fiery rage lasered in on Tessa, who had already taken several steps toward the door and the safety of the nurse. “You ruined me.” She lunged at Tessa, running for her, her arms out, paint-covered fingers looking like they were ready to choke.
Thankfully, Tessa was trained in nonviolent crisis intervention and deflected the attack with her forearm and a quick pivot. The nurse behind her was also quick on her feet and stepped inside, catching Lily before she ran headfirst into the wall.
“Get her out of here!” Tessa’s mother screamed. “Get her out!”
Unable to keep the tears from spilling over, Tessa gave the nurse and a screaming Lily a wide berth as she skirted around them and found her exit. She wanted to sprint down the hallway to the parking lot but didn’t. She must have looked like one of those ridiculous competitive speed walkers, hips a-swaying, arms swinging.
The whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion. She felt like she was walking in a dream world; a horrific, nightmarish dream world. When she finally reached the front doors, she burst through them and gulped the fresh air like she’d been holding her breath on the entire walk. Her lungs ached, her heart constricted and a pain so intense filled her chest and gut, she wasn’t sure she would live through it. Her hands fell to her knees and she hunched over. The need to puke was way too real.
