The Good Father

He shook his head. “She’s never going to stick with me now. Not after what I did tonight. I don’t deserve her.”

Maybe not. And maybe Chloe would file for a divorce. Maybe she needed to.

“Ella told me once that all Chloe wanted was for you to see that you were having problems and get help. Just like she got help after Cody was born. You stuck by her then...”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t hit her, man. You’ve never hit your wife. Have you?”

Brett forced his fingers to loosen.

“No.”

Brett breathed.

“But I’ve shoved her,” Jeff said. “Pretty hard that last time. I didn’t mean to. She stepped up just as I was passing through the doorway, but when she got in my way, I reached out with both hands and shoved her into the doorjamb.”

Ella had been right.

“Have you ever hurt Cody?”

Jeff turned, meeting Brett’s stern look. “I’ve never left a bruise on my kid, Brett. I swear to God.”

“I believe you.” He did. No reason why he should. But he did.

“I was a little rougher than I should have been, once or twice,” he said. “I made him cry, and I swore to myself that I’d never do that again. That if I did, I’d hang myself. I’m not doing to my kid what your dad did to you.”

“Don’t do to your wife what my dad did to my mom,” Brett said.

“You think I should let her go?”

Brett couldn’t give advice on this one. This was Jeff’s row to hoe.

But he could empathize. He could be a friend.

“That’s for you to figure out, man,” he said. “Not every abuser or abuse situation is the same. And you have the advantage of growing up in a loving home. You aren’t starting out from behind, having to fight the pattern of abuse.”

He could guide Jeff to the help he needed. They had resources—people he trusted who could find a support group for Jeff to join in Palm Desert in addition to individual counseling.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Jeff said. But the man looked beaten.

Because nothing—no amount of counseling or time—would ever change what had happened there that night. Nothing would erase, in Chloe’s mind, the memory of her husband raising his hand to her.

And suddenly, as he looked at Jeff, Brett knew that there, but by the grace of God, went he.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ELLA SAT WITH Chloe until she finally fell asleep. When Chloe had called from Brett’s, as soon as she’d determined that Brett was with Jeff and that no one had been physically harmed, she’d told her to stay put while she took a cab over.

They’d gone straight from there to The Lemonade Stand. Sara had been at home with her fiancé and his daughter, but she’d come in. Lynn Bishop and her sister-in-law Maddie, both of whom had small children and lived on the premises, came up to the main house, too. Lynn, in case Chloe needed any medical treatment, and Maddie, to help watch Cody.

It had been nearly eleven by the time they arrived back at Ella’s apartment. Thankfully, Cody fell asleep in the car on the way home, and Chloe had been able to get him from the car seat to his bed without waking him.

Lila McDaniels had not notified the police, for which Ella was thankful. The only thing that could have made the night worse was to see her brother arrested.

But there’d been no reason to make an arrest. Thanks to Brett. The timing of his intervention had been seemingly divine.

And Chloe wouldn’t have pressed charges anyway. Although she’d been understandably shaken, she was holding up well, thanks to Sara’s counseling over the past weeks.