For
anyone who read “The Politician’s Pawn” and got all attached to Thomas Evans, I’m
sorry for what I do to him in “Moves and
Countermoves,” the second chapter of which is featured below.
As
I’ve stated before, I had no original intention of writing a second book. So I
had no intention of exploring his character further than from Kayla’s limited perspective.
By the time I realized I was going to have to, I had already established certain
details about Evans that needed to be explained.
Like
the fact that he has a chip on his shoulder.
Like how he’s got such a strong moral code working for who he works for
and doing what he does.
Like
the way he took Rod’s behavior toward Kayla as personally as he did.
So
I started writing. And Chapters 1 and 2 are what came out. The explanation
involves a subject matter I never saw myself handling so directly. I kinda hate authors who
throw this particular topic around like it’s cheap entertainment. (Sadly, a bunch come
to mind right off the top of my head.)
So for whatever it’s
worth, that’s not how I meant it. All the same, feel free to judge me. Because,
let’s face it, the writing buck stops here.
2 – Telling the Wife
eaving the warmth of Kayla’s
apartment for the chilly morning air outside, Evans knew he had done the right
thing. And he didn’t have any regrets about doing it.
He only hoped he
could say the same thing after he was done talking to the next person on his
list.
His stomach tightened
thinking about the conversation to come, going over the details, mapping out
how he should start off. The problem was that no matter which ways he tried it
out in his head, there remained a very high chance of things going badly.
Evans already knew he
would be sleeping on the couch that evening, and that was if things went well.
There would be no breathing in the apricot scent of Sarah’s hair while he
drifted off to sleep. He wouldn’t wake up to the sensation of her stretching
out next to him, murmuring a sleepy “Morning, Thomas.” And as for any kisses,
he would be lucky if he could steal one in a week’s time.
She had a temper when
she wanted to, his wife. And he was about to give her a whole lot of reasons to
use it.
“Just don’t stay mad,
babe,” he murmured out loud.
Just
please don’t stay mad.
Striding past the
long rectangles of well-trimmed lawn that extended between the parallel rows of
apartment buildings, he nodded to a grandmother walking toward him. She held
the hand of a little boy of maybe three, who toddled along next to her. The
child’s eyes widened as he craned his neck to see exactly how tall Evans was.
Despite his
tumultuous feelings, Evans spared a smile for the tyke. It seemed unnecessarily
mean not to, even if his thoughts were elsewhere, directed toward his own
children and whether he’d be allowed to remain in their lives.
He wasn’t being
melodramatic in wondering that. Divorce was definitely on the table, and if
Sarah chose to go that route, it wouldn’t be unfounded for her to demand sole
custody. Worse yet, if she chose to pursue those options, he didn’t know how
much he would fight her. He would want to. But she would be right to protect
her offspring from everything he had done.
She was a good mother
like that.
Panic crept in, an
emotion he wished he could say he was unfamiliar with.
A little over a year
ago, he could have. Back then, the last time he could remember feeling full-out
panic was the first time he found himself in an active warzone. That was when
he was twenty-two.
In which case, the
twelve years after that had been downright blissful, he supposed. It was a long
chunk of time to go without experiencing a rush of unadulterated terror.
That wasn’t to say
his nerves hadn’t kicked in still. He’d felt them when Sarah went into labor
with Ava. And they struck good and hard right before a combat mission
officially began.
He understand that
level of anxiety very well. It would take a bad husband or dangerously unstable
fighter to honestly say otherwise. But actual panic? That was for rookies.
Then he got the call
in Afghanistan. Three days before his final tour of duty was over. Four days
before he was scheduled to step off a plane at Baltimore-Washington
International airport, where Sarah would be waiting for him at the arrivals’
gate.
Evans had envisioned
his homecoming so many times while serving that last stint. His wife would be
wearing one of those dresses she knew he liked so much. Maybe the green one
that flared out around her knees, showing off her long legs to perfection.
She’d be holding Ava in her arms, their two-year-old daughter balanced on one
hip, helping her wave an adorable, chubby hand in greeting.
That was the way it
was supposed to be. But it wasn’t even close to how it turned out. Instead, he
left three days early to come home to a traumatized spouse still reeling from
the assault she’d just sustained.
Someone had raped his
wife. Callously targeted her while she was loading shopping bags into the car,
Ava already strapped into her child’s seat in the back.
It wasn’t even the usual
grocery store Sarah went to, but she had been visiting a friend in the area and
figured she’d stop and get what she needed while she could remember it all.
Turned out it was a huge mistake, but how could she have known that beforehand?
The assailant,
whoever he was, threatened her at knifepoint, using Ava as an added bargaining
chip to force cooperation. And so, like the good mother she was, Sarah had let
him lead her away from her baby with the promise that she’d be back soon.
While Evans was off
defending his country from terrorists, one of his own countrymen – someone he
was protecting by doing what he was doing – was terrorizing his wife.
