The Ride of Life
Hixon
THAT NIGHT, HIX parked at the curb of the house he’d once called home and walked up the front walk.
He did it staring at his old front porch thinking he needed to invest in some furniture to put on his for Greta.
Maybe some of those Adirondack chairs.
He was at the door with his hand lifted to ring the bell when the door opened.
Hope stood there made up like they were actually going to Jameson’s, but without a nice dress. Instead she was wearing nice slacks and a pretty top, not like she normally made herself up in some jeans and a sweater, with just mascara and blush and whatever she did with her hair when she did it quick for when she had a day of running Mamie around and working for her dad.
Shit.
At least she had bare feet.
She reached to the storm door and Hix got out of the way as she pushed it open, greeting, “Hixon.”
He caught the door and returned, “Hope.”
She turned and walked in. He followed her and he did it thinking he’d forgotten to keep track of the time since he’d last been in his old house. She’d demanded he come get any of his stuff that he’d want, and after they’d gone around about it for weeks, he’d done it.
That had to have been four, maybe five months ago.
But it looked just the same. She hadn’t changed a thing. It was still clean as a pin, like she liked it, tidy, like kids didn’t live there, and well-decorated in a way they both had liked it.
Their divorce agreement meant he left her with the house and the furniture, and since she made enough money he didn’t have to pay child support. Seeing as she made that money at a job she’d never lose, Hix’s lawyer had told him to fight her for a settlement since she got everything and he walked away with the old desk his father had given him for his apartment in college and some boxes of other shit that had meaning but no value.
He hadn’t fought for it. She didn’t have it, her father would have to have given it to her, or she’d have had to sell the house or dip into accounts that were healthy because they’d fought to keep them that way and she’d already given him his share of that.
But regardless, anything she gave him would be put toward the kids’ futures so there was no point. All they’d saved for that was in an account neither of them could touch except to do something for the kids.
In return, she’d signed away any rights to go after his pension or retirement accounts.
He hadn’t wanted the divorce so he’d thought it was a decent enough deal.
Now he was glad. He didn’t have pushing their situation to someplace ugly to get money out of her, which would have surely endangered his relationship with her family, something that meant something to him, but even if it didn’t, he’d need to keep it copasetic for the kids. It left their house intact for the kids to live in it without at least that change to their lives. And he didn’t have a single memory of her or the life they’d shared that he had to face daily.
Clean slate.
All good.
She turned to him in her living room and he stopped three steps in.
“You wanted to chat,” he started when she didn’t. “I’m here.”
“Would you like a beer?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
“A bourbon?” she offered.
“No, Hope,” he told her.
“Would you at least sit?” she requested, beginning to show impatience or nerves, he couldn’t tell which.
He could do that so he went to one of the two couches that faced each other vertical to the fireplace and sat in the corner.
A fireplace where he noticed she had a fire going.
And there were candles lit.
Jesus.
Throw on some music, and with her made up, dressed like that and the room this way, he’d be smacked in the face where she wanted this to go instead of it being just in his face.
He didn’t settle in. He sat close to the edge with his elbows to his knees, his hands hanging between them, and looked at her settling in across from him.
When she did, she tucked her legs under her like they’d be chatting all night, and Hix fought his mouth getting tight.
“I’m glad you finally agreed to talk to me,” she said softly.
“I did and we’re doin’ that but I don’t wanna do it for long. The kids are home, they got a new TV and—”
She interrupted him. “Shaw can watch over the girls and Shaw can also set up a TV.”
He kept going like she didn’t say anything. “Greta’s with them.”
She assumed a hurt expression and looked to the fire.
“Hope, I’m here, you wanted to talk, talk,” he prompted.
She drew in a delicate breath and looked back at him, tears now shimmering in her eyes.
Christ.
“It wasn’t about the ring,” she said quietly.
“All right.”
She stared at him a beat before she asked, “Don’t you want to know what it was about?”
He felt his brows draw together. “Am I here to play games?”
“Of course not,” she said swiftly.
“So let’s get this done, Hope, be straight with me and say what you gotta say.”
She again stared at him before she lifted her chin a touch and declared, “Cooking.”
His brows did not unknit when he asked, “Say what?”
“Cooking.”
“Hope,” he growled, sliding to the edge of his seat.
“You let me cook, Hixon.”
