The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (30 page)

BRAD WAS NEARLY BACK TO
his old self. He was funny and pleasant without the constant stress of Dharma to deal with. He told me about work, and I listened. As far as he knew, no one at the office had addressed his affair with Dharma. According to him, they’d only briefly acknowledged her death. My name would forever be a part of the official police report, but no one ever asked me about it again. The calm after the tragedy was almost as disturbing as the shooting itself.

I worked and kept my distance from Vince, who was the same patient and kind man I’d fallen in love with. I couldn’t imagine a time when I would deserve him, but I knew it wasn’t now. Dharma’s death remained on my conscience, and I couldn’t find a way to put her in the past. I needed some clarity.

I drove James home from soccer while both of us watched the fields pass by in silence. I needed to ask about his day. How he was doing in math? If he liked the book they were reading in class, and if he had fun at recess.
I couldn’t bring myself to start the conversation, though. I was failing my children, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop or how to turn things around.

I mindlessly brought the Escalade to a stop at the corner near our house.

“You know we’re still moving,” James said. His words broke through the criticism in my head.

“What?”

“We’re still moving,” he repeated confidently. “Even when we stop, the universe is still expanding at forty-two miles per second.” I stared at my gifted son, and the tiniest smile appeared on his face. “No matter what we do. We keep moving.”

I nodded at him. “I agree.” I turned on my blinker and drove home.

Brad came home early from work to the house I’d made him buy. He didn’t hate it the way he used to. He didn’t hate anything the way he used to. “Meredith,” he yelled as he knocked on the back door. I leaned away from the counter and saw he was carrying a large plant. I dried my hands on a dishtowel and ran to open the door. He stepped inside and handed me a rubber tree plant.

Brad smiled and sang, “He’s got high hopes.” He kissed my stunned cheek.

“Thanks,” I said and carried the plant to the island.

“You know, when I was in London last week, I did a lot of thinking.”

“Wow,” I said. My words to Brad were always dripping with sarcasm or despise. I think he preferred the sarcasm.

“You’ve got to get over this whole thing.”

I turned to him, utter hatred filling every corner of my body. The sight of him made me sick. “How can you get over it so quickly? Don’t you have a heart?”

“I do, and it never belonged to Dharma. It’s sad. I feel bad about it, but I wasn’t in love with her, and I’m grateful it was her instead of you.” He was disgusting.

“Don’t you feel any responsibility? After all, you were sleeping with her for more than two years, right?” I returned to chopping the peppers in front of me.

“Is that what’s going on with you? You blame yourself for Dharma’s death?” Brad grabbed my wrist. He took the knife from my hand and placed it on the counter. “Dharma was crazy.” I winced and shook my head. “I know it’s not a nice thing to say, but there was something wrong with her. I tried to cut things off with her for months, and she did everything in her power to keep me. She was completely unreasonable and always unpredictable. She didn’t care who she hurt, including you and our children. I’m not happy she’s dead, but I’m thrilled she’s out of my life.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

I turned my body and mind away from him, shutting him out and letting him know I wasn’t speaking to him anymore. I finished cooking dinner, and we all ate like a real family, one not marred by lies and infidelity. I stared out the window at the rolling field behind our property. I had my children and the most wonderful house in the state, and yet the gaping sinkhole in my chest just kept getting deeper. If I stopped smiling, or stood quiet and alone, I might step into it and disappear into the darkness that was my longing for Vincent Pratt.

“You do realize this is the only planet with windows?” James’s question to Liv drug me back to our dinner table.

“You don’t know that for sure,” Liv debated.

“Yes, I do.” He was certain. So sure of himself. He turned to me and asked, “If your brain changes, does that mean your whole personality changes?”

Brad looked at me in wonderment. He still wasn’t used to the concepts, equations, and predicaments that interested our children more than toys and winning. I sat back in my chair and basked in the satisfaction that, somehow, I’d managed to protect them from the real world this long. May they never encounter it.

Before I could answer James, he said, “Imagine a hamster with pterodactyl legs and wings.”

I shook my head and tried to keep up with his mind. “I—”

“No. Just imagine.”

I closed my eyes and dutifully tried to let the image surface. When I opened them, Brad was silently laughing. I smiled at my family and overflowed with love for my children.

When dinner was done, the kids went out back to chase lightning bugs and Brad helped me clean up the dishes. He piled them on the counter by the sink as I rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. He put the salt and pepper back in the cabinet, wiped off the counter, and pushed all the chairs back in. He was my partner. We were a team.

“I still don’t want to lose you,” he said, not recognizing I was already gone.

I turned off the faucet and faced my husband. “You never will.” We’d be bound together infinitely. “I’ll always be the mother of your children.”

“But?”

“But we can’t stay together.”

Brad stood still, watching me and waiting for me to back down. I wasn’t the same woman he could talk into things. I wasn’t willing to back down on this or anything else where he was concerned. I was done. “And I want sole custody of the kids, since you obviously make poor decisions when it comes to the people you spend your time with. The kids won’t ever be around any more of your girlfriends.”

