Chapter Nineteen
It was surprisingly easy to pack up a life, at least one as limited as Cassidy’s. Emily had come to the diner after school on Monday and given Cassidy a big hug and apologized for being selfish. Her eyes were a little red, but she was already moving on, asking Cassidy a million questions about the horses and Roddy and the future. She wanted to know what kind of a place Cassidy was going to live in when she got to Texas, and whether it would be better to ask the cats to adapt to a city lifestyle or a slightly nomadic one until Cassidy settled down. “I guess we don’t have to decide right now,” Emily said breezily. “Will says he’s happy to have them in the city, so maybe I’ll keep them, and then if you want them, I can bring them out with me when I come for my first visit? Which is going to be really soon, right? Like, as soon as you get settled in!”
So that was taken care of.
The landlord at the diner had a nephew who was interested in taking over the business, and Cassidy ended up walking away from the place that had kept her working for more than a decade with a couple thousand dollars for the equipment and existing stock and no strings or commitments. It felt strange to cut free of the anchor, strange but mostly good. Frightening to think she wouldn’t have the place to keep her busy, though. She was going to need as many distractions as she could find if she wanted to keep her mind off losing Emily. Losing Will. Losing everything.
Emily decided that she’d like to take the bus with her friends for her last week at a Lyonstown school, so she and Cassidy moved back to the little house that had sheltered them for so many years. “It feels so small!” Emily exclaimed as she entered the front door, and Cassidy knew she’d done the right thing by pushing Emily out of the nest. This house was small, and shabby, and it hadn’t taken Emily long to get used to something better. Watching the girl leave their house behind was bittersweet; Cassidy was relieved she wouldn’t have to be there to see it when the girl did the same to her aunt.
Trevor appeared at the house on Wednesday morning, the first Wednesday Cassidy had spent at home since before Penny got sick. Emily was already at school. “I looked for you at the diner,” he said, standing on the porch as Cassidy stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to let him in. “But things have obviously happened quickly there. It must feel good to be free of the place?”
She wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Will asked me to go over some paperwork, some arrangements for the future.”
“Will asked you to?” His lawyer. What the hell? Had she not already given the man everything? Why did he need a lawyer to take even more?
“He’s gone back to the city, and he felt it would be wise to make things as clear as possible, in terms of custody and financial settlements. So he asked me to come up and take care of it all.”
She tried not to calculate how much that would cost, at a thousand dollars an hour. “What is there to take care of?”
“An informal custody agreement is acceptable to my client,” Trevor said. “He doesn’t feel the need for court orders or formal declarations. But I’ve recommended that we get something on paper, just so everyone has the same understandings.”
It’s better this way, Cassidy told herself as she let him into the living room and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Better to deal with a lawyer than Will. It had been stupid, the way she’d been dreaming about him. Every time the door of the diner opened, she’d not only hoped but actually sort of expected it to be him. Her imagination didn’t get too far in terms of the details; it didn’t tell her why he’d come to find her after she’d pushed him away, didn’t explain how they could possibly hope to make things work. No, in her dreams, it was just the two of them, no outside circumstances or limitations at all. In her dreams, he said he loved her, and she was able to say it back.
But there were no lawyers in her dreams. She grabbed the coffee-filled mugs with one hand, the milk and sugar with the other, and headed back to the living room, where Trevor had a tidy stack of papers on the coffee table.
Some of the forms were pretty simple—a general sort of cover letter acknowledging Will’s paternity and shared custody, permission forms for him to get her medical records, school reports, and all the rest of the bureaucratic stuff. Trevor walked her through it all patiently, calmly, and she was almost able to forget how much this visit was costing Will. Then she got to the last bundle of papers, and stopped worrying about Trevor’s fees.
“This part makes sense,” she said. “We both agree that Emily will live with whichever of us she chooses, as long as the choice isn’t dangerous and doesn’t interfere with her schoolwork. We agree that we can consult with each other, and if we both agree, we can overrule Emily’s decisions.” She squinted at the page in front of her. “But does this really say I’d get twenty thousand dollars for every month or part month that Em lives with me? I mean, if Em comes down for a visit, would that count as her living with me? Will wants to give me twenty grand for that?”
“Standard child support,” Trevor said calmly. “The idea is to remove finances from the equation, so things are as equal as possible between your home and my client’s home. If Emily gets used to a certain way of life with my client, she should be able to expect a similar way of life with you.”
