Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

And the truth was, Auggie might need it recorded, if she didn’t retreat from his life as he’d asked, and he had to take even more formal steps to be certain she didn’t re-enter it.

“But having her arrested?” Dem went on. “Your own mother?”

“You’re making it clear where you are in your head about this, Dad,” Auggie started. “And I’ll be honest. You’ve given little indication you’re any more capable than she is at understanding the depths of dysfunction the two of you live in. Recently, it’s become apparent that I’ve played my part in it by assimilating to it. When I was a kid, I had no choice but to do that. I’m not a kid anymore. I can choose not to be involved. And that’s the choice I’ve made today.”

“Auggie—” his father began in a wheedling tone.

“No, Dad, with this, you need to listen to me. What I’m building with Pepper is serious. I see a future. I see that clearly. She has a daughter. Juno is only eight years old. I cannot allow harmful and even damaging things into their lives. And your and Mom’s behavior is harmful and damaging. I didn’t like it for me. But I won’t allow it for Pepper and Juno.”

Dem sounded offended when he asked, “You’re calling us harmful and damaging?”

Auggie tightened the grasp on his patience, something he always had a stranglehold on, an effort he was so fucking done with expending.

“Mom broke into my house today, Dad,” he reminded his father in a stiff voice. “She actually broke a front window I had to board up. On Thanksgiving. Just to suck my time and attention.”

“She was hurt about what you said a few weeks ago.”

Even if his father couldn’t see him, Aug shook his head.

“I’m not doing this. I’m not explaining things you should get. I’ve had these conversations with you before. And I’m done having them.”

There was a pause and then his father tried to change the topic, and suck his time. “Juno?”

“Pepper’s daughter,” he explained shortly. “Now, as you know, I’ve made the decision Mom is out. If you can’t see that a woman, any woman, hell, any person, but particularly a mother breaking into someone’s house for the sole purpose of getting their attention and causing a scene as very wrong, you need to take some time to reflect.”

He paused to let that sink in.

And then he carried on.

“And I won’t be around while you do that. I am no longer going to be drawn into your drama. I’ve made that plain with her today in a very official way. I will do the same with you if needs be. Straight up, if she doesn’t change, I don’t want to see her again. And if you carry on like you are with her in your life, the same goes for you.”

“I cannot believe the words I’m hearing,” Dem stated, and he sounded like he meant it, his tone full of shock and hurt.

Therefore, Auggie allowed what he was feeling to be heard in his next words.

And it was only hurt.

“And I can’t believe you can’t believe them. She broke into my home today, Dad. Broke in. And you’re phoning to defend her. And you both forced your way into my house on the day Pepper found out her mother is dying, and neither of you behaved anywhere near decent human beings. If you don’t see these two things as extreme, unhealthy behavior, these on the back of years of the same, there’s nothing more for me to say except what I’ve already said. I’m done. In this game we’ve been playing of who gets the most time and attention, I choose me.”

There was now a bitter thread to his father’s, “Sounds like you choose that woman and her kid.”

Is Auggie ours?

He is.

“I choose them too.”

His father was silent.

Auggie didn’t break it.

However, when his dad remained silent, Aug felt a sour hit his gut and he closed his eyes tight.

When he opened them, he said low, “Good-bye, Dad.”

And before Dem could reply, Aug hung up on him.

Then he repeated the actions he’d done with his phone earlier, except with his mother’s number.

This meant he blocked his father.

He took a second with that, staring at Pepper’s yard, again not seeing it.

No.

All he saw was in his head, Pepper jumping in front of him when his mother was coming at him and then he saw Juno push in front of Pepper.

Is Auggie ours?

He is.

He had thought he’d genuinely been in love with his ex-fiancée, Marie.

But when he heard those words from Juno, when he felt what was coming off Pepper after she asked her question, when she took his hand, he knew he hadn’t scratched the surface of that emotion.

Is Auggie ours?

He is.

We take care of what’s ours.

He’d not been taken care of all his life. In the end, even by Marie.