“What the hell are you thinking?” Mom snaps at Max—at least I think so until she kicks me in the shin.
Shit.
“Busy dying.” I recover enough to get up on my elbows. I’ll feel this nagging pain in my balls until my deathbed. The bushes to the right look like a good place to sign off in peace.
“It’s like a powder keg with you two.” My mother shrills it out like an opera singer. “I saw you with your arm around Lee—everybody did. Apologize.” She helps me up. Honest to God, I’m bracing for a slap in the face.
“Apologize?” Is she kidding? “I’m not apologizing.” I’m not even entertaining the idea. “In the event you forgot, Lee is my wife.”
Her eyes soften into perfect circles of apprehension. “Mitch”—she lays her head on my chest and whispers so the crowd won’t hear—“oh, honey, Max feels the same way.”
“I don’t really care what Max is feeling, what bothers me is the fact he gets so much damn compassion from my own mother.”
Colt makes his way over. He stands in front of the lights, and his face is swallowed up in a shadow.
“Free entertainment.” He socks me in the arm. “Boys okay?”
“Super.” I lie. They’re still busy rioting like someone ripped the skin off and squeezed in a lemon.
I watch as Max wrangles the kids together, hosing the cake off their bare feet. Lee pops up behind me unexpected.
“Can I talk to Mitch?” She sounds curt—good and pissed for Max just like Mom.
Colton shuttles Mom off until it’s just Lee and me here in the shadowed portion of the yard. I back up until we’re hidden from the spectators, alone in the dark, with the whites of Lee’s eyes glowing like flames.
“Sorry.” My hands fly in the air defensively. “I’m crap. I handled everything like shit. Swear to God it won’t happen again.” I ramble out apologies for the next several minutes, taking the blame for third world hunger while I’m at it, the fact the moon is so damn hazy tonight, oil spills, ozone depletion, until finally Lee lands her cool finger over my lips to silence me.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She presses out an easy smile and my insides swim with relief.
Something in me loosens. “Thank you.” I pull her in, brush my lips over hers and this time I don’t give a flying fuck who witnesses the event.
“Come home,” she says it soft, so achingly sweet my insides melt. “I’ll calm him down.” There’s a genuine sadness in her eyes. It hurts to look. We used to be so happy, so full of life—enraptured. We walked on air for so long we forgot how to touch the ground—how cold and hard it might feel if everything came crashing down.
“You gotta tell him, Lee,” I plead. A part of me wants to get on my knees like some sort of perverse proposal and pray to God she’ll accept.
“You’re making it hard,” she says it a little more angry than I bargained for. “You’re pushing us backward. Do whatever the hell Dr. Van Guard tells you. Do not veer left or right. You got it? There’s a lot at stake—Max and his sanity—both of which I happen to care about, deeply.” Her face pinches with grief. “That man would die for me—kill. You used to care about him. He talked about you, Mitch. He really missed those times. He’s baffled about what happened. Just do us all a favor—open up and heal this wound already.”
Here she is, begging me to breathe life into a relationship I chopped up and burned to ashes so long ago—one that I would happily trade for table salt because of the horrible truths I thought I buried with it.
Max calls out for Lee. His voice rises through the night like a war drum, taunting me in the process.
“I gotta go,” she whispers. “Come home, kay? But make an effort. Do this for everybody—for us.”
Lee takes off. She scoops up Eli on the way out before glancing back.
Do this for us.
She’s right. I need to shore this up and fast. I need to be the bigger man. I knew holding Lee would set him off, and, at the time, I wasn’t really interested in the consequences—just like I wasn’t in high school when I cut him out of my life for good.
Max would die for Lee—kill for her. What makes her think I wouldn’t do the same? Wouldn’t that be the real kicker? If I came back from the dead just to have Max Shepherd send me off into eternity once and for all—so he can continue on with the rest of my life.
I think she’s got it wrong.