“And her way of life with Will is going to cost twenty thousand dollars a month?”
“We worked in an allowance for accommodations and other associated costs. In New York, Emily will be living in a luxury condo; she should be able to expect similar accommodations when she travels to visit you.”
“No.” Cassidy fought to control her reaction. “There’s no way I’m agreeing to this! He can…he can pay for her airfare. Maybe he can get her a credit card or something, so she can buy stuff if she wants to go shopping. But there’s no way he’s paying me money, not for looking after my own family. No damn way.”
Trevor was silent for a few moments, looking down at the paper in his hands. When he looked back up at her, his expensive glasses couldn’t hide the glint of humor in his eyes. “I’m not used to negotiating in this direction. Trying to convince people to take more money, rather than less? I don’t feel equipped.”
“Good. You should stop trying, then. Will’s—generous, I guess. Crazy’s maybe a better word. But you’re supposed to be looking after his interests, right? You’re supposed to be making sure he doesn’t get taken advantage of?”
Trevor was quiet again, then took his glasses right off and looked her in the eye. “You really care about him.” There was no question, and no real response that was any of this guy’s business, so Cassidy just sat and waited. “I’ve told you before; I understand some of what you’re feeling. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by it all. Coming from modest beginnings and then getting dropped into their ridiculous lives, it’s—intense. I understand that. But are you confident you need to protect yourself quite as much as you are?”
“Protect myself? I thought we were talking about protecting Will, keeping him from throwing his money away.”
“Protecting yourself,” Trevor repeated. “From having to compromise, from being open to ridicule, or failure. It seems like you’re so scared about being vulnerable you’re turning down a lot of opportunities. A chance to stay with Emily and watch her blossom, a chance to be with Will, to—”
“No.” She stood up quickly, knocking some papers off the coffee table onto the floor. “You don’t know me. You don’t get to come in here and call me a coward, when you have no idea what I’m thinking or why I’m doing what I’m doing!”
“You love your niece,” he said, still sitting down, still calm. “You want to be with her. And I’ve seen you with Will, Cassidy, so don’t tell me you don’t care about him, too. You want to be with him. You’ve got two great reasons to go to the city, and you had to hunt to find a mediocre reason not to go. You’re hanging onto it with both arms because you’re afraid. You’d rather be a martyr than take a chance on love.”
“There’s nothing mediocre about working for one of the best trainers in the world. This is a huge chance, a chance to follow my dream. And Emily and Will are better off without me! It doesn’t matter if I love them. It matters if I’m good for them. Can I give them what they need?” She looked down at her sagging T-shirt, her chapped hands, her bargain-brand jeans. “I guess I could change all of this. It’s nothing I care about for myself, but I guess I could make myself look fancy, if I spent a lot of time on it. But I still wouldn’t be able to act like those people do. I’m not—not like them! You know that, so don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying.”
He nodded slowly. “There’s a kind of confidence they have,” he agreed. “A natural sense of belonging. It’s not quite arrogance, maybe, but it’s damn close.”
“Yes,” she almost sobbed. “Like that, but more.”
“I know. It’s hard to define, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The thing is, Cassidy—those people are my best friends. I love them, and I trust them, and they love and trust me back. I may not be a natural, but that doesn’t mean I’m not part of them.”
“And how long did it take for you to learn all that?” she asked. “You were a kid when you met them—Emily’s age, or even younger? You’ve been working with them and living with them for all this time, and you still don’t really have it down.” She shook her head. “Okay, maybe I could learn, but not fast enough. Emily’s going to her new school in two months, and just because you got lucky and found some friends who aren’t snobs doesn’t mean she won’t run into trouble if she’s got me hanging around, acting like a hick. And Will?”
She shook her head. Will was the real problem. “He can’t love me. Not me, not when he has all those glamorous, smart women to choose from. Up here, where it’s just the two of us? Sure, I’m fine. But how long would it be, in the city, before he started realizing what a mess I am? Before he got sick of having to explain everything to me, before I turned into a burden? No way. I’d rather make a clean break than let it drag on like that.”
“You’re not giving him enough credit.”
