Page 37 of Guarding Over You
“We’ve been divorced for a year. He’d been clean. We moved on. I knew he was dating on and off, but he had introduced no one to Gracie that I was aware of. I was in an apartment, working, we were going about our lives.”
“He relapsed again?”
“He did. He got mixed up with a woman who was drinking and doing drugs and he fell into the same cycle. He was yelling at me again in front of Gracie. I get it, people fight, but this was like before. Not merely a disagreement.”
“But a full-out war? Verbally?”
“Yes. I’d tell him to leave and he would and I’d calm Gracie down. But I could see she didn’t want to go with him after that. Mind you, he was always sober around her. He never yelled or treated her that way. It’s not that.”
“Are you sure?”
She sighed. “I want to say I’m positive because I believe she’d tell me, but I don’t know for sure. But the last time he came to get her, she didn’t want to go. He flipped out. Sober, mind you. But flipped out. Started throwing things around my apartment, she’s screaming and crying and he has no excuse to even say why he’s doing it. Or I didn’t think he did, but he admitted later that he was using again.”
“So you had custody changed?”
“Yes. Nothing until he was clean again and supervised only. The courts agreed. She’s afraid of him. I’m not forcing her to go. The kid has been through enough. The interviews to get her side of everything because I understand they can’t take it from a divorced couple who is fighting.”
It’s where the system hurt and helped at the same time.
She knew the process and knew what her daughter would have to go through and hated that she was supported and not forced but had to experience it because Arden gave Billy so many chances.
“And that’s where you’re at now? And what happened today?”
“Yes. Every two weeks, Billy and Gracie get three hours together without me but with a court approved and appointed mediator. They can just be at Billy’s house, which was our oldhouse, but it was uncomfortable for Gracie. When he brought her out to do things, she opened up more. I’ve seen changes in her and them. I’m happy to see it. I really am.”
“Which makes you such a great mother,” he said. “A great person. Few could be that way.”
“I know. I’m trying. Even through the mistakes I’ve made, I’m still trying.”
“Which is more than most would do.”
“I’ve moved on from him. A long time ago. He knows it now. He has a girlfriend who wants to meet Gracie, but we are nowhere near that. That’s what is starting things up. He’s always had an addictive personality and I never noticed it until we were done. Women, drugs, alcohol. With me, it was about making me happy. Wanting to be around me all the time. Doing what I wanted even if I didn’t ask. It was almost smothering, but there was a tiny part of me that liked the attention.”
Not the type of thing you want to admit to a man you just said you were flirting with, but she’d come this far so might as well get it all out there.
“Is that what you want or how you normally are in a relationship?”
“No to it all. And I haven’t been with anyone since my divorce. Haven’t looked. Haven’t cared. Haven’t wanted anyone. I’m kind of burned out.”
“But you’re flirting with me.”
“I hear some cockiness in your voice. Yes, I am. I was. I’m sure you’re going to run fast when I bring this plate into the house now, but I wanted you to know.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I think you’re a strong woman who gave someone too many chances for all the right reasons and he took advantage of it.”
“I think that too. I’m glad someone else feels the same and isn’t telling me I’m an idiot.”
“I’m sure you say it to yourself enough, you don’t need another person to do it.”
She threaded their fingers together and held onto a steady hand for once in her life. Just to test it out. See how it felt. Was it an anchor to hold her down or one to steady her?
She was going with the second and hoped this didn’t come back to bite her in the ass.
12
THE GOOD SON
“Ineed a favor,” Blaze said the next day to his brother Clay.
