Chapter 17-4
531 Words
Bill collapsed at his dining room table, too exhausted to breathe, way too tired to make a drink or eat any dinner. At least they were all home.
Back at the hospital, on the way back into ER to see Jaspar, Tammy had spilled about what exactly had happened on the bow of the boat and why they’d been fighting to begin with.
Perrin. Of all idiotic, dumb-a*s, i***t moves he’d made as a single father, that one took the cake. Perrin had opened a new world for Tammy, giving her a gift of such magnitude that his daughter was growing and changing daily as she scrambled to take it all in. And Perrin had done the same for him, showing him that a part of his heart he had thought forever dead, still existed. Hell, it thrived beneath her shining radiance, her Empress’ touch upon his heart proving to be a benediction beyond price.
But he’d missed what was up with Jaspar. Missed how many times Jaspar had come in to ask for help with homework. Because Tammy wasn’t around any more. “Just another hour, buddy.” Which had turned into two or three as he worked to keep the opera on track. He’d barely registered when Jaspar had drifted away to the technical crews to get away from him as well.
Crap! There had to be more ways he could screw up as a parent, but he didn’t know what they were.
He’d known better than to confront it head-on with Jaspar. It would be too obvious that Tammy had told him and it would just drive them all further apart.
He wished he could ask Perrin, she was so good at these things. But she hadn’t answered any of his surreptitious calls made out of earshot of the kids. He didn’t know if she ever would again. Russell’s statement, about how Perrin always got her way, scared the s**t out of him. It wasn’t that she was manipulative, but she was tenacious as hell when adhering to what she believed to be right; a trait he appreciated under any other circumstance.
He still hadn’t worked up the nerve to call Maria, and now it was probably too late.
He lay his head on the table trying not to think of his son in a drugged sleep with a cast in his bedroom. Or of Tammy, refusing to leave the chair beside Jaspar until she’d fallen asleep against the foot of the bed and Bill practically had to carry her to her own bed.
The buzz of his phone jerked him from his stupor. He fumbled it from his pocket. Just a text. From a number he didn’t recognize. He almost deleted it, but decided it couldn’t hurt to look.
I’m okay. So sorry.
Tell Tammy not to come tomorrow.
I will call. But not yet.
-P
Bill blinked hard, could feel the burning in his eyes. He wiped at them and his hand came away wet. Who knew he’d be the one in the relationship who cried. He thought he was done with that after Adira’s death. All he could think was how hard it must have been for Perrin to send that message after the things she’d said.
And how desperate he was to cling onto even the tiniest thread of hope.
- Writer