He went still.
“You expected it,” she stated.
“Are you telling me you didn’t divorce me because I didn’t tell you I’d buy you a twenty-five thousand dollar ring but instead you did it because you did the cooking?”
“You expected it.”
“I don’t like to cook, and Hope, you know I’m shit at it.”
“Because you never tried to learn.”
“You’re right, because I never wanted to learn.”
“So it was down to me.”
For fuck’s sake.
“There’s no point to this,” he muttered, beginning to take his feet but he kept his seat when she spoke.
“It’s about the cooking. And the cleaning. You also let me do most of that too.”
He didn’t get a chance to say anything, she carried on.
“You’d vacuum, Hix, but I asked you to do it more than once a week and you said it didn’t need it when it did. We had Maynard for thirteen years and he shed crazy, all over the place, but we also have three kids. The floors needed vacuuming more than once a week.”
Their dog Maynard died three years ago.
And he was getting this shit now?
“You’re not giving me a point to this,” he informed her.
“I dusted, you never dusted, not ever.”
“Hope, that’s bullshit.”
“Right, okay, so maybe you did it a couple of times, but Hix,” she threw up a hand, “we were married nineteen years.”
“Together only eighteen since you kicked me out,” he corrected her.
“Like that makes a difference,” she returned.
“And you bitching about me not dusting and vacuuming and you cooking makes a difference at this point?” he fired back.
“You don’t get it and I thought you got it and it hurt, Hixon, it hurt like you wouldn’t believe when you didn’t get it.”
“Get what?” he asked.
“Get this.” She threw both her hands out that time, doing it with arms wide, indicating her immaculate house. “I kept this house nice. I cooked. I cleaned. I did the dishes even, most of the time, when it was me who cooked. I’d get Mamie from dance and I did most of the running them around before Shaw could drive and you let me.”
“You have a job that’s more flexible than mine but that’s beside the point. You were my wife and you are their mother, Hope,” he reminded her.
“I was and I am, and I thought maybe you might appreciate it a little bit.”
That shut his mouth.
“But no, you expected it and when you got that money from your Uncle Jack, I asked for that ring because I thought you’d want to give it to me, I thought you’d want to show me you loved me, you appreciated what I did for you, for this family, but you laughed at me.”
“Hope—”
“And that hurt.”
“I can see that,” he said quietly, watching her.
Her chest moved out as she drew in a big breath and she looked to the fire when she let it out.
“It wasn’t even like that ring was all the money Uncle Jack gave you. It wasn’t even half. But that doesn’t matter because that wasn’t what it was about,” she whispered to the fire.
“So you didn’t want the ring,” he noted.
Her eyes cut back to him. “Of course I wanted the ring. It was a beautiful ring. But what I really wanted was what it would mean if you gave it to me.”
“So why didn’t you tell me that?”
She bent slightly toward him. “Because you should know.”
Okay, she had a point, a good one, and she’d made it.
But that pissed him off.
“And when I shared with you repeatedly I didn’t know, why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because you should have figured it out.”
“Are you joking?” he whispered.
“No,” she snapped.
Yeah, he was pissed off.
“You didn’t once mow the lawn, Hope.”
“You don’t have to mow the lawn every night, Hixon.”
“You didn’t once take the trash out, not even fucking once, not our whole marriage.”
“And you don’t have to take the trash out every night either,” she retorted.
“You never took your car in to have the oil changed. I did that.”
“And what?” she asked. “That happens every three months?”
“You also didn’t get up with the kids every morning. I did.”
“Hix—”
“What about shoveling the walks, Hope?” he pushed.
“Again, that didn’t happen even close to every day,” she returned.
“We’re gettin’ into the minutiae, you wanna talk about grocery shopping? Who did that?”
“We both did, Hix. But I’ll admit, you took the kids and made a thing of it most the time, but only because you bought them junk and I didn’t like it.”
“So we both did things to take care of this house, our lives and our family,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but—”
“And I didn’t ask for a twenty-five-thousand-dollar anything because that was my job as your husband, their father. I just did it because it had to be done and because a part of me liked doin’ it because I was looking after the ones I loved.”
Now she shut her mouth.
“I’m not as clean as you and I know this because you dogged my ass for nearly two decades about it, but it’s just the way it was. I didn’t need every dog hair vacuumed up and every particle of dust swept away because I was living in a house with my wife and three kids and our dog and I actually liked the mess of my family around me.”
