Page 55 of Guarding Over You
Which meant it had to be for Gracie.
“What’s in it, Mom?”
“Let me see,” she said. They went into the living room. She glanced down and saw the two Barbies in the boxes with a card and lifted it.
“Pull it out,” Gracie said, reaching for the bag before she could say no. It dropped on the floor in her daughter’s attempt to sneak, the two dolls sliding out.
There was no taking it back now.
She opened the card.Can’t wait to meet you. Here are two dolls to play with. Tina.
Son of a bitch.
How dare they do this?! How dare they put her daughter into something she’d told Billy was off limits?
Here she’d been trying to help him. Maybe even protect him when she saw he was trying and nowthis!
Her daughter was trying to get the boxes opened and it wasn’t like she could pull them back now.
“Let me help you,” she said.
“Who are they from?”
She was hoping her daughter wouldn’t ask that, but it was ridiculous to think otherwise.
She did something she told herself she wouldn’t do. She lied. “Your father. He wanted to surprise you.”
What else could she say? It would come up at the visit next weekend, she was sure. She knew damn well it would because she planned on letting them know. After she gave Billy a piece of her mind.
“Can I call and thank him?”
“I’m going to talk to him first,” she said. She opened the other doll and handed it over. “Why don’t you go play and I’m going to go outside and talk to your father?”
Away from prying ears.
She slipped her shoes off her feet. What she really wanted to do was change her clothes on top of it, but this couldn’t wait.
It rang twice before he answered. “You’re not supposed to call me.”
“Yeah and your girlfriend shouldn’t be sending Gracie gifts.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“I came home just now and there was a Barbie gift bag on the front porch. You know Gracie loves Barbie. I picked it up quickly to see what was in it, but she saw the dolls. I opened the card and it’s from Tina.”
“No way. She wouldn’t do that.”
“Billy, she signed her name. Said she couldn’t wait to meet her and play with the dolls. Do you think I’m making this shit up?” There was silence on the other end. “Are you there?”
“Let me see the card.”
She opened the glass doors, checked in to see Gracie with the dolls and play talking, snapped a picture of the card and sent it. “Is that her handwriting?”
“I think so,” Billy said. “It’s not like I see it all the time, but that might be how she writes.”
