At Peace (38 page)

“Joe –”

“What time do they go to sleep?”

“Joe –”

His loose arms tightened. “What time,
buddy?”

He wasn’t going to let it go so I answered,
“Ten, but they aren’t out until eleven. I mean, Keira is. She likes
her sleep and drops off immediately. Kate texts Dane for awhile and
listens to music but she’s usually out by eleven.”

“I’ll wait until after eleven.”

“Joe –”

“You want me to stay away?” he asked and I
didn’t, I knew I didn’t, which was totally fucked up.

“No.”

“You got a key to the sliding glass
door?”

“I did but I’ve lost it.”

“Find it,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I whispered, throwing my bid for
Mother of the Year in the garbage.

“
I’ll come in, they won’t hear me. I’ll be
gone before they get up. They’ll never know I’m here,” Joe assured
me.

I figured that was true. Even when I was
awake, Joe could sneak up on me.

“Okay.”

His voice got low and tight, like he was
forcing out what he was saying and I knew why when he admitted,
“Don’t like that shit, Vi. Us next door sleepin’, some fuckwad
comin’ to your house while the girls are here, droppin’ off
gifts.”

Shit, that was a lot more involved than it
was detached.

Why did he constantly give me mixed signals?
It was driving me up the freaking wall.

“I don’t either,” I agreed.

“So, we do our thing here.”

“Okay.”

He looked at the door. “How you gonna play it
with the girls?”

I took in a deep breath then I let it out.
“Don’t know yet. I need to think about it.”

He nodded, telling me he’d keep it quiet then
he said, “Pancakes.”

“Yeah.”

He let me go, took my hand and walked me out
of my room.

* * * * *

I sat in my car, doors locked like Joe
ordered me to keep them and I stared at Bobbie’s Garden
Center.

I was early for work and I had a lot on my
mind, a lot I needed to get sorted before I clocked in.

Earlier, Joe and I had left my room only to
smell bacon cooking.

The smell hit me; it was an emotional hit,
instant and hard.

Since Tim died, the girls and I had pancakes,
not bacon, the pancakes enough to fill us up.

On pancake Sunday when Tim was alive, we had
bacon because Tim liked bacon and pancakes weren’t enough to fill
him up.

The girls had made bacon for Joe.

Me having a conversation with Joe in my
bedroom was not normal, in fact, it’d never happened but the girls
didn’t comment. They didn’t ask questions. They just threw us
looks, waiting for me or Joe to share. We didn’t and, surprisingly,
they let it go.

Like when Sam was there, Joe took Tim’s seat
and this hit me hard too. Minutes later, it hit me harder because
the girls again didn’t seem to mind. They acted like Joe sat there
all the time. They didn’t act like this was strange or
uncomfortable. They were animated, talkative, not desperately so,
naturally, even Kate.

And as we settled into eating, I found I
liked this, like I liked it when Tim was alive and we had pancake
Sunday. Family sitting around the table, eating, talking about the
week they had, the week to come.

Joe also seemed at ease. Not talkative,
Joe wasn’t talkative but, in his mostly non-verbal way, he
encouraged the girls to do it.

Keira I knew had designs on Joe for me
because she liked him and she wanted him to know she liked him.
Therefore she chatted enthusiastically with Joe about every subject
under the sun. None of these subjects Joe had even a hint of
interest in, he couldn’t, it was teenage girl stuff, but he never
let on that he didn’t.

It was Kate who surprised me. When she got to
talking about some of the bands she liked, Joe told her he knew
their music, he hadn’t met them like The Buckley Boys, but he
listened to the bands she liked. I could tell he liked Kate’s taste
and I could tell Kate liked this music, more than I expected. She
was really into it and she enjoyed sharing that with Joe since he
liked their music too. But it was more, she seemed to take his
approval of her taste as praise and she blossomed under it, I saw
her do it right over pancakes.

Joe left, we did the dishes and, as the girls
got ready for their day, I searched for the key to the sliding
glass door. I found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen, having no
clue how it got there since keys went on the hook by the side door,
but I suspected Keira was the culprit mostly because she always
was.