I don’t think he missed me one fucking bit.
Max
Hudson slaps my shoulder on the way to the car. “You want me to call the clean-up committee?”
I don’t make any eye contact with him, just watch as Lee struggles to get Eli into his car seat after the disaster that ensued. “I don’t care what you do.”
“Cool. I got your back, bro.” He gives a quick sock to my arm.
“Stay away from the chips. I’m all out of cash, can’t bail you out anymore. Clean up your life for me, will you?” I try to disinfect my mind of the insinuation he’s flushed through it. The last thing I need or want is Mitch Townsend’s blood on my hands. “Spend some time in the fields. We’ve got a big investors meeting coming up. Cut your fucking hair. That’s what you can do. And stop knocking up chicks with a propensity for video cameras.”
“Not a problem. I’ll get you a copy. Autographed.”
Perfect. It confirms the theory he hears all my words out of turn.
I get in the car and start the engine. Eli’s eyes are already rolling to the back of his head. But Stella has her arms crossed tight over her chest, a pissed look on her face, and I hope to God it has to do with leaving before the gifts were opened and not with me.
“You hate Picture Daddy,” she pouts. And there it is. I glance up at her in the rearview mirror as I get my belt on, her face streaked with purple and orange frosting.
“Do not.” I don’t put much inflection into it as I rev the engine. The last thing I need is for my wife and daughter ganging up on me. Thankfully, Lee doesn’t offer her two cents. Then again, she’s probably holding out until we get the kids to sleep—letting the tension percolate while she polarizes further away from me emotionally.
We hit the open road, and I feel like I can breathe again.
“You do hate him!” Stella insists. “You hurt him in his area.”
His area? Is that what we’re calling it these days?
“And, I’m very sorry I did that.” Not really, but for the sake of family unity I’ll say just about anything. Truthfully, I’d like to destroy his area, incapacitate it until he’s incapable of employing it in my wife’s vagina. That ought to take all thoughts of copulating with Lee’s ‘area’ off the table.
“You’re not sorry,” she continues. “You don’t like, Picture Daddy. You wish he would leave and never come back!”
Great. Now I’ve got a mind reader on my hands. “Not true. In fact, I’m betting he’ll show up tonight just in time to tuck you in.” Because I can’t catch a fucking break.
“Will you ‘pologize to him?” Her eyes enlarge the same way Lee’s do when she’s upset.
“You bet. On all fours if it makes your mommy happy.”
“Max.” Lee shoves me in the arm, and I swerve momentarily. “You should apologize, and I think he owes you one, too. It wouldn’t kill either of you to amp up the civility.”
Grief from Lee is the last thing I need tonight. Getting back into her good graces should be a cakewalk—cake full of razor blades—bloody delicious. Maybe when Mitch gets home tonight they can take turns beating me with a baseball bat—twist my balls off and feed them to me for breakfast. It feels like that’s been happening on a rotating basis since he’s stepped back into the picture.
“I’m sorry, guys.” I don’t look at either of them the rest of the way home.
Lee helps put the kids to bed. She doesn’t say a single word and barricades herself in the bedroom before I have the chance to kiss her goodnight.
Shit. It’s like he’s turning her against me without even tryin
g. I head downstairs and switch on the comedy channel. Mitch strolls in about a half hour later, looking no worse for wear, even though I tried my hardest to shove his balls into his throat. He disappears in the guestroom for a few minutes before plopping on the opposite end of the couch.
“You want to finish what you started?” I mean for it to sound a little more sarcastic than it did.
“No. I’m through fighting with you.” He looks exhausted as he stretches his legs over the ottoman.
“Great.”
“What’s it gonna take to make you happy, Max? Other than me taking off for good?”
Sounds like he’s searching for some missing ingredient.
“Nothing.”
“Fine. I’ll let Lee impeach you on her own.”
“On what grounds?”
“Moral corruption.”