She kept her mouth shut.
Hix did not.
“You wanted it like that and I didn’t mind hanging my jacket on the hooks by the door so you wouldn’t see it flung over the couch or puttin’ up the towel folded like you liked it because who gives a shit? But I’d never consider it grounds to throw a tantrum or, say, end our marriage to get up in your face about the fact that it was a pain in my ass to do shit that meant nothing to me because it meant something to you. And since we’re lettin’ things fly, you never lettin’ us have another dog because they shed fucking sucked, Hope. The kids were devastated when we lost Maynard, they wanted another pet, I did too, and you puttin’ your foot down about that with the excuse of what a pain in the ass pet hair was blew. So, frankly, Hope, it sometimes bugged the crap outta me you were so damned neat and bitched about it when we weren’t. And it definitely bugged me you were that way when we all wanted another dog.”
“You never said anything,” she stated quietly.
Was she serious?
“Now you’re definitely joking,” he bit out.
She got what she’d just said and how fucked up it was and tried to backpedal.
“I . . . what I meant was—”
Hix cut her off. “You meant what you said. And I hear you about the ring and about what it would signify to you and you actually had a point, fourteen months ago. Now you don’t. You had plenty of time in between to stop tryin’ to make me dance to your tune when I didn’t even hear the record that was playing. And it shits me we’re sittin’ here now talking about all this crap, but take it as honest when I say I’m sorry I laughed when you asked for that ring. It was insensitive and that wasn’t the right response. But Hope, you lost traction immediately not sharin’ with me I hurt you then, and your response to mine was so outta whack, it’s freaking insane. And now I’m thinkin’ you got just a hint of bein’ in the dark about something someone you give a shit about has a problem with and they never shared it with you. Magnify that to make it cause the end of a marriage and powerless to do anything but watch a shitload of garbage land on your kids because that happened, and maybe you’ll get where I’m comin’ from.”
He watched her swallow. Then Hix held her eyes as she held his and he was about to put an end to this waste of time when she spoke again.
“So where does this take us now?”
“Sorry?” he asked.
“Where do we go from here?”
He felt his neck get tight.
But before he could figure out what to say, she uncurled her legs from under her and rushed across to him. Getting on her knees in front of him, she grabbed his hand and held it tight in both of hers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered urgently. “I’m so sorry. I knew I’d done wrong at the lawyer’s office when we signed those papers but it had gone so far, I didn’t know how to stop it. But then you wouldn’t talk to me and I couldn’t tell you I was sorry. I couldn’t explain where I was at. I couldn’t start fixing things between us. Then you found her and—”
“Stop.”
She stopped.
He tugged his hand from hers.
The second he started doing that, her eyes dropped to his hand and she kept them there even as her hands fell to her sides.
“We’re done, Hope.”
Her gaze shot to his. “We’re not done.”
“We’re done.”
“You love me.”
“I did. I don’t anymore.”
More tears hit her eyes and she scooted forward on her knees, pressing her stomach to his leg as she lifted a hand and rested it on his chest.
“You do. You love me. You totally love me, Hix, in a way you always will.”
“Hope, God,” he pulled in breath through his nose and finished, “I’m sorry. I don’t. Not anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulled it away, let it go and slid down the couch from her.
She fell back to her calves and stared at him.
“I wanna get along with you, for the kids,” he told her. “I want you to stop doin’ the shit you’re doin’ that hurts them. I want to help repair your relationship with Shaw so you’ll have him for the time we still have him before he goes off to live his life. But us, we’re done. There’s no turning back.”
“We were good together,” she reminded him.
“We were. Now that’s over,” he reminded her.
“We weren’t good, honey. We were great. We were happy. We’re talking now about this . . . this . . .” she shook her head in a fierce way and forced out, “stuff. The bad stuff. But it wasn’t bad. It was good. We laughed a lot. I made you laugh a lot. I should have listened after we lost Maynard and I should have shared what I was feeling, but all this stuff . . . this stuff we’re talking about . . . I see now it doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re right, Hope, and I’m sorry but now all of that is over in a way there’s no going back,” he said as gently as he could.
