style="font-size:15px;"> And it did. Those years playing the perfect wife, with perfect hair and nails, perfect body and perfect tan, she’d looked almost plastic. A Barbie doll his brother kept on display.
She shook her spoon at him. “Thanks, but no thanks. I need to lose at least five of those.”
They settled into comfortable silence, every once in a while, glancing over at Nick. His nephew looked damn happy, laughing and playfully punching one of the other boys in the arm. Here at last was a boy who wasn’t thinking about his father the murderer.
He’d been watching Nick, smiling to himself, when Beth caught him off guard, asking, “Bad day?”
Seven used his napkin to wipe his mouth, giving himself some time. “Yeah.”
“You want to talk about it?”
He pushed away his empty ice cream cup. “Not particularly.”
He focused again on the bits and pieces of other people’s lives. There was a young couple at the next table with a crying baby. Both parents huddled over their offspring, the father shaking plastic keys, the mother offering a pacifier, acting as if world peace hung in the balance. A couple in their late sixties fed each other spoonfuls of ice cream. Sitting here with Beth and Nick, he could almost believe it was still possible. Marriage, kids. That happily ever after. The world was a good place and people didn’t snatch kids like Nick and dump their bodies in the marsh.
“Erika and I have this bet,” he said, changing the subject. “Who has the better vocabulary? Just the other day she hit me with ‘Sounds like ursprache.’”
Beth frowned. “Ursprache?”
He leaned forward. “The general translation she gave was something like: ‘Sounds like bullshit.’ I looked it up in the dictionary. It means a protolanguage or something.”
Beth nodded as what he’d just said made perfect sense. “Well, that clears it up.”
They both laughed.
She played around with her ice cream in a way that made him think she had something more to say. He gave it a minute.
She switched ice cream cups, giving him her half-filled one for his empty cup. He didn’t hesitate, picking up the spoon and digging in.
She said, “Laurin called.”
Laurin, Seven’s ex-wife, now mother of twins with a doting accountant husband.
“Really,” he said carefully.
“She wanted to know how I was doing. It was…awkward.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Beth put her hand on his. “That’s not necessary. It’s just that…” she sighed, “she should have stuck by you.”
Seven glanced down at the ice cream. Of course, Beth wouldn’t get it. To her, he was some kind of knight in shining armor.
That wouldn’t be his ex-wife’s take on things.
“She was a cop’s wife, Beth. It’s not an easy life. The work, it starts to take over. Suddenly, you don’t have anything in common with normal people. You start cutting them off. There’s stuff you can’t talk about. Pretty soon, your only friends are fellow officers.”
“Gee, I wonder if that’s anything like being married to a prominent surgeon and finding out he killed his gay lover.”
Their eyes met. Yeah, Beth was no stranger to his kind of alienation.
“Laurin didn’t give up on me. I gave up on us.”
But Beth shook her head. “You are a good man, Seven. I know there was a time when I asked for too much. I was devastated and lonely and you were my great big shoulder to cry on.”
“Beth—”
She squeezed his hand. “No, let me say it. You were gentle in your rejection. And now, you are my dearest friend and possibly the closest thing to a father my son will ever have. I guess I just need you to be happy. I don’t want you to give up, you know? I see how you are with me and Nick. You deserve your own family. A wife, a couple of kids.” She sat back, smiling. “And then there’s the fact that you’re not getting any younger.”
Again, they both laughed.
“If only it could be that easy,” he said. “Swear to God, I look in the mirror and I see a big red D for divorce right there on my forehead.” He picked up his spoonful of ice cream and winked. “I think it scares the babes away.”
But Beth didn’t laugh. “I might be joining you there. Adding that big red D on my forehead.”
Seven stopped eating, the spoon halfway to his mouth. He knew she’d been thinking about it. “Really.”
“It’s twenty to life, Seven.” Her brown eyes looked serious. “And the whole Scott thing.” She shook her head. “I have to think about Nick. I have to think about my own happiness.”
He put the spoon down. He asked, “Is there someone else?”
She shook her head. She smiled and looked over at her son. “I’m not alone,” she said. “And I have time.”
Seven watched her, thinking about the accusations Erika still slung in Beth’s direction and how wrong she was. Beth wasn’t that woman anymore. She was over the whole I need you, Seven, please love me, Seven.
The weird part? He wasn’t sure he was. Beth had been only too right when she’d said he’d gently let her know he could never go there—Nick was screwed up enough. How would he handle his uncle moving in if he and Beth became involved?
But it had been nice, someone needing him. Loving him.
His cell phone sounded.
“That’s the third time tonight,” Beth said. “Someone’s avoiding his calls.” She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m guessing it’s a woman.”
“It’s just work,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s a woman. If it were work, you wouldn’t hesitate to answer, Mr. Cop.”
“Wow,” he said, finishing the ice cream. “I’m impressed.”
Thankfully, Nick came bouncing over just then. Beth immediately took her son’s hand and headed for the door.
Seven could only sigh in relief as he followed them out.
Half an hour later, he sat reclined in the Barcalounger he’d inherited from his dad, his cell phone unopened in his hand. His mother had remodeled recently and dissed his dad’s favorite chair. His father had begged him to save the closest thing to a family heirloom that he possessed. Seven had taken the chair gladly.
Seven was still mulling over Beth’s message: Don’t give up.
Immediately,