“Oh, I’m giving him a lot of credit. I know he’d be kind and responsible. He’d stay with me because he should, not because he wanted to, and he’d make sure Emily didn’t get caught in the middle and the whole thing would be—” It was suddenly vital that this man understand. “It would destroy me. Don’t you see that? Being a burden, a regret? I take care of people; that’s who I am. Having to be taken care of, by someone who wishes he’d never met me? Someone I’d still be in love with? God, Trevor. How could I stand it?”
His gaze was level, and eventually, he nodded. “I think you’re wrong about how things would turn out. I think you’d be able to adapt, and I think neither Emily nor Will would give a shit if you couldn’t. But I can see why it’s frightening. I can see how horrible it would be if it didn’t work out. And if you don’t think that’s a chance you can take, I guess I can understand it.”
He slid off the couch and collected the papers she’d spilled onto the floor. He looked up at her while he was down there and said, “You don’t think Emily’s going to come visit you very often, do you? After she makes friends in the city and gets caught up in their glamorous lives, you think she won’t want to go visit her poor old doddering hick of an aunt. Right?”
“I’m not even thirty yet!” Emily responded. “I wouldn’t say I’m doddering.”
He grinned, quick and boyish. “I thought that might get you. But, okay, you don’t think Em’s going to want to go visit her poor young flailing hick of an aunt. Is that better?”
“Maybe you could try it without the insults.”
“Right. Only you get to say mean things about you. I see.”
“Was there a point you were working toward?”
He nodded and held out the last page to her. “I think you should sign this. It’s twenty thousand a month if she comes to visit, but as you don’t think she’ll be visiting, it won’t be much money total. Just enough to give you a cushion. You’ll be able to fly back east to visit her when you want, and you can use it to send her gifts or whatever. The money isn’t for you. It’s not a reward, or a bribe, or even compensation for your time. It’s just a way to help you and Emily have the best relationship possible. And that’s kind of hard to argue with, isn’t it?”
She could probably have come up with some objections if she’d really tried, but she was too tired to bother. So she signed where Trevor pointed, then stood awkwardly as he gathered everything up. She wanted him gone, wanted some space so she could cry without anyone seeing her.
They walked to the door together, and when he was outside, he held the door open and turned back to her. “Will said you wouldn’t sign that last one,” he said. “I reminded him how good I am at my job, and he said it wasn’t about being good at anything. He said the whole situation was impossible.” Trevor’s smile was a little bit smug but mostly kind. “I’m glad I was able to prove that nothing’s impossible. Not here, not yet.” He extended his hand, another copy of his business card between his fingers. “I know you already have this, somewhere, but it may have been lost in the move. Keep this one handy, Cassidy. And give me a call if you ever want to talk. I won’t even bill for it, I promise.”
She stood there and watched as he climbed into his car and drove off down the dusty driveway. Will had good friends. Kind friends. And they’d be on Emily’s side and help her when she needed them to. Emily was going to be okay, and so was Will.
So when the tears started falling, Cassidy wasn’t confused about the reason. Will and Emily were going to be fine; she wasn’t crying for them. She was crying for herself, and she wasn’t sure how long it was going to be before she was able to stop.
…
Will wished there were more complications in the Achterberg deal. He almost created a few, his restless impatience ruffling feathers and annoying Klaus Achterberg, the octogenarian tycoon who was accustomed to being treated with a little more respect. But Trevor was there, along with the rest of the team Will had assembled over the years, and they got everything back on track.
Everything was annoyingly simple with making arrangements for Emily as well. He’d drive up on the first Monday of her summer vacation, after she’d had a weekend to say good-bye to her friends, and her aunt, and he’d drive her down to the city. He’d already arranged to have her few belongings shipped, and he managed to distract himself for at least an hour buying every cat tree, scratching post, and toy in Manhattan’s toniest pet shop. The cats might have a bit of trouble getting used to city living, but he’d do what he could to keep them from getting bored.
And that was that. His friends contacted him with more invitations to various social events than he’d ever received before. He knew they were trying to distract him and cheer him up. He wanted to wallow, wanted to lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Cassidy, poking at the emotional bruises, but he had a daughter about to arrive in the city, and he wouldn’t let himself be an emo mess while welcoming her to her new home. So he went out, tried to pay attention to conversations, tried to laugh, even. And when he’d exhausted his willpower, he snuck back home and moped for a while. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he was doing his best.
