“I promised him I’d come with you.”
“He’ll understand.”
He shook his head. “I’m not breaking the first promise I made to your brother, Greta. Big shit is happening here but that’s important. I need him to know he can trust me and through that he can trust me with you, and I don’t know how he processes things. Something little you think he’ll understand might mean more to him than either of us know so I gotta handle that with care. It’s forty minutes. You and Andy and Shaw can go out and grab donuts when we get back while I look after Mamie and we’ll take it from there.”
I was totally not listening.
I was stuck on, I’m not breaking the first promise I made to your brother, Greta. With a little bit of dealing with, Something little you think he’ll understand might mean more to him than either of us know so I gotta handle that with care.
So he had to give me a little shake and ask, “Greta, babe, you with me?”
I nodded.
Because I absolutely was.
More than he knew and I suspected he knew I was definitely with him.
He nodded back and ordered, “You get a quick shower while I deal with my kids. Then call Andy and let him know we’ll be there soon and give him whatever heads up you gotta give him so he knows what he’s walking into. I’ll shower while you do whatever else you gotta do and then we’ll go. We got a plan?”
“We have a plan,” I said quietly.
“Good,” he muttered, bent to me, touched his mouth to mine and then moved us directly out of the kitchen.
I broke plan just a hint by checking in with Mamie, giving her a hug, assuring her it was all right and I wasn’t mad she freaked her dad and me out, and then promising donuts were coming soon.
The last part didn’t work as well as I’d hoped but it did get me a sliver of a smile.
After that, I went about instituting our plan.
It was in his shower, Hix’s words hit me.
But with all the shit that just went down, I did not forget what happened in my bed right before it did so you’re a part of this now, Greta. So is Andy. That means you need to swing with this. If he’s got it in him and it doesn’t harm him, he needs to swing with it. And my kids need to see that you and him aren’t going anywhere.
I was worried about Mamie.
I was worried for Hix because he had a lot on his plate.
But for the life of me, as I showered, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Yup
Greta
IT WAS LATE Sunday morning and we were hanging out on Hixon’s furniture in his living room, watching TV.
Not surprisingly, considering his gender, Hix had shared with me he’d ordered the cable to be installed first thing after signing the rental agreement. So the guy had come to do it while he was moving in the day before.
In other words, we were watching the pre-game shows in clean, clear HD with the decimated remains of the plethora of donuts Shaw, Andy and I had gone out to get all over the coffee table.
I’d found the day before that Hix had a storage unit and his friends had emptied that as well as his apartment.
It included an old, beat-up desk that Hix had put down in the basement in a room that was just cement floor and unfinished walls that was meant for storage. But he put the desk there with the addition of boxes of his stuff from the unit (these being boxes of stuff from his life with Hope and before). Framed pictures of him and cop buddies, team pictures of him with his friends in baseball uniforms, old trophies, yearbooks and the like. This room was obviously going to be his man cave.
The stuff in the unit also included a big loveseat that matched his furniture, two big ottomans, one double-wide, to go in front of the loveseat and armchair, and another end table that hadn’t fit in his apartment.
Upon seeing this the day before, it had given me pause for reflection because it stated, when Hix had outfitted his apartment, he’d done it with a mind to his future. If he was convinced he could fix things with Hope, he wouldn’t have needed all that furniture for the house he’d eventually be setting up for his kids, because it certainly didn’t fit in his apartment and it was the kind of furniture that didn’t come cheap in a set.
With this in mind, I wasn’t sure Hix thought there was something to save in his marriage before he even gave up trying to save it.
This was a conversation for another time and that morning was not that time and not simply because everyone was on tenterhooks waiting for Hope to show and pick up Mamie.
No, it wasn’t that time because I was pissed and getting even more pissed.
By, like, a lot.
This was because I’d had time since the drama occurred with Mamie leaving her mom’s house very early in the morning and walking two miles to get to her dad.
It wasn’t that far in the grand scheme of things and it probably didn’t take long.
What it did was veritably scream her desperation to get away from her mother so she could get to her father.
And Hope had created that. Hope had done it not only from the beginning, divorcing a man like Hix, a father like Hix, for a stupid, fucking ring, but also behaving like a bitch and not having the motherly chops to hide it from her daughters.
However, it was more.
Much more.
Since I called Andy and shared what I could share so he’d know what he was walking into, I was able to think (and Andy was sweet as pie, he just felt bad for Mamie, Shaw and Hix and said, “I don’t have to come today if you think it wouldn’t be good, Ta-Ta,” to which I was happy I could reply, “Hix wants you with us, buddy.”) I was able to think about what I’d walked into the day before after I got done with my last client. Seeing Hix’s house for the first time, being in it, seeing the big rooms and the fantastic wood floors and the great fireplace and the fabulous kitchen. Seeing how his furniture fit in it, it wasn’t cramped and way too nice for the space. There were boxes around, and when I showed, they were in the middle of moving furniture in the living room this way and that to see where they’d settle it, but it still already looked like a home.
It was also seeing Hix with his buds but more feeling it.
I knew Donna and I dug Donna. She was a tell-it-like-it-is woman who was hilarious. I’d liked her from the first time she sat in my chair at the salon. But I’d met his other friends and they were great. They talked and they gave shit and they worked hard, all for their friend because they were good friends but also because it was a good day.
A happy day.
A new beginning that held promise because a person they cared about was setting the crap life had hit him with behind him and moving on.
There was a weird vibe with Hix’s deputy Hal I didn’t get, but he was nice and he worked as hard as the rest without complaint.