Whatever Remains (17 page)

             
Ben had never envied him for that until his daughter had come along.

             
Clara marched up to him and tilted her head all the way back, hair falling behind her like a flag. “You left,” she accused, looking very much like Jade.

             
There was nothing wrong with her memory. “The other day I did, yeah,” he said, holding back a sigh. “I’m working a case; I didn’t wanna leave, but I had to. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want for work.”

             
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like eating veggie-tables, but Mommy makes me.”

             
He smiled; set a hand on top of her silken head. “Just like that.”

She should have anticipated this. In some sick way, she must have wanted it; why else would she have spent the day with
Ben’s family? Why would she have offered to help fix dinner and listened to Tyler talk about his day and accepted Chris’s cheerful hug when he came in the door? If not for torture’s sake, why would she have lingered until Ben was here? Now he sat across the fire from her and the night stretched overhead – black and bottomless and sinister – and the chirp of Clara’s voice echoed off the stones while she talked to her daddy.

             
“…and Merry snorted all over him. And it was so funny! And…”

             
Jade felt a touch at her shoulder. “Coffee?” Jess asked as she got to her feet.

             
“Sure. I’ll come help.”

             
“No.” Jess shook her head. “You relax. Babe, come carry stuff for me,” she said to Chris, and just like that, Jade was alone with Ben, with only Clara there as a buffer.

             
“Mommy,” Clara said, voice rising above the crackling of the logs as the back door closed. She was in Ben’s lap. “Can Daddy come to my party?”

             
Jade had nearly forgotten about the party. It was going to be a small thing – family only – with pink party hats for the horses (or at least the ones who would tolerate them) as per Clara’s request. There was a bag of pink and purple crepe paper streamers rolling around in the back of the truck for the occasion. She met Ben’s gaze through the dancing tongues of fire. “He’s invited,” she said, hearing the fatigue in her voice. “Hopefully he can come.”

             
“I’ma be five,” Clara announced, smiling. “That means I can start kindergarten.”

             
The thought gave Jade heart palpitations. She had memories of her own kindergarten days: all those special days for dads when her teacher sent her down the hall to watch a movie with a box of animal crackers because she didn’t have a dad of her own like the other children. She’d told herself growing up – she’d been adamant – that she would never make the mistakes her mother had. She would never put herself in a position to raise a child alone. But she’d done just that. And launching Clara into the real world outside of Canterbury would open her little mind up to the betrayals of her father.

             
“Does it?” Ben asked her. “I thought for sure you’d be ready for high school by now.”

             
Clara giggled. “No!”

             
Watching them together only made it more difficult. It sketched an image she fleshed out in her mind, gave her something to pine for.

             
The back door opened again, light spilling down onto the patio, and Tyler’s narrow shape filled the threshold. “Hey, Clara, Artie’s awake,” he called, and Clara jerked to immediate attention.

             
“Ooh, Daddy I gotta be right back,” she said, and scrambled off Ben’s lap.

             
Jade fought the childish impulse to call her back; as the door closed, she felt a rush of quivering, unidentifiable emotion swell inside her to be left with Ben. She forced an awkward chuckle. “She’s been wanting to see that stupid turtle all afternoon.”

             
Ben didn’t comment. He turned sideways in his chair so he could prop his boots up on the stone wall that circled the patio, staring at his beer bottle. He dressed horribly, always in a combination of formal and casual that didn’t mesh. Tonight it was white oxford over a blue t-shirt, jeans, his biker boots, and a navy sport coat. The jacket had come off an hour ago, draped across the back of his chair, and he’d rolled his sleeves up; she could see the faint outline of writing beneath his thin oxford: his t-shirt was an old softball uniform.

             
He was better at the silent game than she was. She folded her legs up in the chair and said, “Chris must have called you.”

             
He glanced up at her, impassive, from beneath his brows. “He’s an obnoxious shit.”

             
“You came, though.”

             
“I wanted to see Clara.”  He sipped his beer. “Kindergarten. Damn, I can’t believe she’s that old. Where are you sending her for that, by the way?”

             
“Why? Do you need to run every employee through the system?” she asked with false sweetness.

             
He sighed. “Jesus, Jade, I was just asking.”

             
She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping at him. She hated that, his you’re-an-unreasonable-bitch act. She smoothed her jeans down her thighs with too much concentration, fingers unsteady. “To the place down the street. I can’t afford private, so she’ll have to go to the elementary school.”

             
“Oh, and that’s my fault, right? I don’t pay enough child support, so – ”

             
“Is this ever going to get any better?” she blurted.

             
“What are you talking about?”

             
“Us,” she said. “Is this shit between us ever going to get any better? Or are we going to bitch at each other for the rest of our lives?”

             
He glanced at her over the flames, eyes black in the dark, lean cheeks carved stark and harsh with shadows. “Not to sound like a kid, here, but you always start it,” he said, and she bristled. “Yeah, I’m an ass. We both know that. But you’re angry as all hell. You make it harder than it has to be.”

             
“Angry?” she asked, incredulous. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You’re just figuring that out?
Of course
I’m angry, Ben.”

             
She wanted to slap the mildness right out of him when he asked, “Why?”

