Chapter Twenty-seven
Alex began spending more and more of his free time at Kerry’s place.
He didn’t plan on taking charge of Hobo. It started one cool evening when he got there after dinner but before the kids’ bedtime.
“Hi, girls,” he said, tossing his keys in the usual place on the foyer table. “Where’s your mom?”
“She just went upstairs to give Ella her bath,” said Shay, watching a music video on her phone. One earbud was lodged in her ear, while the other swung back and forth as she wiped the supper dishes.
Hobo sat panting at the back door, tail wagging, an anxious look on his face.
“Whatsamatter, boy? You need to go out?”
The dog whined softly but urgently and wagged his entire rear end. Alex wondered how long he’d been patiently waiting there.
“Where’s his leash?” he called to the girls.
Shay had put in the other earbud and was singing along.
Chloé’s head was buried in a book. “I dunno,” she said without looking up.
Alex searched through the pegs crowded with hoodies and jackets next to the back door, retrieving the items he knocked onto the floor until he finally found the leash buried beneath a fuzzy pink vest.
The dog barely made it down the porch steps before lifting his leg on the first bush he came to. Poor fella. There was no mistaking the gratitude in his eyes when he looked up at him.
“Must be tough being the only testosterone in a houseful of estrogen.”
Hobo pulled the leash taut and gazed out at the meadow with longing, then back at Alex, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, exuding pent-up energy like a spring.
He’d seen him pull the girls around on his leash. Walking him had become a real challenge for them.
“I could use a good run, too, bud.” Kerry would be busy upstairs for a while yet. “Let’s do it.”
Thirty minutes later, they returned to find Kerry matching the socks in a laundry basket. Hobo ran to her, while Alex hung up his leash and filled his water dish at the sink. He was still on a high from his run and that feeling he got from doing something good for someone else, even if that someone was only a dog.
“Where have you been?” Kerry looked at Alex, ruffling the fur on Hobo’s neck.
“The dog wanted to run. So, I took him.”
Kerry walked over, took the water dish from Alex, and set it on the floor, where Hobo began loudly lapping it up.
Then she rose to her full height and folded her arms. “I don’t need your help.”
Alex was struck speechless.
At the dining table, Chloé looked up from her book. Over on the couch, Shay turned her head.
“I never said you did.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking my own dog for a walk.”
“No offense, but a dog that size needs more than an occasional stroll around the yard. He needs regular exercise. How would you feel if you were cooped up in a house all day?”
Kerry took a step closer, so close she had to tilt her head to look up at him. “Did I ask for your help? I’ve been taking care of myself and my kids for years. I don’t need a man to do it for me!”
Alex held out his hands. “Okay. Fine. Message received loud and clear.” He would have said a lot more, but Chloé and Shay were watching. Instead, he backed up until he bumped into the door, snatched his keys from the spot that less than an hour ago he’d thought of as his, and left.
Striding down the path to where his car was parked, his hands jammed in his pockets, he glanced over his shoulder, hoping Kerry would come after him. But by the time he was buckled in, a watchful eye still on the house, she still hadn’t come. Even when he got to the end of the lane and looked in his rearview, all he saw was the yellow light in the windows of the cozy, familial kitchen.
He drove off alone as all around him, darkness fell.
* * *
“Why’d you do that?” Chloé asked Kerry, after Alex had gone.
“Do what?” Kerry snatched another shirt from the laundry basket and attempted to fold it, but when she dropped it onto the couch cushion it landed messier than before.
“Yell at Coach Walker.”
“I didn’t yell at him.” She shook a pair of jeans in the air with a loud crack.
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. I simply reminded him that we’re a self-contained, fully functioning family unit that doesn’t need any interference from the outside. Have I ever failed you before? Was there ever a time when we didn’t have a roof over our heads?”
Chloé got up from the table and walked into the living room. “No, but—”
“Food to eat?”
“No.”
“I admit, things haven’t always been perfect,” Kerry said, hating the rising hysteria in her voice. “Maybe I don’t know how to install a dishwasher or what questions to ask the roofers for an estimate, and maybe the dog doesn’t get walked as often as he should. But what parent is perfect, I ask you?”
“Mom,” warned Shay.
“No one, that’s who. We just do the best we can using what we’ve got. Luckily for us, I have a marketable skill. The farmhouse. A brother willing to create a place for me at his firm—”
“Mom,” said Shay. “Stop it. You’re scaring Chloé.”
“I am not,” Kerry said shrilly. “Are you scared, Chloé?”
Chloé, looking pale, swallowed.
“Even if she’s not, you’re going to wake Ella,” said Shay.
Kerry’s bottom plopped onto the couch. She balled up the shirt she’d been wrestling with and tossed it across the room. Then she dropped her elbow on her hand. “Ow,” she cried, forgetting it was bruised from when she’d banged it against the wall dragging a heavy chair up the steps the day before.