They never caught the
wretch, Baltimore being what it was, which was crime ridden. Sarah had supplied
the cops with a decent sketch too – blond hair, blue eyes, angular facial
structure, wide shoulders, average height – but there were too many other cases
out there to focus on one random rape for very long. The police speculated the
perpetrator was someone just passing through the neighborhood, since they never
got even the slightest trace of him.
Evans gripped the
handle of his dark grey Ford Ranger. The four-door pickup truck had seen better
days, as evidenced by the dings in the driver’s door and the sizable dent in
the front bumper on the same side. Both had come from some reckless driving
he’d done in the months after returning home. It had been his coping mechanism,
he supposed, since he couldn’t rearrange the rapist’s face and tear out his
organs by hand.
Stepping up onto the
running board, he swung one leg into the cab and then the other, shutting the
door with a little too much force. What he really wanted to do was close his
eyes and lean his head against the headrest to indulge in at least a few
seconds of disenchantment.
Either that or go
wreck something.
By that point, Evans
had already been up for more than twenty-four hours straight. Not to say that
he hadn’t gone longer periods of time playing the insomniac. During Navy SEAL
training, he and his fellow enrollees had gone a full six days without sleep.
There was a reason why that particular stretch was called Hell Week, yet he had
survived and moved on to the next leg of the months-long program.
With that experience
behind him, Evans understood what he was capable of. He could go another few
days of deprivation if he really had to. But none of that meant he wasn’t
seriously craving a good long nap.
What he chose to do
instead was put his keys in the ignition, turn the car on and pull the
gearshift into drive. When it came down to it, he understood the benefits of sucking
it up and getting the talk with his wife over and done with. He knew he wasn’t
going to stop feeling sick until he did.
The only question was
whether he would feel worse afterward.
Evans certainly
wasn’t feeling great when he pulled up to his apartment complex. It was a
fifteen-minute drive, more than enough time for his married life to flash
before his eyes more than once. There were so many memories there, and so many
more he still wanted to make.
Selecting the closest
open spot in the sizable parking lot, he stared at his building a whole lot
longer than necessary. It wasn’t quite as picturesque on the outside as Kayla’s
place, though only because the buildings were three-tiered instead of two. And
they stretched out longer to accommodate larger residences on a smaller piece
of property. But they were still attractive enough structures at first and
second glance.
They better be for
what he was paying.
Plus, the
accommodations inside were more luxurious. Kayla’s quarters were nice enough
inside, but something about them still smacked of a college student’s dorm, not
in how she decorated everything but how the layout was set up.
His apartment, on the
other hand, was the definitive grown-up version. That easily showed in the
community swimming pool out back and down the sidewalk, the stylish business
center in the opposite direction and the complimentary gym, which was situated
a building down from the pool.
Evans didn’t
particularly care for the workout area, not because the equipment wasn’t state
of the art, but because some of his desperate housewife neighbors were less
than subtle about trying to get whatever male attention they could. When he worked
out, he did so with a purpose. And that purpose wasn’t flirting with dyed
blonds with boob jobs and obnoxiously low self-esteem.
But overall, it was a
good place to live and a safe area to raise a family, factors that had been
essential to him and Sarah when they moved in. In the end, it was home, and he
desperately wanted it to stay that way.
It took some effort,
but he forced his feet to go in the necessary direction. Inside his particular
building and up the one flight of stairs, his hands didn’t tremble on the
doorknob when he unlocked it. Though he wasn’t sure how that could be when his
insides were such a mess.
“Hey, Sarah,” he
called out before the door was all the way open. “I’m back.”
He had already seen
her not two hours ago, when he slipped into the apartment to take a quick
shower. She had been asleep on their bed, cuddled up under the covers with her
nose peeking out. It made him want to lean in and kiss her forehead.
Since he wasn’t
scheduled to return from his supposed business trip until that afternoon,
however, he didn’t risk it for fear of startling her. Telling himself he would
get to see her anyway just as soon he finished speaking to Kayla, he just
grabbed his clothing and left the bedroom behind.
Evans had left a note
on the table explaining that he loved her and would be back soon enough. He
hoped Sarah remembered the first part of that message after he told her
everything that had been going on since he got his new job.
“Thomas!” She called
from the kitchen, her Georgia-girl accent playing with his name like it always
did when she was happy. “I just need to dry my hands and I’ll be right there.”
A bundle of bubblegum
pink with sparkly purple wings dashed at him from that general direction, her
impossibly dainty feet barely touching the carpet, as if she really was a fairy
princess.
Bending down, Evans
scooped his oldest daughter up into the air before she could crash into his
legs. Her resulting squeals of feigned protestation nearly undid him. He
shrugged her against his side, one arm wrapped around her like he hadn’t seen
her in years.
Or wouldn’t see her
again for even longer.
“Hey, sweetie.” He
turned his head for a kiss on the cheek, reciprocating in turn when she angled
her own face to the side in expectation. “Were you good for Mommy?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded with
conviction, like there was no other possibility.
In reality, he knew
better, even if he didn’t always want to admit it. Sarah liked warning him that
he was going to have to toughen up with their daughter one of these days.
