Even though the movie plays loudly in Ryder’s room, I hear Aiden’s thoughts. No wonder she’s so weird. Suicide. Is it hereditary? Could she end up mental like her dad?

I feel his lungs expand as he sucks in a shallow breath, the kind you manage when you’re trying not to move. Sense the tightening of muscles as they bunch in the arm slung casually over my shoulders.

“I called 911 after Daddy shot himself,” I say and keep my head on his shoulder, because of all things, I don’t want to look at him and see that pity and speculation.

He’s afraid to say anything, afraid I’ll shut up and not finish this story. Afraid I’ll interpret what he says in the wrong way.

Because there’s no right way to respond to such a statement.

Blood drums in my head, whooshing like tidal waves slapping against the shore. I twist my ring again. Daddy’s ring. The one I wear to remind me of what I did.

No one knows everything about how I feel now, so many years after. Not even Mama. And really, who knows all there is to know about any life-altering moment. All my visual memories come at me in flashes of pain and regret.

A frozen image. Daddy on the floor, clumps of something tinged in red on the wall.

A frozen image. Papers scattered on the floor and across the bed.

A frozen image. His gold watch, the one Mama gave him for Christmas just six days earlier, shining so close to the hand that seemed to reach for the handgun a few feet away.

Daddy was a leftie. Like me.

“Makenna?” Aiden whispers against my head. “Baby.” He smoothes a hand over the back of my hair.

I straighten. “I need to get this all out. Don’t stop me.”

“I’m listening.”

I feel the shiver, shiver, shiver of the cold day from my memories. Each time I swallow, it’s like small cubes of ice scraping down my throat. “I was home after school. He’d waited all day to make sure I’d be there. Mama was still at her office. Daddy was supposed to be job-hunting all day, but he stayed home instead, because he didn’t feel well.”

Aiden’s arm tightens around me, but it doesn’t stop the chill that courses down my spine. How much do I tell him? Enough to keep him? Or enough to lose him?

“Daddy had been depressed over losing his job the year before and there was a second mortgage on the house and all that. I mean, he was taking anti-depressants and drinking, too. Valium and vodka, the toxic duo. One day after too much of his daily dose, he decided to shoot himself.”

I make my decision. I’ll tell enough to keep him. That’s all. It’d be cruel to tell him more. No one deserves to be so bitterly disappointed in another human being and I can’t do it to him.

Aiden lays his head against mine and rubs my upper arm. “It’s a lot for a kid to go through.”

“I hate these kinds of conversations. It’s the exact opposite of how you want to spend a date night. No one expects to hear all the dirty laundry soon in a relationship, but we’re moving so fast. I don’t want you to be blindsided.”

“I want to know all of it. You don’t have to worry about me being shocked or whatever you’re thinking.”

I take a deep breath, determined to get as much out as I can, all at once. “Life went downhill after that for a while. I’m sure you get the picture. I have a past that’ll never just disappear. For that reason, I have a very definite plan for the rest of my life.”

“Me, too. I know what I want. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me. I know we haven’t known each other long. I know—”

“Aiden. Stop. You should know my plan doesn’t include long-term relationships that end in marriage.”

He’s dead silent, so I continue before I chicken out. “Not marriage. Ever. So you and I can have a relationship. We can. But I need to know I have choices and I won’t have those if there’s a piece of paper tying us together.”

He freezes up—every muscle tightening around bone, his lungs ceasing their easy expansion. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not a huge deal. It’s not like you asked me to marry you anyway. This arrangement is pretend so Nonna and Jared will be satisfied. I enjoy being with you. Sleeping with you. I can even promise you commitment. Monogamy. But I don’t want you to expect anything more serious in the future. As long as we agree, we’re good.”

