Acceptance

Hixon

AT THE END of the day, Hix drove home, for the first time in a week looking forward to what waited for him there.

Or, more accurately, he drove to the shithole apartment he’d rented that he thought would make do until he got Hope’s head straight and went back to his real home, but it was now the only thing he had to give his kids.

Something he had to change and fast.

He’d made that trek every day for over a year, going the opposite direction from the house he put his family in that was in one of the few (there were only three) slightly sizeable old neighborhoods in the town of Glossop, McCook’s county seat.

He’d left his ex-wife and three kids in a big, graceful old home that had been built just before the turn of the twentieth century. A house Hope had wanted before she even left to go to college. A house she kept at him to get after they’d moved there, even before they could afford it, but regardless, it wasn’t for sale.

When it was, it had been a pinch, but Hix bought it for her.

It was perfect. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths with another half in the basement, a big kitchen, a big dining room. The basement done so the kids had a place to call their own. Close to work for him.

The day he’d moved them in had been the fifth best day of his life, behind the day he’d married his wife and the ones she’d given him their children.

Greta lived in a house like that, thankfully in one of the other neighborhoods.

Hers was smaller, the area she lived in not as old, not as affluent, home values not as high. But it was just as graceful, settled in among wide streets and tall trees and established houses that had been built before any post-war housing boom so they were all different, distinct and had their own style and charm.

It didn’t suit her, a gorgeous woman in a sequined dress singing torch songs in a classy shack. That kind of woman lived in a bohemian loft or makeshift warehouse, though Glossop had none of those.

But it was a great house.

On that thought, as he drove, for the first time taking that trek going home or anytime, his head turned so he could look into Lou’s House of Beauty.

He then looked ahead, not only because he didn’t want to drive into the oncoming lane.

Because he saw her there, working on a woman in the chair closest to the window.

Lou’s House of Beauty, owned by Louisa Lugar, was the only game in town.

Corinne went there. Mamie too. Also Hope’s mother.

And Hope.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. His eyes filled with the road and the businesses that lined Main Street in front of him.

But his mind was filled with seeing the back of Greta, her hands raised to work on the woman in her chair, her big mess of hair tumbling down her back.

While driving, Hix felt that hair in his hands, on his shoulders, chest, stomach.

“Shit,” he repeated.

He kept driving and swung into his apartment complex that did its best not to be the shithole it was. Four buildings, two side by side and across from each other, four units in each building, two by two up and down.

It was clean. Well-kept. But not attractive.

Hix’s was a top unit, two bedrooms, stairs to reach it at the side so as not to obstruct the bottom unit. His parking spots were to his side and open to the elements, which was a bitch in the winter. The parking spots to the unit under him were at the front of their house.

In the inside parking spot was Shaw’s silver Toyota Camry with its Glossop Raiders sticker in the back window that Hope had graduated from two cars ago, and they’d kept for when Shaw could drive.

The kids were home.

Hix focused on that and not Greta, Greta’s hair, the feel of it, her working in the salon his wife and daughters went to, or the fact that his kids were up in a shithole apartment where his son had his own room, but his girls had to share his bed and he had to sleep on the couch when they were there.

This would end soon. He had a real estate agent looking into things for him and he’d be introducing that notion to his kids that night.

He could live anywhere in the county.

He also could not.

His older kids went to school at Glossop High and Mamie to Glossop Middle School.

So it was going to have to be Glossop.

He parked the Bronco, got out making sure to lock her up and jogged up the steps.

He barely got through the door before Mamie was on him.

“Dad!” she shouted, her arms going around him in a tight hug.

He put his hand to the top of her dark hair.

His kids were all him, all of them. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Tall, lean bodies with long torsos, proportionate legs. None of Hope’s strawberry blonde hair or green eyes, or shorter torso with long-ass legs for any of them, and none of her curves for the girls.

Mamie tipped her head back and demanded, “Guess what?”

He grinned at her, standing in the still-open door. “What, baby?”

“Madam DuBois says I get a solo at the next recital!”

Madam DuBois, real name Margaret Leach. She was one of the many full-blown characters in town and she ran one of only three dance schools in the county, the most popular one, likely because she was the most dramatic, and likeable, teacher.

No one called her anything but Madam DuBois, and Hix suspected no one even knew her as Margaret Leach since she’d moved there eighteen years ago after her husband died in a car accident on I-65 outside Chicago, and to put that tragedy behind her, she’d taken his life insurance money and reinvented herself.

