Page 60 of The Usual Family Mayhem

We really needed to move this along. He told me he’d arranged to meet his father at the condo right about now. Jackson tried to call a few minutes ago and wave his dad off but couldn’t reach him. The clashing of our schedules was my fault, not Harlan’s. I’d stopped by without warning. I hoped to be long gone before Harlan arrived in all his glorious splendor.

This was why Gram had those call-first visitation rules. I got it now.

We stood in Jackson’s quiet family room with the television turned off. No music. Not a pillow out of place. Not a dish or cup on the kitchen counter. Not a stray scrap of mail floating around. The place had a show-home feel. Classy not flashy. Streamlined with soothing colors. Basically, it looked like no one lived there.

My initial plan didn’t include rushing through my new Abigail information. Drawing out the visit, testing the attraction, maybe working in another kiss before talking about poison—because kiss before poison was the right order—sounded good. Then Gram and Celia unloaded on me, and a hundred topics jumbled in my brain, all of which had to be sorted before Harlan showed up.

Celia and Gram knew about the kiss. Hell, knowing them they might have photos of it. They’d danced around their concerns about it happening but the fact they had any concerns was confusing. Did they really have a problem with the kiss?

Jackson slipped off his suit jacket and tie and sat down next to me on the couch. “Abigail being with Mags and Celia doesn’t necessarily—”

“Jackson.” No. We were not playing this game. “Don’t even try to make it make sense.”

“She’s a client.”

Why were we debating this? The woman probably offed her nasty spouse. Thanks to seeing Abigail in person, talking with her, I grew more confident about my conclusion the more I thought about it. The open question was if Gram and Celia’s fingerprints were all over this mess. “The woman just lost her husband and is under suspicion for his murder. Instead of grieving in private, she’s running around town, visiting Celia and Gram.”

Jackson lounged, looking calm but engaged. “People handle death in different ways.”

“I get that. I’m not a fan of competitive grieving or telling people how they should act when they lose someone.”

As a person who waded knee-deep in family trauma for most of my life, I understood how complex and complicated grief could be. Pain could sneak up and drop you to your knees at unexpected times, often after years of being tucked away and cordoned off. Seeing a mother and daughter walking in the park. Standing in line behind a woman with the exact shade of brown hair that you’d seen in family photos.

Smelling chocolate cake, my mom’s favorite.

Riding out the alternating waves of fury and agony was a job society demanded survivors perform in private, behind thick walls where sound and light couldn’t penetrate. Mourning was fine but once the body of this precious person was laid in the ground your grieving needed to find an outlet, a quiet one that didn’t make other people uncomfortable. It was your job to transform, rise above, be brave, and move on... or pretend to.

Living that lie ate up an enormous amount of energy. So did keeping the despair at bay. The hard fact was that you didn’t overcome a loss of that magnitude or grow to accept it. If you were lucky you found a way to survive it. Even then, rage could burn uncontrolled, begging for an outlet.

Dragging out those murky memories and dissecting them had a time and a place but this wasn’t it. So many issues fired around Jackson and me. So many ways to trip up. We needed to talk this through, and “this” meant one of many open topics.

I focused on the most obvious one, and the supposed reason for my visit. “We can make up excuses but why was Abigail at the house? Because she wanted a cupcake? The cupcakes are great, but I doubt that’s the reason.”

He opened his mouth then closed it again. Whatever lecture he planned to give seemed to vanish. “I don’t know.”

That is not where I thought he was going with that windup. “You never say that.”

“I’m not an asshole. I don’t pretend to know everything.”

His fingers slipped into my hair. The light touch kicked off a yearning I didn’t have the strength to lasso and subdue. “No, you’re not an asshole. Confusing. Frustrating. Hotter than you have a right to be, but not an asshole.”

“Want to talk about the ‘hotter’ part?” He flashed a smile that saidwho cares about any issue but this one?

“No.” Didn’t need to. The thought played nonstop in my mind these days.

“You once told me I looked like a car ran over my face.”

I laughed because younger me had been quite the charmer. “I was nine at the time and you deserved it. You tattled to Gram about my eating a chunk of Celia’s birthday cake before the party.”

“You did eat it.”

Not quite. I ate three chunks then had to deal with a different type of chunk. I threw up for an hour but was that the point? “No one likes a teenage narc.”

“My job was to lie and take the blame for you?”

“Nice of you to finally admit it. Yes. And you’ve grown into your face. It’s cute now.”

He pretended to weigh those words. “I think that was a compliment.”

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