One Perfect Morning Page 14

  I hated Grant for his perfect body and youthful face while I wore my exhaustion like a burial shroud.

  ‘Hey, honey. I have a surprise for you.’ Grant wiggled his finger at me to follow him.

  ‘A surprise, huh?’ I knew what that meant. A surprise for me meant sex for him. And I was so not in the mood.

  Two kids ago we were sex-crazed lovers who couldn’t get enough of each other. Four kids, two car payments, and a mortgage later we were dull strangers who shared a bed. Grant blamed me; I blamed the kids. When you’re barely surviving on a couple of hours’ sleep, and spending all day grocery shopping, folding laundry, prepping meals, nursing, and helping with homework, well, it gets old. It drains you of that passion for life you once had.

  It didn’t help that I felt self-conscious when naked around Grant. He looked like a Greek god while I still carried the mushrooming tummy of a pregnancy eight months ago. And my boobs, while huge with milk, crawled with stretch marks and blue veins popping through creamy skin. I thought nursing would help shed the pounds, but by the time you hit forty, skin’s elasticity doesn’t bounce back like it does in your twenties. My flat ass was evidence of that as the skin sagged where my thighs met my butt cheeks. If you had this worn-out body, would you want to flaunt it in front of your hot husband? I think not.

  My body became my journey, each wrinkle and flaw a dubious milestone in my life. That scar under my lip was from that weekend we went camping in an RV. When Lucas woke up screaming from a nightmare, I bolted upright into an overhead cabinet, bumping my head, then reflexively ducked down, smashing my tooth right through my lip on Lucas’s bunk bed frame. Every time I saw that scar I thought of three-year-old Lucas and that trip we took. I consoled him through the bloody lip and bruised forehead that night because his comfort was more important than my pain.

  It always was that way when you’re a mother.

  Every cell in me had contributed to their life. Sometimes I felt like a cow or a chicken, my body and my time exploited by my children. My blood was theirs, my sleep was theirs, my milk was theirs, and now my life was theirs. I loved my little leeches, but damn if they didn’t suck every last part of me dry.

  And then there was Grant, wanting the leftovers.

  I kissed Willow’s forehead and tucked her blankets in, a habit I had relished when she was little. I tiptoed out of her room, following Grant to our bedroom. I wasn’t exactly wrong, but I wasn’t exactly right, either. Scattered along the hallway were rose petals, the path lined with votive candles leading into the bedroom, straight into the bathroom. I grew excited as I entered, the bath drawn and bubbles glistening in the glow of scented candles arranged around the garden tub’s rim.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked coyly. I knew exactly what this was. Romance wasn’t dead after all.

  ‘How about you settle in, relax, enjoy some wine.’ He lifted a crystal glass poured to the brim, the wise man. ‘Maybe read or whatever, and I’ll join you in a bit with dessert.’

  He winked – because dessert always meant sex. But now I was actually in the mood, God bless his effort.

  ‘Ah, I think I know what we’re having.’ I giggled like a horny teenager.

  ‘If you’re thinking chocolate-covered strawberries, you’d be correct.’

  ‘Oh, you sly dog! I hope they come with a side of you.’ I gave him an exaggerated wink.

  He laughed and I remembered how much I missed the sound of it. ‘We’ll see, you dirty girl. Now get in there.’

  He slapped my ass on his way to the kitchen, and I couldn’t wait for the night to begin.

  Five minutes later I couldn’t wait for the night to end.

  This time it wasn’t Collette crying or Willow and Lucas fighting. As I stepped out of my pants, I heard the front door shut and the slap of Ryan’s sneakers against the hardwood stairs. They grew louder as he rushed past Willow’s room, and a few moments later a door slammed shut. The sound of water running, the telltale complaint of air in the pipes. He was in his bathroom.

  Something was wrong. And he had never called me back after my message about Willow, which was a huge red flag. That was his little sister, the one he would go to the ends of the earth to protect. I hesitated in the doorway, dueling between ignoring it and enjoying my bath, or finding out what was going on with my eldest son. Parental duty won once again, damn it.