Aiden sits up and I lose his body warmth. “People change their mind. They work through things. Maybe marriage wasn’t on your agenda in the past, but situations change. That’s what committed means.” He huffs and looks away, a little flushed and a lot frustrated. “I’m not your father. I’m not…I’m not going to off myself—”

“Off myself? Oh, don’t you go there.” His words close like a fingers folding around my throat. Of course, he’s nothing like my father. “I never compared you to my father.”

“I lost my dad, too. Granted, it wasn’t like what happened to you, but it didn’t make me swear off marriage. Baby,” he says and reaches toward me, then lets his hands drop when I don’t move. “After your dad, you went through counseling, right?”

I give him a steely stare, realizing that here on the sofa we’re still only physically inches apart but miles away in emotional distance.

“Of course I went through counseling. Of course I did.” I glance toward the hallway, but Ryder’s movie still plays on in the background. He’s probably fallen asleep by now.

Aiden waits for me to say something. Anything. But I don’t add that counseling ended after Mama lost the house. Now’s certainly not the time to explain about our months of living in the car. The months I wondered how we’d ever return to normalcy.

The months I blamed myself for letting Daddy die.

But everything is great now. Because I won’t be the one to ruin everything.

Aiden rubs a hand over his face. “This is what Jared meant that night at the hospital.”

I jerk as if I’ve been slapped. “What does that mean?” I struggle to scoot back, needing actual distance to glare at him.

“He said we didn’t have a future together. He seemed pretty sure.” Aiden raises a brow. “Sounds like he knows from experience. What are you afraid of?”

“Leave him out of this. He has nothing, nothing to do with this conversation. And I’m not afraid.” I scrabble to my feet, my hands shaking, my lips pressed tight, my throat closing…the walls closing in. “This conversation is over. I think you need to leave.”

I want to take the words back, but they’ve left my lips. This is it. The last time I told a guy to leave, I didn’t see him again for years. Jared never even called the next day.

He walked out the door and into another woman’s arms.

“No,” Aiden says, in that tone of one accustomed to making people listen. He rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “No, I’m not leaving with you upset. You can say what you want, but you’re not scaring me off.”

My mouth drops open. Then closes. My pulse bang, bang, bangs against the base of my throat. His eyes are so intense, a rush of emotion threatens to make me cry. And I don’t cry for anyone. About anyone.

Aiden blinks and stares down at his hands. He hops up and strides quickly to me.

He takes a step. My throat warbles in silence, like a mute songbird—it sings for me to let him in—and my eyes prick with tears. My focus drops to his boots, a blurry mess of brown leather.

He steps closer. “We have a chance at something spectacular. You know that, don’t you? This thing between us is what people search for and never find. I know what I’ve found in you. In you and Ryder. So you can forget getting rid of me over a few harsh words we both didn’t mean. I’m no quitter.” His low voice rumbles along my skin, caresses me until I lift my gaze to his. “Let me hold you for just a minute. OK?”

I give the tiniest nod. I can’t speak. I won’t, because if I do, all the dark thoughts—the doubts about myself—will spill out.

He wraps strong arms around me, pulling me against his chest and leaning his forehead against mine. A sound escapes my throat.

What a way to go, Mak. You sound like a dying goat.

Heavier tears slide down my cheeks, and he pulls back to swipe both his thumbs across my face. “If you had any idea at all what these tears do to me, you’d stop. You’re ripping great big holes through my heart. Nobody as sweet as you should be looking so sad.”

“Hey, I’m fine,” I grunt out in an unattractive bleat. “And I’m not very sweet.”

“You made me pie, remember?”

I sniffle, letting the last tremor in my breath escape before taking a huge gulp. “I make pie for everybody.”

“Well then, that’s about to change. No one else gets pie. Only me and Ryder. I’m special. Admit it.”

“Your head is made from granite. You and Ryder are a lot alike.” I snake my hands along the sides of his waist and around to his back. Heat radiates from his skin. “My mama says Ryder’s the most stubborn individual she’s ever known. He’d stare down a rock in his path and hope it moves.”

