Caveman (Wild Men 1)

What do you know, my daughter is a goddamn diva.

As for myself, I couldn’t care less what I put in my mouth. Pizza, steak, salad, bread, mud. It all tastes like ashes.

But since Mary had a ragey fit earlier on today about the pizza leftovers I took out of the fridge, and since I still haven’t figured out how to get into her good graces, a problem that for some reason keeps penetrating through the dark fog in my mind with an urgency most things in my life lately don’t seem to have, well…

Here we are, in one of the town’s two diners—the one with the Christmas lights in the windows, as Mary demanded, not the other, boring one—sitting around a table and waiting for our order.

Mary asked for a burger and fries.

Cole asked for pizza.

It almost made me smile.

Almost, because sitting here, in this cluttered, dim space with the voices and laughter of other customers and the smell of food in the air, even the Christmas lights on the window that enchanted my little daughter—they remind me of her.

Emma.

Mary probably doesn’t remember the diner we used to go to for dinner sometimes back when. She can’t be remembering any of it. She was too young.

Those damn Christmas lights.

I shouldn’t have let Mary convince me to choose this diner. My vision is going blurry and my throat tight, and my heart is booming way too fast and loud in my chest.

And then I see her.

The nanny. The girl I didn’t hire.

Octavia.

She’s just entered the diner with three more people, laughing and talking loudly, her dark hair gleaming like polished wood in the dim lights, her smile bright. I don’t even see her companions. She burns like a flame.

I turn away and keep my head low as they move inside and take a table not far from ours. Cole is fussing with a teddy bear he’s dragged along, and Mary is sipping at her pop with an air of intense concentration. I notice for the first time tonight that she’s tied a red ribbon in her hair. The knot is crooked, and her hair is tangled.

Fuck.

I’m hit with remorse so sharp I hiss. I don’t think of shit like that. Brushing my daughter’s hair, tying ribbons in it. Making sure her red dress is clean and ironed. That Cole’s face is clean and his hands not grubby when he stuffs his thumb into his mouth.

Does he always do that? Should I make sure he stops? Will he get crooked teeth?

Does he even have a pacifier somewhere?

I can’t do this.

I have to do this.

Oh fuck.

“Mary,” I say and my voice sounds strangled in my own ears, “keep an eye on Cole.”

“Where are you going?” Cole asks in a small voice, and it twists the knots in my chest even tighter.

“To the bathroom,” I say while I get up, my surroundings weaving and dipping as I do.

Mary is watching me carefully. She gives a tight nod.

Why were they both watching me like that? Do they think I’ll bail on them, leave them alone in an unknown town?

Shaking my head, I stride to the back of the shop, lock myself up in the tiny bathroom and lean back against the wall, struggling to breathe, my hands clenched into fists, my head tilted back.