Page 67 of Reclaim Me

“Can you do something for me?” His voice is low and throaty, full of vulnerabilities he’s not used to exposing, so I’m inclined to listen even though I know there’s a high likelihood he might be preparing to ask me for something I’m not ready to give him just yet.

“What is it?”

“Can you consider letting me be around more consistently? Giving me a day to pick her up from school, help her with her homework, cook her dinner…”

“You know how to cook now?” I ask, trying to imagine him in somebody’s kitchen.

“You’ve had my food before, Sunshine; you know I can cook.”

There he goes with that damn nickname again, making me melt.

“Grilling is not the same as cooking, Hunter. You know your daughter barely eats meat, right?”

“I’m aware. Just like I’m aware that you’re intentionally steering this conversation in another direction to avoid answering my question.”

I kick at the window sill with the toe of my shoe. “Well, I don’t know that I know exactly what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking to see her in person more than once a week for thirty minutes at a time. I know you wanted to take things slow, to try to ease all of us into this, but I think Riley is ready for more time with me, and I am more than ready for more time with her.”

24

HUNTER

Now

Family dinner.

That’s Rae’s answer to my request. Weekly dinners at her place with her, Riley, Aaron and his mom. When she first offered it up as a way for me to have more time with my daughter, I almost laughed in her face, but then I saw she was serious and that Riley was excited about the prospect of showing me her room, and I was left with no choice but to agree.

If anyone ever needed proof that there’s not a thing in this world I wouldn’t do for the two of them, they’d just have to peek through the blinds in Rae’s dining room every Thursday night at seven p.m. sharp to find it. This is my second week inside the shrine to perfection Rae calls a home, and I have to say, I don’t understand her decision to be in this place, with these people, anymore now than I did when I was standing on the outside looking in.

The house, while beautiful and in the perfect, trendy neighborhood, is nothing like the home Rae once told me she wanted. There’s no knick knacks on the shelves tinged with nostalgia and precious memories. No family pictures on the wall. No messes to stumble over or warmth to expel the chill in every room that emanates from the white furniture and metal surfaces.

“What happened to your hand, Daddy?” Riley’s voice pulls me out of my head and back into this hellscape of a dinner. She keeps her touch light as she runs her fingertips around the perimeter of the scrape on my hand.

“Oh, that’s nothing. I just hurt myself when Taurin and I were out in the yard the other day building?—”

“Who’s Taurin?” Aaron asks, cutting me off in the middle of my explanation. I turn my head slowly in his direction, working hard not to look as annoyed as I feel, and give him the attention he’s so desperate to have from me.

He’s sitting at the head of the table, his posture rigid and hostile, though not quite as unwelcoming as his mother’s. She’s all barely audible mumbles and disapproving eyes that will drill a hole into the side of my face until I leave.

“Taurin is one of my sponsees.”

Aaron frowns. “Is doing yard work for you a part of his twelve-step program?”

Rae, who’s sitting to Aaron’s left, puts a hand on his forearm, a silent warning to pull back. She does that with him a lot. Warning him. Protecting him. Keeping him from tap dancing on my last nerve.

“No,” I say, threading patience through my voice. “He’s staying with me for a while, and when he saw me working on something, he offered to help.”

Marcy’s eyes go wide, and she chooses now to speak to me for the first time tonight. “Is that smart? Two addicts under one roof?”

I don’t appreciate her tone or the way she makes my house sound like some kind of den of iniquity, and it’s hard for me to keep my frustration and impatience off of my face. Rae must see me struggling because she jumps in, saving me from having to explain myself to a woman who just wants to see the worst in me anyway.

“Well, it’s definitely not traditional, but I think it’s better than the alternative, which was Hunter leaving him on the streets to fend for himself.” Her voice is tight, packed with frustration, and, if I’m not mistaken, a bit of pride. “Getting clean is hard, but it’s even harder to do when you don’t have a safe, loving environment to do it in. Hunter is giving Taurin that, and I think that’s amazing.”

Yeah, that’s definitely pride. It’s in her voice and now in her eyes as she looks at me.

“I think Will would be proud of you,” she says.

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