Hix only knew because, before he put his baby in her class, he’d ran her.

“Why are you excited about that?” Hix asked.

His little girl’s eyes got huge.

“Why am I excited about a solo?” she asked back, like he was a moron.

He shuffled her in so he could close the door, saying, “It’s not surprising to me the best dancer in the troupe gets a solo.”

That was when she gifted him with her smile coming at him huge.

“Yo, Dad,” Shaw called from his place sitting at the dining room table that was in the miniscule space off the equally miniscule kitchen, a space that could loosely be called a dining area.

His son.

Otherwise known as Mr. Cool.

“Yo, kid,” Hix replied.

“Hey, Daddy!” Corinne yelled, moving from the master at the back into the bathroom in the hall and closing the door.

Corinne had a love affair going on with the bathroom, mostly because the mirror in there had the best lighting and she was perfecting the art of painting her face and doing her hair in as many arrangements she could dream up, or watch how they were done on YouTube.

“Hey, honey,” he yelled in return, seeing as she’d closed the door.

Mamie let him go and danced to her brother, asking, “What’s for dinner? Chicken tenders from the Harlequin?”

Translated, Mamie wanted chicken tenders from Harlequin Diner and wouldn’t be happy with anything but.

Now that she got from her mother.

“Thought I’d cook,” he told his girl and grinned as he watched her nose scrunch.

“You’re not the greatest cook, Dad,” she replied.

“He is, Mame,” Shaw clipped, zoning right in on ticked the second he always did, right when he thought either of his sisters were giving their dad shit.

This was new. Or new-ish.

It had been going on about eight months.

“Shaw,” Hix said low, moving to the kitchen.

“Your cooking rocks,” Shaw shot back.

That was a lie.

He sucked at cooking.

“All he can make is hamburgers, waffles and tuna casserole,” Mamie butted in, looking at Shaw then turning her attention to Hix. “You make good hamburgers, Daddy, and waffles. But your tuna casserole is kinda ick.”

“Mame,” Shaw bit out.

“She’s right, son, it is ick,” Hix put in.

“She doesn’t have to say it,” Shaw returned.

“Maybe not, but she didn’t say it mean. I think it best we all feel cool with sharing whatever honesty we got, just as long as we don’t do it mean,” Hix replied.

Shaw gave him a look that said he agreed but didn’t like doing it before he turned back to his books on the table.

Hix went into the kitchen.

To say his children had run the gamut of emotions since Hope asked Hix to move out would be an understatement.

Shaw had started off this period of their lives pissed . . . at Hix. Surly and combative, for months, he barely spoke to Hix and never looked him in the eye.

As things wore on and Hix fought for their family, his son, not stupid but instead attentive and protective, clued in.

He’d then become Hix’s champion and his relationship with his mother deteriorated.

Hix tried to step in on this and found to his surprise his efforts were rebuffed.

But Shaw was the oldest brother of two girls and he saw them both mirror the same emotions, going from shock, to fear, to desperation, to game playing and finally sadness.

Not to mention he watched his father run through all of the same.

Shaw had been so ticked about all that, and it being clear his mother was the driving force of causing it, he’d missed Corinne and Mamie hitting acceptance.

Maybe because he’d noted his father never got to that last part.

Hix needed to do that, for his son. For his son to rebuild his relationship with his mother.

He just needed to do that, for all his kids.

And for himself.

Tonight was the night to start doing that.

A new home.

Settling in to what they had now.

Acceptance.

And moving on.

He and Mamie got to work, not on tuna casserole but on Tuna Helper, with peas, which was a vegetable all his kids would tolerate, and garlic bread, because Tuna Helper was decent but garlic bread always rocked.

And he made them sit down at the dinner table because now he only had half the time he should have with them to know what was going on in their lives, so he felt the need to concentrate the time he had and make the most of it. This meant no more eating in front of the TV, like they’d done when their mother and father were together.

The only exception to that was Sunday, when they did nothing but hang in front of the TV or go out together to see a movie then come home and hang in front of the TV. It was about junk food and laziness and comfort in each other’s company.

Hope hated this new tradition and had confronted Hix repeatedly since she’d learned of it in order to share she wanted it stopped. She was not a big fan of laziness. Or junk food. Not even for a day.

It could just be said, Hope didn’t care if the kids tolerated whatever green she put on their plates. They ate it because she said so and that was that.