Aiden squares his hips to my body and places his feet on each side of mine in a human shelter. “It’s called being determined. It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” I whisper and press my cheek against his shirt and enjoy his strength and the way my head fits perfectly underneath his chin.

He traces the ridges of my shoulder bones, my spine, and my ribs like he’s reading the braille of me. “Let’s relax for a minute. I think…and it’s speculation on my part, that we’re both afraid. Not just you.”

“Tell me, Aiden Alesini. What scares a guy like you?”

“Failure. Losing. The feeling I had a minute ago when I you were pushing me away. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’m not a quitter. I knew from the very first time I watched you singing on the Dastardly’s stage, that you were going to be worth whatever it takes. Great things happen with great effort. You and I are destined for something great.”

“You realize you sound like an inspirational T-shirt.” There’s not a bit of mockery in my tone. It’s more awe that this guy believes he can overcome anything.

“Let’s take this like you’re starting a new fitness program. We’ll map out steady increments of building up your tolerance. Tear down muscle to build it up stronger,” he says in an even tone fitting a medical diagnosis.

“I don’t follow.”

“With my clients, no one begins by doing an hour of hardcore weight lifting followed by an hour run.”

“Unless you’re trying to kill them. Or maybe that’s only my personal limits.”

“You’re right. I teach my clients their limits. I think you and I need to build trust in increments, one rep, one pound, one feeling or secret or confession at a time.” He leads me to back to the sofa and pushes me gently to sit. He folds into the space beside me. “We jumped into this relationship fast.” He looks embarrassed for a second, an almost imperceptible aversion of the eyes. “I dove all in. It’s how I do things.”

“You don’t think I’m into you? I haven’t dated since Jared. And we didn’t really date. That was more like a business arrangement that ended up in the bedroom.”

He looks at the ceiling. “I’m trying not to hate that guy. He still wants you.”

A scoffing sound escapes me. “Jared doesn’t.”

“He wants me to train him so he can get to know me. He acts like it’s all about Ryder. I’m thinking maybe I should be the bigger man and do it for Ryder, so the two men in his life will get along.”

I squint at him as if the narrowing of my eyes will help my hearing, because there is no way he said what I heard. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am. I doubt we’ll ever hang around together on a Saturday night, but maybe it would be good for our future if he and I get along. It’s tough to do a lot of machismo and marking territory while on a weight bench.”

“I think it’s a bad idea.” I reach over and rest my hand on his thigh. “It’s sweet of you to make the effort, but I really don’t expect you to do that.”

He grabs my hand and threads our fingers together. “It’s not about you. It’s about me and Ryder. I’d like to do it for him.”

“Mommy?”

Ryder’s sleepy voice startles me since I didn’t even hear him enter the room. He stands in the doorway with his pants missing and wearing only one sock, a plastic dinosaur clutched in his hand.

“What happened to your movie?” I rise from the sofa and turn to Aiden. “I guess I need to get him bathed and ready for bed. You can wait, or if you want to head out I understand.”

This is my life focus—motherhood. I could honestly put Ryder to bed without a bath and do it in the morning. But if Aiden wants to go forward, he needs to get this. Live this.

Parenting responsibilities don’t register until you cope with a cranky kid, clean up vomit, or celebrate a full night of sleep.

“Can I do something to help?” he asks. He puts his hands on his hips in a not-going-anywhere stance.

“Oh…OK.” I hesitate as I try to imagine having him help me. “I guess you can…” I trail off again.

What am I going to tell him? Pass me the washcloth? It’s not actually a two-person job.

He strolls across the room to squat so he’s eye level with Ryder. Ryder hands him the orange and brown dinosaur. “Thanks, big man.”

Aiden tilts his face up to me. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Consider me in training.”

Training. He has no idea that you simply jump into this.

“Go pick two bath toys,” I say to Ryder. “Only two,” I repeat.