Before I went to work, I took it over to
Joe’s.

I knocked on his front door, wanting to
give the impression, should anyone be watching, that this was a
friendly neighborly visit, rather than getting caught by someone
while I snuck around the back which would indicate a
very
friendly neighborly
visit.

When Joe opened the door he was wearing
nothing but loose athletic shorts and expensive looking running
shoes and he was sweating a lot. He destroyed my neighborly visit
ploy by grabbing my hand, yanking me into the house and slamming
the door.

I saw a bunch of weights in the living room I
hadn’t noticed before, a weight bench pulled into the center of the
room. He was working out.

Um…
yum.

I looked from the bench to him and, holding
the key up between us, I said, “Key.”

His hand closed on the key, his other hand
nabbed me around the back of my neck, his head came down and he
kissed me, hard and long.

I was breathing heavily, my hands on his
sweat slicked chest when his head came up.

“Great pancakes, buddy,” he murmured then let
me go, turned away and walked to the kitchen like he hadn’t just
laid a huge kiss on me, one that made my knees weak and my breath
heavy.

I tried to get my head together and my body
under control as I heard the key hit his kitchen counter, he went
back to the weight bench and grabbed a bottle of water. He tipped
his head back to take a long swallow and I walked to his kitchen,
washed his sweat from my hands and then walked to the front
door.

“Bye, Joe,” I called, my hand at the door and
his eyes hit me.

“Tonight, buddy,” was his farewell.

I nodded and walked to my car.

I was getting in deep and I knew it. I liked
him and I liked him more every time I was with him. Now I liked
that my girls obviously liked him.

But that wasn’t where it could go, not for
Joe who was happy with me sleeping in his bed after I’d been out on
a date with another guy, something I wasn’t happy with, something
that hurt.

And I knew it would never go there unless I
fixed him and I had no idea how to fix him but I had the strong
suspicion that trying would be even more heartbreaking because I
suspected, no matter what I tried, I’d fail. It might even be
devastating when I failed, not only for me, but for my girls who’d
said a lot when they cooked Joe bacon.

I looked at my purse, reached out and pulled
out my cell.

Then I continued on my path of doing stupid,
crazy, selfish shit that made me a bad person.

I slid it open, scrolled down to “Mike’s
cell”, a number I’d programmed into my phone after he called me the
first time. Then I hit go.

It rang once, only once, when Mike
answered.

“You all right?” he asked as a greeting.

He knew about the box.

“You know about the box,” I said just to
confirm.

“
Colt called. I’m at the Station now.
They’re goin’ over it for prints.”

Shit. He’d gone into the Station on his
day off because he heard about my box.

“They find anything?” I asked.

“They’ve lifted a few, gotta put them in the
system.”

“Okay.”

“You all right?” Mike repeated.

“No.”

His voice was gentle when he said,
“Sweetheart.”

I sighed into the phone.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

“What?” I asked back.

“I’ll come get you. We’ll go get lunch or a
coffee at Mimi’s or somethin’.”

He didn’t want me to be alone and freaked,
more clear cut evidence he was a nice guy, a good guy, maybe a
great guy. More clear cut evidence that I was a terrible person,
keeping him on a string instead of cutting him loose until I
figured out where my head was at and could give him what Joe called
“a clear run”.

“I’m at the garden center, I have an
afternoon shift,” I told him.

“I’ll come over tonight,” he told me.

I closed my eyes and sighed again.

I didn’t need Joe at the breakfast table and
Mike at the dinner table. Further, my girls didn’t need that.

“As far’s I know, both girls are home
tonight, Mike, and I’m not sure they’re ready for that,” I said
softly.

“Your call, sweetheart, but you want company
or need to talk, you know how to find me.”

“Thanks, um… actually, that’s why I’m
calling.”

“Yeah?”