“Cassidy’s having a hard time, too,” Trevor told him on Sunday night as they sipped scotch. It was Will’s last night without a teenager living with him, and maybe he should have been out tearing up the town, but he didn’t have the energy for it. Of course, that didn’t mean he wanted to sit around being taunted with tales of his ex-who-had-never-even-formally-been.
“It’s her choice,” Will grunted, and sloshed a little more scotch into both of their glasses. “If it’s so damn hard for her, she can just change her mind.”
“It’s frustrating to have things out of your control, isn’t it?” Trevor’s voice was casual, as always. And his gaze was as sharp as ever. “Relying on someone else for your happiness. Feeling like you have no power over your own life. That’s a hard way to live, isn’t it?”
“Shut up,” Will said. Then he added, “You know, when people say you’re a counsellor, that’s just another way of saying you’re a lawyer. It doesn’t mean you’re a relationship counsellor.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” Trevor said mildly. And that was all.
The bruise-pushing instinct made Will want to prod Trevor for more insight, but his pride wouldn’t let him. They finished their drinks, discussing the finalization of the Achterberg deal, the new restaurant Trevor had been to the night before, and some mildly gossipy tales of mutual friends. Will didn’t care about any of it, and he knew Trevor didn’t, either. But they played the game.
The next morning, Will woke up early and started the drive for Lyonstown. He arrived at the little house to see what must be most of the Junior School’s graduating class milling about on the lawn, with quite a few parents along for the ride. There were two grills set up, hamburgers and hotdogs being distributed, and a generally festive atmosphere.
Cassidy was throwing a going-away party for Emily. Of course she was. Emily deserved to be celebrated, deserved to leave Lyonstown with a whole bundle of good memories. And, a not-entirely-pleasant inner voice told him, Cassidy would be happy to have lots of people around to keep him in line.
He parked next to a van advertising heating, cooling, and plumbing services, and Emily was outside his window before he had the engine turned off. “You made good time,” she said as she hugged him. “We thought you wouldn’t be here until later.”
He looked over to the house and saw the other half of the “we” standing on the porch, watching as he greeted Emily. But Cassidy had made her feelings clear, so he tried to ignore her presence.
“I smelled the grilling and floored it. Nice to see you’re having a good send off.”
“Aunt Cassidy said we should stay outside because she has the house all cleaned and doesn’t want to stick around to clean it again before she goes. But, yeah, it’s good to see everybody.”
“Cassidy’s leaving soon?”
“After the party. She’s all packed up.” Emily gestured toward the pickup, horse trailer already attached, various bags and boxes in the back of the cab. “She says she can take your goat with her, if you want, but she might charge you board for it.”
He laughed in spite of himself. “Did she say how much it would cost to board a goat?”
“She didn’t.” Emily looked at him thoughtfully. “Do you want to go ask her?”
Of course he did. Well, he wanted to go to her, and ask her things, but not necessarily about goats. He wanted to talk to her about anything, or maybe not talk at all. He was pretty sure he could be happy for a decade or two just watching her. But there was no point to it; nothing had changed since the last time they’d spoken. “She can send me a bill,” he said lightly. “I’m good for it.”
He mingled with the crowd a little, always far too aware of Cassidy doing the same thing, both of them overly careful to stay away from each other. They’d have to get over that at some point, he supposed; he wanted to co-parent effectively, and that probably meant face-to-face communication rather than dragging Trevor into the middle of everything. So, someday. Maybe eventually he’d be able to see her without feeling as if all his skin had been scraped off his body, and when that day came, he’d be ready to make small talk with her. Until then, though, he was happy she seemed to share his interest in staying apart.
Well, maybe happy wasn’t quite the right word, but it would do. It was enough to get him through the rest of the barbeque, out on the road with his daughter safely beside him, and most of the way out of town. That was when he glanced over at her and saw the tears streaming silently down her face. “Shit, Em,” he said, and he reached his hand out for hers as he guided the car to the shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said. He leaned toward her, she burrowed into his arms, and he tried to comfort her. And he was pretty sure she tried to comfort him, too.
Neither of them was completely successful, but at least they were honest. “I’m really glad I found you,” Emily sobbed, “and I’m really excited about living in the city and the new school. I am!”
“Shh,” he said. “I know. I’m really happy I know about you, and it’s great you’re coming to live with me so we can get to know each other better.”
