Chapter Three

LARA

As soon as Ethan and Riley leave, Dad corners me, right outside of the lawyer’s office building.

“Lara, you can’t be okay with this,” he says.

“What do you mean?” I’m still trying to work my mind around the fact that Alexis wants me to somehow co-parent with the man who I hate most in the world.

“You can’t be okay with sharing custody of Riley with Ethan,” Dad says.

“That’s what Alexis wanted,” I point out.

“But he killed her,” Dad says.

“He didn’t kill her. They were in a car accident. It could have just as easily been Ethan who died, or Riley, or all of them,” I counter.

“He was driving,” Dad insists.

“It’s beyond the point now,” I tell him.

“It’s entirely the point,” Dad says.

I shake my head. “It’s not the point, the point is that Alexis wanted both of us to raise Riley,” I say.

“But he shouldn’t be involved, not after he caused the accident that killed her. You should take the matter up with the courts,” Dad says.

I shake my head. “Dad, this isn’t something I’m going to go to court over.”

“Why not? You love Riley, and in spite of the way that you cut her out of your life, I know you loved Alexis. You should be taking care of your niece. You should be raising her.”

“First of all, I don’t even know how I’m going to manage joint custody with Ethan. Second of all, that isn’t what Alexis wants. She put it in her will that Ethan and I will share the responsibility of raising Riley,” I say. My heart’s still pounding in my chest from the news that Alexis wanted me to act as her daughter’s mother, even if Ethan goes on to marry someone else.

I have a permanent place in my niece’s life, according to my sister’s will.

“It’s not fair,” Dad says.

I sigh. “It’s not about whether or not it’s fair,” I point out.

“He broke your heart, and then broke our family apart, and then…” Dad shakes his head.

I know he’s hurting, it hasn’t even been a full year since Mom died, and now he’s lost Alexis too.

“Let me and Ethan at least try to work this out first,” I tell him.

“You don’t want to have anything to do with him. You didn’t even want to have anything to do with your sister after…” Dad counters.

I want to just leave him right where he stands, but I care about my father. I know he’s in pain. Even though I’ve kept Alexis out of my life for a couple of years already, even I’m in pain. I’ve spent more time than I would have thought possible over the past week trying to decide whether I was being an idiot all along, whether I’d been partly to blame for Alexis not being in my life anymore. If I was the one being a stubborn fool or if I was in the right to cut her out when she started dating Ethan.

“Dad, you said you wanted us both to stay at the house for the next few days, until we need to head back home,” I say.

“I want Riley staying with us,” Dad says. “I want the family together.”

“I know,” I say.

I sigh and all I can think of is the fact that it’s going to be an endless few days with Ethan and me under the same roof. Why did I agree to that?

“But just think about what I said,” Dad tells me.

“I’m not even going to consider it,” I say. If the courts are going to side with anyone, it will be Ethan. He’s Riley’s father, he’s not abusive or neglectful, he’s a recent widower. There’s no reason for a court to decide to give Riley to me, even if I wanted full custody of her, which I don’t think would be the best idea.

I get my keys out of my purse and get into my car before Dad can come up with something else to say to me about why I should have full custody of Riley.

It’s more than I can take, right after finding out that my estranged sister wanted me to be a mother to her daughter. I can barely even make it real to me that my sister is dead, much less that I’m going to be Riley’s new mother. I’m going to have to deal with Ethan for the rest of my life.

By the time I arrive at the hotel I’ve been staying at, I’m already having second thoughts about checking out early and spending time under the same roof as my ex-boyfriend. “This is a nightmare,” I mutter to myself, even as I’m re-packing my suitcase and getting everything together to check out.

The front desk knows that I’m in town for only a short period of time, so nobody makes much of a fuss about me checking out early. In less than twenty minutes from the time that I left the lawyer’s office, I’m heading back out to my car with my suitcase.

I’ve been avoiding being alone with Ethan for years now, ever since I came back from getting my degree to discover that he was with my sister. There was a part of me that said that I was being unrealistic, that I was overreacting. After all, Ethan and I had broken up in my senior year of high school, when I’d confronted him about having no direction in life.

I sigh as I head in the direction of the place that I least want to be in the entire world. Ethan will probably already be there with Riley, and I’ll have to talk to him, deal with him every day, for hours, until I have to go back to my apartment in the city, and back to my normal life. In spite of how much I’ve resented him, right along with Alexis, I can’t deny that he’s a good and loving father. The only conversations he and I had face to face in the last couple of months were about Riley.

There’s nothing that I need to be thinking about at the moment except for how we’re going to manage to both raise Riley when we have to remain separated. I push any thought about what we’d been like before things went so badly between us out of my mind and focus on the fact that I’ll have several days with my niece. That, at least, will be one good thing to come out of this horrible trash heap of a week.