Olive appeared at the top of the stairs, her wet hair snaking around her shoulders. She had changed into a T-shirt, cropped hoodie and joggers. “Maddy?” she said, her face lighting up as she looked down. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, sweetheart. We have so much to talk about.”
“How did you get in?” I demanded. “You copied Olive’s key?” And when? She must have done it before Olive moved in with us. The thought chilled me. She might have already been in our house when we were out, rummaging through our things, looking for something she could use against Aaron in court.
Madison waved Olive downstairs. “Quickly,” she said. “This is important. You need to come with me, now.”
“Why?” Olive asked, stepping down.
When I sprinted over to the stairs to block Madison’s way, she danced sideways to get around me, but I anticipated her moves, jumping onto the first step to stop her from reaching Olive. From the kitchen, Evie pointed a wet finger in our direction and then clapped, as if we were playing a game. “Mum-mum,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Olive asked.
“Just—let’s go. I’ll explain everything once we’re out of here.”
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” I asked Madison.
She eyed me a moment. “If you want to listen, I’ll be happy to tell you once I’ve spoken privately with Olive. But I know the place you’re in, Kira. I’ve been there. Full denial. Or maybe Aaron just hasn’t shown you his true nature yet. Either way, I doubt I can convince you of anything right now.” She clapped her hands twice, as she would to gain the attention of her students. “Olive, let’s go!”
“Whoa,” I said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“You have no right to stop me from seeing my daughter.”
Stepdaughter. “And yet you feel you can stop Aaron from seeing Olive,” I said.
“I’m trying to keep my daughter safe. If you cared anything for Olive, you would let us go.” She turned to look up at her stepdaughter. “Olive, come down these stairs this instant.”
“You really shouldn’t be here,” Olive said, taking another step down. “When Dad finds out—” Olive looked at me. And he will find out, she implied. Kira will tell him.
You better believe I will, I thought.
But Madison pushed past me, heading up the stairs, intending, I thought, to force Olive to go with her. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back, and she stumbled on those heels, nearly falling, clutching the railing to right herself.
“Get off me!” she cried. She was petite, nearly a head shorter than me, so much smaller than the image of her I carried in my head. I imagined she wore those ridiculous heels to add some height. In the scuffle, her hair unraveled from the tightly wound bun, and her bloodshot eyes, heavy in eyeliner and mascara, looked wild.
“You need to leave,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Olive said to me, holding out a hand as she stepped cautiously downstairs.
She wasn’t really thinking of going with this woman, was she?
“Olive, do you remember what your father told you this morning? You’re not allowed to see Madison, not right now.”
She looked from me to Madison and back again, feeling torn, I knew. I felt a maternal urge to wrap my arms around Olive and hug her. But I squashed it. The kid wasn’t a hugger. At least, not with me. Instead, I held out an arm protectively. “She’s not going anywhere with you,” I told Madison.
“I said, let’s go!” Madison reached past me, took Olive’s hand and tried to pull her down the remaining steps, but I pushed her away, hard, and she fell backward to the floor, shrieking in pain as the heels gave out beneath her and she twisted an ankle.
“Maddy!” Olive cried as she rushed to help her.
I stopped her. “Get Evie,” I told her. “Take her into the downstairs bathroom and stay there until I tell you to come out. Lock the door.” When Olive froze, her eyes on Madison trying, in an ungainly way, to get up from the floor, I said, “Do it! Now.”
She jogged over to the island and lifted Evie out of her high chair as Evie snatched a handful of mushy banana for the road.
“Olive,” Madison said, tugging her blouse down. “Please.” She was almost in tears. “You need to come with me. There are some things—” She glanced at me. “There are things you need to understand.”
Olive hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” And she hugged Evie, pressing my baby’s face to hers, before carrying her to the bathroom.
When Madison took a step in their direction, I grabbed my phone from the kitchen island. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”
It was a bluff. I tapped on Aaron’s number instead. The call went to voice mail, as I’d known it would now that he was on the plane. I didn’t want the hassle of dealing with the police, explaining this embarrassing situation to them and facing their judgment when they realized I had broken up Madison and Aaron’s marriage. More to the point, I was fearful and anxious about dealing with authorities and would do almost anything to avoid talking to lawyers or cops. I had done too much of that as a child, after my father’s death.
“Wait,” Madison said. She limped to the front door and stood just outside. “Just—wait.”
I tapped out of the call and marched to the door, intending to close it on her, but Madison held out both hands to stop me.
