A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers #5) - Jamie McGuire Page 0,7
into an apartment.”
“Thank you.” She sniffed. “The kids will be so happy.”
“Good,” I said, forcing a smile. I wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t see me. “Good, I’m glad.”
She puffed out a breath of relief, and scuffing sounds against the phone had me imagining she was wiping away tears. “Okay, then. I’ll, um … I’ll start packing.”
“Need help? Let me help you.” The apartment she’d found in Colorado Springs was furnished, so there wouldn’t be much heavy furniture, but I was desperate to return to our well-oiled machine.
“No, we can do it. We don’t have much. There’s nothing too heavy.”
“Falyn. At least let me help pack up the kids. I haven’t seen them in two weeks.”
She thought about it for a moment, sniffing again. I imagined her weighing the pros and cons. She had to think about her choices longer these days, her decisions made only after having more information—something I had to start doing, too. I half-expected her to say she would think about it and call back, but she answered. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I was considering telling the kids tonight. Do you want to be here when I do? I’m not sure if that would be confusing for them …”
“I’ll be there,” I said without hesitation. Some things required less thinking than others.
We hung up, and I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. I didn’t dare say to her what I wanted. I’d held in the hope that once she was back we could really start to work on what went wrong. This time, I would promise not to push too hard or move too fast—I would show her I had changed.
I gripped the phone with both hands and held it to my forehead, silently chanting to keep it together and not ruin it this time. Nothing was more frightening than being your own worst enemy. Even when I wanted to do the right thing, it was a struggle. I had always lived by my emotions, and those close to me experienced the blowback. They saw the pressure build and the discharge, even if it only lasted for a few seconds in the form of rage. After years went by—and I hadn’t learned or grown or made an effort to overcome it—the forgiveness came less easily for Falyn, and I couldn’t blame her.
“You off the phone?” Jubal asked. I lifted my head and nodded, working hard to keep the suffering off my face. “The commander wants a word.”
I wiped my nose with my wrist and stood, taking a deep breath. My muscles were tense. I knew what was coming. The commander had been in meetings all morning with the other shift commanders, the chief, and the city council—all about me.
“Taylor?” Jubal said as I passed him.
“Yeah?” I turned around to face him, annoyed. He’d interrupted my emotional preparation for what would go down in the commander’s office.
“You need to take that temper and dial it down a few notches before walking in there. You’re in enough trouble as it is. You’re definitely not going to get her back without a job.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing has gone right for me since she left.”
Jubal made a face, unimpressed with my shameless self-pity. “If you’d stop spending so much time placing blame, you might free up your head and your heart to think of a solution.”
I thought about his words and nodded, taking a deep breath. Jubal was right, as usual.
The commander was on the phone when I knocked and came in. He lifted his index finger, and then directed me to sit in one of the two orange chairs positioned in front of his desk.
I did as he instructed, lacing my fingers together on top of my stomach and bobbing my knee. That office hadn’t changed much since he’d taken over; the same pictures hung from the walls and tacks on various corkboards held informational posters around the room. The paneling gave away the building’s age, as did the stained carpet and worn furniture. The only things different were a framed picture on the desk, the man sitting on the other side of it, and the nameplate in front of him.
COMMANDER TYLER MADDOX
“You rang?” I asked when he hung up the phone on its cradle. I grabbed the picture of us with Dad, all standing side by side, our arms around each other and happy. Thomas almost looked out of place, without tattoos and longer, lighter hair, and hazel green eyes as opposed to shit brown like the rest of us.