Page 44

Leah

The more Leah called Quinton, the more worried she became.

Quinton had never ignored her calls before.

Sure, there were times when he couldn’t answer, but he always called back.

It was almost four o’clock, and he should’ve been home.

She thought about calling Mario, but that might make things worse.

Quinton was private, and if Leah called Mario to look for him, then Mario would know that something was wrong.

Which would upset Quinton even more. Unless something was wrong?

Something more than him being upset about Lance’s visit?

When the front door chimed, Leah resisted the urge to go running down the hallway and wrap her arms around him. She didn’t care about him being upset with her. She needed him to be okay.

“Hey.” Skye walked in and leaned against the doorway.

“Hey, yourself.” Leah hoped her disappointment wasn’t evident in her voice. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” Skye said, offering her usual answer to that question.

“Hey, can we talk?” Leah asked, peeking at the lasagna she’d put in the oven. She led Skye down the hallway and into the family room.

Skye slumped on the sofa and folded her arms. “What’s up?” she asked, her voice just as dry as before.

“I know you’re not happy about this weekend.”

“No, I’m not. And why don’t you ever speak up for me? Tell Dad that he’s being unreasonable or something.”

“I do speak up for you. I don’t do it in front of you. I thought I could get through to him if I talked with him alone.”

“A lot of good that did.” Skye rolled her eyes. “He’s never gonna let me grow up.”

“You know how your dad is when it comes to you,” Leah said.

“Yeah, possessive.”

“Protective,” Leah corrected. “Let’s go with that one instead.”

“Protective from what? My friends? It’s ridiculous, and you know it.”

It wasn’t the first time that Leah had seen Skye upset over Quinton’s unreasonable rules, but she’d never been upset to this degree. Normally, she’d pout for a while, then she’d move on. How much of this was Skye, and how much was Nova?

The front door chimed again, and a wave of relief washed over Leah.

Skye stood and picked up her backpack. “I have homework.”

She was at the doorway when Quinton walked up. “Hey.” He leaned down and kissed Skye. “How was your day?”

“It was okay.” She played with her nails and didn’t look at him.

“I talked with Nova, and I think we need to talk,” Quinton said, his eyes still fixed on Skye.

It wasn’t lost on Leah that he didn’t speak to her, nor did he include her in the talk that he and Skye needed to have. That was evident in the way he successfully made her feel as if she wasn’t even in the room.

Quinton waved Skye back into the living room.

Skye sat next to Leah, and Quinton sat on the edge of the sofa on the other side of Skye.

He’d angled his body so that he was looking directly at Skye, and still not acknowledging Leah.

She wondered if Skye noticed. Probably not.

Skye was too wrapped up in her own issues with her dad to notice the cold shoulder he gave to Leah.

Leah’s heart sank as the disconnect between her and Quinton grew wider by the second.

“I want you to try to spend more time with Nova. She really misses you. I know you have practice and all that, but whenever you can, stop by there for an hour or so.”

“Okay,” Skye answered, staring straight ahead and not bothering to look at her dad.

“Good. Maybe now she’ll give up this ridiculous idea about you moving in.” Quinton touched Skye’s leg. “But don’t worry, I shut that down quickly. She knows that’s not about to happen.”

“She wants me to move in?” Skye sat up straight, sounding more like herself.

“Yes, but like I said, I already told her no, so if she brings it up, I don’t want you to get worried that it could happen.”

Leah didn’t understand how Quinton was missing the look on Skye’s face and the tone in her voice. Their daughter was far from worried. She looked like she was open to the idea. Leah’s heart pounded. There was no way Skye would want to leave them ... right?

“What if I want it to happen?” Skye asked.

Leah’s head shot toward Skye, then over to Quinton, whose shocked expression matched how Leah felt.

Quinton’s squared shoulders made him look much bigger than he had a second ago. “What do you mean what if you want it to happen?” he asked, his voice low, as if he was straining to get the words out.

“I’m not saying to live forever, but at least during the week. I’ve been thinking about staying with Gran since last school year, but I didn’t say anything because I knew you wouldn’t approve,” she said to Quinton.

“And I still don’t,” he asserted firmly. “You’re not moving out.” The finality in his tone should’ve ended the discussion, but it only seemed to add fuel to Skye’s fire.

“You see.” Skye stood. “This is exactly why I want to go. You never listen to me. Every time there’s something I want to do, you automatically say no without giving it any thought.

At least when I’m with my ... Nova ..

. she listens to me. She doesn’t treat me like a child who can’t think for herself. ”

Quinton’s posture stiffened. “Well, right now, you’re acting like a child,” Quinton shot back. “It’s the middle of the school year, and you all of a sudden want to move?”

“During the week. That’s it. I’ll be here on the weekends.” She pointed toward the stairs. “In my bedroom doing nothing while all my friends are out having fun, as usual.”

The wrinkles in Quinton’s forehead disappeared as his body seemed to deflate.