“I don’t care about the cooking, Hix. It’s not that.” She flipped out her hands. “I mean, it is but it isn’t. It’s the significance—”
“I get it, Hope. It doesn’t change things.”
She leaned his way. “It does.”
“You should have told me. I’d hurt you, you felt I was taking you for granted, that was something I needed to know.”
She nodded repeatedly and quickly. “I should. I know that now. I should have told you. And from now on, I will, Hixon. You have my promise.”
“Hope, you broke it. It can’t be fixed. It’s done.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again as gently as he could. “It is.”
The tears started flowing over when she reminded him, “We vowed forever.”
“Then you filed for divorce.”
She slapped a hand against her chest. “This isn’t just on me. You have your part in it.”
“Maybe I did but then it got done and there was nothing left but our kids.”
“That’s not true. You promised me forever, so if it’s broken, you have your part in fixing it.”
“Hope—”
She surged to him, grabbing both sides of his neck and pressing between his legs. “I love you, Hix. You’re the only man I ever loved, and I’ll never love anyone else because I shouldn’t have to.”
Again, Hix wrapped his fingers around her wrists, both of them this time, and he pushed her back but held her not too far away with their hands between them as he dipped his face in hers.
“I tried to fix it,” he reminded her quietly.
“I should have let you, but now—”
“You didn’t,” he told her. “And now, it’s over. There’s nothing to fix.”
“We can get it back,” she begged, tears still flowing.
Hix used his hold on her wrists to pull her gently to her feet as he stood but he held her in front of him and kept at her.
“I know you’re hurting and that doesn’t make me happy. I know what you want and I lived so long wanting to give you what you want, it’s hard, even now, to say you can’t have it. But you did what you did and then you acted the way you acted, and it sucks I gotta remind you, but that was even worse than what you did to put yourself where you are now. For me, Hope, it sucks to share this with you too, but I’m not where you are now. I’m somewhere else and I’m not turning back. I’m not because you threw away our lives the way you did. I’m not because you played the games you played and pulled the shit you pulled after you did that. And I’m not because I just don’t love you anymore in a way I know I’ll never do it again.”
“Her,” she spat.
“Yes, Greta. And also you, Hope. You let it die and now it’s dead, and if you can’t understand that, I’m sorry. But it’s the God’s honest truth.”
She yanked her wrists from his hold, stepped away several paces, lifted a hand, dashed it on her cheek to wipe away the tears and hissed, “And you’re blameless.”
“Probably not. But what I’m trying to say is it doesn’t matter now.”
She squared her shoulders, tossed her pink champagne hair and sniffed. “Right. Then you can get out of my house now.”
“You wanted this talk, I’m here and we should take it where we’re at least good to raise our children healthy and happy and not runnin’ away and walkin’ across town at seven in the morning because that shit is whacked.”
She opened her mouth and he knew it was about to come spewing out.
But surprisingly she shut it and looked again to the fire.
She crossed her arms on her chest and declared, “I miss my son.”
“I’m sure and we’ll work on that.”
She looked to him. “And I want that woman not staying the night when my children are with you.”
“Don’t go there,” he growled.
“It isn’t right.”
“What it isn’t is your business.”
She dropped her arms but held them out to her sides. “They’re my children.”
“They’re mine too and Greta’s gonna be in their lives, the way things are goin’, for the rest of them, so no reason for her not to be in them now.”
Her face froze in shock with her mouth open.
She unfroze to stammer, “You’re go-go-gonna . . . you’re gonna . . . you’re gonna marry her?”
“I don’t know. But I know if you take a second and think about it, you’d know that I wouldn’t have a woman around them that I didn’t have feelings for. You also know you can trust me to do the right thing by our kids. So we don’t have to have this conversation not only because it’s not your business but because I’m a good father who loves his kids so you shouldn’t insult me by saying anything.”
She crossed her arms on her chest, protectively this time, and stated, “You’ve got to know that hurts me, Hixon.”
“I can imagine, Hope,” he murmured. “But it is what it is, it’s happening, and you’re gonna have to get used to it too.”
She looked to the fire and declared, “I think you should leave.”
“Hope, you need to stop talkin’ shit around Mamie.”
She turned again to glare at him but he kept going before she could say anything.
“You can be pissed at me. You can hate me. You can hate Greta. You can do what you want, say what you want, talk all you want. That’s your prerogative. But not in front of our daughter.”
