Chapter Twelve
Bree walked out of the meeting and outside, heading across campus. She didn’t dare go to her office, or her apartment, and she was too distracted to drive. But she couldn’t stay in the meeting.
She hurried across the quad until she reached the library. Once there, she walked straight through to the inner courtyard—one of her favorite spots on campus. Sheltered from the wind, hidden from view, and usually unoccupied, it had always felt like her own personal refuge.
Today was no different. She stepped into the concentrated sunshine and made her way down the pebbled path to her preferred bench beneath a willow that had just enough leaf growth to give it a fuzzy green sheen. She dropped her bag onto the slats and sat down. Gingerly, as if to keep from hurting something.
Then she slumped, covered her face with her hands, and drew a long, shuddering breath.
She wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. She wasn’t supposed to feel as if someone had taken her favorite teddy bear and gutted it, but that was exactly what she was feeling.
She wanted Rob gone. Yes. But not like this. Not with a public robbery.
She stared up into the green and blue above her. No. That wasn’t what hurt the most.
She didn’t want it to be because of Spence.
“Damn it!”
It shouldn’t hurt this much. It shouldn’t feel so wrong. It shouldn’t make her feel that she was being ripped in half, as if she was being pushed into making a choice. None of this made sense.
But it did hurt. And that was why her hands were shaking and her breath was tight in her chest and her throat felt clogged and stuffed full of all the feelings she didn’t want to be having.
Because if she was hurting, it meant that she cared. About Spence? Yes. But that was no surprise.
It was Rob. She cared about Rob.
“Son of a lying, stealing motherfucker,” she whispered. “How the hell could I still care?”
But the raw, scraped-up edges of ache inside her made it very clear. She did.
Her phone pinged. She checked the display, though she knew who it would be, knew what he was going to say. And what was she supposed to tell him? Sure, Spence, I have no problem taking the step that will make it clear to my father that he has no place in this town. Don’t worry, Spence. It’s perfectly fine with me if we give him the equivalent of a giant public Fuck You?
She swallowed a sob and opened the message.
Sorry I didn’t warn you. Things happened fast. Hope you’re okay. Talk tomorrow?
Tomorrow? He thought this could wait until—
Her anger died as fast as it had flared. Livvy. Something was up with Livvy, and from the way he had been clutching his phone like he was imagining it was a neck, she would bet the something was Carl.
She had to talk to Spence. They had to hash this out and she had to make him see that there had to be another way to make this happen, another way to build the forest that would honor his father without ripping the soul out of hers.
But not today. He had enough to cope with right now, with his own family. She couldn’t ask anything of him now.
OK, she typed, and sent it off.
Then, while the phone was still open—while she still had the nerve—she sent another message.
Could I come over tonight?
Five minutes later, her father texted back one word.
Yes.
* * *
Spence made the trip from the university to Livvy’s house in record time. His head told him that there was no need to race, that Livvy was fine now and nothing would happen until Carl got home. Didn’t matter. His head had been wrong before.
Like when it kept telling him that Bree really meant what she’d said about not wanting her father to stay in town.
He slowed as he cruised past Livvy’s house. All appeared fine from the outside. Her car sat in the driveway, which was unusual for this time of day, but other than that, there was no sign of trouble. He parked around the corner to avoid tipping Carl off to his presence, then hurried back to the house.
As he walked, he checked his phone again. Nothing from Livvy. Nothing from Bree.
He knew he should have warned her. But Fred hadn’t expected the plans to arrive so soon, and Spence hadn’t wanted to say anything until he saw them, and . . .
And the badass of Calypso Falls had been chickenshit.
He turned off the sidewalk and sprinted up the driveway. Not that it would have made any difference to Bree, he suspected. From the way she’d hightailed it out of the meeting, he doubted even she could’ve have known how hard it would hit her.
When the hell was he going to learn that women could swear one thing was true until they were blue in the face, only to turn around and do the exact opposite?
At least Livvy was finally coming to her senses.
He gave a fast knock on the door and let himself in.
“Liv?”
“In the bedroom,” came the subdued reply.
He hustled down the hall to find Livvy removing shirts from the closet and folding them neatly before nestling them in a suitcase that lay open on the bed. Her eyes were puffy and red and the trash basket overflowed with tissues, but she was moving and she was packing Carl’s things and she was doing what had to be done.
“Hey.” He moved toward her with his arms open but she shook her head and grabbed another shirt.