“
Well,” I started, “see, I haven’t told the
girls about the box and I don’t know if I should. They saw the
flowers but they don’t know about the box. They acted okay after
the initial freak out of the flowers but I know it bothered them.
Nothing’s happened in awhile and back home in Chicago, the flowers,
gifts and visits were regular. They might think it’s tailing off
and, well…” I closed my eyes tight again then opened them and
finished, “I’m a Mom, Mike, I don’t want them to have to worry
about this but I don’t want them to forget to be vigilant or to be
angry with me that I kept this from them. They’re not adults but
they’re not young anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t tell them,” Mike advised immediately
and I blinked at this advice, which was contradictory to Joe’s.

“You think?”

“This shit was goin’ down with Audrey, I’d
tell Jonas, but no way in hell I’d tell Clarisse.”

“Why not?”

“Know you’re strong, figure you got strong
girls, you’ve all been through a lot. But girls are girls, boys are
boys. Jonas would want to do his bit, even if it couldn’t be much,
to take care of his Mom. He’s gotta learn to be a man and, you’re
unlucky enough that shit like this comes up, that’s the way you
learn. Clarisse needs her head filled with thoughts about
butterflies and teenage vampires for as long as she can think about
butterflies and teenage vampires.”

Like Kate and Keira were to Tim, Clarisse was
Daddy’s Little Girl.

I felt my stomach flutter.

But I said, “That’s kinda sexist, Mike.”

He didn’t take offense, mainly because he
didn’t agree with me and he thought he was right.

I knew this because he said firmly, “That’s
the way it is, honey.”

I didn’t reply as it hit me. I’d asked him
because he was Mike, he was a parent but I also asked him because
his opinion would likely be the same as what Tim’s opinion would be
if he’d been alive. He might not know my girls like Joe did, but it
was important to me to know what Tim would do and Mike just told
me. It was good to know, except now I was more confused than ever
at what to do with the girls because, even knowing, I wasn’t
certain I agreed. It wasn’t like I agreed with everything Tim
thought either.

Mike went on. “But, I don’t know your girls.
You gotta do whatever you think is right, and Vi?” he called my
name and stopped talking.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you do will be right,
sweetheart.”

I felt tears fill my eyes because this, just
this, was exactly what I needed to hear and I whispered, “Thanks,
honey.”

“I wanna see you, make sure you’re all right.
I’ll stop by Bobbie’s sometime today.”

“Okay,” I agreed immediately, selfishly and
stupidly.

“Got the kids this week, but they’re all over
the place all the time so I could take you to Frank’s one night
this week.”

“I don’t know my schedule, my brother and his
girlfriend are coming into town next weekend and I’ve gotta ask
Bobbie for a change.”

“Find out, you can tell me when I stop
by.”

“Okay,” I agreed, again immediately,
selfishly and stupidly then I said, “I have to get to work.”

“All right, I’ll let you go,” he replied then
said softly, “Hang in there, honey.”

“I’ll try.”

“Later, sweetheart.”

“Later, Mike.”

I slid my phone shut and tapped it on my
forehead.

Then I dropped it in my purse, unlocked my
doors and hurried into work.

* * * * *

After work, I walked into J&J’s.

My girls were out for the evening, Kate with
Dane, Keira with a pack of friends who’d scheduled a last minute
movie that one of her friends’ Dad’s was crazy enough to take a
pack of girls to. I had my visit from Mike at the Garden Center and
we’d set dinner for Tuesday. Bobbie cleared me for the weekend, I
had Sunday off anyway and she knew she’d been leaning on me a lot.
I never asked for anything so she rearranged the schedule and gave
me the time I needed.

Now with a clear night, I decided I needed
girlfriend advice.

I’d thought to go home, pour a glass of
wine and call one of my friends in Chicago. I was closer to them
obviously, though our communication via e-mail, texts and phone
calls had trailed off as well when my job went full-time, not to
mention overtime. But they knew me, most of them for ages, and
they’d give good advice.

But they all also knew Tim and loved him and
I wasn’t certain how they’d feel about me moving on, especially how
I was doing that. They were my friends, they’d want to help, I knew
that, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t share this, what was
happening, how I was behaving and I was worried how they’d react
and what they’d think of me.