             
Instead, she folded her arms under her breasts and met his stare. “You heard Clara. She’s excited about kindergarten. But how excited is she going to be when she realizes that you won’t be there for the parent-teacher conferences? Or when you don’t show up for Doughnuts for Dads? Or when you don’t ever pop in to pick her up like the other dads do? Hmm?”

             
“Hey.” He sat up straight, tension rippling through his big frame. “Stop assuming I’m gonna bail.”

             
“I don’t have to assume. You always do.”

             
“You – ”

             
“You,” she spoke over him, “are gonna bail on her birthday just like you bailed on it last year. You will bail on all her school shit. You will keep bailing because when it comes to her, that’s all you know how to do.” Her voice was getting high and tight and strained and she didn’t care. “And while she’s still little, you can get away with it. She’ll cry, and I’ll have to try and talk you up to her, and then she’ll forgive you. But what happens when she’s ten? Twelve? Fifteen? She won’t keep forgiving you.”

             
The lines of his face hardened; a muscle in his jaw ticked. “That’ll be my problem and not yours.”

             
That was true, but she didn’t care. “I didn’t know my father,” she said, voice still climbing. “I don’t know his name, or what he looks like, or if he’s still alive. I never knew if he had a family – a real one – and if Mom was just his dirty mistress. He doesn’t even exist for me; how can I hate someone who doesn’t exist?

             
“But Clara does know you,” she went on, talking through her teeth now. “And she’ll hate you for what you’re doing one of these days.”

             
His face – she’d thought it handsome once upon a time, but now only saw it as cruel – was set at unreadable angles. “Maybe,” he said quietly, “she’ll hate me because
you
hate me so much.”

             
“That’s not true –  ”

             
“You want us to get married? Right now? You want us to put on some charade just so we can pretend we’re normal?”

             
She glanced away, eyes clouded with furious tears.

             
He made a sound; he could have been clearing his throat or laughing. “Trey and I talked to Asher again today. He has an alibi for the week leading up to the murder.”

             
She stared at the stones of the patio, not caring.

             
“It’s his wife, Jade.”

             
Her head snapped up, eyes swinging wildly to his; they were black and unforgiving.

             
“He’s married,” he said gently, like he was talking to Clara. “He has two kids and she’s pregnant with their third.”

             
It felt like the flames danced over and licked across her face; Jade thought she might faint. “Oh my God.” Her gaze went out to the dark yard, searching for something safe to grab hold of.

             
“You didn’t know,” he soothed. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

             
“That is
so
not the point.”

             
A note of something hard edged into Ben’s voice: “Did you sleep with him?”

             
“No. We hadn’t even come close.” She fired him a glare that dissolved. “Not that it’s your business…Oh, shit.” She took a deep breath. “Why? Why in the hell do I keep throwing myself at liars and assholes?”

             
This time he did laugh. “Sweetheart, you never threw yourself at anyone. You’re hard damn work on a man.”

             
There it was: that dangerous knifing of nostalgia that sliced through her at the sound of his laughter, the sound of his camaraderie. He could so easily remind her why she’d fallen for him in the first place, and it terrified her that she still reacted to him. She drew her knees up and hugged them against a sudden chill. “You fall into the asshole category, by the way. If you were wondering.” She risked a glance and saw that he was giving her a lethal smile.

             
“Shit, you’re a pain,” he said.

             
The back door opened again. “Coffee,” Jess announced.

Sometime after Chris helped her toast marshmallows and she’d gotten the sticky stuff all over her clothes, Clara fell asleep in Ben’s lap. The fire burned down to embers. Jess went to check on Maddie and shoo Tyler off to bed. Chris struck out across the yard on a perimeter check – because military habits
died hard. And for Ben, it was time to send his girls home.

             
Jade didn’t understand – she couldn’t – that it was easier on him to bail than to do this: bundle Clara up like so many twigs in his arms and carry her to the truck. Smell the top of her sweet head. Wonder if what she murmured in her sleep as he buckled her in was “daddy.” When he did this, when he pretended for a little while that he belonged with them, he laid awake staring at the ceiling afterward. He doubted himself. He drank too much. He missed. The missing was hell. No one had ever told him that if he let go of his family, he’d miss them. And when he missed, he wondered why the hell he’d let go in the first place. That was worse than keeping his distance; that was the worst thing of all.

             
When the passenger door was shut – silently so as not to wake Clara – Jade leaned back against it and folded her arms. In the faint blush of light from the house, she looked tired. “You do need to come to her birthday party,” she said, without looking at him. “She’ll be crushed if you don’t.”

             
The window of the truck was too dark to see through, so he looked at Jade instead. “What’s she into these days?” Her eyes flicked up, a fast flicker of blue in the night. “What should I get her?”

             
The question sent a deep breed of sadness rippling across her face. “Breyer horses,” she said with a quick twitch of a smile. “Or stuffed horses. Anything horses.”

             
The moon overhead was waning, but it reached down to touch Jade’s face, her skin turning to smooth, carved white marble, the lines of it classic. Timeless. All the bubble, all the sparkle, had left her five years ago, and now she was just some sorrowful character from a novel, haunted and troubled.