“No bath.” Ryder runs back to his bedroom.

“Aiden’s going to help!” I yell after him.

“Aid-en,” Ryder yells like a samurai warrior charging into battle and disappears into his room.

“He loves bath time,” I say to discredit Ryder’s action. “Once he’s in the tub, you can hardly get him out. The problem is the getting him in there.”

Aiden stands and grins as he looks down the hall. “I’m trying to remember bath time as a kid. I don’t really remember toys being part of it.”

“This will be fun then,” I say with a bit of sarcasm. “He will fight going in and fight coming out. Cold water and pruned skin, here we come.”

“Good times. I’m ready.” Aiden stands straighter, adopts a serious expression, and claps his hands together like a guy ready to climb a mountain. He follows me into the small bathroom which grows exponentially smaller with two adults taking up space.

Ryder does a racecar turn into the bathroom, his arms around a pile of toys. He’s left a trail of extras on the floor behind him in the hallway.

“Ryder,” I scold. I glance up to see Aiden’s wide-eyed expression. “Two. We’ve talked about this.”

“Mommy.” Ryder drops the pile and picks up a car in one hand and a troll figurine in the other. “Two.”

“Yeah? Well what about the rest of these?” I turn a half-circle and start the bath water.

“Aiden need toys,” he replies.

I laugh under my breath and turn back to him. “Aiden’s not taking a bath. You are.”

Ryder’s lips split into a grin. “Aiden play with me.”

“Come here,” I say to Ryder. “So this is how it works.” I tug Ryder’s shirt over his head. “A three-year-old basically thinks soap and shampoo are unnecessary during a bath.”

“And toys obviously are very necessary.” Aiden looks at the floor.

I remove Ryder’s one sock, lamenting all the lost socks in our house. “Extremely.”

Turning, I dunk a hand in the water to test the temp. “We make sure the water isn’t too hot and—”

Aiden folds his arms defensively. One eyebrow rises. “Like I would for myself, if I were the bath-taking type.”

“Oh. I don’t think you’re an idiot or anything.”

“Ready, Aid-en,” Ryder says and lifts a leg like he’s going to leap into the tub.

Aiden scoots in close to me and picks Ryder up underneath his arms. “Water temp good?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” I answer.

Aiden sets him carefully into the tub. “There you go”

I step back so we’re not shoulder to shoulder. I’ve never wished for bigger spaces. But there’s not enough room for two people beside the tub, and Ryder’s gleeful face is enough to tell me who he wants closest to him.

Leaning against the vanity, I give myself permission to relax. Aiden points to the shampoo bottles. “Two shampoos. I guess one is his?”

“The yellow one.”

“Grrr…” Ryder says and shakes the troll doll at Aiden.

“Let’s get you clean first, big man.”

“No,” Ryder answers.

“Oh yeah. I believe we clean first and play later in the tub or the shower.” He winks at me.

He’s got this.

* * *

Makenna, age 10

Bile burns in my throat. “I’m going to be sick, Daddy. Undo this,” I say, jerking my arm. The strike of unyielding metal against my small bones hurts more than when I slipped from the parallel bars in gym last year.

Tears slip down my cheeks.

Daddy grabs my opposite wrist and bends so his face is close to mine. “Quit acting like I’m hurting you. This is only so we can stay together.”

I look into his eyes. His pupils are so dark, so big, so scary. “Daddy,” I choke out. “I want this off.”

“No.” He stands to his full height, so tall I have to lift my face to look at him. “Be a big girl. Daddy’s girl. We have things to do before Dee gets home.”

“I don’t understand.” My voice is small, oh so small. I have to pee and I can’t breathe and my legs are shaky.

“The surprise.”

I glance at the wooden box that lies unopened on the dresser. “I changed my mind. I don’t want a surprise. Please, Daddy. Please.”

I tug at the handcuff, and he grabs my forearm above the metal cuff. The chain clinks against my side of the cuff. The cuff slides to my elbow.