  Stepping into a crumpled pair of sweatpants, I tiptoed upstairs to his bathroom door and tapped on it with one knuckle.

  ‘You okay, sweetie?’ I spoke to the white compressed wood.

  ‘I’m fine, Mom.’ Ryan sounded short and annoyed, which irritated me to no end. Why did the kids instantly go on the defense with me at a simple question? I was sure they saved these voices just for me, because I never heard it toward their father or their friends.

  The sink water was still running a couple minutes later, and I wondered what he could possibly be doing in there.

  ‘When you’re finished, I need to speak with you. It’s important.’

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘No, it can’t wait. I left you a message about your sister, to which you never replied. Then you were out all night, with no phone call, no text, then you breeze in here and say you don’t have two minutes to give your mother? Until you start paying rent, I own you, kid. So open the door.’

  ‘Please, Mom. I don’t want you to see me right now.’

  What the hell did that mean? ‘Get decent because I’m coming in.’

  I rattled the doorknob as Ryan yelped, ‘Okay, Mom! Stop – I’m opening the door!’

  As the door swung open, Ryan shuffled back a few steps, his hand shielding his face. I tugged his arm down and examined him. A growing purple and yellow bruise blossomed under his eye socket.

  ‘What happened? Who did this to you?’

  My fingertips gently probed his face as he winced and jerked away from my touch.

  ‘Nobody. I got hit with the ball during baseball practice.’

  Liar, liar, lips on fire. I could smell a lie a mile away. I’d been a teenager before, a deviant one at that, and I knew how to spot ’em.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Ry. Who hit you?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you. You’ll flip out.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Geoffrey Faust – and Willow going to see him today?’

  ‘What? Willow went to see him?’ His face paled, jaw dropped. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘You didn’t know about that? Didn’t you listen to any of my voicemails I left you or check your texts?’

  ‘No, I forgot my phone today. It was at home. What happened?’

  I didn’t want to get into it. But Ryan wouldn’t quit until he had answers. Just like his sister.

  ‘Willow must have overheard us talking about Geoffrey Faust and decided to look him up.’ I paused and added leadingly: ‘Or else you told her about him.’

  Ryan smiled wanly. ‘Guilty as charged. You know how close we are.’

  It was my turn to smile. ‘Not important right now. Anyway, the rascal hired an Uber and showed up at his apartment. Wanted to see what he was like.’

  ‘Kid’s got more nerve than we give her credit for,’ Ryan said admiringly.

  ‘You’re right about that. But the man swore he’s not the same Geoffrey Faust I knew.’ I shrugged. ‘And it was so long ago, maybe it’s not him. Anyway, she’s afraid he’s going to take you away from us, so she went there to beg him to stay away in case you went looking for him.’

  ‘Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry. I had no idea she would do that. Is she okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. She’s still wrapping her head around everything, but then we all are. How about you? That news was pretty big. You doing okay with it?’

  ‘Honestly, it doesn’t change anything for me. I’m Dad’s and your son; I don’t know Geoffrey, and I can’t say that I’ll ever want to know him. He walked out on us. Why should I give him a second thought?’

  I hugged him like
I’d never get to hug him again. When I released him, I held his face in my hands, the first face on this earth that I truly loved with a sacrificial love that only a mother knows, the first face that gave me purpose in life. He had taken the worst of myself, chiseled away the misery, and unearthed a pure love I didn’t know existed. A love that saturated me. The moment I met my baby, I knew all the heartache wasn’t in vain, because he made my heart whole. Something beautiful had come from something so ugly.

  ‘I’m proud of you, Ry. But I’m not buying the whole baseball accident thing. What really happened?’

  ‘Promise you won’t tell Dad? And that you won’t overreact?’

  ‘I can’t promise that, Ry. I’m your mother. I’ll do what needs to be done to protect you. Always.’

  ‘Mom, just swear you won’t do anything without talking to me first. Please.’

  ‘Fine, fine. I promise.’ So what if he and a buddy got into it? Testosterone and competition don’t always bring out the best in boys. I didn’t understand why he was being so secretive about this.

  ‘Mr. Fischer stopped me after baseball practice tonight … and had a few things to say to me—’

  My hand flew up to my mouth, stopping Ryan’s explanation mid-sentence.