“It’s completely moral for me to be with my wife.” I stop from laughing. “You’ve got a lot of nerve touching her like that. I wish you’d respect the fact Lee and I are still together. I didn’t come around pawing at her while the two of you were married.” True story. And, honest to God, I thought about it. “What’s it going to take to make you happy? I’m not going away, and neither is my marriage.”
He gives an intense stare, examines me up and down for a minute. “Townsend. I want all of it back.”
That piece of crap splinter in my side? “Sure. I’ll let you take over the managerial duties. You can start tomorrow by tackling that irrigation problem.” Crops will be dead in two weeks. “Good luck with that.”
“You want to give me the name of the plumber you’re working with?”
“I’m not holding your hand.”
“Got it.”
He took that well. It feels like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders, all those pressing nonsensical needs Townsend’s been inflicting for years, vanished just like that.
“I’ve been thinking Lee and I should move,” I offer. “We’ve outgrown the house—and that way you can have it back.” I would take Lee and the kids and run off tonight if I had her blessing. I’d toss all our crap in a couple industrial strength trash bags and get us out in under fifteen.
“Where you going?” He doesn’t sound the slightest bit concerned.
“Wherever Lee wants. I’m sure it’ll be in town.” Who am I kidding? I can’t set foot in our bedroom, and I think Lee is going to move away with me? Nice. I’m sharing my delusions of grandeur with Mitch at midnight like some schoolgirl at a slumber party. It’s all so bromantic I want to hurl myself out the second story window.
And since we’re speaking without peppering our sentences with expletives, “What’s the big mystery? What happened?” I let it hang out there several minutes to see if he’ll take the bait.
“Your mother.” He closes his eyes.
I don’t think it was my mother. My mother happened months before he stopped talking to me. In fact, we had dozens of conversations regarding our parents’ infidelities before ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, took place, and Mitch shoved me out of his life like I had the plague.
“You’re lying, Mitch. Your dad was every bit to blame, and it never occurred to me to shut you out.”
“You’re right. I am lying.” Mitch springs up and heads into the guestroom.
Really?
Now I want to know what the hell he’s lying about, almost as bad as I want him out of my life.
If I’m lucky—and I always am, one will lead to the other.
16
The Incident
Lee
The clouds loom over Mono in heavy sheets, grey as pencil lead, and I expect a downpour any moment now. I sit and wait for Colton in the Rustic Cantina, where he said he would gladly buy lunch for his favorite sister-in-law.
All week long Mitch and Max have been going to their ‘special’ appointments with Dr. Van Guard together. Neither of them has said anything regarding whether or not progress is taking place, but the silence, the peace I feel around the house, is staggering.
They actually took a walk on the beach with Stella and Eli the other day while I indulged in a quick nap. I’ve been so damn tired lately that I’m scared as hell to take a pregnancy test. I made the mistake of asking for one of Kat’s leftovers, and she’s been harassing me ever since. Besides, deep down, I already know.
If that wasn’t problematic enough, Max has suggested we move—somewhere, anywhere, far, far away from Mitch. That’s not exactly how he phrased it. I believe he carefully chose the word outgrew, and when he finds out I’m pregnant, he’ll prove himself right.
It’s as if my nightmare has morphed into something bigger than I could have imagined, and now there will be maternity clothes and paternity tests to contend with.
I remember the days when Sheila would point out the fact Max and I normalized the Shepherd family. Now I’m sure she sees it for the sham it really was. How we’ve abnormalized it to the point of becoming tabloid fodder—how we turned it into a talk show worthy event. The I’m-pregnant-and-don’t-know-who-the daddy-is edition.
A familiar baseball cap bounces through the shrubbery outside the window and enters through the front. It’s about time. I’ve got to pick up Stella in an hour and a half.
I stand with a smile ready to greet my favorite pervert but it’s not Colt, it’s Mitch.
