“You have, mama.” I squeeze her fingers and lean forward. “Jamie’s a fantastic kid.”
She nods and wipes away a stray tear. “He’s a little shit.”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s the best compliment you can give to a ten-year-old.”
“Bryan was on board,” Taryn says. “He swore he’d be there for us. I took a semester off and really concentrated on my baby. But Bryan started to change. Small things, at first. Like saying he’d learn sign language later, when Jamie could actually understand it. Or putting Jamie in front of the TV and turning the sound up as loud as possible, thinking that was the best way to entertain a deaf baby.”
It takes a whole lotta self-control not to sneer at the idiocy of the man.
“And Bryan kept talking to Jamie, like normal,” Taryn says. “I didn’t think anything of that—I mean, Jamie’s diagnosis—incurable—was hard to absorb. If Bryan wanted to take his time adjusting to our new normal, I wasn’t about to argue. But he kept doing it. Even when Jamie got older and started communicating with his hands, Bryan would respond with his voice. When Jamie couldn’t understand his dad, Bryan would either get frustrated, angry or both. So, he started ignoring Jamie.” Taryn shakes her head and covers her face in her hands. She says through her fingers, “Just … looking over Jamie’s head whenever Jamie tried to communicate with him or staying late at work and coming home long after Jamie was in bed. And, God—” Taryn reaches over and a long swallow of her wine. “One story I remember crystal clear. Bryan enrolled Jamie in T-ball when Jamie was four and didn’t tell the coaches about Jamie’s deafness. He threw our little boy out in the field and expected to him to just know, and I went to the try-outs, thinking everyone was prepared for our boy. I let Bryan take the lead, since he seemed so excited to enroll Jamie. I thought, finally, Bryan’s connecting with his son through sports. This is great. A true father and son moment. They’re going to bond.” Taryn closes her eyes. She continues softly, “Jamie was terrified. All he saw was mouths moving at him, angry expressions, and balls and bats flying in his direction. Hurting him. He went into complete sensory overload and curled up into a ball at the pitcher’s mound, covering his head and swaying. Screaming. I’ve never heard him cry out like that before. Never. Never.” She swallows. “And I never expected Bryan to be on the sidelines, shouting at Jamie like everyone else.”
I lean back. “Jesus.”
“That was only the beginning,” Taryn whispers. “I began to resent that man. My husband. Jamie’s father. For doing nothing to protect our son. For acting like Jamie was a troubled kid, not a boy who only wanted his father to notice him. I’d decided to put Jamie to bed earlier, so there was less chance of Bryan and Jamie crossing paths, since it always led to Jamie’s tears. Or Bryan’s hands, balling into fists.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“He never hit Jamie,” Taryn says quickly, meeting my eyes. “I got Bryan to direct his anger somewhere else.”
My mouth forms the word, but I don’t speak it. No.
With an awful shimmer to her eyes, she nods. “There came a point I couldn’t take it anymore. He went too far. Hit my face, and I had to see Jamie’s nanny that morning and explain it, which I’d never had to do before. Bryan always left his marks in places I could hide. It was the T-ball that did it.”
“The day he threw Jamie to the wolves?”
“Essentially. That was the end of the line for me. I lost it—screamed at him once we were home and Jamie was calmed down and napping. Our marriage was at a breaking point long before this, we weren’t really talking, or having sex, or … anything but living parallel lives in the same home, really. But despite the growing distance, I remained the same: a passive, willing co-conspirator to the destruction of my son.”
I grab hold of her hands across the table. “You can’t say that about yourself.”
“I can, because it was true. That afternoon on the baseball diamond … it was brutally clear. If I continued down this path, all the while holding Jamie’s hand, he would be chipped away at until there was nothing left of him but the certainty he wasn’t good enough.” Taryn shows her teeth. “And that is what led me to yell at my husband. To shove him. Tell him the truth—that he was a coward, an ignorant bastard, and he’d never know the true gift of having a family, because I was going to leave him. Right then and there.”
I exhale. “And he … “
“Told me in no uncertain terms that if I left, I’d be the one destroyed. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be graduating Harvard. I’d be working in some shit job barely making ends meet if he hadn’t taken me in. If he hadn’t moved to another state for me. There was no mention that he had to leave our town, too. That he was vilified for seducing a teenager and looked upon with disgust by his family. I was to be pitied, not him. I was pathetic and unqualified, not him. He hurled these things at me like weapons.”
Taryn wipes the growing pools underneath her eyes. “And to prove his point, he broke my jaw.”
“Jes—fuck.” I stand, my chair ricocheting against the floorboards with radical sound.
Taryn jumps, and I come around, folding her into my chest. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to startle you. I—I was the one startled. I can’t believe—that fucker. That ultimate fuckwad. I’m going to find him, Taryn. I’m gonna track him down and—”
“No.” She lets me hold her but shakes her denial against my chest. “It’s in the past and I need to keep it there. I got away, Easton. I’m here now, with Jamie, and we’ve been living our best life for six years.”
