Page 54

CHAPTER 53

FOR WORSE

WILDER

W hen I park the truck in the Wilson’s driveway, I don’t move, wishing I could hold on to this moment of limbo even for just one more second.

I’m afraid of what’s to come.

A dozen if-onlys stand between me and my daughter, and I will fight every one of them into the dirt. I just don’t know what it’s going to do to all of us if it comes to that.

God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Cass is watching me with concern drawn behind her eyes, across her brow. Cricket is sullen in the backseat. None of us want to get out.

I contemplate leaving. Just putting the truck in reverse and going home and tucking her into bed and climbing into my own with my wife. But tonight, I won’t get my wish.

Paul and Patty exit their front door, nudging me into action. The truck door weighs a thousand pounds, my arm so heavy it’s a separate burden. But I manage to get out.

When Patty sees Cricket, she smiles, squatting and extending her arms. “Hey, sweet girl. Come give me sugar.”

Usually, Cricket sprints, bouncing into an Olympic springboard routine that lands in Patty’s arms. But today, she drags herself over, hugging Patty halfheartedly. Patty’s face is worried when it hooks over Cricket’s shoulder.

Paul mad dogs me from the edge of the porch with a magnificent frown on his face.

Patty stands and extends a hand to her. “I made cookies. Want one?”

Cricket looks back at me with a sadness so heavy, I rub my chest where the dull ache from its blow resides.

“It’s okay, baby. Go on,” I say.

Paul’s frown deepens. Patty’s face melts. Cricket’s chin wobbles, and she drops her backpack, running for me.

I drop to my knees and catch her. All I can hear is her sobbing.

“I don’t wanna you to go.”

“I know, baby. It’s not forever. Just until we figure things out.”

“Why are you leaving me?”

I close my eyes, the fire in my ribcage consuming me. “I swear to you, I will never leave you— never. Okay? But right now, you need to stay with Nana.”

The crook of my neck is humid, wet from her tears and sobs. “I wish I lied.”

When I pull back, it’s to cup her little face and thumb her tears. “It’s my lie that did this, and look at how much trouble it’s caused. I’m proud of you for telling the truth. You did the right thing. If I had, we wouldn’t be here. But it’s gonna be alright. We’ll sort all this out. Okay? And then we’ll be back together.”

She nods at her shoes, but then her face breaks, and she throws herself into my arms again. I pick her up, the sum total of my broken heart, and walk to Patty to hand her off, but Cricket tightens her grip, her legs clamped around my waist.

“Cricket, please,” I beg, my throat raw from the agony, but she can’t hear me over her wailing and screaming and protest. Patty is trying to coax her from behind, but I have to pry her from me by force, finger by finger, leaving stinging scratch marks where she tries to hang onto my neck.

The hardest thing I have ever done in my entire fucking life is stand there as she howls and flails and thrashes like a wild animal, screaming my name. The sight turns me into a savage, my hands fisting at my sides, my body trembling from restraint. When Cass clasps my forearm, I nearly jerk away. But her touch is a balm to my soul, and somehow I manage to stay where I am as Patty drags my child away, the desperation in her voice shredding what’s left of me.

“I’m sorry,” Paul says with a wavering voice, and I realize he’s crying too. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this, Wilder. But what you’ve done? It’s fraud. You’ve conned us, deceived us from the second we met you.”

“I didn’t lie. Cass and I have been married for ten years, just like I said.” I’m shaking so bad, my teeth rattle in my skull.

“Maybe on paper. But when we met, you weren’t together at all. You made up a whole story, lied to us and your whole damn town. Or did they all know? Did you only lie to us?”

“No! I?—”

“So you lied to everybody.” His hand trembles as he swipes the top of his head. “You set us up. You fabricated a marriage for God’s sake, just to deceive us. To manipulate us. All this time you’ve been mad about Trent seeing her, calling us deceitful for not telling you when you’ve been lying like this. Both of you. I can’t believe you’d…after all we’ve been through, that you’d…”

“We did it for her.”