“I’m sure Greta went tattling to you about our conversation this morning,” she spat.
“She called me when she got to work, yeah,” he told her. “But you’re an adult, she’s an adult, I can’t control you, and because of that, I can’t protect her from you. Do I want you never to do that again? Hell yes. Can I stop you? Unfortunately no. Can we put up with your shit and carry on? Fortunately yes.”
“My shit,” she murmured, her lip curling.
Hix sighed and prompted, “Mamie?”
“Since the girls are both desperately in love with her because of her hair and her stupid heels, not to mention she’s buying their love by giving them gift certificates to make their room in your house nice, I won’t mess with that,” she gave in ungracefully.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“But it’d be nice if you’d also have a few words with Shaw.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And I’ll curtail discussing on my phone in my house about how I feel about your new slut when the children are around.”
“Now see,” Hix whispered, holding his body perfectly in check, and Hope didn’t miss it, he knew it when her face paled, “that’s stepping over a line I’ll state plain right now you just crossed and you better never fuckin’ cross it again.”
“I—”
He took one stride to her, getting in her space and dropping his head so they were nose to nose.
“Do not ever speak about her that way again, Hope. Not ever. Not fucking ever.” He pulled his head back and bit out, “Now we had our talk and you got a choice. You get your head out of your ass and get with the program or you don’t. I can’t say what’ll happen if you don’t. I’ll have to deal with it if it happens. What I will say is, right now, we got eight months with Shaw, two years with Corinne and five years with Mamie. Five years to make our kids happy, teach them what they gotta know to live their lives, take on the world and be decent human beings. If I gotta do all that on my own, I will. But it’d be nice to have your help.”
Her head moved like he’d slapped her, but he was done.
And he communicated that by sidestepping her and walking right out of her house.
He was in his garage having just shut down the Bronco when she called him.
He sucked in a breath, grabbed the phone, hauled his ass out of his truck, slammed the door and leaned his back against it before he put the phone to his ear and greeted, “If this is ugly, I’m hanging up and blocking you until you have the girls again.”
“I shouldn’t have said that about her,” Hope declared.
Hix went silent.
Hope, unfortunately, did too so Hix had to end it.
“Hope, it’s late and I wanna—”
“I messed things up, didn’t I?”
Hix fell silent again.
This time, she didn’t.
“I won’t say anything in front of Mamie, and I know Corinne’s upset with you so I’ll sit down with her and . . . and, I don’t know. Share a few things.”
“Make them the right things, Hope,” he ordered.
“They will be, Hixon.”
He sucked in another breath.
“It wasn’t about the ring,” she whispered in his ear. “I just . . . thought you knew me better.”
“In eighteen years there’s nothing I learned about you that you didn’t tell me or show me, Hope. Marriage is not a guessing game. It requires constant communication to keep it strong. That said, I probably would never have bought you that ring. I’d want you to have it but with what we were facing financially, it couldn’t happen. But if I got where you were, I would have done something big if you needed, or small every day so you’d get what you meant to me.”
“I know.” She was still whispering.
“We gotta settle this shit down for our kids.”
“I know that too.”
“I need you with me on that, Hope.”
“I’m with you, Hix.”
Christ, could this be the end?
“I really need to trust in that,” he told her.
“You don’t call me babe anymore.”
He looked to his boots.
“Or peaches,” she went on quietly, hurt in each word.
He said nothing.
Hope did.
“I did that too.”
“We need to move on,” he said gently.
“Mamie says she makes you happy.”
He looked to the wall of the garage. “Let’s not do that, Hope.”
“I just . . . it’s just gonna take some . . .” She paused for several long beats before she finished, “It hurts a lot and it’s gonna take a long time to come to terms with the fact that I messed this up.”
“That might go faster we can work together to get our kids to a place where they’re good.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll work on Shaw this week, see if he’s willin’ to go back with the girls next week,” he promised. “He’s not, I’m not gonna push it now but I will if it starts takin’ too long.”
“I appreciate that, Hixon.”
“Right. So we’re here, good talk.”
“Yeah.”
He pushed from his truck, saying, “Later, Hope.”
“Hixon?”
He didn’t want to say it. He heard it in her voice.