“Hi!” I lock my arms around his waist and hold him an unreasonable amount of time, take in his warm scent, feel his five o’clock shadow scruff against my cheek. All this hands off is making me miss him even more, Max, too. I hate the double-edged sword my heart has become.
“I intercepted my brother.” He winces out a smile as we take a seat in the booth. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Is Colt joining us?” A wave of guilt swells in me. If Max finds out, he might think I’m secretly seeing Mitch.
“No.” Mitch gives a peaceable smile as if that were the plan all along. “He’s not.”
“Well, anyway, I’m more than happy to have lunch with you.” My eyes widen momentarily. I have to keep reminding myself I’m not breaking any rules, self-imposed or otherwise.
“I miss you,” he says with an intensity I haven’t heard in a long while. It makes this feel like he might say something huge, like he’s tired of waiting for me to come around or that he could never get along with Max.
“You can’t miss me, we’re living together.” Any lighthearted feelings I might have had about meeting Mitch fade, and suddenly it feels like someone laid a boulder on my back. I’m afraid he’s going to cut to the chase—ask me to tell Max things I know I can never say.
“Dr. Van Guard wants to see us all together.”
“When?”
“Friday.”
Three days.
Dr. Van Guard would never push me to do something I’m not ready for. This is only buying me time.
“Lee, it’s me, Mitch.” He leans in as if I might have forgotten. “It’s like you don’t even recognize me anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
A tall, skinny girl comes over and takes our drink order, says she’ll give us a moment to read over the menu, but her eyes linger on Mitch as if she wants to box him up and take him to go. There’s not a woman on the planet who wouldn’t want a bite out of Mitch Townsend.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he whispers. “I want things back the way they were. They’re never going to be that way again, are they?” He looks tired, desperate.
“They are,” I whisper. Deep down I believe this. There’s a film of moisture building in his eyes. “I swear to you. I’m not going to break your heart.”
“What about Max? Can you break his?” His eyes elongate, making his features sag. “I don’t think you can, Lee,” he says it somber.
A stalled car outside the window catches my attention. Two strangers run over and help push it to the side of the road. I feel stalled. I feel like Max and Mitch are both pushing me in two different directions, and we’re not getting anywhere,
least of all forward. We’re trapped on a dangerous road, and at any given moment something’s going to ram into us, destroy us all for good.
The waitress comes back but we hold off on the order—just sit there feasting on our misery.
“Do you want to talk to him?” I ask. Maybe if I put this all off on Mitch he’ll pull me out of the wreckage.
“I tell Max off routinely,” he says. “It doesn’t have any effect on him. He needs to hear the right words from you. If you say it, maybe he’ll believe it.” He gives a wry smile. “Maybe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t think Max is going away so easily. He’s more of a fight-till-the-finish kind of guy. The finish being death.”
I take a deep breath. “Max would never hurt me. I know for a fact if I make a decision, and it doesn’t involve him, he’d support me… over time.” Not really.
“Are we talking about the same Max?” His eyes offer a smile all their own.
“Same Max,” I say. Mitch’s mood seems to have lightened. “I’m sorry I’m putting you through this.”
“You’re not putting me through this. I put us through this.” He winces.
“You didn’t put us through this.” I collapse my face in my hands a moment. “Do you ever think maybe this was part of the plan?”
“Some master plan?” A dull laugh pumps from him. “If it is, God is going out of his way to prove how much he hates me.”
“Mmm,” I glance out the window, dismissing his theory. “It sure feels like some kind of weird sideline though.”
“You think you’re supposed to be with Max?”
I don’t have the heart to say no. On some level, I’ve always felt Max would be in my life.
His features harden, his eyes dart out the window as he gets lost in the haze.
“We’re part of the plan, Lee. Me and you.” It sounds like a plea more than a fact.
“So this—this horrible thing was supposed to happen?” A watershed of tears breaks loose. I once thought heartbreak was a manmade misfortune. I never once believed God would dole it out by the spoonful.