Gingerly, Chloé lowered herself beside her at an angle. “Why are you picking on Coach Walker? What’d he do?”
Why, indeed. What was wrong with her?
“All he did was walk Hobo,” she added, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.
On Kerry’s other side, Shay slid her foot beneath her so that now both girls flanked her.
“You’re right.”
“Then how come you’re so mad?” asked Chloé.
Kerry whisked away a tear.
“I’m scared, girls.” Her lower lip trembled.
“Scared of what?”
She brushed some imaginary lint off her jeans. They were too young for this. She couldn’t dump her fear of failure on them. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
“Well,” she said shakily, “just scared, you know. Everyone gets scared sometimes.” This was untrodden ground. She had never admitted any sort of weakness to her daughters before.
She was a crappy mom.
Chloé reached her little arms around Kerry and buried her head in her shoulder. “Don’t be scared, Mom. You’ve got us. We’ll take care of you.”
That was it. Kerry hid her face in her hands, but she couldn’t hide the sound of her sobbing.
Shay dashed to the kitchen and came back holding out a tissue, which Kerry took and blew her nose into. “It’s not your job to take care of me.”
Shay sat down again, and this time, both girls wrapped their arms around Kerry. “It doesn’t matter whose job it is. So what? What if we feel like taking care of you sometimes?”
When had her children become so wise?
For a terrifying minute, Kerry thought her sobs might never stop. She’d been strong for so long. She didn’t even admit her doubts and apprehensions to her own mother. After all, Rose was a dynamo in her own right, having raised not three but four children. Yes, she had Kerry’s father by her side, but he wasn’t the easiest man to live with.
But Kerry was so tired. And after all, she was only human.
She dabbed her eyes with the crumpled tissue. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll be all right.” Just admitting she was overwhelmed made her feel lighter.
“We know you will,” said Chloé, giving her another squeeze that almost started her going again.
“Honest. I’m fine,” she said, drying her eyes yet again, forcing a small laugh. “I just lost it there for a minute.”
Chloé sat back on the couch. “You hurt Coach Walker’s feelings,” she said. “I could tell by his face.”
That’s right. Alex. He had no one to comfort him.
“You should call him and apologize.”
Kerry laughed again, authentically this time. “That sounds just like something I would say to you.”
“Where do you think we got it from?” asked Shay, attempting her own smile.
The question was, where had she gotten these amazing. . . resilient . . . kind kids?
Kerry got to her feet, turning to straighten the afghan on the back of the couch.
“You know what?” she asked, wiping her tear-stained hands on her seat. “You’re right. I will call him. Just as soon as I finish this laundry and sweep the kitchen and pack up my work bag for tomorrow morning and . . .”
Chloé stood on spindly legs. “I only got one more chapter to go. Think I’ll read it in bed.”
“I’ll finish folding clothes for you and carry them upstairs,” said Shay, reaching into the laundry basket.
Kerry pressed her lips together, reached around Shay’s shoulder, and grabbed Chloé’s shirtsleeve before she got away, almost knocking her off balance in the process. She folded her daughters into her embrace. “I love you guys,” she mumbled into their hair. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“We love you, too,” they murmured.
* * *
Alex was nursing a glass of pinot noir when Kerry’s name lit up his phone screen.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
Pause.
“This is your controlling, uptight, asshole girlfriend.”
“I thought I recognized that voice.”
“The girls said I needed to apologize to you.”
Pause.
“Okay. Is that the only reason you called me?”
“No.”
“Then why else?”
“Because I thought I should apologize, too.”
Alex looked up at the night sky and exhaled. “I was only trying to help you out. Not just you, the dog.”
“I know. You were right and I was wrong. It’s just that it’s hard for me to accept help. Anyone’s help. Not just yours. I’ve been trying to prove to myself that I can do it all on my own for so long, I don’t know how to do it any other way.”
Another pause.
Alex sipped his wine. “Do you think you could try?”
“I could try.”
“Try to try?”
She giggled. “Yes. Try to try.”
“Well, I guess that’s all I can ask for.”
“Then I will.” She sniffed. “That’s what I intend to do.”
Alex started. “Were you—”
“No. Just allergies.”
He relaxed again. Not that he believed her. But whatever tears she’d shed must have acted as a release valve.
“I’m warning you, once I put my intention on something, it usually works.”
“That’s good to know.”
“So, I hope you’re ready for things to change.”
Pause.
“All I can do is try,” he said.
“Okay, then. It’s settled. We’re both going to try.”
Alex smiled and looked in to his glass, seeing not the bloodred wine but Kerry’s face, relieved that now, he would be able to sleep that night after all.