Page 1 of The Ex Next Door
Chapter One
Amy Holloway pulled up to the rental on Bluebird Lane and viewed the home where she and her children would be living now. Well, it was white with blue trim, so it had that going for it. There was a small porch just outside the front step and the landlord had placed colorful potted flowers along the rails and an old-fashioned bench swing in one corner. Not bad.
Bonus, it was all she could afford. Huge plus.
“Isn’t it super cute?” she said, inserting artificial pep in her voice.
Sure, it was nothing like the family home her children had grown up in. That home had finally been sold and Amy had no choice. Bluebird Lane was a quiet tree-lined cul-de-sac in the oldest neighborhood in Charming, Texas. This area, however, was probably the least bucolic part of their Gulf Coast town. A decidedly working-class neighborhood. Every home was almost exactly the same, cookie-cutter homes built from the 1960s.
“Are we really going to livehere?” This was from her little girl, Naomi.
She hated to think of her twins, Naomi and David, as spoiled because they were good kids. But the home they’d grown up in was twice the size. Unfortunately, the conceptof divorce was foreign to them. All they understood was that Daddy would no longer be living with them.
“We’re going to have such fun here, just the three of us!” Amy sang out.
“I don’t understand why Daddy can’t live here, too,” David said. “We shouldalllive here.”
“Maybe Grandma can spend the night and we’ll have a slumber party! Won’t that be fun?” Amy said.
The twins exchanged an excited look.
“Grandma never spent the nightbefore. Yay!” Naomi said.
Finally, a happy note. Amy found changing the subject was the only way to get past this eternal question: Why can’t Daddy live here, too?
Because your father decided he was tired of being married.
Imagine that. He worked fifty hours a week and traveled all over the country for his job as an IT cybersecurity expert, but he was tired of hisfamily. Amy would never say that to the children, of course. After Rob asked for a separation, to seek direction, she’d read all the books on handling life after a divorce she could get her hands on. She’d consulted Valerie Kinsella, their third-grade teacher, and also spoken to the school guidance counselor.
The tried-and-true still worked:Your daddy and I still love each other but we can’t live together anymore. We’ll always be a family. This hasnothingto do with you. It’s between me and Daddy. Grown-up stuff.Right.
David and Naomi hopped out of the back seat of her economy sedan and ran toward the house. Curiosity, Amy assumed, got the best of them. Or maybe her reframing this whole thing as a type of adventure had helped. At least they wanted to see the place. Her mother had found it, scoping itout ahead of time as a neighborhood in which the kids could still be close to their school.
The key stuck in the door, and Amy had to jiggle it a few times before it turned. She made a note of that to add to the walk-through comments she’d made when she signed the final lease a few days ago.One year.After that, she’d see. Maybe she’d have to relocate to a different part of Texas, though if she moved too far, that would be an issue for Rob, who’d moved to Houston thirty minutes away. Also, she didn’t want to leave her mother— the only emotional support she had now.
Her small circle of friends, mostly the parents of Naomi’s and David’s friends, had started to distance themselves. The few times she was around them, she didn’t appreciate their pitiful looks. She was working hard to be happy, scraping herself off the floor every morning for the sake of her children.
“It’s so big!”Naomi skipped inside the vacant house, holding the book she’d been reading in the car.
Wait until we put all our furniture inside.
It wouldn’t look roomy anymore. The single-family home was one large great room connected to a small kitchen. A short hallway led down to the three bedrooms and one bathroom in the back of the house.
“I’m going to pick my new room!” David ran off.
“Me, too!” Naomi followed him down the hall.
Two minutes later, she was hanging her head out of the smallest room. It was just like Naomi to give her brother the bigger room. Had she taught her that, somehow? Had Amy taught her by example to make herself smaller for someone she loved? She adored her brother but that didn’t mean letting him have first choice all the time.
This was such a huge change in her children’s lives andAmy wished she could have convinced Rob to attend marriage counseling. At least to try for the sake of their kids. Yet, his mind had been made up.
“Mommy, my door squeaks,” Naomi said.
“We’ll get Lou to fix that in a jiffy. The hinges just need to be oiled.”
“Also, can we paint my room yellow?”
Anything to make you happy here, my princess.
