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“Think you can climb up?”
Of course, Holden nods excitedly. I stand behind him, so there’s no danger of him falling to the pavement, but he scales his way up and into the truck like it’s easy peasy. Must be all that time he spends scaling the jungle gym at the playground.
“Wow. Good job.” I hold up my fist, and he bumps it with his own.
“Mommy says I’m a monkey.”
“Why does she call you a monkey?”
“I climb. She says don’t fall. Sometimes I do.”
A smile teases at the corner of my mouth, and my chest swells. “My mom used to tell me that, too.”
With him safely in the cab, I strap in his car seat and get him buckled in. It’s been a long, stressful day, and I really don’t feel like being in charge of a toddler, but I can’t imagine not doing what I can for either of them. Fuck, I have it bad.
I send Arden a quick message to let her know that I have him. Almost immediately, she sends back a heart emoji.
In the mirror, Holden bounces in his car seat while I start the engine. “Where’s Mommy?”
“She’s at work. She’ll come pick you up as soon as she’s done.”
The whole ride home, he chatters about what he did at daycare and all the trucks he played with. I’m impressed by his vocabulary. He’s pretty well-spoken for his age.
I realize I’m utterly unprepared to entertain a child for hours. No toys. No crayons. And definitely no juice boxes. I hope he has enough in that little backpack to entertain him for a few hours.
Somehow, Holden and I make it through the afternoon. I discovered that Holdens pretty good at keeping himself entertained, first with some crayons and paper, then playing hide and seek with my dog Timber through the sliding glass doors off the kitchen, and once again, showing off his collection of cars and trucks.
When one of his favorite shows comes on, he sits down at the coffee table with one of his cars, a glass of water and the rest of the snack crackers I’d given him with a small meal earlier. I take the opportunity to stretch out and get comfortable on the couch.
I hear a car pull into the drive and check the time on my phone. It’s almost time for Arden, but Holden’s too enthused with the cars on the television to notice. In the time it takes me to sit up again, there’s a knock on the door. I can move without as much pain now, but I’m about as stiff as the granite countertop that contributed to all of this.
Holden’s head jerks up, and his eyes widen. “Mommy?”
Holden rushes for the door, but I stop his hand before he can reach the doorknob and freeze in place. The person I see through the window makes my stomach sink. “It’s not Mommy yet.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, and run my hand over my hair, pushing it back, as I prepare to reckon with the woman standing on my front porch.
In many ways, she’s the opposite of Arden. The first woman to steal my heart. Once she curled her beautiful satin strings around it, she never hesitated to pull. She’s still slim, barely curvier than the track-star body she’d flaunted in high school. Her shoulder-length brown hair falls in loose curls, framing the olive skin of her face.
I hoist Holden onto my hip, so he doesn’t slip outside, and open the door a few inches. “Brandy, what brings you here?”
“I’m down for the weekend, and I wanted to pay you a visit. I hoped we might be able to talk.” She lifts one shoulder and keeps her face slightly downturned as she peers up at me.
I don’t know if she’s attempting to flirt, or if she’s nervous. Either way, I haven’t seen her in three years, and would have liked to keep it that way. “Your husband know you’re stopping by?”
Her demeanor shifts, and her deep brown eyes pierce into me. “We separated. We’re getting a divorce.”
I grit my teeth. “And what? You thought you’d show up here, find a shoulder to cry on? I won’t be that person for you anymore.”
“I just want to talk.” She tries to peer around the door, but I respond by giving her even less room between the door and the frame. That tactic isn’t going to work for long, though. Behind her, I see Arden’s SUV approach the driveway. She pulls past Brandy’s car and park next to my truck.
Arden sits in her car, watching for a minute, probably trying to figure out what’s going on. Brandy always has the worst timing.
I blow out a breath. “Well, I have other plans tonight.”
“Sure.” Brandy looks up at me with a hand on her hip, and her lips pursed. They’re the same lips I spent years kissing, and I never had the willpower to push her away. But things have changed, and I’m likely going to say things I don’t want Holden to hear, so as Arden cautiously approaches, I fully open the door and wave her toward us.
“Mommy,” Holden squeals and squirms in my arms, but I wait until she’s close by to release him.
“All of his things are inside. Would you give me a few minutes?”
Arden nods and looks from Brandy to me. “Yeah.”