  ‘Owen hit you?’

  ‘He was angry about what happened with Aria, Mom. It’s understandable. I got what I deserved. Please just let it go. If you confront him, it’ll only make things worse.’

  A grown man hitting a teenage boy … no, I couldn’t let Owen get away with this. But I couldn’t let Ryan know what I was about to do. He’d never tell me anything ever again. So I played it cool, as cool as I could as I lied through my teeth.

  ‘Ry, you don’t deserve that, and technically we could press assault charges for what he did to you, but I’ll let it slide – for you. Because you asked me to. But if that man ever goes near you again, I’ll … ooooh, I love you, you know that?’

  He sighed like he had just released the weight of a heavy secret. ‘Thank you for being cool about this and not killing anyone.’

  I hadn’t made any promises on that.

  ‘Moooommy!’ Lucas’s tattletale voice called from my bedroom. ‘Someone threw leaves all over the floor and made a huge mess! They’re gonna get a big spanking!’

  The flower petals. I’d forgotten about tonight’s romance fail. It looked like I wasn’t going to be the one getting a spanking tonight after all.

  Ryan looked at me quizzically.

  ‘I better go deal with the munchkin,’ I said.

  I kissed Ryan goodnight on the cheek, then headed back downstairs. Grant was wiping off the counter from the chocolate-covered strawberries I’d probably forget to eat, so I tucked Lucas into our bed – Grant would grumble about it later, but neither of us wanted to deal with the exhaustive effort of relocating him – and popped on a movie, Wreck-It Ralph. The kid could never fall asleep for long before he’d climb his way into our bed. We’d given up on ever having the bed to ourselves until Lucas reached puberty.

  I grabbed my keys and told Grant the timeworn cliché that I had a quick errand to run, then off I went to pay Owen Fischer a little visit.

  Ten minutes later I rang the doorbell, pacing the patio that Mackenzie had spent hours decorating. She always went a little overboard with her outdoor motifs, but her current hummingbird theme full of purples and teals was quite eye-catching. A hummingbird feeder dangled from the awning, along with hanging baskets of fuchsia petunias and violet geraniums. A rustic bistro set inlaid with colorful tile had given us many spring mornings enjoying coffee and chitchat over the years. I wondered where she had purchased the décor, and if I could pull off a similar look on my own back porch.

  When Owen answered the door, I couldn’t remember all the curse words and threats I had practiced on the drive over. I couldn’t speak. I glared up at him in fist-clenched, sizzling wrath, our eyes dueling.

  ‘Come to thank me for setting your son straight?’ His face was so eerily expressionless that I struggled to hold myself back. Then his lips curled in a nasty smirk. ‘Don’t worry. Becoming some thug’s girlfriend in jail will make him think twice about raping another innocent girl.’

  I slapped him across the cheek with every ounce of strength in me. His head swung back, and when he turned to face me again, his hazel eyes smoldered.

  ‘Tell your son he’s going to need a damn good lawyer, you bitch.’

  That was a choice word coming from Owen, the man who never swore.

  ‘Never come near my family again or you’ll be fertilizing the new lilac I just planted.’ I stormed down the walkway to my car, a mixture of satisfaction and adrenaline pulsing through me. I’d had the last word, and I meant it. Owen could swing his big gun around, hiding behind empty threats and violent words. I didn’t need the fanfare, though, because I was the sniper who would pull the trigger.

  When I got home I found Grant in bed reading and Lucas gone. The rose petals had been cleaned up, the candles blown out, bathtub drained.

  ‘I put Fizz to bed,’ Grant mumbled.

  ‘I’m sorry about tonight,’ I said. ‘But something happened that I had to take care of.’

  He barely looked up at me, then returned to his book. ‘It’s fine.’

  But it wasn’t.

  ‘Owen punched Ryan in the face. I had to confront him, Grant. I couldn’t let it go.’

  That got a reaction. Grant closed the book and looked at me hard. ‘He did what?’

  ‘He attacked Ryan.’

  ‘Why would he ever hit Ryan? I don’t understand.’