“Don’t. Just . . . If you hug me, I’m going to lose it. And if I start crying again I won’t be able to stop, and I really need . . .” She pinched her lips together before forcing a smile. “Later, okay?”
“Whatever you say, kiddo.” He glanced at the suitcase, wondering if it would be wrong to sprinkle something toxic between the neat folds of fabric. “What do you need me to do?”
“Right now, just talk to me. Later, just be here while I tell him . . .” She took a deep breath. “It’s one of Max’s teachers this time.”
So that was what did it. Carl had finally crossed the line and done something that directly affected the kids.
“I’m going to have to call the school and see if he can be moved to a different class, or what the procedure is,” she continued, “but I can’t yet. I don’t want word to get back to Carl.”
Spence thought of Bree’s wide eyes, her white face. “It might not be a bad idea if he did have some warning. It would make it less of a shock, maybe mean you wouldn’t have to work as hard to convince him it’s over.”
“No. Because it would just give him time to figure out how to try to talk me out of it, and I can’t . . . I’m not going to let him change my mind this time, but I still only have so much . . . you know? Surprise is the only thing I have on my side.”
“Surprise, and me.”
“Yeah. You.” She set another shirt carefully on top of the pile. “Thank you for coming so fast,” she whispered. “I told myself I would be fine, but you know, this is just so . . .” She yanked another shirt from the closet and held it to her chest. “The thing is, part of me still loves the fucker.”
“Livvy.” He stepped her way again, instinct overruling her request, but again she stepped back.
“Listen to me, okay? I need to . . . He’s going to try to talk me out of this. He’s going to be angry at first, and then he’ll apologize, and he’ll cry, and he’ll promise it will never happen again. It’s what he always does.”
Oh God. How many times had she gone through this already, that she could predict Carl’s reactions so easily?
“And then he’ll start telling me why we can’t . . . why I can’t walk away. He’s going to talk about the kids. About how they need him. And about how hard it is to manage on my own. He’s going to remind me that . . . that he’s Max’s Scout leader, that he’s the one who goes camping, that he’s the one who helped Emma’s class build their float for the homecoming parade last year. He’s going to pull out everything to remind me what a good father he is, and I’m going to listen, because it’s all true. He does all those things and he loves the kids and somewhere deep down, I think he still loves me, too. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but . . .” Her smile broke his heart. “But I guess if I can still love him, anything can be true, right?”
“Right.”
“Anyway,” she said, wiping her eyes, “here’s the big thing. He’s going to swear that it’ll be different this time, he’ll go to counseling, he’ll end it with her, he wants another chance. That we deserve another chance. And I’m going to listen to him and I’ll want to believe him. I’m gonna want it so bad.”
The ache in her voice told him that she had walked this path too many times before. At that point he knew that the hardest task of the whole night would be to hear that pain in his sister’s voice and still keep himself from beating the living hell out of Carl.
“You can’t let me back down, okay, Spence? No matter what he says. No matter what I say. You have to remind me that I knew this would happen and I have to end it this time. Tell me whatever you have to. Remind me that a good father doesn’t put his family through this over and over. Tell me that he’s used up his chances. Tell me that I predicted all of this, and I’m not backing down this time.” She managed a small smile. “That’s the real reason I asked you to come this time, you know. I’m not afraid of Carl. I’m afraid of me. That I’m not strong enough.”
“Shit, Livvy. You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Thanks. I don’t feel it, you know?”
He looked at the shirt balled up in her hands. “You want me to finish that? Let me take care of Carl’s stuff so you can pack a bag for you and the kids, just in case?”
She looked down at the shirt, gave it a little shake, smoothed it out. “No, thanks. I have to . . . I need to do it myself. But if you could find the number for a locksmith, maybe give them a call and see when they could get here . . .”
“I’m on it.”
He walked out to the kitchen so she wouldn’t have to hear. When he pulled out his phone, he saw he’d missed a message from Bree.
I hope Livvy is okay.
She will be, he typed back, then added, How about you?
The only reply he got was silence.
* * *
Bree stood on her father’s doorstep and kicked herself for coming so quickly. She should have given herself a couple of days. Got herself together. Figured out what she was going to say, or what she wanted to ask, or what she needed to know.
Instead, she was walking in with only two certainties. Despite all reason, some part of her still loved her father.
And the fact that she did left her so angry that she didn’t know what to do next.
She knew what he had done. Knew, thanks to her sisters, his reasons for doing it all. She’d heard him utter his apologies more times than she could count, and she had seen his persistence in trying to win them all back.
