from her as I shut her door, a bright pink night light illuminating her messy room.
A hot shower cleared the sleepy cobwebs of my mind and finally allowed my body to relax. Business was good. Numbers looked great. Trainees doing well. Had some PR opportunities lined up that would get us further into the places I wanted. All that worked great.
My house? Shambles.
My personal life? Empty as the Sahara.
My body? In shape, but nothing on the horizon.
My relationship with Ava? Tense as a harp string.
My goal to give her a better life than her mother did? To be determined.
The checkboxes filled my mind with an ugly reality. Maybe having it all wasn't as much as I thought it was. My brother, Maverick, accused me of what he called the curse of all the gold.
“You have it all, brother,” he'd said to me yesterday when we'd grabbed lunch at the Diner. “Others would kill for your life. You have money. A beautiful, well-behaved daughter. Women literally fawn over you still. You could beat the hell out of anyone you wanted. Now you are your own boss. All the gold, Benny. You have all the gold.”
Then again, did I have it all?
The house was still empty. Dark. Unlived in. Ava felt more at home with Maverick's wife, Bethany, than she did with me. My daughter was sort of well-behaved because she tolerated me. She clearly didn't love living with Dad.
It has only been a year, I thought.
Still, I must be doing something wrong.
The bathroom steamed up when I stepped out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, and sat on the edge of my bed. Unexpectedly, Serafina rippled through my mind. A short laugh worked its way out of me while I thought about her wild hair and wrathful gaze. It sobered quickly when I recalled that fat lip and her condemning stare just waiting for me to make a comment.
Okay, defensiveness was one thing, but she had something else on her mind entirely.
I'd been in Pineville for eight months now. Once the gym was finalized, Ava and I bought a house on the outskirts of town. Hell, in a small place with only 300 people, everywhere was the outskirts. But I couldn't remember Serafina here in the winter. No, she must be recent. So who gave her the lip?
Not a boyfriend.
Father, maybe?
With a weary sigh, I slipped into my pajamas, dropped onto the covers, and promptly forgot everything else when sleep closed over me in a fast wink.
3
Serafina
The creak of a floorboard sounded like a bomb in the early morning stillness the next day.
With a wince, I paused. A little snort, then a gentle shuffle, came from the room to my right. I crept farther down the dark hall, a distant clock on the coffee machine illuminating enough of a path for me to slip over to my shoes and slide them on. The bright green letters on the clock announced 5:35 am.
Right on time.
Sunrise was a vague promise on the horizon as I slipped into a coat, then grabbed my backpack. My phone buzzed against my thigh with a text message and I sighed. Only one person would send a text at this time of the morning.
Mom: How was he last night?
Not wanting to talk to my parents yet, I sent a quick reply. If more than two minutes passed, Mom would just call. She knew I was awake and getting ready to go to work.
Serafina: He went to bed early. I haven't spoken with him in a day or two.
* * *
Mom: Has he apologized yet?
I sighed again. Yes. Profusely.
Serafina: Of course. He was horrified when I talked to him about it.
* * *
Mom: That's something.
* * *
Serafina: I set the boundary, Mom. If anything happens again, I'm gone.
* * *
Mom: Of course. That's fair. We're talking to a counselor now to see if we can get him some help. I'm concerned that this is more than just pain control issues now.
How to tell your Mom that her son was addicted to prescription drugs and his sketchy girlfriend could be feeding him something else?
Certainly not over text.
Halfway out the side door, I paused. Speak of the devil. A beater car was parked on the road at the end of my brother’s scraggly lawn. The lawn had once been lush and well-cared for. He lived in a quiet neighborhood on the periphery of Pineville, where the edge of the reservoir gave way to fields and grazing land. Ranches dotted the