Mike felt a sudden, sharp ripping sensation. Her hurting wasn’t supposed to be his business.
She didn’t want a hero. She wanted a friend. She didn’t want someone to beat up her enemies, to protect her, to watch over her.
She wanted a friend. She didn’t want him in the parts of her life that involved pain or fear or any of that other rotten life crap. She just wanted a friend.
Those were her rules.
Well, they’d played it her way. Now they were going to play it his way.
Chapter Eleven
Well, Amanda thought, she’d handled that reasonably well. Or as well as she possibly could have. Mike hadn’t guessed she was upset. Neither of the kids sensed anything was wrong…although Molly was still sneaking questions at bedtime.
“I think you’re going to be a prosecuting attorney when you grow up,” Amanda said as she snuggled Molly in fresh sheets and her favorite doll of the week.
“I don’t know what a prosecutor attorney is.”
“It means someone who’s really good at asking questions. And at finding ways to get the answers they want.” She bent over to kiss Molly good-night. “Did you have a good time next door?”
“I told you that already. I had a great time. I didn’t scream about the worms. I just ignored Teddy when he was being awful that way. And I helped Mr. Mike in a whole lot of ways.”
“You did, huh?”
“He thinks I’m smart.”
“Everybody thinks you’re smart. Because you are.”
“I know. But he listens to me. Like I wasn’t a little kid. Like I was somebody you want to listen to.”
“Well, that’s really good.” The fairy night-light stayed on, but Amanda switched off the pink lamp with the fringe shade
“Mommy. Don’t go. I need some mommy time.”
“We can have all the mommy time you want tomorrow. But it’s late tonight.”
“Just a couple more minutes!”
Amanda wasn’t positive she could hold it together for a “couple more minutes,” but she sank back on the bed and said, “Okay, whiffer-sniffer.”
Molly giggled. “Thank you very much, Bonklewonkle.” It was an old game, always worth some smiles, but then Molly got more serious. “I don’t know what a meeting is. But I don’t like it, when I don’t know where you are.”
“A meeting is just a word to describe when people are getting together for some reason. And you may not always know where I am, Mol, but you will always, always be able to reach me. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll always have the cell phone on for you.”
“But something could happen to the cell phone. It could break. Or fall in the sink. Or drop in a lake. Or a car could run over it.”
“You’re right. Even having a very, very, very good cell phone isn’t totally foolproof. Things happen. But I would never leave you with anyone who couldn’t find another way to reach me.”
“Okay. I think. Mom.”
“What?”
“You were at the vet today, weren’t you?”
“No. Where’d you get that idea?”
“It just came into my mind. I don’t know how it got there. But if you weren’t at the vet’s, where were you?”
Amanda had prepared that answer before coming home, so it could slip off her tongue, fast and easy. “I was talking with some attorneys about some business.”
“Well, don’t talk to those attorneys again. Just talk to Mr. Mike. He’s an attorney. We don’t need any other attorneys. And then you wouldn’t have to be gone for a whole afternoon.”
“Hey. I’ve been gone lots of afternoons, and you never had a sweat before. Think of swimming with Grandma. And the Curious Kids Museum with Grandma and Grandpa. And you used to do mornings in daycare when I was working. You know I always come back.”
“I know.”
“I can’t be with you every second. And you can’t be with me every second. But that’s okay. Then we come back together and can tell each other about our adventures. Right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
“So are we square?”
“We are very, very, very square. But, Mom.”
“What, hon?”
“Just don’t go wherever you went today, okay? Anywhere else is okay. But not to that meeting again.”
“I’ll try my best, ragamuffin. And now, you try your best to sleep really good, okay?”
“One more kiss?”
“Three more kisses, and don’t you dare try to escape a great big old hug, too.”
There. A few more giggles, more hugs, and finally, Amanda could ease the door closed and tiptoe out into the hall.
Her smile died; her shoulders sagged, and she lifted a shaky hand to pull the pins out of her hair. Her mother had left a message on the machine. An old friend from high school had left another message, said he’d be in town over the weekend, and hoped they could get together.
She turned the volume off the phone, switched off the light in the kitchen. She wanted a shower, to shake off the dirt of this terrible day. She wanted a glass of something alcoholic, too, but couldn’t work up enough ambition to actually get it.
Feeling boneless-tired, she sank into the blue chair in the living room and leaned forward with her head in her hands.
Most women she knew felt destroyed by a divorce. Maybe she’d been there, too, but she’d tried to see it as an opportunity to build herself into a better woman. A stronger woman. The kind of competent woman who wouldn’t just let bad things happen to her because she wasn’t strong enough to face the facts.
Well. She’d faced some facts this afternoon.
She’d failed to protect her daughter.
The only job in the universe that mattered.
She felt a claw on her ankle, sighed, and lifted Darling to her lap. A heap of purring fur leaped to the top of the chair and then delicately tried to wind herself like a scarf around Amanda’s neck. She loved both pets. Hugely. And they were overdue attention today, but just then, all she wanted was some nice, long, wallowing silence.
Somehow, someway, she had to get up the next morning.
Somehow, someway, she had to find a way to say the right maternal things to Molly.
Somehow, someway, she had to find a way to believe she hadn’t failed in everything that mattered to her.
“Hey. I knocked. But I wasn’t sure if you heard me…and the back door wasn’t locked…”
Her head shot up. The last person she expected to see was Mike, much less standing in the arch of her kitchen, holding a two-inch kitty-cat purse. The purse looked downright funny, hanging from the beefy wrist of a six-foot-two hunk.
More to the point, she’d assumed he’d be comatose by now, after dealing with two four-year-olds for most of the day. For sure he was wearing torn old jeans and a tee that looked as if it lost a wrestling match-it was that wrinkled and ragged. But he wasn’t.
He looked like the Mike she’d fallen in love with. Brash and unbrushed, a smile as natural as sunshine, that easy, earthy way of moving that was so purely male. It wasn’t hard to imagine him fighting down and dirty. It was easy to imagine him cleaned up, in a navy suit and white shirt, fighting to win with a forceful presence, and slow, quiet words. It was just as easy to imagine him being there, through thick and thin, no minor irritation like earthquakes or avalanches keeping him from those he loved.
He was just a bigger-than-life kind of guy. It wasn’t his fault.
But she wasn’t going to be on the list of loved ones he dug through those avalanches for. As often as she remembered the night they made love, she winced every time her heart replayed the messy hurts that showed up the next day.
And faster than pride, she straightened. Possibly she couldn’t find another fake smile today to save her life, but she tried for a normal, pleasant expression. “Aw, Mike, I’m sorry you went to the trouble. You didn’t have to bring over Molly’s purse. We’d have gotten it tomorrow.”