I left our bed so that my tossing and turning wouldn’t wake her. Another fail. I capture her hand, kiss it then draw her into me. Hug her tight. Allison is the one woman in all my years that has fit perfectly, her body into mine. Her laughter sweet in my ears. Her warmth countering my cold. Her heart filling my holes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Sorry is all I say anymore. Apologies to my wife. Apologies to my niece. By trying to do right by one, I let down the other.
She squeezes and then lets me go. Allison frowns at the picture of me and Elisabeth on my desk. Taking it in her hand, she wanders over to the long table full of pictures and returns it to its rightful spot in the middle. “May I be blunt with you?”
Blunt is better, but blunt can also be the equivalent of a baseball bat to the groin. I take a deep breath and brace myself for impact. “Yeah.”
Allison looks me over as she forms the words and sentences in her head. My wife is a million times smarter than me. I play ball. I can throw a ball. I can hit a ball. I can run fast. My wife has brain cells that do productive things—things that can change and save the world. Not a day goes by that I don’t question why she’s with me. Her family has money. She had a million guys more put together than me to choose from, but it’s my wedding ring she wears.
“When we were dating, you talked about Beth, but you never once said a word about finding her and forcing her to live with us.”
I shift as a rumble of anger goes through me, and I have to work to keep my mouth shut. One, because she’s right. Two, because I hate the use of the word force. Elisabeth may not be happy here, but this is the best place for her. It’s better than living with a heroin-addict mother who prostitutes herself for the next hit. But what really got under my skin was… “Her name’s Elisabeth.”
“The five-year-old that you took care of when you were barely past being a child yourself was Elisabeth. The close-to-adult living in my spare bedroom is Beth. That’s what she calls herself. Even she knows that what you are trying to make her into is a ghost of a person who no longer exists.”
I roll my neck. “Elisabeth is seventeen and doesn’t know who she is. I agree, she’s not six, but she’s not an adult. She’s scared and she’s confused and she’s lived in hell her entire life. I know she’s rough around the edges, but so was I when I first left my family. When you grow up like Elisabeth and I did, you don’t trust.”
Allison wipes a few strands of hair away from her face. “Scott, I don’t want to argue about Beth. I want to talk about you.”
My mind swims. “You’re the one who brought up Elisabeth.”
“I brought up that you never mentioned wanting to take on custody of your niece. Over the years, you mentioned that you’d sent money to her mother to help. You mentioned a very small possibility of wanting to see her again someday. You talked about possibly paying for her college education. But you never once talked about forcing her mother to sign custody over to you and moving her into our house. Since we met, you’ve been a planner. You have goals and you are relentless in working toward them. Beth was never part of the plan.”
“I didn’t know then how she was living.”
“You knew how she was living this past summer, but she wasn’t living with us then.”
“Her mom said she ran away, and I hired a private detective. You said then if I found her she could live with us.”
“I said it because I didn’t actually believe you would find her. I didn’t believe you honestly wanted to find her.”
My head whips up so quickly that my eyesight goes red. “You think I wanted her on her own? You think I wanted her to live in garbage? In filth?”
Allison meets my eyes, and the anger pulsating out of them strikes me in the chest. “I love you, and because of that, I’ve kept myself from saying this, but after living the past few weeks with your niece who is bound and determined to mess up our lives,