chase? I’m not sure that I like what you’re implying, Jack. This is not a game.”
“I know it’s not.”
“These are incredibly serious issues.”
“I know they’re serious issues. Tell me what you and Jay decided.”
“See, and I hate to hear you sounding so aggressive. It makes me wonder if I’ve made the right decision after all…”
His heart leaped. The right decision. Did she mean…? “Please tell me straight, and don’t keep me dangling.” There. She had him begging, the way she wanted. “What decision have you made?”
“I’m getting to that.” Her voice pointedly soothed his impatience. “But you need to know the process we went through first. This was not decided lightly, Jack.” She gave him several minutes on the nonlightness of the process, her feelings, her priorities, and yet another rehash of how she’d never wanted to hurt him, then finished, “And we feel that the most important issue in all of this, Jack, in all of this,” she repeated, in case he thought she meant only forty-three percent of it, “has to be Ryan’s well-being.”
She spoke as if generously sharing a profound new insight. In reality, Jack himself had been making the same point to her for almost three years, as clear and direct as he could, and was never heard. He’d dealt with stalling and manipulation and outright lies. Only six months ago had he resorted to the threat of going to court. “We feel it’s not in his best interests to drag him through a court proceeding,” she went on.
Noooo, he thought sourly. Really? Not in Ryan’s best interests? How perceptive and profound! He never would have thought to consider the issue of Ryan’s well-being!
From somewhere nearby there came the sound of a car door slamming, followed by metallic clunkings, and Jack struggled to hear his ex’s voice. “…and Jay also wants to pay tribute to your desire to remain involved in Ryan’s life.”
Pay tribute to his desire to remain involved? Was she reading from a script?
“Okay…” Jack said cautiously. The pain in his left side still throbbed, although it had begun to ease. He waited for the other shoe to drop.
“So we’ve decided to give you what you want,” Terri said, and despite that little teaser from her about “the right decision” a couple of minutes ago, he almost didn’t believe what he was hearing.
Give him what he wanted?
Just like that?
There had to be a catch!
“Ryan can spend every second weekend with you,” she announced. “Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, and three midweek nights, Monday through Wednesday, of every second week.”
Okay, so there was a catch. Five nights out of fourteen, split into two separate packages, when Jack had wanted seven nights in a row. Ryan didn’t need an extra session of packing pajamas and homework and going back and forth.
Still it was so much better than he’d expected.
So much better—enough that he wouldn’t push for the seven consecutive nights.
Real, genuine day-to-day time with his nine-year-old son, and no battles to fight along the way. They could start the new arrangement immediately. He had seriously thought that Terri would hold firm on the current grudging one weekend in four unless he took her to court, and he’d been so torn about what was best for Ryan. He’d tried so hard not to let things get too ugly between himself and Terri, for their son’s sake.
Ah, hell…hell…
This was really, really good.
On top of the pain in his side and last night’s sleeplessness and bad dreams, the news had him battling his emotions, desperately trying to keep them at bay. He felt his throat tighten, felt the physical wash of relief that made his legs go weak. His eyes began to sting.
He was not going to give in to this! The police counselor kept telling him he was bottling things up, that something would have to give, and that it wouldn’t be pretty. She was probably right, but he was not going to pop the cork on that bottle now, in front of his ex on the phone.
With the effort of keeping himself in check, he tightened his stomach muscles, and the pain gave another sharp rip at his guts.
“That’s good, Terri, that’s great,” he managed, heading for the kitchen.
Water.
He just needed a glass of water, to loosen up this lump in his throat.
In that direction, he heard a door open, and a clatter.
“But we’ll need to work out the exact details…” His ex-wife’s tone gave out a warning, like a parent saying, You have to do your homework first.
“Of course.” The emotion pushed harder into his chest, and the pain knifed his side. What had he done to himself, coming down those stairs? The doctor had said he was very happy with the way the injury had been healing since the surgery.
“I’ll pick him up from school Thursdays because he has violin,” Terri was saying.
“I can take him to violin,” Jack managed to answer.
“Well, no, because I need to take notes from his teacher on his practice schedule,” she explained, as if such a task was quite beyond Jack’s abilities.
“Let’s talk later, okay?” he said, through teeth clenched from the pain in his side.
“I guess you need to get dressed…”
“Something like that.” He disconnected the call and rounded the corner into the kitchen, intending to lean over the sink and just pant and gasp and swear and groan for a while…maybe let the cork out of that bottle…as soon as he’d safely put down the phone. But there was a strange woman standing there with a dilapidated toolbox open on his equally dilapidated kitchen table, and the sight of each other brought both of them up short.
She dropped something back in the toolbox with a metallic clatter, gave a loud, startled squeak and clamped a fist over her heart. “Oh. Didn’t hear you!”
Jack gulped back the jagged rock in his throat, dropped the phone onto the kitchen bench and said, “Uh, hi.”
Why was there a woman in his kitchen? She had goose bumps on her bare arms and an aura of energy in every limb, and he was confused.
This should be Cormack O’Brien, here to begin work on the kitchen and bathroom remodeling, not this curvy little thing, underdressed for early April in a red cotton T-shirt and blue denim shorts. She had dangling red earrings that swung back and forth when she moved her head, dark curly hair, brown eyes and tanned skin. She also had an alarmed look getting stronger on her face, and he did not want her here to witness…to witness…
With a heroic effort, he tightened every muscle in his body, shook out his T-shirt ready to put it on, and managed to look…just…as if he was okay.
“You’re
