The Liar

“Some.” He kept his gaze level on hers. “Did he ever hit you?”

“No. God, no.” Stunned, she lifted her hands. “He never touched me that way. I swear.”

“You didn’t come back for funerals, for births, for weddings. Clay’s, you made Clay’s, but barely. How’d he keep you away?”

“It’s complicated, Forrest.”

“Simplify it.”

“He said no.” Temper began to simmer and burn inside her. “Is that simple enough?”

He stirred himself to lift his shoulders, let them fall. “You didn’t always take no for an answer so easy.”

“If you think it was easy, you’re wrong.”

“I need to know why you looked so tired, so thin, so beaten when you came home for what seemed like ten minutes at Christmas.”

“Maybe because I’d come to realize I’d married an asshole, and one who didn’t even like me very much.”

Temper hammered against guilt with guilt slapping against fatigue.

“Because I’d come to realize before I found myself a widow and my child without a father that I didn’t love him, not even a little. And didn’t like him much, either.”

Tears clogged her throat, threatening to burst through the dam she’d so laboriously built to hold them back.

“But you didn’t come home?”

“No, I didn’t come home. Maybe I married an asshole because I was an asshole myself. Maybe I couldn’t figure out how to pull myself and Callie out of the muddy mess I’d made. Can you leave it at that for now? Can that be enough for now? If I have to talk about all the rest of it now, I think I’ll break into pieces.”

He walked over, sat beside her. “Maybe I’ll move annoyed down to mildly irked.”

Tears swam and spilled; she couldn’t help it. “Mildly irked’s progress.” She turned, pressed her face to the side of his shoulder. “I missed you so much. Missed you like an arm or a leg or half my heart.”

“I know.” He draped an arm around her. “I missed you the same. It’s why it’s taken close to five years to get down to mildly irked. I got questions.”

“You always have questions.”

“Like why you drove down from Philadelphia in a minivan that’s older than Callie, and with a couple of suitcases and a bunch of packing boxes and what looks like a big-ass flat-screen TV.”

“That’s for Daddy.”

“Huh. Show-off. I got more questions yet, but I’ll wait on them. I’m hungry and I want a beer—I want a couple of beers. And if I don’t get you down there shortly, Mama’s bound to come looking, then she’ll skin my ass for making you cry.”

“I need some time to settle myself before the questions start. I need to breathe for a while.”

“This is a good place for it. Come on, let’s get down there.”

“Okay.” She got up with him. “I’m going to be mildly irked with you for being mildly irked with me.”

“That’s fair.”

“You can work some of that off getting Clay to help you bring in that TV, and then help figure out where it needs to go.”

“It needs to go in my apartment, but I’ll just come over here and watch it, and eat all Daddy’s food.”

“That’s fair, too,” she decided.

“I’m working on fair.” He kept an arm draped around her shoulders. “You know Emma Kate’s back.”

“What? She is? But I thought she was up in Baltimore.”

“She was up until about six months ago. I guess more like seven now. Her daddy had that accident last year, fell off Clyde Barrow’s roof, busted himself up pretty good.”

“I know about that. I thought he was doing okay.”

“Well, she came back to take care of him—you know how her mama is.”

“Helpless as a baby duck with no feet.”

“That’s the truth. She stayed a couple months. He was in and out of the hospital, in physical therapy, and her being a nurse, she could help more than most. The guy she’s hooked up with, he came down off and on. Nice guy. Shortening it up, the time off and budget cuts cost her her job at the Baltimore hospital—or made it hard for her to keep on. She and her guy, they moved on down as she got an offer to work at the clinic in the Ridge.”

“Daddy.”

“Yeah. He says she’s a damn good nurse. Matt—that’s her guy—he moved on down with her, started a business with his partner. Griff’s out of Baltimore, too. Construction-type business. They’re The Fix-It Guys.”

“I saw a truck with that name on it at Emma Kate’s house.”

“Matt and Griff are doing a new kitchen for Miz Bitsy. What I hear is she changes her mind every five minutes on what she wants, so it’s taking a while. Emma Kate and Matt got the apartment across from mine, and Griff’s got the old Tripplehorn place out on Five Possum Road.”

“That place was falling down when we were ten,” she remembered.

And she’d loved it.

“He’s fixing it up. Likely take him the rest of his life, but he’s got it going.”

“You’re stock full of news, Forrest.”

“That’s only because you haven’t been around to hear it. You should go see Emma Kate.”

“I wish she’d come today.”

“She’s working, and she’s likely still in the annoyed stage where you’re concerned. You might have to work some to bring that down.”

“It’s hard knowing how many people I hurt.”

“Then don’t do it again. If you decide to leave, say goodbye proper.”