Hix had always hated watching her force their children to eat shit they didn’t like. Shaw had even once sat at the dining room table until ten at night, facing a cold bowl of homemade potato soup that until he finished it, she wouldn’t allow him to get up from the table.

In the end, he’d forced it down, retching after every bite.

That was when Hix had had enough.

But they’d had a deal that they didn’t argue about parenting in front of the children. And regardless of the fact he’d shared not only after the potato soup incident, but often, that he was not a big fan of this tactic to encourage their children to eat healthy, she pulled it when they were in front of the children.

So since his wife wasn’t big on playing fair with that, not long after Shaw and the soup, no matter it drove Hope up the wall, if one of the kids put up serious resistance, Hix would take up their plates himself, scrape whatever shit was on it that they didn’t want to eat onto his plate, and then he’d eat the stuff.

At that point, Hope had shared repeatedly she wanted him to quit doing it.

When he didn’t, she’d started to cook things they all tolerated.

According to Shaw, she’d slid back to her former ways after their dad left.

That was up to her.

At his place, such as it was, they had Sunday junk day.

His mind heavy with memories of how Hope could be, much of it not all that great but at the time he’d accepted it and now he was wondering why, as well as filled with a lot of other crap that had been coming at him for a little over a year, it was Shaw who broke the silence after they started eating.

“Can I go on a date on Wednesday night?”

Dating on a school night?

He looked to his son. “No.”

“It’s a study date,” Shaw informed him quickly.

“It’s a pretend-to-study-and-instead-make-out-because-Wendy’s-parents-let-you-study-in-her-room date,” Corinne teased.

Oh Jesus.

“Then hell no,” Hix stated.

Shaw quit glaring at his sister and looked to his father. “Don’t listen to her, Dad. Wendy’s cool.”

“I’ve met Wendy. I know she’s cool. I’ve met Wendy’s parents. They’re cool too. Apparently too cool,” Hix replied. “But just pointing out, you do know we’re the same gender, right?”

Corinne giggled.

Mamie giggled with her and Hix hoped like hell his youngest didn’t catch his drift because he was already having trouble with his older girl catching it.

Shaw, unfortunately, didn’t catch it.

“Of course I know,” he gritted.

“And I also figure you know I wasn’t born your father.”

Light dawned and Shaw looked to his Tuna Helper.

Corinne giggled again until Hix shot her a look and she swallowed it back, barely.

“You want, you can have her over here. Study at this table,” Hix allowed.

“Fabulous,” Shaw mumbled, but what he didn’t do was decline that invitation.

This meant Hix best take another look at Wendy.

And her parents.

“I can’t wait to date,” Mamie declared, and Hix lost all interest in Tuna Helper.

Even though he’d wanted to make his oldest girl wait until she was sixteen, Hope didn’t mind she started at fifteen, and Corinne really didn’t want to wait.

So she’d had her first five dates over that past summer, with three different guys.

Hix was counting in a way he knew he always would.

So now that he’d passed the time where he had to endure her having her first date, as well as the ones after it, he was looking forward to the time someone he approved of slid a ring on her finger so he could stop enduring the dating portion of her life.

“It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Corinne informed her little sister authoritatively.

At that, Hix’s stomach almost lost the little Tuna Helper he’d fed it.

“Why would you say that?” he asked.

“Because boys are stupid, Dad,” she answered casually.

“How are they stupid?” Hix pressed.

“Because they talk about themselves all the time,” she replied. “What movies they like. What music they like. How sick some skateboard is. Blah, blah, blah.” She scooped up Tuna Helper, muttering, “Ask a girl a question about herself once in a while, why don’t you?”

That made Hix grin.

But he saw now that Shaw was looking sick.

“You could just talk yourself without him asking you questions, you know,” his son began to defend his half of the juvenile gender, or more likely, the fact he hadn’t asked a girl a question about herself.

“And sound like an up-myself douchebag?” Corinne asked.

“Not a big fan of that word, honey,” Hix noted quietly.

Without skipping a beat, Corinne altered her statement. “And sound like an up-myself idiot?”

“It’s called conversation, Cor,” Shaw educated her.

“No, Shaw, conversation is, ‘I really liked that Avengers movie. I thought it was rad. I seriously liked the fight scene in the city. The Hulk is da bomb. Hey, Cor, how did you feel about that Avengers movie?’” Corinne returned. “Instead of forgetting the last part and going on to say, ‘But whatever, I think Mr. Galveston is a jerk. That pop quiz was uncool. I totally tanked it. My dad’s gonna be so pissed.’”

