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Chapter Twenty
I deliver Eve’s breakfast to her room: two dry pieces of toast and a protein bar. It’s probably not the breakfast of champions, but I don’t have much more in me. I doubt she’ll eat it anyhow.
As I unlock the door and enter the room, she doesn’t stir. Sleeping in the fetal position, her dark hair matted around her head, she snores quietly. She almost looks peaceful. Better not to wake her.
Softly I place the plate at her bedside and tiptoe toward the door. It r
eminds me of when the kids were young and would fall asleep in the car. I’d carry them to their beds, stealthily making my way down the hallway and into their rooms, moving heaven and earth, silently, praying they wouldn’t wake.
It’s like this now as I decide to let Joni give Eve her meds later, making it clear that I can’t have Eve out of her room. Not today.
Today I need to focus. My deadline is barreling down, speeding at me like a bullet train. On top of this I need to put in a call to Eve’s physician. And while I’m at it, I need to find some time to consider my predicament. If they don’t find the kid from the school, my life is about to become a little more unpredictable.
I shove the sedatives into my pocket, pull the covers up around Eve’s shoulders, and lock her back in. Afterward, I retreat to my bedroom to shower, and by the time I have finished, Joni has arrived.
Joining her in the kitchen, where I have cleaned the blood and reorganized everything that was upended in the struggle, we both notice that the smoke still lingers. We both sense that something is off.
“Burned dinner last night,” I say as she peers at me over her thick- framed glasses.
She cocks her head letting me know she doesn’t buy it. “I left the casserole in the fridge.”
“Felt like eating something else,” I say. “Fried chicken.”
She presses her lips together and then nods. She never comments on my personal life. She doesn’t have to. “How’s Eve?”
Opening the refrigerator, I peer into the abyss. “Rough night.”
“I can stay late,” she replies. “If you need me to. My daughter is with her father.”
“That would be nice.” After grabbing a bottle of water, I go over and stand at the window. Liam is making his way up the drive toward the back door. I glance back over my shoulder. “Oh, and Joni—”
She’s scrubbing at a grease stain on the stove I must have missed. She looks up. “Can you make sure Eve takes these just as soon as she’s up?”
Joni looks down at the horse pills I have placed in her hand and then back up at me. “Sure thing.”
Liam arrives late for work. He sits on the couch across from my desk and sulks. Aside from the sulking, even though I attempt conversation, he’s quiet and not his usual self. When I ask him about his trip into town, he finally spills the beans. He tells me the girl left. She went back to her fiancé.
I don’t have the heart to tell him they usually do. He’s droning on: he’s not sure if he wants to stay here any longer; it’s terrible being out in the cottage all alone; he hates sleeping by himself. “You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he says, although he has to know I can. “This is severe emotional pain.”
“It will pass.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “It took every ounce of will in me to get out of the bed and walk over here. You have no idea.”
I give him a look that assures him I do. But I don’t say much. Mostly because he doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “If I’m not in love I cannot be happy.”
“You’re one— maybe two—one night stands away from feeling better. Promise.” I tell him this, even though deep down I know it is not essentially true.
“You can have all the pussy in the world, George, and still not be happy,” he retorts, looking affronted.
“I bet most young men your age—hell, even the old ones, for that matter—would beg to differ.”
“You know what it’s like being in my apartment in the city, in that cottage, to hear footsteps echoing down the hall and no one there? The spot in the bed next to you empty? Who could possibly be happy in a situation like that?”
A lot of people stuck in unhappy marriages, I almost say. I keep my mouth shut because I know it won’t help, and I understand his point. Finally, I just shrug.
“I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Love doesn’t care about right and wrong,” I say. “Love is blind.”
