Released (Caged 3)

“The lady who worked with kids there brought in another bear,” Tria continued. “I think she actually went out and bought it herself to make sure Amanda had something, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t play music.”

“So, she…what? Hated you over a stuffed animal?”

“She took it out on me, yeah,” Tria said. “It got so bad, I even tried to trade bears with her, but she didn’t want it by then. She just wanted to make me suffer for it.”

“That’s fucked up,” I said.

“It definitely seems like it now,” Tria agreed. “At the time, it was obviously important to her. I don’t think she had much of anything before she came to the shelter. She really latched on to everything they gave her—even an extra cookie. She would hide that sort of stuff in her dresser drawer.”

“She hid cookies?”

“Other things, too.”

“Like what?”

“Small toys, bits of craft projects—anything she could sneak away. I don’t know where she came from, but no one there came from a happy home, you know?”

“I guess that’s true.” I put an arm around her and pulled her close to me. I didn’t like Tria thinking about where she came from. I wasn’t even sure which was worse—living with her mom, losing her dad, or ending up on that fucked up island. “You two seem to be getting along okay now.”

“Not bad,” Tria said. “I think she’s coming to terms with it all.”

“It all?” I repeated.

“I usurped her,” Tria said. “Even when she invited you to the wedding and everything else, she never expected you to come back into the family. You had been estranged for so long, she thought her position was secure. Even with Douglass constantly telling everyone the businesses were going to you whether you liked it or not, she thought he would eventually realize Teague Silver would collapse if he did that and he’d let Ryan take over instead. That would have made her queen again.”

“So when we showed up married and pregnant…well, I took her place. She wasn’t expecting that, but I think she’s dealing with it.”

“I kind of figured she took it that way,” I said with a nod. “Even when we were kids and she and Ryan were dating, she didn’t like girls I took out.”

“Probably for the same reason.”

“Most likely.”

Honestly, knowing where she was coming from didn’t make me like Amanda any more than I ever had, but at least I had some understanding. It was obvious that she loved Baby Katie, and that was more important than anything else. I was finding that increasingly true when it came to my tolerance of others—as long as they loved my daughter, they couldn’t be too bad.

That’s probably why I was never, ever going to tolerate Dana Lynn.

Brandon and Nikki had come to visit when Baby Katie was just a few weeks old. Brandon was totally freaked out by the baby at first but warmed to her once Nikki made him sit down and hold her. Within a few minutes, he was laughing at her and trying to get her to smile at him just like everyone else.

It was actually Nikki’s idea for Tria to call her mother.

“Well, I just thought you might like to know…No, I don’t need money. That’s not why…no…”

Tria sighed, dropped her head in one hand, and closed her eyes. Nikki stood off to one side with Baby Katie in her arms and a pained look on her face.

“No, that’s not why I called.” Tria started to sound like she was dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient. “I figured you might want to know you had a granddaughter…no, I don’t…”

Brandon shrugged when I glanced at him and motioned with his thumb toward the porch.

“I don’t know why she thought that shit was a good idea,” Brandon said as soon as the door closed.

I pulled out a little case of electronic cigarettes and cartridges—a gift from Michael when Baby Katie was born—and handed one to Brandon. He laughed his ass off at them the first time I offered him one, but he decided he liked them, and Nikki went ballistic on both of us when she found out I had given him real cigarettes before. He didn’t want to chance it again.

I still liked hanging out on the porch for no real reason, and the e-cig gave me a pseudo-reason.

“She was trying to help,” I replied with a shrug. “I reconciled with my parents, so maybe Tria and her mom can work things out, too. It doesn’t seem to be happening though.”

“I met her once,” Brandon said. “The woman is a nutcase.”