“Mr. Galveston is a jerk and that pop quiz sucked,” Shaw retorted.

“Is your dad gonna be pissed?” Hix put in, aiming this toward his son.

Shaw looked to him and gave a cool-guy shrug. “Maybe.”

“Son—”

“Pop quizzes are for teachers who are sneaks,” Shaw declared. “And anyway, we’ve been in school for two weeks. He didn’t even wait two weeks. He gave it in the first week. What teacher gives a pop quiz the first week?”

Hix had to admit, he agreed.

Just not out loud.

“Best the sneak next time and be prepared,” Hix advised.

“What do I care where Uzbekistan is?” Shaw asked, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.

“You wanna become a marine, you better care about a lot of things,” Hix told him. “World opens way up, you earn a uniform.”

Shaw saw his point and shared that by jerking up his chin.

His son had wanted to be a marine now for three years. He wasn’t giving up on that, talked about it all the time.

This made Hix proud.

And it scared the fucking shit out of him.

“May be good too,” Hix went on, “you ask Wendy if she liked that Avengers movie.”

Corinne busted out laughing.

Mamie joined her.

Shaw studied his dad’s expression until he saw Hix was funning with him and only then did his face crack in a smile.

Hix let them put down more food, and did it himself, before he launched into it.

“Right, kids, want you to know, I called a real estate agent.”

All eyes came to him.

He kept giving it to them.

“She’s gonna be finding us places to live and I’ll arrange it so, when we go see them, we all go together so we can all decide together where we’re gonna move.”

“What’s wrong with this place?” Mamie asked.

Hix took his baby in, wondering where that came from.

She was still a little kid.

But day by day, she was growing out of that.

She didn’t have her own space in his old house because Hix wanted his girls to share a room, and share the closeness that would bring. Hope agreed because she’d wanted a guest room.

But his baby had to know that sleeping in her father’s bed with her sister and cramming her stuff into one drawer and a third of a closet wasn’t optimal when her dad was sleeping on the couch, and they all shared a bathroom.

“This is close quarters,” he said carefully, wondering if her question stemmed from the fact she thought, when he finally moved, he’d be moving back in with their mother.

“I like close quarters,” she replied, took a bite of garlic bread and kept talking while chewing it. “We all gotta be together and Cor can’t hog the bathroom all the time because we don’t have another one to go to.”

“You think Dad might not wanna sleep on the couch, Mame?” Shaw asked, not ugly, just pointing things out.

“Oh yeah,” Mamie murmured.

“Can I have my own room in our new pad, Daddy?” Corinne asked.

He shook his head. “I’m thinkin’, no. Sorry, honey.”

“You’re gonna be in it for, like, two years, Cor,” Shaw pointed out and looked at Hix. “You should get one of those townhomes they built when I was in junior high, out on County Road 12. Lev’s dad lives there and it’s way cool.”

Moving from a graceful, old, three-thousand-square-foot home to a shithole apartment to a three-bedroom townhome a twenty-minute drive from town.

It was still in the school’s district.

It was also still a step down.

“Someone’s selling, we’ll look, Shaw,” Hix allowed. “But just sayin’, they aren’t very big and they’re not close to town.”

“I’ll be gone next year. Corinne two years after that. Mamie not long after that,” Shaw stated.

“Don’t remind me,” Hix muttered.

“What I’m sayin’ is, Dad, you don’t need a huge pad,” Shaw replied. “We’ll be cool with whatever you get and not just because we’re all almost grown.”

“I’m gonna live with Daddy forever,” Mamie declared and looked at him with a big smile. “I’ll make my husband move in with us. That way you can have tickle wars with our kids and we can still have Junk Sundays.”

At the thought of his baby having babies, Hix was in danger of losing his dinner again.

“Your future husband would so not be down with that, Mame,” Shaw murmured.

“Like, so not,” Corinne agreed.

“Yes he will,” Mamie shot back. “Everybody likes Dad. I even heard Mrs. Turnbaum say he’s the most likeable guy in the county, way cooler than the old sheriff, who she said was a big blowhard.” She looked from her siblings to Hix. “What’s a blowhard anyway?”

“It’s not a nice word, baby,” Hix told her.

