Page 54 of Heat Exchange
Danny just walked to the high cabinet over the fridge without saying a word. If there was anything that pissed his father off more than the existence of his youngest son, it was his youngest son having to come over and do the chores the old man should be doing himself. That meant this visit was going to be especially fun, he thought as he took a box of cheap lightbulbs down. Maybe if his mother spent more on the damn things, they wouldn’t need to be changed so often.
He was almost done when he heard the thump of his father’s feet on the stairs, and he sighed. He’d almost made it.
After flipping the switch to make sure the new bulb worked, Danny took the burned-out bulb into the kitchen to throw in the garbage. His dad was standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
“Fire department changing lightbulbs now?”
As greetings went, it wasn’t exactly warm. “I stopped by. The light needed changing.”
“So you’re here taking care of my house, but you can’t keep your own in order?” Danny clenched his jaw, refusing to rise to the bait. “Heard Ashley threw you out. Guess you fucked that up.”
“Guess so,” he agreed in an emotionless monotone. His old man fed on emotions like some kind of mythological monster, and the more you fed him, the more ravenous and ruthless he got.
“I like Ashley,” his mother said. “I hope you didn’t cheat on her.”
“I didn’t.”
“Her old man’s an asshole,” his dad declared, even though the only time he’d met Tommy Kincaid was at Danny and Ashley’s wedding. “You’re better off without them.”
“I’m not better off without my wife,” Danny responded. He knew it was a mistake, but his dad dismissing his marriage so easily didn’t sit right.
His dad snorted. “So you’ll go crawling back to her, then, like the little pussy you’ve always been. You probably let her keep your balls in a jar instead of standing up for yourself like a real man.”
And that was his cue to leave, but before he could say so, his mother made it worse. “Shut up, Lou. What do you know about being a real man? We been married forty-five years and you still don’t know shit about how marriage is supposed to be.”
“Maybe if I wasn’t married to a bitch, always yapping at me.Yap,yap,yap, like a fucking Chihuahua.”
Danny felt himself shut down inside. He’d been listening to this his entire life, and he knew nothing he could say would make it stop. And, if he tried, they’d probably turn on him.
He was done. “I’m leaving.”
“You just got here,” his mother protested, as if he was skipping out on a fun family afternoon.
“Let him go,” his father said. “He’s probably going to go lick his wounds, like a little bitch.”
“Stay and have some coffee cake.”
If he hadn’t grown up in this house, he might have found her offer of coffee cake in the face of his father calling him a little bitch jarring, but this was how they communicated and always had. But this time, he couldn’t lock his emotions down like he’d always done.
He didn’t like these people. He felt absolutely nothing for them except disgust and a vague sense of obligation because they were, after all, his parents. They were toxic, and every time he was in this house, they poisoned him a little bit more.
After glancing at each of them, he shook his head and walked to the front door. And when he passed through it and felt the rush of fresh air as he walked down the stairs, he swore it was the last time he’d ever step foot in that house.
It was time to make some changes in his life. He wasn’t sure yet how he was going to fix his marriage, but instinct told him letting go of his toxic past was a step in the right direction.
Chapter Thirteen
LYDIA’SCELLPHONEringing jerked her out of a really nice dream and she wanted to sink back into it, but it was already sliding away from her. A pickup truck, a dirt road and she and Aidan holding hands were all she could remember now.
Maybe she shouldn’t have let some friendly, money-spending customers talk her into changing the radio to a country station the night before, she thought as she reached for her phone.
The caller ID showed it was Shelly, her roommate in New Hampshire, and she groaned. She’d paid her rent in advance and Shelly hadn’t been upset, so hopefully this wasn’t anI’m evicting youphone call. It was too early. “Hello?”
“Hey, did I wake you up?”
Shelly was not only an incurable morning person, but one of those really chipper morning people that not-morning people wanted to smack upside the head with the toaster. “I’m awake. What’s up?”
It was almost thirty minutes before Lydia was able to extricate herself from the call because Shelly wanted to catch up. Lydia just wanted coffee. She would have gone down to the kitchen, since cell phones were nothing if not portable, but she really needed the bathroom before she had coffee and she couldn’t pee while on the phone.
