Page 56 of Over the Verdant Hills
Somehow, some of the anger in Ted’s voice had defused. “I don’t like my kids calling me and asking if they can stay and telling me they don’t want to come to Boston.”
“I don’t like my kids coming to me and crying and asking me when Dad is going to come home and why he doesn’t live with us anymore.”
“Really? You have to go there?”
“I’m sorry. My point is, both of us have to deal with things we don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to hold it against me for the rest of my life. Just because you weren’t a good enough wife, and I needed my sexual urges satisfied, and you weren’t enough—is that my fault?”
He heard Claire suck in her breath. He could see the hurt pierce right through her eyes. He wanted to grab the phone and smash it to smithereens, but he just sat in his chair.
“The children have a right to their opinion and to express what they want. I told them if you changed your mind and didn’t want them for the summer, I would keep them. Otherwise, I told them, in no uncertain terms, that we would be going to Pennsylvania to meet you on Sunday. Is there anything else you wanted?”
Her voice was completely devoid of all warmth. There was no friendliness or engagement in it. She was just talking because she had to.
Maybe because she wanted to hide from him, or maybe because she wanted to keep him from being able to hurt her again.
“No. But I don’t want the children calling me and asking if they can stay there for the summer. That was rude and underhanded. And I don’t appreciate it. Goodbye.”
Claire kept the phone to her ear for just a bit longer, and Josiah waited.
Finally she lowered it, not even bothering to look to see if it was off. It was clear that her ex-husband had hung up on her.
“He said no, didn’t he?” Lana said, her arms crossed over her chest, her foot sticking out, and her whole body showing her displeasure.
“He loves you. He wants to see you.”
Josiah was impressed. After the insult that her husband had unfairly lodged against her, he couldn’t believe that she wasn’t curled up crying somewhere or railing against him. But instead, she was saying the same thing she had said before—that he loved them, which probably was true.
“I’m going to run away. I’m not going to go back to Boston,” Dan said, and he started to stomp away.
“Hey there. Hold on a second,” Josiah said. Maybe the fact that hehad interjected himself into the conversation made Dan stop, or maybe Dan just wanted someone to stop him.
Anyway, his tone didn’t hold any heat or anger. And he was surprised when Dan actually listened.
“I guess you can look at this two different ways. You can look at it like you’re angry about what you have to do, and you can ruin tonight because of what you think you’re going to have to do a couple of days from now, because you can’t get your way for the summer. Or you can decide that you’re going to be happy in the moment, which is right now, and you’re not going to let the things that you’re not happy about ruin tonight. And tomorrow, and the ride to Pennsylvania with your mom. I guess you’re a little young to be thinking about stuff like that, but it’s your life. You can enjoy it, or not.”
“But I’m mad,” Dan said, sounding like he hadn’t heard a word Josiah had said.
“I guess I’m a little bit mad right now too, although maybe for different reasons.”
He didn’t look at Claire, but he could feel her eyes on him. “But this is a beautiful night, I love bonfires, and I’ve had such a great week with you guys, I’d like to enjoy a little bit more time before you have to leave. And I don’t like that, but I’m not going to allow it to ruin tonight.”
“You didn’t get your marshmallow done,” Lana said, and it was actually said in a kind of nice tone. Maybe she’d figured out that the only familiar thing she was going to have in Boston was her brother, and maybe she should develop a relationship with him. Or, more likely, she’d heard what Josiah had said, and it made sense to her.
The kids came back over, Dan picked his stick back up, and they sat down. But the mood was ruined.
Claire leaned over and said softly, “Thanks.”
He probably shouldn’t have said it. He had no right—they didn’t have any kind of agreement between the two of them, and he had no hold on her—but he leaned over toward her and said, “I heard what your husband said, and I wanted to grab a hold of his throat and slam him into the ground. You are way more than enough.”
She stared at him, then shook her head, and didn’t say anything.
He didn’t mind. But this was the day before her grandma’s funeral,and while he had other things he wanted to say to her, he took his own advice that he’d given the children and didn’t spoil the evening by pushing a romance that she might not want on her.
She finally took the kids in for the night, and he put the fire out and headed home.
It wasn’t super late, and he wasn’t surprised to see his dad still up when he got there.