“Well, I like Sheriff Blatt,” Mamie announced. “Though, I’m glad he’s not sheriff anymore because he’s got a really big belly and it looked funny in his uniform.”

“I like that you got rid of the uniforms, Dad,” Corinne put in. “Everyone thinks it’s cool you only make our deputies wear the sheriff shirt and then they can wear jeans and boots. That whole sheriff gear thing is stupid and so yesterday. I mean, hello. Smokey and the Bandit came out in the last millennium.”

It far from sucked his kids were hilarious.

“I’m thrilled you approve of my wardrobe choice for the department, honey,” Hix said on a grin.

He was grinning because he was teasing his girl.

He was also grinning because he’d talked about getting them a new place, a place where they’d settle, leaving the in-between place, this stating plainly that life had changed in a permanent way none of them could do anything about.

He had no idea how Hope was with them. Outside of sharing such things as their mother made them eat stuff they didn’t like, the kids didn’t give him much and he didn’t pry. They came to him good, not moody, broody, acting out or out of their normal self in any way that was alarming, so he figured she was holding up her part of the job.

Which meant they were all moving on, not as he’d want—together—but they were moving on.

And Shaw’s point was valid, as much as Hix hated hearing it.

If his son stayed on his current course, he was going to enlist right after high school, which was around nine months away.

If Corinne stayed on hers, she was going to go pre-Law at the University of Nebraska in about two years.

And Mamie wouldn’t be far behind.

This meant Hix had to prepare to really move on.

In a variety of ways.

Greta

“Jesus, it’s two hundred dollars,” my mom groused. “Bitches up in this burg act like keeping up with the Kardashians is their only goal in life, even though there’s fuck-all to impress. You’re booked solid every day and you got your weekend gig. You can give your old lady two hundred dollars so she can pay her fuckin’ cable bill.”

“Yeah, Mom, I could if I didn’t give you fifty dollars to cover your water bill last week. And a hundred last month to cover your cell phone bill, that along with buying you a new oven because yours somehow got busted in a way your landlord refused to pay for its repair. And remind me, how much did it cost to pump your septic tank in July? Something, I’ll add, your landlord should be seeing to too.”

“I kept you fed and clothed and a roof over your head for eighteen years. Figure I got at least that for you to help your momma take care of shit.”

“Mom, I’m thirty-eight. If that washed, which it doesn’t, your time was up two years ago,” I retorted.

“You keep me fed and clothed and a roof over my head and all that, you’d be right. Since I only need a little extra here and there, you ain’t.”

I drew in breath and stared from my spot in my pretty wicker chair on my cute front porch at my sleepy street, sleepy even though it was only nine o’clock.

Not a car. Not a noise. Not a blaring radio.

Quiet.

Peace.

Except in my ear.

I changed the subject, asking, “You seen Andy recently?”

My mother went silent.

I was a fan of her silence, but right then, not the reason for it.

“You told me you moved here after I moved here because I moved Andy here,” I reminded her. “And as far as I know, the five months you’ve been here, you’ve seen Andy once.”

“I got shit going on,” she retorted.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like shit that’s my shit and none of your business. But I’ll be up in your shit, my cable gets turned off.”

Okay, after all the times I’d put up with it, this time, me in my pretty chair on my porch by my sleepy street where Mom was not supposed to be, but she was because she’d followed me after I’d finally tried to make a break from her, it was safe to say I was really, really done with this crap.

“Do it,” I taunted.

“Say what?”

“Do it. Get up in my shit.”

Mom was silent again.

I couldn’t rejoice in it because of what she said after she broke her silence.

“So rumor’s true. You fucked the sheriff.”

I straightened in the chair and felt the unpleasant sensation of my throat closing.

All day at the salon I’d worried.

No one had said a word.

Now it was coming at me from my mother.

“Sorry?” I pushed out.

“Girl, you ain’t in Denver anymore,” she informed me. “You fuck the county sheriff, get right in his I-don’t-have-to-try-to-make-you-believe-I-got-big-balls-through-my-fancy-ass-ride Real Man with Real Big Balls Bronco outside a fucking nightclub at two in the morning, this little burg, people are gonna talk. ’Specially since Soccer Mom Barbie kicked out her GI Sheriff Joe. Soccer Mom Barbie’s gonna reel that boy back in, mark my words, girl, soon’s he comes to heel. Ain’t no way GI Sheriff Joe’s gonna go all in with Trailer Trash Barbie when he’s got sweet, strawberry pussy waitin’ for him.”