“Okay, look, I handled this badly,” she said. “I shouldn’t have barged in like that. But if you’ll just listen—all I want is an hour or two with my daughter. Here, if you want. I was hoping to talk to her privately, but you can listen in. You should listen in. You’ll understand, then. Please.” Her eyes had gone watery again.
I pressed the door closed, but she inserted her body into the doorway so I couldn’t shut it.
I held up my phone. “I am phoning the cops,” I said. (Of course I wasn’t.)
Madison stepped back and I slammed the door and locked it, though it was a useless exercise now that I knew she had a key. My god, she had broken into my house and tried to take Olive. What the hell was she going to do next?
All at once I ached to hear Aaron’s voice. Many nights, when I woke to a panic attack, Aaron talked me down from that bridge railing with his comforting voice. I’m here, he said, holding me. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you. Just tell me what you need. He made everything okay. He had to make this okay.
I dialed Aaron’s number again and, with the phone still to my ear, squinted through the foyer window to see Madison getting into her VW and beetling away. I didn’t expect him to pick up, but he answered so quickly I couldn’t help blurting out, “Madison was just here, at the house. I mean, she broke into the house.”
“Madison broke in?” he asked.
“You’re not in the air?”
“We’re still waiting on the tarmac. The flight was delayed. She broke in?”
“She had a key.”
“What the hell?”
“She was trying to take Olive out of the house.” I focused on my engagement ring as I spoke. My hand shook. “I actually had to fight her off.”
“Is Olive okay? Are you okay?”
I looked back to the hall, to the bathroom where Olive and Evie were hiding out, and lowered my voice. “Yeah. Olive was scared, though, I think.” I was scared.
“I’ll phone the locksmith, have all the locks changed. But that will likely take a day or two.”
“Can you come back home now?”
In the pause behind him, I heard a woman’s voice on a PA system. “They won’t let me off the plane,” he said. “We’re about to take off. We’re just waiting in queue.”
“I don’t know how to deal with Madison,” I said. “She’ll come back. I know she will. What if she breaks in during the night when we’re asleep?” I felt the tears well up.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine. Here’s what you do.” His voice had taken on that confident, take-charge tone I had been waiting for. “Pack a couple of bags and take the girls out of the city—”
“To where?”
“It doesn’t matter. Anywhere. You were going to Manitoulin. Take Olive there, like I suggested earlier.”
It was still early. We could still catch a flight to Sudbury, rent a vehicle and be at my family cottage on Manitoulin Island around suppertime.
“But Olive won’t want to go,” I said.
“Sell it. Canada Day on the beach.”
I heard another muffled announcement over a PA system on his end.
“I’ve got to go,” Aaron said. “The stewardess is eyeing me. We’re about to take off. So you’ll take the girls to Manitoulin?”
I paused. I didn’t want the call to end. “Aaron, are we really getting married?”
“What?” He laughed a little. “Of course we are,” he said. “I gave you a ring, didn’t I?” Just the week before.
“I know, but . . .”
“But?
“You are still married.” To this unstable woman who had just broken into my house and scared the shit out of me.
“Kira, you’re being a bit . . .” He paused. “Hormonal.”
He was right, of course. But still . . .
“When I get back, I’ll phone my lawyer and see how we can speed things up. This latest stunt won’t help her case. Breaking into the house! We could probably get a restraining order.” He sounded almost pleased.
“You know she won’t agree to anything less than fifty-fifty custody, and she wants Olive to live with her.”
“Well, she won’t get it. I’m Olive’s father. She’s only her stepmother.”
“But she’ll fight you for it.” And the divorce proceedings would drag on.
“Kira, you and I are living together now, with our baby, with Olive. We are a family. In every way that matters, you are already my wife.”
Almost, I thought, as I twirled the engagement ring around my finger. I was almost his wife. After Madison’s latest invasion into our lives that morning, I was beginning to wonder if that’s all I’d ever be, the almost wife. Was this really what I wanted? Constantly battling for my place in Aaron’s life, protecting Evie and Olive from his crazy ex?
After ending the call with Aaron, I pulled up Nathan’s landline number, but then, chickening out, I ended the call before it went through. I tapped Message instead. Coming up after all, I typed. I hesitated, then added: I have news. News? I was getting married to another man. I deleted it all. There were some things that couldn’t be said in a text or even a phone call. I had to explain myself to Nathan face-to-face.
As I was about to tuck my phone away and call the girls out of hiding, my phone buzzed again, then again and again. Aaron had texted I LOVE YOU! a dozen times over. Despite my efforts to stay angry at him, I felt a smile creep onto my face. He always knew exactly what to do, how to fix things.
I texted him back. I love you too. But in lowercase, so he’d know I was still pissed.