* * *
I find her with Melissa in the living room, dressing up a doll that looks disturbingly like a baby in a pink onesie and matching cap. I watch them quietly from the door. The girl grins up at my wife, a gap-toothed smile, and picks up another doll for her to dress.
Clearing my throat, I step inside. “Ready to go?”
“You are leaving already?” Melissa whines—as if she hadn’t been throwing us death-glares ever since we arrived.
“Just shopping for some things your uncle needs,” Octavia says, and puts her arm around the girl, giving her a squeeze. Then she gets up. “We’ll be back before you know it to cook lunch.”
“That’s good,” Melissa says, nodding. “Uncle Evan’s cooking stinks.”
“I hope not literally,” Octavia whispers to me as she hurries past me and out of the room.
“Be good,” I tell Melissa. “Your uncle is upstairs, resting. We won’t be longer than an hour.”
“Okay.” She nods gravely, and I hesitate at the door. Will she be okay?
“Don’t open for anyone else but us. And don’t light up anything. Candles, or the stove. You hear me?”
“I know.” And the glare is back. Maybe it’s reserved just for me. She seemed to like Octavia just fine a minute ago. “I’m not stupid. My uncle taught me all about safety.”
But not her mom, I think as I walk out of the house and close the main door quietly. Or her dad. Where is her dad anyway? He doesn’t seem to be in the picture at all.
Then again… sometimes it’s better that way than an abusive parent, and my mind drifts to Jasper, and Octavia’s question about Ross.
Dammit.
Octavia is waiting by the truck when I reach it, her gaze faraway. She’s twisting the rings on her finger, a nervous gesture she picked up in the past couple of years.
I unlock the door, help her up. Cup her silken cheeks in my rough hands. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing,” she whispers, but the shadows in her eyes betray her.
“This business with your father is worrying you. Making you uncomfortable. But it has nothing to do with you, Tay.”
“Of course it does. You said it. He’s my father.”
“Only in blood.” I stroke my thumbs over her cheekbones. “Maybe you should stay here, with the girl, resting, too.”
“I rested enough on the way here. Let’s go.”
I nod, draw back and close the door. She’s right, let’s do this, get it over with. And if she’s upset that her father is still the same asshole he was all his life, then yeah. Soon we’ll be gone from here once more, and she can forget about him. Worrying isn’t good for her, or for the baby.
Dammit, I should have put my fucking foot down and insisted more on her not coming along. Then again, being away from her would just about kill me.
I’m so fucking happy she’s with me. Selfish, I know. Which is why I need to make sure she’s okay, every step of the way.
* * *
Finding the brand of bird food Evan wants proves tricky, but we end up finding a similar kind, and I sure damn hope that his fucking birds aren’t picky. If they are, tough. I never spoiled my kids that way—they learned to eat all sorts of cereal, though I indulge them most of the time anyway—and I’m sure not gonna start with birds.
I’m more interested in getting food and medicine for Evan. He looks worn to the bone, from his accident, from dealing with Jasper all this time. Never thought I’d see him looking like this, this… destroyed. The handful of times we spoke on the phone since I moved away he’d sounded upbeat and cheery. How was I supposed to know things had gone to shit?
Why should I know?
Throwing the fucking bird food into the back of my truck, I go look for Octavia. She has a habit of disappearing inside the stores we visit.
I find her talking with an old man in a tweed jacket and worn pants. He’s stroking his mustache as he listens.