I looked to my lap where I was sitting cross-legged and where I’d rested my cup of tea against my angled thigh.

God, people were talking.

Even Mom had heard!

“I’m not trailer trash,” I said softly.

“Greta, told you all your life, guess I gotta tell you again. Don’t be stupid. You can take the girl outta the trailer but you can’t take the trash outta the girl. You are what you are. You got fancy ideas with that asshole husband of yours and what’d he do when your Farrah Fawcett to his Lee Majors turned in his mind?”

She didn’t wait for my response.

Then again, Mom never did.

“He dumped your ass and went out and got himself the real thing.”

“Why are we talking about this?” I asked.

“’Cause you think, you give our handsome sheriff a little somethin’-somethin’, you got game. You don’t got game, girl. You got shit. You don’t want me to get up in your face. And just sayin’, you don’t want that sheriff to get himself in the middle when I do. Won’t get you a second trip home from that shack in his Bronco. That I know for certain.”

Oh, I’d learned how Mom could make the men in my life feel.

I’d learned that lesson very well.

“I wasn’t threatening you with Hixon.”

“Hixon?”

“That’s his name.”

“His name is Sheriff Drake, and don’t you forget that, Greta,” she suddenly snapped. “You wanna moan that out when he’s givin’ it to you, you do that. I bet he’d get off on that. But he ain’t no Hixon to you, girl. Don’t think, no matter your Playboy bunny with a few extra years look, he’s gonna stick around and fight your battles for you. What he’s gonna do is take, and take more until he’s got his fill and then he’s gonna go. Men don’t stick around and they don’t do jack when they are around. The more you expect from them, the more reasons they got to get up and go. He’s no different, I don’t care he has a badge. He just ain’t. They never are. And you can’t be stupid about that because you saw all the jackasses that left your momma swinging. And girl, you’re all that because I gave you all a’ that. Was even more of a looker than you in my day. And just sayin’, I can pull me in some dick even now, whenever I get lonely.”

Oh yeah.

I’d seen that.

All of it.

I felt my lip start to curl but stopped it in order to demand, “Can we talk for a second about why there always has to be battles between me and my own mother?”

“Because you won’t give me two hundred dollars. Yeesh. That bleach you use soak into your brain or what?”

“You visit Andy, I’ll give you the money,” I haggled.

“I’ll see my boy when I see my boy, not when you tell me to.”

“Then you don’t get the money.”

“So you want me to cause a scene at that House o’ Beauty place you work? All those uptight bitches who never miss church on Sunday but probably moan real pretty when their hubbies take ’em up the ass Sunday night after their kids are asleep seein’ your momma in all her glory?”

“God, do you always have to talk like that?”

“I am who I am. Ain’t changin’ for nobody.”

I looked again to the street, feeling tight around my mouth.

Hell, in my whole face.

In fact, it was a wonder I didn’t look Botoxed to within an inch of my life with all my mother shoveled my way.

I reminded myself I was done with this crap.

“No, you’re right. You are who you are and there it is. There’s where it’s always been. But here we go, Mom, big news item. Perk up and listen. I didn’t move Andy out here just because the home is better, it’s quiet, they’re great with him, it doesn’t cost as much, and I needed to get away from things that reminded me of Keith. I moved us both out here to get away from you. And I wasn’t real thrilled when you followed. What I am is finally, after way too long of not getting it, realizing that if you cause a scene, that’s about you. People know me here. They like me. It’s a good place. I’ve been around longer than you. So if you come to the shop in all your glory, they’ll think you’re trash and they’ll feel bad for me because I’ve got a momma who’s got no problem throwing her trash around.”

“See I haven’t made a scene in a while, you forgot how good I can do it.”

“See you don’t get that I can warn Lou about your upcoming antics, and share with the clients too, so if you feel like getting up to something, they’ll be prepared and can just sit back and enjoy the show.”

“Fuck, sheriff shot his wad in you, he shot in too much badass so now you think you got balls.”

I totally hated when she talked like that.

Which was pretty much all the time.

I was her daughter for God’s sake.

“No, wait,” she went on. “My prissy, fancy-pants daughter probably made him go in gloved.”

I did.

And when he beat his retreat, he hadn’t even taken the time to see to that particular business.

He hadn’t even offered five minutes of cuddling.

