Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
I set my alarm, then closed my eyes.
All the while I lay there, waiting for sleep to claim me, I wondered how in the hell I’d let Jordie Goodwin take this from me, too.
Thirteen
Does your life insurance know you like being strangled during sex?
—Audric to Gunner
AUDRIC
“You got her today?” I asked Gunner.
He nodded. “Yep. I have a meeting with the lawyer today, too. So we won’t be home until late.”
“Got it,” I said as I picked up my work truck keys. “I wonder if your neighbors think we’re gay.”
“If they do, it’s your fault because you gave me a hug last night in the yard.”
I chuckled. “It’s not my fault you looked like you could use one.”
He grumbled something under his breath, and I was just about to ask him if he was okay this morning after he’d broken down last night and admitted all his fears when the doorbell rang.
I opened the door since I was closest, blinking when I found Creole in her flight attendant uniform.
She was staring at me with wide eyes as she said, “If you don’t take these boxes from me, I might very well die.”
I took the boxes from her, which happened to be Dole boxes with handles.
“Did you steal some of my dad’s pineapples?” I teased, not upset even a little bit that she would.
“Actually, no. I went and bought my own. The Dole Plantation as I was heading out caught my eye, and I remembered you saying how much you enjoyed them. Plus, I wasn’t sure if your dad would share any. The way you made it sound, I wasn’t thinking yes. Then I got a little bit overwhelmed when I got there, got the pineapples and left.”
The way she’d just word vomited all over the place was adorably cute.
“Ole!”
We both looked down and to the right and there was our little Lottie, toddling over with a pacifier in one hand, her blanket in the other, and her hair crazy.
“Oh, girl.” Creole dropped down to her haunches. “Look at all that hair. Did you sleep good?”
“Yes,” she said and popped her pacifier back into her mouth. “’Akfeast?”
“That’s me and you today, crazy little baby man,” Gunner called from his lean against the counter.
She looked up at me and said, “You stay?”
I touched the top of her head before saying, “Not today, Beanie Weenie. I have to work and go visit Grandma.”
Honestly, I’d rather spend the day watching The Lorax for the fifteenth time in two days.
But that wasn’t an option for me.
Today was the day that I forced myself to go see my mother and pay off her monthly bill so I didn’t have to go in again until the following month.
I forced myself to go so that my dad wouldn’t have to pay, and that he wouldn’t have to go see her if he didn’t want to.
He forced himself to go by every six months or so, but mostly he stayed away, continuing to be loyal to a woman who should be dead.
“Ohhh, work!” Lottie threw up the hand holding the blanket in the air, then turned around and marched back toward the living room where she immediately demanded, “Lorax!”
I winced at Gunner. “Have fun, Dad.”
Gunner’s face went white.
I stayed there, waiting for the color to come back into his face.
When it didn’t, I turned around and placed my pineapples on the counter.
Before I could speak, though, Creole stepped inside and headed straight for Gunner.
“You weren’t responsible,” she said softly.
Gunner’s eyes went immediately blank.
“Not any more responsible than I was for my son’s leukemia,” she continued. “Blaming ourselves for stuff that’s outside of our control when it comes to our kids makes us a good parent. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. The parent dies first. That’s the laws of nature. But sometimes, that’s not the way it works, and we have to be strong. Because our lot in life as parents is to be strong, even when we don’t want to be. Would it be easier to fall into a hole and bury ourselves? Yes. But that’s not who we are. We fight. We continue to live, albeit unhappily, because that’s what we do for our kids. We fight.”
She had no clue that while she was giving Gunner a pep talk, she was also clearing me of guilt.
There she was, a victim of rape, having raised a child that should never have been.
She loved him.
Mourned him.
And still, she fought.
She didn’t try to take the easy way out.
She didn’t put the death of her second child above the life of her first.
She didn’t completely shut down for years before finally deciding that the world would make sense if she was no longer in it.
Thoughts swirled in my brain as Gunner and Creole talked some more.
I was only halfway listening to their conversation when Gunner said, “Aren’t you going to be late, man?”