Page 10 of Happily Never After

“I’ll pass that along.” Claire shook her head. “I’ll call you after I watch the episode, okay? Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

Charlie was the bossiest, most fearsome woman she knew. It would take a miracle to get her to have a civilized conversation with Brianna, let alone Jack. She had only survived Thanksgiving at Claire’s by hiding in the basement with their stepdad, Roy, and drinking wine.

With the impending trip to the West Coast, surely Claire could sneak in some quality sister time and start changing her heart. Something had stirred after Jack and his second family abruptly re-entered her life. She couldn’t shake the image of a perfect Christmas, blended family, chaos, and all.

After driving through another two miles of quaint, suburban houses and well-manicured parks, the yards grew, and the houses became less frequent. She pulled to a stop in front of an unassuming Cape Cod-style home with a burgeoning garden.

Claire tapped a code on the keypad that controlled the gate. The gate slid open silently and allowed her Audi SUV to crawl up the driveway.

Oh, hell. A full-body shudder nearly jerked the car into the grass. Tanya, Claire’s stepmother, stood completely nude in the backyard. She waved at Claire and bent over to sprinkle water onto some green buds that were just beginning to emerge from the soil. Jack had casually mentioned this springtime habit, but seeing it with her own eyes was another thing entirely.

“Hi, Tanya.” Claire climbed out of her car with her eyes almost completely shut. She bumped into her fender and felt her way to the far side of the car.

“Claire, darling, you’re early! Brianna hasn’t arrived yet.” Tanya’s voice was like honey.

“That’s okay, I’ll just step inside and see if Jack needs any help with dinner.” Claire stumbled over the curb as she headed for the front door.

Rosie ran ahead of Claire into the house and immediately found Jack, who stood in the kitchen with a towel slung over one shoulder and a wooden spoon suspended over a bubbling pot of red sauce. She jumped and put her paws on his knees in her customary greeting, and he patted her obligingly on the head.

“Thank you for coming.” An almost-smile crept across his usually stoic face as he immediately washed his hands.

“It’s the second Sunday.” She slid her purse onto a dining room chair and reached down to scratch Rosie behind the ears. An awkward silence followed. They had been doing once-a-month dinners for at least six months now, and she still didn’t know how to talk to her father. Jack wasn’t much of a talker, but since he wasn’t trimming rose bushes in the nude, he was the lesser of two evils.

He set his towel down and walked over to an overhead cabinet, then ducked to look underneath it and fit a key into a virtually invisible hole. A hidden panel swung down, revealing several firearms, ammunition, and electronic devices.

Claire sighed and handed over her bag. Jack picked up a device that looked like a stud finder and waved it over her purse.

“Shoes,” he said, and she grumbled as she kicked off her flip-flops and handed them to him. He set them on the kitchen floor and carefully ran the device over them.

“All set?” It was the same song and dance at every family dinner. Despite the months of radio silence from ESA, heinsisted on scanning her accessories for tracking devices and bugs.

“Almost.” Jack waved a piece of bread at Rosie until she approached. He scanned her collar, fed her the treat, and replaced the device in the secret panel. When he turned back to the stove, he winced and rotated the shoulder that had been shot the previous fall.

“No bugs this week?” Claire asked.

“No. Can’t be too careful.” He calmly stirred the sauce.

She turned away, too, and studied a ceramic of a nude woman. Gold streaks mimicked stretch marks around the rotund belly. Tanya had many hobbies—gardening, ceramics, joining various pyramid schemes. She had never once made Claire feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, and yet their house didn’t feel like coming home.

She was an intruder in decades of family history she had never known. Pictures of Brianna gleamed in frames on the wall—dressed as a witch for Halloween, standing on stage as a lanky teenager, arm-in-arm with a Brad Pitt-lookalike at her junior prom. A picture of Claire had appeared on the wall since her last visit, but the frames didn’t match. Brianna’s had a weathered, well-loved quality, and Claire’s had clearly been chucked into a Costco cart right next to a five-pound bag of lentils. Maybe she didn’t belong here, but they were trying. It was something.

“Nude gardening is starting early this year,” she commented, helping herself to a glass of water. Jack and Tanya didn’t allow wine at Sunday dinner. Strike number two.

“Once the temperature hits sixty, she has to be out there.” He had used his FBI influence to make a number of indecent exposure charges disappear before convincing Tanya she could only garden in the nude in the backyard, where an eight-foot privacy fence obscured her from the neighbors’ view. “She says it allows Mother Nature to speak to her in her purest form.”

Claire shuddered and slid the curtains closed.

“How was your week?” Jack continued. Ah, time for small talk.

“Fine. Busy.” The news about Kyle and Nicole’s pregnancy was on the tip of her tongue, but she kept it inside. She usually only shared work-related news with Jack.

“And yours?” She clapped at Rosie, who jumped and stopped licking the trash can.

“Quite eventful. I think we’re getting really close to an answer.”

Claire looked intently at her father. His hair had a touch more gray than it did when he first broke into her apartment and introduced himself the previous fall. There was more sadness in his eyes.

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