“I don’t know where all this is coming from.

” Quinton paused. “Actually, I do know. Nova has put all of this in your head. I understand why she wants to spend more time with you. I get that, and I’m not going to stand in the way of the two of you doing that, but you don’t have to move during the week or otherwise for that to happen. ”

Leah listened to Skye as she expressed her desire for independence and to be heard.

A part of Leah empathized and understood Skye’s argument, but a bigger part of her was gripped by fear.

She couldn’t lose their Skye. Their connection was one of the few bright spots Leah had, and she needed to hold on to it as long as she could.

Skye threw her backpack over her shoulder. “Of course. Whatever you say, Dad.” She took long strides out of the room. The next sounds were her footsteps pounding against the stairs.

“I need to check on the food; then we should talk,” Leah told Quinton.

“I don’t want to do this tonight.” Quinton left the room, leaving Leah standing alone.

The feeling of rejection had settled in like an unwelcome guest. Was this their life now?

Running away from their issues instead of dealing with them?

Leah knew all too well the negative impact the lack of communication could have on a marriage.

Leah pulled the lasagna, which was too dark for her liking, out of the oven and placed it on the stove to cool.

The likelihood that anyone would be eating it was slim, but that wasn’t her greatest concern.

As she made her way to Quinton’s office, everything in her said to turn around and go the other way.

As a marriage counselor, Leah always advised her clients not to discuss serious issues when they were upset.

Her directives were to give things time to settle and heads time to cool.

Ignoring her own advice, Leah knocked on Quinton’s office door.

She pushed it open when he didn’t respond. “Are we really not going to talk about what happened earlier?”

Quinton narrowed his brows. “What happened?” he asked.

“Seriously? That’s how you’re going to act?”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk about it right now, but fine, you wanna talk ... talk.” He waved his hands away from his body as if giving her the floor.

Leah took a deep breath and then steadied her voice. “I didn’t know Lance was going to stop by. He was telling me about Nova.”

“What about her?” Quinton asked.

She continued. “Just that she left the house this morning, and they walked into town. He said she was nervous at first, but she was determined to do it.”

“And he came all the way to your office to tell you that,” Quinton questioned.

“No, he didn’t come just for that. He was in the area, so he stopped in.”

Quinton shook his head. “I still don’t understand why he needed to tell you that. Your mom could’ve told you about Nova. Why is he that comfortable stopping by unannounced, anyway?”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Leah said. “He was there all of five minutes. Not long at all.”

“It may not be a big deal for you, but it’s a very big deal to me. If I hadn’t stopped by, would you have told me?”

Leah didn’t answer because they both knew that he really didn’t want the answer to that question.

“That’s what I thought.”

“The only reason I wouldn’t have told you is because I knew you’d act like this, and why would I want to get you all worked up over nothing?

Lance is Nova’s friend. He’s like a son to Mama.

And bigger than that, he’s heavily involved in a lot of the mental-health programs in the area.

We’re going to run into each other, and it’ll be kind of awkward if I ignore him every time I see him,” she tried to explain.

“Seeing him out is one thing, Leah, but you didn’t see him out somewhere. He was in your office. Your personal space. That’s where my issue lies. How would you feel if someone you had a problem with was popping in to see me?”

Leah didn’t know how she’d feel. There wasn’t anyone she could think of that she had a problem with.

“I’d like to think if it was someone who was involved in the insurance industry, that I’d understand.

Not only that, but I trust you, so I’d know whatever you were meeting about had to be professional or, at the very least, not inappropriate. ”

“This isn’t about trust. It’s about respect.

I came up there because I felt so bad about how we ended things this morning, and I wanted to apologize.

I was going to tell you that you were right, your feelings are the only ones I should be worried about, and no one else’s.

Then ...” He laughed sarcastically. “While I’m standing there, holding the flowers I thought you’d love, I find out that the very person I have an issue with is sitting in your office.

” Quinton’s voice was louder and deeper with each word he spoke.

“This was a mistake. No matter what I say, you’re going to be upset, so why am I even bothering to explain?” Leah said, throwing her hands in the air.

“I don’t know,” Quinton mumbled.

Leah believed in talking things out, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation may have felt, but that night, she couldn’t.

It felt like she was handed a new burden to carry every day while still holding on to the one from the day before.

It was getting too heavy, and Leah needed a release, or she was definitely going to break.

She left Quinton’s office and didn’t bother going back into the kitchen to her overcooked lasagna.

In her bathroom, Leah unscrewed the top of her anti-anxiety medication and popped one in her mouth.

She’d gone from needing them every now and then to every day.

Leah thought grieving death was the worst thing she’d ever have to go through, but she was wrong.

At least she understood death and the process of healing from it.

There were no written steps or a process for everything that was going on in their lives.

There was heaviness around all of them, and all Leah wanted was to somehow find a way through so she and everyone she loved could be happy again.

It didn’t seem like too much to ask, but it felt almost impossible to achieve.