“But.” Gently, I extricate her hand from the folds of my shirt and hold it up, showcasing the bruise. “He’s back.”
Taryn remains loosely in my embrace, but she doesn’t tilt her chin up to speak to me. “Bryan’s always been very political. Once I was in the hospital being treated, he … he realized the despicable position he’d put himself in. But he’s the ultimate negotiator and told me, if I agreed never to speak of this again—never to bring charges—he’d give me full custody of Jamie.”
Taryn breathes against me, deep and trembling. I rub between her shoulder blades, cup her head, and kiss her hair.
“You did what you had to in the moment,” I murmur.
“I took the coward’s way out,” she says, and I hold her tighter. “But I’m okay with that. He’d let me leave, so long as I sewed my mouth shut. I could take Jamie away before Bryan ever turned his fists on him, and that was enough for me.”
“He was biding his time,” I surmise, staring darkly out the window. “Because now he needs you again. Right? Or wants Jamie back?”
“I have a feeling he’s running for some kind of office and needs to showcase the perfect family.”
“And use a son with special needs to sway the public in his favor. Yeah, he’s a douchewad. What can we do?” I pull her gently away so we can face each other. “What can I do to help?”
Her brows pinch, and if it weren’t for depths of despair in her expression, layer after layer of torment, I’d smooth it over with my thumb, then kiss her fears into the galaxy.
“You want to stick around, after all this?” she asks.
“I have my own fucked up reasons for existing, too, you know. Nobody’s perfect. And anyone who appears flawless is hiding some kind of kink, I assure you.”
Taryn attempts a smile, but it falls right before the lift. “You’re a good man, Easton. I came here this afternoon to tell you that. I … we got distracted, and maybe I needed to lose myself for a while. I don’t regret what happened between us, but—you don’t want to get involved with me. With this. I promise you that.”
I cock my head as I stare down at her. “This is my fault. I haven’t shown you enough. I’ve spun you around, spit you out, and I didn’t give us the decency of time, which we could’ve had. So, all we got now is my word. And my words to you, Taryn Maddox, are that I’m gonna fucking stick around.”
“God. Easton.” She puts her hands
on either side of my face and searches deep. “You have no idea how I wish that could be true.”
I hold her wrists, loose, but firm enough to let her know I mean it. “I will protect Jamie against this man. You have full custody. You got a divorce. And you’re a lawyer now with lots of lawyer friends, which you did on your own. Christ, you’re amazing. There’s no way, if he wants to maintain his image, Bryan dick-ass O’Neil is gonna—”
“This is where I need to stop you,” she says, her gaze shooting downward.
“Why? Taryn, look at me.”
She does, but it’s not the same. “He can still win, Easton.”
“No he absolutely fucking cannot. If I have to camp out in front of Jamie’s room, I will. Have some faith, Taryn. You’re not alone anymore.”
“You’re right. I’m not.” Her smile, this time, is jaded and thin. “I’m still married.”
28
Taryn
Bryan hovers beside my hospital gurney. He won’t leave.
And I can’t speak.
After an excruciating twelve hours, my jaw is wired shut and I’m off the ER floor and parked in an in-patient room, Jamie’s little body molded against my side. He’s refused to leave since I had to shake him awake and out of his toddler bed, my face throbbing, and take him to the hospital.
In that moment, I was grateful for sign language. I didn’t have to speak to Jamie—because I couldn’t.
I also couldn’t leave Jamie alone with him.
And so, after picking myself up off the floor, among the glittering, jagged pieces of the glass coffee table and stumbled into the nearest powder room, I wiped off all the blood.
I listened to Bryan’s heavy footsteps, my body bracing when they crossed the threshold of the bathroom I locked myself into—a flimsy piece of metal that won’t keep that beast away—before I jolt at the slam of the front door, then calm at the rumble of an engine.
Bryan is drunk. He’s drunk and he’s driving and I don’t give a fuck.
I lay the stained cream towel across the sink and take stock of myself in the mirror. Greasy, tangled hair. Black crescents bordering my nose. A bloom of mottled red across my cheeks, my jaw unhinged and screaming silently.
I must get Jamie.
When I lay my hand on his thin shoulder—he’s always been a side sleeper, even in the womb—I don’t hold back the sob, even though it rips the thin tendons holding my jaw in place.
It’s come to this point. I let us get here, and now I have to get us out.
I drive us to the hospital, Jamie’s white, shining eyes brighter than the headlights as they study his mother, but he stays quiet, understanding, I think, more than he should.
We’re ushered into a room, assessed by doctors and nurses, and since I can’t talk well, I write down what happened.
I fell. It was dark and Jamie left his toys on the floor, and I tripped into a glass table.
The doctor nodded as he picked glass shards out of my elbow, sharing his own experiences with toddler messes. The nurse’s gaze lingered on me far too long, but I remained resolute. Resolved.
Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth. That Bryan O’Neil, fine man of this city, punched his wife so hard, she spun around on one foot and toppled, breaking both glass and her face.
I wouldn’t, because as soon as I was stitched up, I was putting Jamie back in the car and driving out of this city, this state, this world I’ve shoved us into, and starting anew.
I’m twenty-three, just graduated, no job, no bank account, no independence.
But I had a drivers’ license, a quick mind, the willingness to work, and the desperation to make a home for my son.
Until Bryan walked in, rushed and worried with the stench of burned coffee beans on his breath, spilling his concern all over his wife and son, until we were left alone.
“This is the end,” he said flatly, and all I could do was nod and hold my son tighter. He wouldn’t hurt me here, he wouldn’t, but I can’t be sure. “And I’m thankful to see you’ve said nothing to the staff here. Smart girl.”
I swallowed. It hurt.
“You’ve got nothing now, Teddy. Not a single note to your name. But you don’t care, do you? You’re determined to leave.” At my continued silence, he goes on. “Fine. Go. Give it a try out in the real world, but know when you come crawling back, I’ll push my shoe into your forehead and knock you off my porch so hard and fast, your mouth won’t be able to recover this time.”
I don’t let the tears come.
“This has gone too far,” Bryan says in a low voice. “I can’t have this—you—in this state, by my side, any longer. So take the boy. Live like a skank pauper. Get your twenty dollar bills by selling your body, I don’t give a fuck. I’ll give you what you want, a fairy-tale escape.”
He bent down until we’re almost nose-to-nose, and I’d never been so thankful Jamie couldn’t hear his father speak this way.
“There are no happy endings, Teddy. You’re fucked with or without me. And I’m done with you. I’m going back to Ohio—my family will love that I ditched the whore and found good sense again. You disgust me.”
When Bryan turned, his broad back was the last thing I saw. He didn’t look back, and therefore, didn’t see the trail of drool leaking out the corner of my mouth.
But it wasn’t drool. It was spit, and in my head, I shot it at his face with clear and determined accuracy.
* * *
“Bryan didn’t win the way he thought he would,” I say to Easton. “He was right—I’m clever, and I figured out a way to survive with my son while applying to Harvard Law. My husband, well, he unwittingly provided extreme motivation for me to become a lawyer and understand justice. Jamie and I lived in a friends’ garage, a woman I met on campus and will be forever grateful to. I cleared out Bryan and I’s joint bank account before he could close it, and Bryan didn’t come after me for it. That paid for Jamie’s nanny for a few more years, a woman who loved Jamie almost as much as I did. I got a job with night hours. I eventually afforded an apartment of our own. Bryan was long-gone out of the state, left no forwarding address, and I was more than okay with that. It wasn’t easy—justice never is—but somehow, I graduated, scored a summer internship in NYC, and Jamie and I became comfortable and happy in a small Upper East Side apartment we could call our own.”
That, to me, was justice. I lived, I thrived, and now that I’ve studied criminals as much as I’ve studied my son’s needs, I possess deep, credible knowledge of how Bryan functions.
Bryan threatens to shake us loose, but a part of me always knew this moment would come.
What I haven’t predicted is the presence of Easton and how much he threatens to displace us, too.
Easton’s expression is much too smooth when he repeats, “You’re still married. But earlier, you said ex-husband.”
It’s with great sadness that I nod. “It was part of the agreement. We may be married on paper, but in all the ways that matter, he’s been out of my heart for a long, long time.”
“Did this—was this so-called agreement ever seen by the courts? Or anyone official?”
I shake my head. “All I could think of in that moment was the fact I was granted the ability to be free, with my son, and Bryan wouldn’t chase us. If I took it to the courts back then, Jesus. He would’ve crushed me. I had nothing to my name. I was lucky he decided—”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t say you were lucky he made the decision to let you go. Because I know and you know that you were going to leave, whether or not he allowed it. You were gonna take that boy and get the hell out of there, and make something of yourself, anyway.”
A melancholy sweetness toward Easton settles over me. “I’d like to think that, if it weren’t for real life and the very clear fact he would’ve hunted us down, legally or criminally, and dragged me back, if he wanted me bad enough. I was no good to him as a broken doll.”
On
e who started regarding him with resentful glass eyes.
“But he could. He has,” Easton says. “His word is only as good as his boredom.”
I rise from my seat, and it pains me to push Easton’s arms away. “Bryan’s not going to get to Jamie. I won’t allow it.”
“But what about you? Taryn, wait.”
I’ve stepped around Easton, avoiding his eye, since there’s a yearning that tugs too hard and fast whenever I look his way.
But I halt at Easton’s door. I have to give him something. “You’re right, I have the law on my side now, and I’ll try to do it officially this time. I’m filing for divorce. For full custody. And I have the clout of CW and C, one of the top firms in New York City, to help.”
Easton doesn’t believe me. “That’s it? That’s all that’s required? He’s abused you, Taryn.”
Playing You: Players to Lovers, Book 4 Page 18