  I didn’t know how to explain it. Ryan had enough to worry about; he didn’t need a lecture from Grant on top of everything else. ‘Ryan and Aria had sex, and they had been drinking. Owen thinks Ryan forced himself on Aria, but I talked to Ryan and it doesn’t sound like that’s what happened.’

  Grant’s fury flattened and he shook his head. ‘Oh geez. As a father of girls, I can understand why Owen would be angry. No father wants to think of his daughter having sex.’

  ‘But hitting a kid? Grant, you have to agree that’s taking it too far. He’s becoming unhinged.’

  ‘Maybe I could talk to him, man to man. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.’

  ‘It’s too late for words. He plans to press charges against Ryan. He’s got a vendetta and wants to ruin his whole life; I can feel it. He’s going to put our son in jail, Grant!’ I felt hysterics bubbling up.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not misreading things? Mac and Owen are our friends – they would never do that.’ Oh Grant, ever the optimist.

  ‘Owen told me to get a lawyer for Ryan. This isn’t going to blow over. Mac’s not even speaking to me.’

  Grant tossed off the bed covers and came to me, folding me into a hug. ‘It’s okay, honey. We’ll figure it out. We just need to know the facts. Is Aria saying that he – he raped her?’

  ‘I don’t know what she’s saying. Aria won’t answer Ryan’s calls – even though I told him not to contact her – and Mac’s like the Great Wall of China. I have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors over there. I don’t know how to stop this from exploding.’

  I stood in the middle of the room wrapped in my husband’s arms, and yet I felt so cold. I couldn’t stand the silence, but I had nothing left to say.

  ‘I know how to stop it, Robin.’

  ‘You do?’ I was willing to entertain any idea at this point.

  ‘It’d put a stop to Owen forever, though.’

  Grant returned to the bed, and I shuffled behind him, sitting in the crook next to him. I’d never seen such broody darkness in Grant’s eyes before, but there it was, the hazel deepening into a pool of black.

  ‘I don’t care, if it saves Ryan.’

  ‘You know, of course, about my handy-dandy prescription pad.’ I nodded, and Grant’s features tensed. He blinked, slowly. ‘Well, I can think of a dozen prescriptions that if consumed in high enough quantities could put a man his si
ze down. I’m not saying we should … but we could.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t … could we?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be difficult. I could easily justify writing Ryan a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication. Something that’s known to trigger an adverse reaction when overdosed. Somehow it ends up in Owen’s food. Just sayin’.’

  ‘We could go to jail if they traced it back to us.’

  ‘And Ryan could go to jail if we don’t.’

  It sounded so logical sitting here discussing it like we were chatting about dinner plans.

  ‘What do you think the chances are of us getting caught?’

  ‘You, none. You wouldn’t know anything about it. Me, well, I’d take the fall in a heartbeat if it meant protecting you and the kids.’ He placed a hand on my knee, squeezed, and kissed my cheek. ‘Worst-case scenario, if the cops do tie it back to us, I’ll say it was all me.’ He cupped my chin, tilting my face toward his. ‘I’d do anything for you. Anything.’

  Grant was willing to put his life on the line for Ryan, for our family, for me.

  A chill ran up my arms – a chill caught between adoration for the man who would go to jail for me, and fear of the man who would kill for me. Who was he? Lover. Adulterer. Liar. Provider. Killer. Protector. The answer didn’t seem so black and white anymore.

  After all of his secretive texts, then catching him lying about ‘poker with the guys,’ I’d been shocked to find out he might be a cheater … but a killer too? And yet I admired his nobility, his willingness to take the fall. He could solve Ryan’s problem with the scribble of a pen, a pickup at the pharmacy, a visit with Mackenzie, where I’d discreetly poison Owen’s food. Without sanctimonious Owen leading the charge for Ryan’s crucifixion, Aria and Mackenzie would drop it. I was sure of it. It’d be over; Ryan would be safe.

  As my own scheme unfolded, maybe I wasn’t as innocent as I thought. The things a mother would do for her child were unspeakable. As I contemplated the murder of my friend’s husband, I didn’t know if I should feel proud or scared of myself.