He’d given me mine, got his, I heard his breath even on my neck, he’d pulled out, rolled to his ass on the side of the bed . . .

And then he’d rolled right out.

“Again, I’m thirty-eight, not eighteen. You’d never acknowledge it, but I have a brain in my head, so yeah. Of course he used a condom.”

“Used a condom,” she mimicked. “Like she’s a nurse or somethin’. Girl, real people call ’em rubbers.”

I’d had enough.

Actually, I’d had enough when I was thirteen. And sixteen. And eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

And when her crap made me lose Keith.

I could go on.

But really, in Pleasantville where it was actually pleasant, I’d definitely had enough.

Mom wanted to play her games?

I hadn’t been able to stop her in thirty-eight years.

I wouldn’t be able to now.

The only thing I could do was change how I reacted.

Keith had told me, but did I listen?

Nope.

Now he was with Briefcase-Toting Lawyer Barbie and I was here.

Alone.

Talking on the phone with my trash-mouth mother.

And by God, I could change that too.

“We’re done talking.”

“We ain’t done until I know I haul my ass out there, you got a check waiting for me.”

“Don’t waste the gas, Mom.”

“God, you’re a pain in my ass and have been since I pushed you out.”

“Love you too.”

On that, I hung up.

That felt good.

For a whole second.

Shit.

She was going to do it.

Shit!

She was totally going to show at Lou’s and cause a scene.

I pulled in a deep breath and tried to let the calm of the quiet, dark street soothe me.

I couldn’t.

Because my mom was going to cause a scene at my place of business whenever she worked up the energy to do it. Which, if her cable was imminently going to be turned off—and it was, seeing as she never made the call for a handout until that threat was real—would be soon.

I’d lost jobs because of her in the past.

Lou wouldn’t ask me to leave. She knew all about Mom. She actually couldn’t wait to meet her. Not to make friends, to see what she’d get up to.

Lou was like that.

She probably wouldn’t be so excited for the possibility after she experienced the real thing, though.

However, I couldn’t muster up all my usual horror and despair after my mother’s version of a loving phone conversation.

Nope.

Since he left, and I didn’t sleep a wink then I dragged around all day Sunday licking my wounds, even during my visit with Andy, and then I’d tried to keep myself together, worried it would come out in the salon all that day, my mind was filled with Hixon Drake.

I wished it could be filled with all he’d done to me, all he’d made me feel, how damned good it was.

Respect.

Care.

Time.

Attention.

Not to mention talent.

God.

It had been amazing.

Better than Keith by about ten thousand miles, and Keith was excellent in bed.

Better than anybody.

Yeah, I wished I could think about that, even if it had ended with him sharing with me indisputably I was only what I was. Something that had been shared with me way too many times before.

This being a piece of ass not worth any more of his time than it took to get what he wanted out of me.

And I wished I could think about what an asshole he was for sharing just that with me.

Especially after I felt . . .

After I’d thought we’d had . . .

Whatever.

I didn’t feel it and we didn’t have anything but near-simultaneous orgasms.

But no.

I couldn’t think of that either.

All I could think was what a complete and utter fool I’d been.

He’d bought me a drink, stared in my eyes (not at my breasts, a nice switch) while he chatted with me between sets like he gave a shit about what I said, and BAM!

I forgot all I’d learned.

All my momma taught me.

All the things all the guys in my life had taught me.

All Keith had taught me.

That being the only good man in the world was my little brother Andy.

And as ugly as it was to think, that was probably only because he’d had a traumatic brain injury that had essentially arrested him at the age he’d sustained it.

Fifteen.

Forever.

And ever.

No therapy.

No relearning of skills.

No readjusting life expectations, so instead of Andy going for being an architect, he worked as a janitor.

No nothing.

Except keeping him safe, and those around him the same, while he lived his life reading comic books, watching movies, experiencing terrifying seizures, occasionally having episodes that were totally forgivable because big chunks of his brain had been damaged beyond repair, but the rest of the time he was so damned sweet, he was a constant toothache.

And him being the only real, sustained light in my entire life.

Yeah.

The only good guy in the world, or at least in my life, was my Andy.

But I’d forgotten that.

However, that wasn’t what filled my head after Hixon left.

Nope.

It was the fact that he may never have seen me, not in the eighteen months I’d been living in Glossop. Then again, in the beginning, he’d had no real reason to look. And after things went down, he’d had other stuff on his mind.