She knocked on the door, hard. She didn’t need any more excuses or explanations or apologies. But there was a hole inside her that she was pretty sure had something to do with Rob, and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try to figure out what had caused it.
Fuck it to hell. She might have to start believing some Freud after all.
Rob called to her to come in, so she opened the door and did so, slowly, hesitantly. She certainly hadn’t expected to find her father pouring eggs into a sizzling skillet.
“Hello.” He glanced her way so casually that anyone would think she popped in every day. “You have dinner yet? I’m making eggs and toast. Nothing fancy, but if you want some, I can—”
“Cheesy eggs?”
She didn’t know what made her say it. Lots of people put cheese in scrambled eggs. She knew that.
But from the way Rob paused as he grabbed a fistful of shredded cheddar, the hint of a smile he allowed to cross his face, she knew that this was significant.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Cheesy eggs. With peepers.”
Peepers?
Like that, she was back in New Jersey, in the kitchen of the old house, just her and Daddy. He was chopping something to throw into the eggs. Peepers, he said, waving a slice of red pepper in her direction. They were going to make peep peep peep noises when they hit the pan. Just like the chickens that gave them the eggs. Then he handed her the slices of pepper and picked her up in one arm and sang, Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?, bouncing her up and down until she giggled and told him to stop because he was being silly.
“Tell me about being my father,” she whispered.
Rob frowned at the eggs bubbling in the pan. “Anything in particular?”
“No. Yes. I mean . . . everything.”
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, slow, his fingers spread wide as if to sift through the memories.
“I almost missed seeing you being born,” he said. “Bet your mother never told you that one.”
“I can’t say that I ever asked.”
“I planned to be there for everything. We took all the classes, Neenee and me. Made your grandmother howl to think people had to take a class to learn how to have a baby. Guess that after having six kids she forgot what it was like the first time. Anyway, we were ready. Your mother had her bag packed and we practiced the breathing every night, and we thought we had this. I wasn’t mayor yet; I was still at the credit union, so we figured it would be easy enough to find me and get me to the hospital when the time came. We didn’t count on you having a mind of your own.” He inserted a knife under the eggs, letting the last bits of liquid run under to the hot pan. “You were almost three weeks early. Not a problem except your mother and I had thought it would be safe for me to go to a conference in Charlotte. One night. I was gonna fly both ways, I’d be gone less than twenty-four hours, and the doctor swore up and down that you were still cooking.” He shook his head. “So of course, at two that morning, I get a call from your mother. Her water broke.”
“I knew I was early. I never heard . . . this part.”
“Anyway, everything after that was a comedy of errors. The hotel had an airport shuttle but it didn’t run at that time of night. They had to call a cab, but the cabbie went to the wrong Hilton and there I was, waiting . . . and then the airport wasn’t even open when I got there. It was crazy. Remember, too, this was when cell phones were just getting popular, so I didn’t have an easy way to check in on her. Finally the poor airline gal showed up at the ticket counter and I practically threw myself across the desk, begging her to get me on her plane, any plane, whatever would get me home first.”
He laughed softly. “It took some shuffling, and they had to ask for someone to give up a seat for me, but I got on the first plane out. It was the longest flight of my life. Worse even than the one when they hauled me back from Costa Rica.”
Bree blinked. She had never thought about what that must have been like for him.
He tipped the eggs onto a waiting plate. “Anyway, long story short, I got there in the nick of time. Your mother was hitting the hard part. Transition. I walked in just in time for her to throw up all over me.”
If the smile on his face was any indication, he had never been so happy to be puked on in his life.
“Things moved fast after that. An hour, hour and a half after I walked into her room, you made your appearance. I remember your hand was tucked up beside your face, all curled up in a fist. It made things complicated for the doctor and I know your mother wasn’t too happy about it, but all I could think was that you were like a little Superman with one arm up and one arm down.” He chuckled as he carried his plate to the table. “That’s why you’re Sabrina, you know. You were supposed to be Elizabeth. But you had that hand up there, and for the first few days, every time you fell asleep you went back into that position, and we knew we had to give you a name that started with an S. You were our little Super Sabrina.”
Well, that explained why so many of her baby pictures showed her in Superman garb.