He releases my free hand and opens the lid of the box. I’m afraid to look, but there’s no way I can avoid it.

A black gun. Hot fear stabs me in the heart.

“I’m tired. Macky Mak,” he says with what sounds like his last bit of energy. “Don’t you know how bad this makes me feel? But it has to be done. This world is a bad place with bad people. Dee…she’s one of them. She has you fooled, but I’m older. Smarter.”

I cry harder and my breaths come in gasps. I can’t help it. “Daddy, you’re scaring me.”

“You stop those tears right now. You’re Daddy’s big girl. You’re too old to cry. What are you even crying about?”

“I’m scared,” I blubber through my tears. “Are you…are you…” I try to finish and give up.

“I’m going to a better place today and I can’t leave you behind. No one would be here to protect you.”

He’s going to kill me. My daddy hates me. What did I do? Why doesn’t he love me? I said I wouldn’t tell on him. I promised.

But maybe I did wrong. Maybe I should’ve told Mama from the beginning. This is all my fault.

He puts his free arm around me and holds me as I sob. “Oh darling. Stop now. It’s not going to hurt.”

“It will. I’m not stupid. I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to die either. Please, Daddy. Please. Please.” My pleading sobs become muffled in the front of his T-shirt.

“Oh God, what have you done?” Mama’s voice breaks through my sobs.

I lift my head. Daddy doesn’t move.

Like a fierce savior angel, Mama stands in the doorway, her eyes wide. “No,” she says. Her calmness soothes me. She’ll make everything OK.

Daddy picks up the gun in a flash, like some cartoon cowboy ready to draw his pistol. “She’s mine. My daughter. You think I don’t realize you’ll brainwash her against me?”

Mama nods in agreement. “Jon. Of course she’s yours. Put the gun down. Let me make you some dinner. We’ll all sit down and—”

She takes a small step.

Daddy waves the gun at her, lookie-here style, a sort of attention grabber. “Dinner. Go make dinner. Makenna and I’ll wait here.”

Mama forms her lips into a friendly smile. “Come with me. We can do it together. Put the gun away and—”

“Why did you stop loving me?” Daddy asks. His voice is broken, not as sure as he was before Mama got here.

My tears start again. Through hiccups, I say, “Mama loves you. She does. I promise.”

Daddy sits on the floor, dragging me with him. “I’m tired,” he whispers. “So tired of the fight. Of trying to keep us all safe. Of trying to be a man for my family.”

“Jon,” Mama says. “Can I come in?” She gets on her hands and knees so she’s level with us.

The handcuff loosens and slides to my wrist and off, but Daddy doesn’t seem to notice. I inch away.

Mama’s gaze flicks to the gap between me and Daddy. Recognition passes over her face. “Jon? Can I…” She wavers, her voice breaking for the first time since she arrived. “Is it OK if I come a little closer? Let me. You never stopped being a good man. It’s hard. Life is hard.”

The room is charged in this moment with an electrical force—a buzzing quality. Daddy leans forward. “I want to trust you. But I also want to go away and rest. I just want it to be over. All of it.”

She crawls to us and nudges me aside. “Let me sit with you.”

Daddy wipes an arm over one cheek. “I’m so very tired.”

Mama sits on the side of his handcuffed wrist. She looks at me and then the door.

I’m paralyzed. Crawl away? Stay?

“Go fix Daddy a drink,” she says. “Something cool.”

I crawl a few steps, then stand on my trembling legs. “OK.”

One step. Two steps.

“Macky Mac?” Daddy asks.

My feet stop. “Yes?” I say without turning.

“Want to leave with me or stay with Mama?”

I swallow. My head shakes, my lips shake, my voice shakes. “I love you, Daddy. But I want to stay with Mama.”

Taking slow steps, I turn the corner. Another step. And another. Then comes the earth-shattering Boooooom.

I fall to my knees.