Page 36 of Giving Grace

“Why did my kid think today was Wednesday?” She’s turned around completely, her entire body facing mine, arm draped over the steering wheel, jaw set at that dangerous angle that makes my cock twitch.

“I don’t know.” I offer her an answer, even though we both know it’s bullshit. “Because she’s four?”

Smelling a lie, she tilts her head just a bit as her eyes narrow slightly. “I only ask because Wednesday is the day Mary picks her up from school and keeps her for me while I work my shift at the bar, so it’s the only day of the week that I can’t 100% account for her whereabouts—and that girl knows her days of the week, backward and forward.”

“Does she?” I know she does. “Then, I don’t know.” I look out the window. “We should probably get going. We’re going to be late.”

For a second, I think she’s going to tell me to fuck off. To get the fuck out of her car and leave me standing on the sidewalk outside Molly’s school. Instead, she turns calmly in her seat and starts the car. Hands at ten and two, she pulls away from the curb, shooting into traffic like she’s been driving in Boston all her life. Just when I start to let myself relax into thinking the rest of the trip will be made in silence, she speaks again.

“She stopped talking about you a few months ago.” Thankfully, she doesn’t look at me when she says it. If she did, she’d have the perverse satisfaction of watching the color drain from my face. “Before then, you were all she would talk about. When were you going to come see her. Why you weren’t going to Con and Henley’s for dinner anymore. Every time we’d pass by Benny’s she’d beg me to go in and check to see if you were there—and then, just like that—” she lift a hand off the steering wheel and snaps her fingers. “She stopped. I thought she finally forgot about you, moved on—but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

Shit. “Grace—”

“Don’t.” She drops her hand back to the steering wheel and wraps her fingers around it like she’s trying to kill it. “Don’t Grace me right now. Don’t you fucking dare say my name.”

“Alright.” Even though she has every right to be suspicious and angry, I can feel my own blood start to heat at her tone. “What do you want me to call you then? Al? Fred? No, you don’t like either of those? How ‘bout Jimmy? Does Jimmy work for you?”

“Fuck you, Ryan.”

“Right back attchya, Jimmy.”

I have the satisfaction of watching her jaw loosen and her mouth drop open just a bit before she catches it and snaps it shut.

Neither of us say another word until Grace pulls into her designated spot in the student parking lot and kills the engine.

“She’s my kid, Ryan. Mine,” She pushes the last of it through clenched teeth, glare aimed out the windshield. “I’m the one who takes care of her. Feeds her. Makes sure she—”

“Of course Molly’s yours.” I say it louder than I mean to, my tone sharper than I want it to be. Probably because hearing the truth spoken out loud stings more than it has a right to. Because even though Molly isn’t mine. I want her to be. Wish that she was. Love her like she is. “No one ever said she wasn’t.”

“Yeah?” Now she turns toward me again. “Then why do I feel like the two of you are keeping things from me?”

Because we are.

Not intentionally.

That’s not how it started out anyway.

“I teach arts and crafts,” I tell her. “At the center—on Wednesdays. Mary started bringing her to the center over the summer and—”

“You run arts and crafts at the community center. You.” She says it like I just told her my lifelong dream is to live my life as a domesticated house cat.

“It was Henley’s gig until we started getting an influx of residency applications and she had to start—” I catch myself before I really start to ramble by taking a deep breath, but instead of letting it out slowly like I’m supposed to, I let it out all at once on a frustrated push. “Yes. Me. Mary brings Molly to the center every Wednesday after school and we paint flower pots or build—”

“And you told her to lie to me about it?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I never told her to lie about it—but I knew she wasn’t telling you.”

“How?” Her voice rises, her tone sharpens because she doesn’t believe me. “If you didn’t tell her to lie about it then how did you know that—”

“Because this never happened.” I don’t shout but my own tone is heavy enough to shut her up. “Because you didn’t show up on my doorstep or at the community center to get in my face and tell me to stay away from her. Because she kept showing up and I knew that if you knew she was spending time with me, you would’ve put an end to it.”

For a second, all she does is stare at me, like I told her that Molly and I have been sticking up liquor stores and gas stations together. Finally, her shoulders sag and she shakes her head at me. “What? What makes you think you have the right to waltz up to my door after five months of nothing and just hey, Grace your way back into our—”

“You broke it off, Gr—” I swallow the rest of it, have to set my jaw and force her name back down my throat. “You. You did that—” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Remember who this is. That she has a right to be angry. That she’s smart not to trust me. That I have a brief but decidedly storied past of being a selfish asshole when it comes to her. “And you were right to.”

As soon as I say it, Grace jerks back in her seat like I took a swing at her, her mouth dropping open again in what looks like shock and I have to look away from her because this is not how I saw this conversation going. To be honest, I never really let myself think about it at all.

Lifting a hand from my lap, I unclench my fist to swipe it across my jaw. “You were right to end it—it needed to happen. What was going on wasn’t good for either of us, and I—” I can feel my Adam’s apple start to bob and scrape along the line of my throat because I don’t want to say this. I don’t want to say any of it, but I have to. Need to, if I’m going to have any sort of chance with her. “I didn’t care. I was hurting you and I didn’t care. I’m sorry about that. You deserved better.” Something flickers across her face when I say it—either regret or relief, it’s gone too soon for me to tell. Finally, she turns away from me to pluck her car keys from the ignition and palms them before calmly unlatching her seatbelt. Free, she turns in her seat and looks at me.

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