Rob sat across from her, the plate of eggs in the middle of the table, and pushed a fork in her direction. “From the moment I saw you, you were my little girl. My little Supergirl. You were the smartest, the prettiest, the funniest . . . I had no idea that any kid could be as much of a miracle as you were to us. Even after the others came along, and God knows we loved them all just like you, but you know, there was something . . . I guess it’s because you were the one who made me a father. With the others, no matter how much they were their own people, the big change was already behind us. You were always the one pushing us. Always the one making us change.” He speared a hunk of egg. “Usually, you were way ahead of us and we were the ones trying to play catch up. Just like from the time you were born.”
Bree wasn’t crying. She wasn’t. But something was seeping from her eyes. Not tears. More like . . . like she was leaking. Like a dam that had stood too long had finally been breached.
“There was no rest with you around, Sabrina Joy. You had us dancing from that first breath. You wanted to learn everything about the world and you wanted to know it right away, and we could never keep up with the questions. Your mother used to fall into bed at night and give me this list of things you asked her about. Usually I would fall asleep before she got to the end, because damn. You were curious.”
Bree poked her fork into the edge of a bit of egg and pushed it away to reveal the smidge of pepper within.
“I could tell you stories about the things you said and did from now until Christmas,” Rob said. “But here’s what it boils down to. I’ve done a lot with my life, most good, some bad. There’s a lot more I still hope to do. But nothing will ever mean as much as being a father. I know that’s probably impossible to believe, since I basically threw it all away but . . . well, you know what they say about not really knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone.” His voice dropped. “I knew I was blessed to be your father. I was never stupid enough to not understand that. But I didn’t know how much it meant to me, how . . . how essential it was, until it wasn’t part of me anymore.”
She wasn’t sure how much more she could process. She felt like someone had reached inside her and stirred, so nothing fit right anymore and nothing worked right anymore.
You are the author of your story, Bree.
“Did you really screw over Gordon James?”
For the first time since she’d walked in, Rob seemed surprised. Not as much as she was, though.
“Who told you that?”
Oh crap. In her desperate grab for something, anything else, she had forgotten that Spence’s parents had kept everything quiet. There was no way in hell she wanted Rob to guess about her and Spence.
“I, um, heard a rumor.”
“There’s at least thirty different rumors about me swirling around this town. For the record, the only one that’s true is that I met OJ when we were both inside. But I haven’t heard anything about me and Gordie, and I’m surprised that of everything else you could have asked, that’s the one that came to mind.”
She scrabbled for something that would sound plausible. “I told you I’m writing a book. I’ve been doing interviews. People tell me things they wouldn’t say otherwise. Anonymously.”
The look on his face reminded her of the time she had shaved the cat as a kid and tried to blame it on Jenna.
“Plus, you know . . .” She breathed in deep. “He was your friend.”
“And you would like to think that I wouldn’t hurt my friend.”
God help her, but he was right again.
“Here’s the honest truth, Bree. I don’t know. I did give Gordie money. Right before the twins were born. He wanted to expand, I knew his business was solid, I thought it was a good investment. He started repaying me around the time everything was going downhill. It could have looked suspicious. We obviously lost touch while I was in Costa Rica, and then when I was in jail—well—he didn’t initiate any other communication. When I found out he moved so suddenly . . . I wondered.”
Wondering. There was a lot of that going around.
A wave of fatigue broke over her. She wasn’t going to be able to make sense of anything else, not tonight, and if she didn’t leave now, she wouldn’t dare drive herself home.
“I need to go.” She stood fast, sending the chair scraping over the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry to keep barging in on you.”
“Anytime.”
She nodded, throat tight, and walked stiffly to the door. She still didn’t like any of this, still had no idea what she was supposed to do next. But—maybe unreasonably—she didn’t feel quite as lost as when she’d arrived.
She had her hand on the door when he spoke again.
“Bree.”
She waited, not turning.
“When I was living in Costa Rica, for a while there, I lived in a place on a creek. There were trees that hung down on either side of the bank. Some of them were tall and grew up over the balcony of the place I was staying. There were monkeys that lived in those trees, a whole troop of them. Once a day, usually in the late afternoon, they would make their way up the creek, moving past my place. I’d be inside, trying to read or whatever, and I would hear this chattering and squealing. I’d go out, and there they were, swinging above me and around me, throwing things onto my balcony, making the branches sway and bringing everything to life. All of a sudden they filled the place. And then, just like that, they were gone.”
She turned toward him at last, forcing herself to see the longing in his face. “That’s what it was like to be your father, Bree. Like things were beautiful and peaceful, but then, all of a sudden, there was this . . . explosion of life that completely took over.” He sat back in the chair. “And then, just like that, it was gone.”