Page 109 of Nothing But It All
Snaps nips at my fingertips.I’ll be left with this little responsibility to care for while he’s away.
“Mom?” Maddie asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.
Ignoring Jack’s gaze on the side of my face, I turn to our child. “Yeah?”
“Do you think we can come back here for Labor Day like we did last year? Ava said they’re coming and the Schottenheimers too. We’re on a different schedule from them this summer, and I’d really like to see Christina.”
“Sure,” I say, blowing out a shaky breath.Vegas?“I don’t see why we can’t.”
“Great.”
Snaps jumps to the floor and whines at Maddie.
“I’ll take Snapsy out, and then I’ll go check on Pops,” she says.
“Okay,” I say, my blood pressure rising.
She walks out with the puppy on her heels. The door slams behind them.
The cabin grows eerily quiet. Jack hangs his head, elbows back on his knees. I sit awkwardly, stuck in the middle of knowing a little but not enough.
“What’s going on, Jack?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
He’s lying.Between his behavior and Vegas, something is obviously going on.Why won’t he tell me?
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, lifting his head. “Are you okay?”
“Just emotionally drained from drying Maddie’s tears all day. Where did you go this morning?”
His shoulders slump as he sits back in the chair. “I’m sorry. I did a little hiking down by the lake. Sat with Dad for a while. I’ve just had a lot on my mind. You know how it is.”
Do I?
“Is everything okay at the shop?” I ask, poking around for the crux of the problem.
“It’ll be fine.”
The dismissal hits a nerve.It’ll be fine.
Am I too unimportant to know what’s going on?
“Didn’t we have a discussion about being involved in each other’s lives?” I ask, trying to hide my annoyance. “Because I feel like there’s a lot happening in your world, and that world is most definitely not interfacing with mine.”
He groans. “We got fined. I’ll deal with that when I get home. Someone—I don’t know who, because Tommy was being elusive about the name, so it’s probably him—drove a car into the roll-up garage door.”
My eyes go wide.
“They’re going to get it secured for the night and then call a guy in tomorrow to take a look at it,” he says. “No idea what that’s gonna look like or cost.”
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
He chuckles in frustration—in defeat.
I pause, uncertain whether I should ask about his trip. He’s upset. Maybe I should let it go. But if I do, it’ll eat at me, which wouldn’t do either of us any good in the long run.
“You’re going to Vegas?” I ask.