But I knew Hope and the girls from the salon.

And I’d seen him.

Him and Hope.

Unreasonably handsome Hixon Drake with his cool, pool-blue eyes, powerfully-built body and natural swagger that wasn’t eye-roll-worthy, but drool-worthy. The tall, beautiful Princess of Glossop Hope. And their three equally beautiful children.

Lou had a girl on the same soccer team as Sheriff Drake’s girl, and I was close with all of Lou’s family (except her husband Bill, who was likeable, but did things that were really not-so-likeable), so it wasn’t rare I took in a home game.

And I had a client who had a daughter who thought I walked on water so she asked me to her dance recitals, and I went.

Sheriff Drake had a daughter who danced.

So I’d seen them. All five of them, together, in various groups, separately.

The perfect family.

Tall. Strong. Proud. Gorgeous. Happy.

Glossop’s royal couple, hell, royal family—the sheriff and his brood.

When they fell apart, the town was agog. They couldn’t credit it. They couldn’t believe it.

It was unbelievable.

No.

Unthinkable.

Everyone thought it’d last a few days. Then they decided it might take a few weeks. After that, a few months.

When the divorce went through—and I knew exactly when it went through, it was the talk of the salon all day (this making me an even bigger idiot, can anyone say rebound?)—everyone was freaked.

If it could happen to the perfect family, it could happen to anybody.

The townsfolk had been split down the middle.

At first.

Men and catty women said it was all about Hope being Hope, thinking her shit didn’t stink and her female parts were coated in gold, wanting to bust the balls of a man who would allow that to keep peace in his family.

Until the time came when he was done allowing that.

Women and men who wanted to get into Hope Drake’s pants said it was Hixon who was an asshole, probably had someone on the side, or several someones, and she was best shot of him. Because look at her, she’s Hope Drake. She could get anyone.

Time wore on and Hope sat in Lou’s chair and let her mouth run, and probably did it other places besides, thinking women would feel her pain (when, with what she had and the games she was playing endangering that, we did not) and the mixed looks Hixon Drake was getting started to be not so mixed anymore.

The tall, beautiful Princess of Glossop thought she was just that.

So when my mom said Soccer Mom Barbie would get her GI Sheriff Joe back when he came to heel, she wasn’t talking out her ass.

Everyone knew Hope was pitching one helluva fit to get her man to do what she wanted.

The thing was, it wasn’t only his Bronco that declared the kind of man he was.

How the woman who’d shared nearly twenty years with him didn’t clue in made everyone think even less of her (and her waning popularity, especially in the last three weeks, was running out, so not many thought much of her already—not anymore).

Someone’s tiara was tarnished, and unless she got her head out of her ass and came to heel, broken perfection would not get fixed.

And it was my experience that a good way to make a woman come to heel was show her she could be replaced.

Even with a Trailer Trash Farrah Fawcett who had a few too many years on her, it would work.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think Hixon took me to bed to get his wife back.

At least not consciously.

I just knew if nothing else would wake her shit up, that would.

So if my mother had heard, Hope Drake definitely had.

And the thing of it was, even though I wasn’t Hope Drake’s biggest fan even before it became clear what kind of woman she was and how that had affected her family (and it went without saying also before I slept with her ex-husband), there was a part of me that thought it best that happened.

They fixed what was broken.

Maybe not for him.

Definitely not for her.

But absolutely for those three kids.

I knew better than most that the perfect family never existed, but the slightly-imperfect perfect family that still worked was on the endangered species list.

So if there was a shot, everyone should do what they could to protect it.

That was what I’d been thinking the past two days.

That I hadn’t done that.

I’d been charmed by a handsome man who made me forget I was supposed to have hardened my heart against men who might look at their wives like she was the first female created and God had outdone himself (and that was how Hixon had looked at Hope), but me, he’d treat like dirt.

And then he made me remember.

Now . . .

Well, now, if my mom had heard about what had happened, I was likely going to be thrown right in the thick of it.

And I had a feeling that wasn’t going to go well for me.

I had that feeling because nothing ever did.

And dammit, I’d taken more than my fair share of lickings.

I’d had enough.

But it was more.

After the one Keith had delivered, then me finding the first moments of respite in my life and thinking it might finally go okay, that being before Mom followed Andy and me out here and blew that all to smithereens, I didn’t know for sure, if I got another one, that I’d be able to keep on ticking.