“I’m not agreeing to sole custody.”

“Yes, you are.” Brad stopped moving. He wasn’t used to being defied. “Because I remember. Everything. Including you pulling me by the ankle until my skull crashed against the stairs.” Brad watched me silently. The confidence drained from his face and left behind the expression of a caught little boy. “I remember how terrified you were that your perfect little family was anything but perfect.”

“Were we perfect?” He was back on the offensive. “The whole fight started because you were caught in a lie, or caught in a secret.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I stayed steady. Brad’s opinion of me no longer mattered, and neither did the truth of our marriage. “I’m not the kind of woman who has an affair.” Brad started to say something and stopped. I lightened and continued. “James and Liv need to wake up here on Christmas morning. You can come stay with us, too. I want our children to love their father. I just need them to see you here, in their house, with me.”

“That’s crazy.” He was indignant.

“I thought you were into crazy.”

I waited for the paperwork to be drawn up. Our attorneys went back and forth on a few items, but the only thing I really cared about was the kids. Brad and I each walked away with our inheritance, neither of which amounted to a large sum. He would pay me support for the children and would pay for their college educations. I would take no alimony, but we split the proceeds from the sale of the big house, which, in my mind, had set the whole nightmare into motion.

I kept working at the police station. I increased my hours to full time and put the kids in after-school care. They ended up liking it, and after paying for that and bills, I still had enough money left to save a little. I traded the Escalade for a Honda CR-V and happily drove for days without stopping at the gas station.

“New car?” Vince asked as he held the station door open for me. My arms were loaded with a huge box of police car cupcakes for Daniels’s birthday. I’d found the idea on Pinterest and had the bakery make them for me. I was slowly coming around. I thought that was a good thing. Maybe it meant that I was finally
exactly
where I belonged.

“Yes. Things are changing.”

“I hope so,” he said and took the box from me. He turned and carried it into the break room, leaving me alone in the lobby, and I realized how faraway I still was from where I truly belonged.

The school year was almost over, and Brad had just closed on his new condo in the city. The kids and I went to visit him there. I tried to keep their lives as normal as possible, and spending a small amount of time with their father was what they were used to. The condo was right across the street from Rittenhouse Square, and we took the kids for lunch outside, where half the tables had dogs lying next to them.

“Can we please get a dog?” Liv asked. “One that will sleep in bed with me.”

“It’s going to sleep with me,” James said, and Liv looked at him as if he were crazy to think a dog—or anything else—would ever choose him over her.

“We’ll see,” I said, and they both beamed with joy.

Brad raised his eyebrows at me, reminding me it was going to be totally my problem if I got one. I laughed. It had always been only my problem.

But things settled down between us. Brad was an idiot, but he was the only idiot my kids had, and because of that, I wanted him to be happy. He had to be a good dad even if he was a shitty husband. I knew better than anyone that it was possible to separate the two.

When the kids went across the street to run around in the park, Brad asked, “Do you think we should tell them today?”

I watched as James chased Liv around a tree. “I’m in no rush.” I regarded my ex-husband. He was older. His young girlfriend had aged him more than she’d saved him. “Unless you think we should tell them.”

“Do you not want to tell them because there’s some hope we might get back together?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to answer so fast.” Brad laughed a little

“Oh, I do. I think we’ve officially run our course. But I’m in no rush to change anything about their lives.” Liv’s laugh could be heard on both sides of the park as James caught her and lifted her off the ground. “They’re perfect, you know.”

“They ask a lot of fucking questions.”

“I know.” I could see their smiles from across the street. “They wear me out.”

“You’re so much better with them than I am.”

“You’re their father.” Dharma flashed through my mind. “Try to keep it that way.” Brad reached over to hold my hand, but I pulled it away and placed it back in my lap. I wasn’t ready to touch him. “Do you ever think about her?”

Brad ran his hand over the scruff on his chin. “A lot. She haunts me.” She’d probably haunt him forever. “And if you knew her, you’d know I mean that literally.” Brad picked up the check from the table and read it before placing his credit card in the folder. “How’s that awful house of yours?”

“My tavern? Or my church? It’s pretty awesome. It’s almost completely done.”

“We could have waited to sell our house until it was finished.”

“I don’t mind the construction. Especially since the kids’ rooms and the kitchen are done.”

“I’m going to rent a house at the shore, and I want you and the kids to come down with me,” he said and took another sip of his beer as if we were discussing the weather.

“Vacation together?” I shook my head as I asked the question. He was delusional.

“We can have separate rooms. Unless you insist on sleeping with me, then maybe I’ll let you.”

“You don’t even like to go to the shore with us. You were bored to tears last year.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I realized what losing you and the kids felt like. I appreciate every minute with you now.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I shook my head, dismissing the entire proposal.

“I’ll book it, and we can talk about it later.”

“Do you hear me when I speak?”

“Of course I hear you. You said you love the shore, and family vacations are important childhood memories.”