She nodded, and sobbed, “I’m very happy,” into his shoulder, and he laughed, and hugged her, and told her that he was very happy, too, in almost exactly the same way she was.
They eventually pulled themselves together enough for Will to ease back into his own seat and get them back out on the road, and by the time they hit the city, Emily, at least, was bouncy and excited again.
A few days of intense tourism activity was a good distraction from other worries, and Will made sure he didn’t take any of his frustration out on Emily. A few times in the evenings he heard a too-familiar voice coming from Emily’s new iPad as she Skyped with her aunt, and it was enough to send a dagger of regret into him, but that was to be expected.
Everything was fine. He was keeping it together, focusing on being a father, making the transition work. Emily filled a hole in his life, a hole he hadn’t known was there, and that gain was enough to keep him from obsessing too much about the other gaping, jagged void her aunt had left behind. At least he thought it was enough.
But one evening a couple weeks after Emily had arrived, she found him in his study, looking over the final documents in the Achterberg deal, and she said, “Do you have time to talk?”
“Of course,” he said, and laid the papers down. “What’s up?”
She was suddenly bashful, picking at her bright green nail polish and letting her hair fall down to cover her face.
“You okay?” he prompted.
She nodded, then finally looked at him. “Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”
He took a moment to think before he said, “You were talking to Trevor today, after he dropped the contracts off. Did he say something?”
She shrugged. “Not much. I tried to get him to tell me more, but he’s pretty good at changing the topic.”
Pretty good? Trevor was a master of conversational manipulation. If he’d given any clues at all to a thirteen-year-old, it was because he’d wanted to. “You tried to get him to tell you more about what?”
“About you,” she confessed. “About whether you’re, you know. Whether you’re happy. I mean, you had a pretty sweet life before, right? With your friends, and your freedom. I saw the pictures on the wall—you used to travel a lot. But you can’t really do that anymore. Not with a kid to look after. And you’ve seemed, I don’t know, you’ve seemed a bit gloomy lately. So I thought I should say—I can live at the school in the fall, if you want. And I could see you on weekends, if that worked for you, or maybe we should sort of flip things around. There are probably good schools in Dallas. Aunt Cassidy’s living—”
“No.” He said it so loudly she jumped a little. But the thought of losing her, after already losing Cassidy? It was impossible. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been completely on my game lately, but I promise, it has nothing to do with you. I’m really, really happy you’re here, and I don’t want you to go anywhere. Honestly.”
“That’s what Trevor said. Then I asked him why you were in a bad mood, if it wasn’t because of me.”
“And what did he say?” Will braced himself for the answer.
“He said I should talk to you about it.”
That wasn’t so bad. Maybe Trevor wasn’t completely manipulative after all.
But then Emily added, “He said I should remind you that people without power have to be creative and think outside the box in order to get what they want. What did he mean by that?”
Ah. Classic Trevor. “I guess he meant—” He meant planting questions in Will’s daughter’s mind so Will would be forced to actually answer them. But what else did he mean? Why did he want the question answered? And what had Emily said just a little earlier that was still tickling at his brain, making him want to think in a new way? “I’m not sure,” he said out loud. “But—” Cassidy wanted to keep things quiet, but Cassidy was no longer there. “I think I’m being grumpy because I really, really miss your aunt. I know you miss her, too, but you guys are still in touch, and she and I aren’t, and she doesn’t really want to be, so…” He shrugged. “So it’s got nothing to do with you, I promise. You’re the best thing in my life right now.”
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “So you don’t have power because you can’t make Aunt Cassidy do what you want? That’s what Trevor was talking about? You couldn’t make her come live in New York?”
“That’s right.”
“So we need to be creative and think outside the box,” she said, sinking down onto the sofa nearest his desk. “If you don’t have the power to change her mind…you have to change something else!”
“Any suggestions?” he asked, and he found himself really waiting for her answer.
“Not right now,” she said. “But—can we talk about it? Like, brainstorm or whatever? Can I—” She looked shy again. “Can I help?”
His daughter. His blood, his past and his future. He had to swallow hard before he said, “Yeah. I’d like that.”
She beamed at him, then stood up. “I need paper and a pencil. I think best when I write things down.”
“I can supply those important tools,” he said, and rummaged in his desk drawer.
“I have a good feeling about this,” she told him. And for the first time in too long, he had a good feeling, too.