But the truce was about two seconds old, he had to say it.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Hope—”
“Just that. Just know that. Just know I always will and I’ll always be so, so sorry I messed this up, you can’t even . . . you are . . .” He actually heard her draw in breath before she said softly, “You’re the best man I’ve ever met. You’re a fantastic father. And I . . . I did this to us. I lost you. So you’ll never imagine how sorry I am.”
He didn’t know what to say to that and it was lame but it was all he had when he replied, “Right.”
“All right, I’ll uh . . . maybe see you at Corinne’s game?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Okay, Hixon. Tell the kids hi from their mom.”
“I’ll do that, Hope. Later.”
“Okay, later, Hix.”
He hung up.
He stared at his phone.
Then he walked to the wall, hit the garage door opener so it’d go down and went through the door into the mudroom, starting down the stairs to the basement.
He hesitated halfway down when he heard Greta shout, “Holy crap, Corinne! You got this! To your left! That’s it. Yes! Now clear the perimeter!”
He was pretty sure he heard a slap of flesh that would herald a high five.
And therefore he was shocked as shit after all that had just happened that he walked into the basement with a smile on his face to see his three kids and his woman arrayed on his new couch, all of them on the edge of their seats as Corinne and Shaw played some war game on the Xbox.
“Hey, Dad!” Mamie cried, looking at him then looking back to the action on the new TV.
So Shaw could set up a TV and an Xbox and apparently a receiver because the surround sound Hix also bought was absolutely functional considering the grenade explosions and rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire were ear-splitting.
“Hey, Dad,” Shaw said to the TV.
“Hey, Daddy,” Corinne said, then stuck her tongue out and jabbed the controller at the TV like it wasn’t her modified fake gun but she was hitting assailants with it.
Greta was just looking at him.
Or, more aptly, examining him.
“Hey,” he said to them all, but his eyes were on Greta.
She tipped her head to the side and her face got soft.
That beautiful woman shouting encouragement to his daughter to do well in a violent videogame then staring at him with that look on her face was falling in love with him.
This was good.
Because Hix was all in for that ride.
“Your mom says hi,” he told his kids.
That got him stares from all of them, though Shaw had the wherewithal to pause the game.
“She did?” he asked.
“She did,” Hix confirmed.
Corinne was studying him and he figured with her mom also her best friend, she probably knew about the cooking and the vacuuming, which was most likely why he was getting hit with her attitude.
He didn’t know what to do about that and figured he’d have to trust Hope would do something about it, so he just held her gaze and said, “It went good, honey.”
“Should I, uh . . . call Mom?” she asked.
Hell no.
Hope in her state sharing with their daughter?
Shit.
“She always likes hearing from you. But now maybe it’d be good she got a call from her girl.”
Corinne nodded, handed her controller to Greta and got up.
She left the room as Mamie asked, “Is Mommy okay?”
He looked to his youngest and moved to the sectional, sitting next to her and scrunching her as he did so she had to dig into him until she was nearly on his lap.
He held her there and said, “She’s okay and things are gonna get better.”
He felt her thin arms around him and he memorized that feel as she asked, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, baby,” he murmured.
She dropped the side of her head to his shoulder.
“Greta, do you wanna learn how to play?” Shaw asked.
“Maybe you should save Corinne’s score because she was killing it,” Greta replied. “We can start a new game.”
“Sounds good,” Shaw muttered, looking edgy, like he didn’t know what to think and he couldn’t get a lock on how he was feeling.
Hix couldn’t help with that either.
Time.
That was what they all needed.
And if Hope was finally with the program, it would start working.
Mamie scrambled out of his lap to crawl to Greta and sit on her knees behind her, hanging over her shoulder and pointing out things even as Shaw pointed out things on the controller, teaching her how to move her character in the game, shoot her gun.
Mamie kept hanging over Greta’s shoulder as Shaw started a new game and Greta got shot to shit within five minutes, giggling herself sick the entire time, jabbing her controller at the screen just like Corinne had done.
“You’re terrible at that!” Mamie yelled happily.
“Go again, Shaw. I’m gonna get this,” Greta declared determinedly.
“Your funeral,” Shaw replied but he wasn’t done. “Videotastically literally.”
Greta burst out laughing, Shaw joined her, Mamie collapsed on Greta’s back and did it too, and for the first time in fourteen months, Hix sat back and watched, enjoying the fuck out of the ride of life.