His eyes were empty, so it was hard to know if he had the same thoughts I did. Or maybe he had no thoughts at all. Wouldn’t be surprised.
He extended his hand to me and let it hang between us.
I held his gaze before my hand slid into his.
He gripped me.
I gripped him.
He let go first. “Let’s try this again.”
23
Constance
I made Claire breakfast the next morning, but the first thing she asked when she stepped into the room was, “Where’s Daddy?”
“Work. He’ll be home soon.”
The disappointment was unmistakable, but she shrugged it off. She sat in the chair across from me and picked up her fork. With a wary gaze, she examined my overly runny eggs and big clumps of cheese that weren’t evenly spread over the food.
“I’m not as good of a cook as your father, obviously.”
She stabbed the fork into her food and ate without complaint. “It’s still good.”
I smiled, loving that sweetness she had, that she was mature enough to choose her words wisely instead of hurting my feelings.
I drank my coffee and picked at the eggs.
“When will he be home? He’s usually here when I wake up.”
“He’s working nights now. Might be this way for a while.”
“Oh. But you’ll be here?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“You want to go see the ponies today?”
“Um, sure.” It was Saturday and she started school on Monday, so I wanted to take her to do something fun while I still could. “I’ll ask your dad when he gets home. Did he tell you that you’re going back to school on Monday?”
“I am?” Her fork dropped onto the plate with a loud clank. “Yes! I can’t wait to see Angelica and Linda.”
Her joy was infectious and always pulled me out of my bad moods. I was happy for her but also concerned for myself. Without her around, I wasn’t sure what I would do to keep busy. She’d been right at my side for a while now, and she’d become my crutch pretty quickly. It was easy for me to understand why Benton was so devastated when she was gone. It was also easy for me to understand why she was the only person in the world who could make him tolerable.
“And there’s Jeremy…I think he likes me.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because he gives me flowers.” She grinned down at her food, her cheeks a little flushed.
“You like him?”
“Gross! No.”
“Because it’s okay if you like him.”
She shook her head back and forth, over and over. “No, no, no.” She even waved her finger in front of my face.
Hopefully she didn’t like boys for a while, because I was certain that would put Benton through the wringer. “I had my first boyfriend in sixth grade.”
“But sixth grade is soooo old.”
“Ha,” I said with a laugh. “If you think that’s old, wait until you get to my age.”
The sound of the front door opening reached us both, because Claire dropped her fork again and turned in the direction of the sound. “Daddy?”
Benton’s voice carried to us. “Hey, sweetheart.” A smile was in his voice, and it matched the smile on his face when he emerged. His blue eyes were so beautiful when they were lit up like that. His face looked totally different too, a dimple in each cheek, a softness to his face. The hardness had been chipped away like stone, revealing the sculpture underneath. His eyes were on her, like I wasn’t even there.
All the weight left my shoulders the second he walked in the door. It’d been a long night for me, a restless one, listening hard to every creak, every drop of rain that hit the glass, every time the heater kicked on with a hum. The knife had been at my bedside, ready to grab within an instant.
Claire slid off the chair then ran to him, in her pink pajamas, her arms extended out.
He was on one knee instantly, that smile bigger than it was a second ago, and he enveloped her in his steel arms before he got to his feet once more. He held her body in one arm, his other hand at her back. “How’s breakfast?”
She lowered her voice so I couldn’t hear, but I could definitely hear. “Eggs taste like frogs…”
I couldn’t hold back the chuckle that came from my throat, and I tried to cover it up by drinking from my coffee. Nothing like the honesty of a child.
His eyes shifted to mine, that handsome smile still there. He looked at her again, giving her a pat on the back, and he spoke to her in a whisper too. “I’ll teach her how to make eggs like Daddy.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her on the forehead before he returned her to the floor.
He turned to the kitchen to make himself a plate, and instead of coming back to the table to eat, she followed him. He scooped the leftover eggs onto his plate, grabbed a cold piece of toast, and made himself a coffee.