Page 56 of Hold

No. I want to walk. Be back by ten.

And now she would have to spend the rest of the evening worrying about his reaction, coaching him on what she wanted him to believe about his father, and riding the fine line between truth and putting a rift between the two that Jake would eventually blame her for, the way Benji did.

♦

Thea didn’t sleep that night. At least Jake was home at a reasonable hour, though she hated the pensive look on his face when he’d come in. But was that worse than the devotion on Benji’s when he looked at his father? Just what did Gabe really want? He couldn’t possibly expect her to just let him back into their lives, could he? After more than fifteen years of promises and disappointment?

But what if he’s changed?

What if it’s better for the boys that he stays?

That thought made her flip onto her other side and grab her pillow in fear and uncertainty.

On this side she’d think of Liam. Liam, who had made everything so clear just a few hours ago. A man with whom she might be able to build a relationship carefully, mindfully. Plus, a man who made her thighs quiver. And who could fix a leaking faucet. A man who would be a helpmeet in life, not a burden. A man who might have loved and respected her kids and given them a father figure they could look up to.

It had been possible. But now? She felt as limp as that twenty-year-old girl, eight months pregnant and seeing her life mapped out before her in the hopeless look in her partner’s eyes. School seemed like something someone else did. And Liam? How had she thought she would get to have that life without consequences?

When Jake had come in, he’d looked so pale, despite his tan, his eyes so wounded, that she’d told him he didn’t have to go to work in the morning. “Tell Liam… tell him we’re all sick, we ate some bad shrimp.”

Lying to Liam did make her feel sick to her stomach. But she couldn’t even form the words in her mind to tell him what had happened. It was much easier to send an email to her bosses and leave a message at the camp that she and Benji were going to stay home too.

Liam texted her.Sorry you’re sick. Anything I can do?

You can stop reminding me of what I had.

No. Don’t come over. I’m green,she wrote after much deliberation.

He texted back, but she didn’t reply. When he called the next morning, she didn’t answer.

Benji was up early, Jake late, as usual. It was eleven thirty before she heard him thump down the stairs. Unable to settle on anything else, Thea was watching an old movie while Benji slumped against her, playing on his tablet. Unlike the brooding bad boy movies she’d watched with Liam, she buried herself in a world of shiny dresses and 1950s manners that had always soothed her when Gabe had been around.

The whole day, she felt that she was in suspended animation, waiting for him to come back that afternoon, waiting for whatever the rest of her life was going to bring.

Jake came into the living room, a huge bowl of cereal and milk in his hand. He’d hardly spoken to her last night, but she had to prepare him for this afternoon.

“Hi, babe,” she said. Jake lifted his chin in response, as his mouth was obscenely full.

Thea hoped he’d come and sit with her, but he was on tenterhooks just as much as she was and seemed to prefer to stand. The haunted look in his eyes reminded her, as he did so often, of Gabriel, and she sighed. However this turned out, a lot of damage had been done to Jake that she wasn’t going to be able to fix.

“So…” she began, “your father’s coming—”

“Don’t call him that.” Some Cheerios fell out of his mouth as he spat the words.

“Don’t be mean to him!” Benji shouted from next to her. “He’s come back! Don’t be mean or he’ll leave again.”

“Shut up, doofus. You don’t know a thing about it.”

“Stop it, Jake—”

“You’rea doofus!”

“Benji, stop. Both of you.” She loved them both so much. She wished she could make everything easy for them. But life, and her life especially, didn’t work that way.

She started again. “He’s coming over this afternoon, and I want you to hear him out.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Jacob, he is your father, and he has the right to ask for ten minutes of your time.”

Jake snorted, shoveled more cereal into his mouth, and mumbled, “What does he know about being a father?”

She shook her head, going for honesty. “I don’t know, honey. But last night he said he was sorry and… that he wants to stay.”

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