Page 20 of Touch of Heartache


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“Stop!” said their dad, tugging on her arm but trying not to rip it right out of its socket. With her acrobatic twists and turns, she wasn’t making it easy for him. “The more you misbehave, the longer your timeout will be!” He closed his eyes and snapped to no one in particular as the TV boomed. “Can someone please turn thatoff?”

Nolan did as asked and the room fell into a strange, uncanny silence, the likes of which his house almost never knew during the day when one or both kids wereawake.

Willow sniffled and Nolan was sure the tear that fell down her cheek was real, even if she’d known exactly what she’d been doing when she’d smacked their dad on thehead.

She’d been getting his attention, just about the only way she knewhow.

Picking up where he’d left off, their dad tugged her toward the room she shared with Landon. “Inside!” he said, loud enough for it to carry down the hall to the kitchen. Noticing his brother in distress, Nolan stepped behind Landon, who was really crying now—but quietly. That’s how Nolan knew it was real. Landon was pretty quiet when he was actually sad. Nolan ruffled his hair and brought him hislunch.

Their dad slammed the door and Willow shrieked, a pounding coming from inside the room, probably from her punching or kickingit.

“Stop that!” said their dad sternly. “If you don’t stop thatright now, you arenevergetting out of thatroom!”

“Dad,” said Nolan, trudging down the hall. Hefroze.

His dad was holding tightly on to the door knob with one hand, leaning against the wall with the other, his head pointed down and the redness in his face streaked with tears. Willow continued to shriek andholler.

“I can’t do this,” he said quietly, under his breath. “I can’t do this withoutyou.”

She can’t hear you, thought Nolan.She’sdead.

He let go of the knob and walked down the hall, stopping in front of Nolan. The door opened almost immediately after he’d let go, Willow stumbling outside into the hallway, her face scrunched and her fists clenched at hersides.

Their dad looked about to say something to Nolan, but he closed his mouth and patted his shoulder instead. “I need to work today,” he said at last. “I’m going out while they eat—and please get them out of here thisafternoon.”

“Dad, I have schoolwork to do—” startedNolan.

“No!” Willow pounded her feet on a worn patch of the carpet. “We all go out together on Saturdays! It’s Saturday dinnerday!”

“Theyhavebeen looking forward to this all week, Dad,” said Nolan. “You knowthat.”

His dad shut his eyes and lifted a hand to cut him off as Willow shrieked behind them. “I can’t,” he said and he went into the kitchen long enough to grab his keys and pat Landon on the back before exiting out to thedriveway.

“Nooo!” shrieked Willow again. “Liar, liar! Youpromised!”

“Back into your room!” said Nolan sternly, pointing down thehallway.

Trudging back down the hall, Willow slammed the door behindher.

Leaning on the wall, Nolan thumped the back of his head against it several times over. The house went eerily quiet again until he heard the scraping of a spoon on a bowl and he snapped back into the moment, returning to the kitchen to make sure Landon didn’t spill any soup on hisclothes.

* * *

Nolan lookedup from his laptop every few seconds to make sure Willow and Landon were still doing all right in the playpen in the mall’s Kidz Cool School center. (The irony of the business having both “kidz” and “school” in its name was never lost on Nolan.) He hated to “reward” Willow especially and even Landon for their temper tantrums that he’d known had just been to get their dad’s attention and he didn’t like to spend the money on yet more daycare, but the Cool School was more like a playground anyway. If it allowed him some sanity and relative quiet—beside the background buzz of the people talking throughout the mall and the endless trickle of the nearby fountain—then so be it. He didn’t dare leave the mall behind entirely and find a quiet park or corner of the library because Willow was already on probation at the Cool School and if she got into one more physical fight, she was going to be banned entirely. Nolan knew she was more likely to behave if she saw him through the glass front wall of the daycare sitting there with the other moms. Of course, he kept to himself. He had no energy to organize playdates and discuss sales on kids’ clothes with moms and dads a decade or two older than him. Besides, with playdates, they usually expected you to reciprocate at some point, and he didn’t know how they’d fit even one more screaming child into their small three-bedroomranch.

“I’m supposed to have your room by now,” snapped Willow once earlier this week. “I’m tired ofsharing!”

Yeah, and I was supposed to be in a dorm room so you could have my room, thought Nolan, although he hadn’t said it aloud. He slapped his cheeks to wake himself up and focused on his assignment on the screen. It was going to take a few more years than planned, but he hoped to have a degree in computer scienceeventually.

He wondered if an IT job would offer free daycare to his brother and sister, though. But then he wondered if at this rate they’d be teenagers by the time he got out of Tildy World and into a “real” job anyway. He sighed and saved his work, closing his laptop lid and staring off at the Starbucks at the edge of the nearby food court. He glanced over his shoulder. It took him a moment, but he spotted both Willow and Landon, each with their own little friends. They were smiling. He hoped they’d stay thatway.

He thought about asking the other people at the table to watch his stuff, but they were engrossed in their conversation and even if they had been willing, he doubted he could count on them to actually keep an eye on it. As he slipped his laptop into his backpack and slid his arms through the straps, he stared at one woman in particular, a sandy-haired woman in her forties wearing a colorful wrap over her white tank top and white pants. She reminded Nolan of his mom. Their faces were different, but the way she carried herself. He remembered being in Kidz Cool School himself over a decade ago—back when he’d been an only child, long before his mom had convinced his dad that they were financially stable enough to have more, that she’d always wanted a house full of children—and she’d be sitting here with her friends, talking. Every time he’d looked through that glass wall, she’d been here, just stepsaway.

Now… She was out of reach.Forever.

His heart ached at the thought and he shook his head, dragging his feet toward the Starbucks line. It wrapped around the corner, but he knew they moved fast. Besides, he had nowhere he needed to be. His dad had never texted to say he’d meet them for dinner after all. He probably thought it “bad” enough he’d be stuck with the kids on his own the next day. Heaven forbid he actually care about spending time with all three of his children and not just with the little two. Nolan was good for cash flow and taking screaming kids off their dad’s hands. He knew what his dad thought of him wellenough.

His breath caught painfully at the thought as he reached the end of the line and stepped in place behind two bubbly women who were mid-conversation.

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