“You lied!”

“You gave me no choice!” The cords in my neck are so tight they might snap.

Cass raises her chin. “Paul, I love him and we’re very much together. I swear to you, nothing about this is fake.”

He shakes his head. “Maybe now, but you weren’t when it mattered most. And right now, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to believe you. How am I ever supposed to believe you?”

“And what about Cricket?” I shoot. “What about what she wants?”

“She’s six! She wants a pony, for Christ’s sake!” His nostrils flare, his eyes hurt and hot with fury. “I have been legally charged with her safety and wellbeing, and right now, that’s right here with us.”

“You can’t keep me from her, Paul. I’m her father.”

“I know. But I’m gonna ask you a question. One you recently asked me—if the tables were turned, if you were where I’m standing, what would you do?”

The anguish that answer leaves me with, I will carry for the rest of my life. “I’d call me a liar.”

He gives me a pointed look. “So I will ask you to go. And we will figure out what to do another day.”

Tears choke me, pricking my eyes, stinging my nose. “I love her. Please don’t take her from me.”

Paul glances at the ground and shakes his head. “I love her too. And I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

When his gaze meets mine, his chest rises and falls with a heavy exhale. I stare at him in disbelief through a sheet of tears for a long, painful moment.

“Come on,” Cass urges, the words raw. “Come on,” she echoes. “Let’s go home.”

But I don’t want to. I want to sit here and stare at the front door and will her to come back out. I want to wish everything okay again.

It will be. I’ll make it right—I will. I will. Just not tonight.

It takes every ounce of willpower I possess to turn around and get in the truck. Paul stands on the front porch, arms folded across his chest, still as a statue until I’m out of sight. Maybe longer. Maybe whenever I come back, he’ll still be standing there.

I would be, if I were him.

When I’m around the corner, I pull over. Park the truck. Sink into my hands, into the fucking ground, lost to the pain. The sight of her fighting, my head echoing with her calling for me…I wonder if I’ll ever sleep again for the sound ringing in my ears.

Somewhere far away, Cass flips up the console and pulls me into her, tries to wrap her arms around me. But when I close mine around her, I crumple heavily onto her shoulders, unable to hold myself up. I can’t stop myself despite knowing she can’t support my weight, but she finds a way, knowing I can’t do it myself. And I cry harder than I maybe ever have.

It takes a long time for the release to wash over me, to empty out, to leave me hollow. I still haven’t opened my eyes when my forehead meets hers, my hand cupping her neck, hers holding my jaw. When I finally straighten up and look at her, her face is puffy from her own tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” she promises.

“I know,” I rasp. My head pounds, and for a second, I consider just climbing into the back bench seat with Cass and sleeping for a minute.

“Want me to drive?” she asks, but I shake my head.

“I need something to do. If I have to sit there for an hour with nothing to do but stare out the window, I might fucking die.”

She nods, but she doesn’t slide back over, instead buckling into the middle. Grateful, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and tuck her under my arm, the weight of her head on my chest comforting me all the way to my marrow.

It’s started to rain again, the sound pinging off the roof and the windshield as I get us going again, anxious to get home and desperate to stay where I am.

Whenever Cricket is with us, we avoid the fast way home so she doesn’t have to see the carcass of the house where Ashley died. It’s always hard to see, always strange, but always something I feel the need to do. To take that moment and think of her, to remember her. To remind me of what Cricket has lost. To whisper from my heart to the woman I share a child with and hope somehow that she knows how much I love Cricket. To promise that I’ll take care of her. To assure her she did the right thing by telling me. To forgive her for not doing it sooner.

Anticipation sobers me each time, and this time it’s coupled with pain. We turn onto the street, and my heart jumps like it always does when I spot it, the black, jagged remnants behind yellow flagging tape.

But I don’t expect the jolt of shock that draws every hair on my arms to attention.

Because standing darkly in the driveway of Ashley’s house is a familiar truck.

And I don’t find Trent until it’s almost too late.