Scandalous Scotsman - M.J. Fields Page 0,59
cheeks between her hands, she shakes her head. “Love doesn’t stop, Dad. My mom still loves me. She tells Grandma when she talks to her.”
When she slaps her hands against her mouth like she said something she shouldn’t and jumps down from the counter, I turn to follow her.
“Kai,” I call after her.
A sob escapes her, and she begins to run toward her room.
When the door slams, I then hear a click.
“Kai, open the door.” I try the handle, hoping like hell I was wrong. I wasn’t.
“Go away!” she screams.
“Kai, we need to talk about this. Open the door.” I bang on it. “Kai! Open the door, or I’m going to have to kick it open, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I DON’T WANT YOU ANYMORE!”
“What did you just say to me, Kai?” I bang on the door. “Open this door right now, young lady!” It all comes out in all the raw hurt and angry emotions those words caused. The feeling not toward her; it’s toward her grandparents.
When I feel a hand lightly touch my back, I know immediately that it’s Elizabeth.
I turn and look at her. “Gonna have to cancel tonight, I think.”
She holds her hand out. “I’ll call Maryanne and let her know.”
I nod as I pull my phone from my pocket. “I’m sorry. We’ll do this again another night.”
“I’m gonna order pizza. When she calms down, she’s going to want that.”
“How do you know she will? Did you hear her, for fuck’s sake?” I whisper.
She leans in and whispers, “Wait until she’s a teenager.”
“You teach elementary school. How do you know—”
“I was one.” She grips the front of my shirt and pulls me against her, pushes up on her tiptoes, and kisses me. “Let me know if you need me to tag in.” Then she turns and walks to the stairs.
I lean my head against the door. “Kai, please, I need to hear what you have to say.”
When I get a text from Elizabeth saying, “I did a thing,” I could already hear her in Kai’s room.
I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it first, but she got a ladder and knocked on Kai’s window with Ben and Jerry’s and two spoons in hand. I was a little upset at first, as she could have gotten hurt, but also grateful.
Forty minutes later, I hear the clicking of the lock, and then feet padding across her floor.
I stand up, knock once, and open the door.
Under the canopy bed, tucked under the covers, both of the people I love the most are looking at me, red-eyed.
“I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Kai, always. Do you want to talk about it?”
She looks at Elizabeth. “You.”
“Should we eat pizza first?” Elizabeth asks.
Kai looks at me.
“I could eat a slice.”
A little bit of light comes back to her eyes, and she nods. “All right, let’s go.”
Nothing was said about the incident while we ate pizza and watched a movie. Right before Kai fell asleep, she asked me if it was okay that Elizabeth sleeps over.
I thought it was cute, and yeah, I was okay with it.
After carrying her up and tucking her in, reading to Scotch, because it was part of our routine—I didn’t give a damn if she was asleep; I still wanted to make sure we kept on course—I go back downstairs to where Elizabeth has just finished cleaning up the family room.
“You okay?” she asks, wrapping her arms around me.
“Is she?”
She closes her eyes and rests her forehead on my chest. “You’ve got to push for supervised visits. Whether they know it or not, the grandmother for sure is putting her under so much emotional duress that it’s probably what’s causing this.”
“She said her mother talks to her grandmother, Elizabeth.”
She nods and looks up. “The good news is”—she holds up her phone—“I recorded our chat for you. And on it, Kai said she doesn’t want to go there as much. I can talk with Tonya; she’d know how to go about this.”
“That’s perfect. Now the bad news?”
“She thinks her grandmother will die if she doesn’t visit her, and I’m not sure if that’s something she’s made up in her head or what she’s actually been told. I’m guessing it may never be known for sure. And the worst news …”
“It gets worse?”
“I’m sorry, but Kai’s grandmother has told her that you are the cause of her mother’s death.”
“Jesus Christ,” I snap.
“But Kai knows you would never hurt her or me.”
“Of course not,” I huff. “She’s supposed to