Otherwise, Ava was going to grow up thinking all men were so easy to deal with.
And did he really want that?
His wife would then
lift her eyebrows: a dare for him to claim that it wasn’t true.
In those cases, he
always retorted that it wasn’t necessary for him to change a thing. That’s what
firearms were for: to scare off hormonal teenage boys.
It was only half a
joke. Maybe not even that much of one.
Fortunately, at three
years old, Ava had a long way to go before she started dating. If it were up to
Evans, he’d keep it that way.
Carrying the
precocious little brunette, wings and all, into the kitchen, he almost collided
with Sarah, who was just turning the corner. Clad in soft grey pajama bottoms
and one of his t-shirts she liked to wear when he was gone, she couldn’t have
looked any more beautiful than she did right then.
Her dark hair was
pulled into a loose ponytail, a few strands falling around her ivory skin. He
teased her about having been born in the wrong century, asking her when she was
going to go get a tan like all the other housewives in the neighborhood. But
when it came down to brass tacks, he loved how she looked just the way she was.
Cliché as that might
be, it was still true.
How could he not
think the world of her when she was all big green eyes and long legs and full
pink lips? She hadn’t managed to shed off all the pregnancy weight yet. It was
taking her a little longer this time around than it had after Ava. Yet he
didn’t mind. She still looked amazing in his book.
She was still his.
“Where’s Lizzy?” He
asked, leaning down to give her a lingering kiss on the mouth.
Despite the
potentially devastating conversation ahead of him, he hadn’t seen his wife in
four days other than the brief glimpse that morning. And it was the last kiss he
was probably going to get in a while, so he might as well enjoy it.
“She’s in the
playpen.” Sarah smiled when she drew back. “You should have heard her this
morning. I don’t know what she found so funny, but she was little miss giggles
about something.”
“Were you singing
again?” Evans asked skeptically.
Sarah only rolled her
eyes at that. “And yesterday, she was responding to her name. Every time I said
it, she would turn toward me. Every time.”
“Already?” Ava hadn’t
done any such thing until well past her half-year mark, which put Lizzy a
decent three months ahead of her big sister.
“She did it again
just before you walked in,” Sarah confirmed.
His oldest squirmed
in his arms, and he set her down carefully. When she went racing off to her
bedroom, it seemed a good enough opening as any. Much as Evans would prefer to
talk about the children and how much his wife had missed him, he had to explain
some things before he chickened out.
“Will Lizzy be okay
if we go talk?”
Something in his tone
must have clued her in that something wasn’t right, because she stilled. Sarah
was perceptive like that. Or maybe he was just that nervous and it showed.
“Talk? About what?”
His mouth went dry.
“About my job.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“Are you losing it? Is the senator letting you go?”
If only it were that
simple. “Not quite. But the baby. Will she be alright?”
Evans very well knew
he might be stalling. Despite introducing an opening for the topic, he still
wasn’t close to being prepared for actually discussing it.
“She’s fine for now.”
Sarah leaned into the kitchen to grab at the entire box of tissues resting in
easy reach on the counter. “Ava,” she called out, “you stay in your room for a
bit. Mommy and Daddy need to have a grown-up talk, alright?”
Ava’s short, carefree
response drifted back to them. As long as she had her stuffed animals and her
dolls, she was usually more than content playing pretend all by herself. She
was a unique creature, his oldest.
Sarah didn’t ask any
questions, moving around him into the living room. Evans went to close Ava’s
door completely. A little innocent like her didn’t need to hear any of what he
was about to say.
When he went into the
other room, Sarah was plopping the tissues down on the wood-rimmed coffee table
in the center of the room. She took a seat on the blue-suede wraparound couch,
positioning herself on one side of the curve. That left him room to face her
while still sitting close by.
Evans accepted the
offer, the panic running rampant now. Perhaps once he got going with his
explanation, that would settle down, though he didn’t think he’d have it nearly
so easy. It was too giant a mess he’d gotten himself into.
He glanced past her
to the playpen, where Lizzy lay on her back, gazing at the colorful baby mobile
that dangled above her head. She let out a giggle, his bright little girl who
was ahead of the curve.
Evans liked to think
he had something to do with that, even if that was biologically impossible. He
was proud of her regardless.
“The job I have,” he
started, his posture rigid, his hands placed uneasily on his knees.
Sarah nodded
encouragingly when he didn’t go on right away.
“I never told you all
the details.”
“You said you
couldn’t,” she reminded him. Her hands were in her lap and her legs crossed at
the ankle, trying to remain calm despite how he was already giving her plenty
of reason to be nervous well before he started going into detail.
In that moment, one
part of him missed his overseas operations. War-torn lands and vicious
jihadists seemed like a picnic compared to the battlefield he was going into.
Evans nodded. “I
couldn’t tell you everything because Greyble was involved in illegal activity.
And so was I. He enlisted my help with a lot of it.”
Sarah uncrossed her
legs, bringing them together and backwards until her heels were touching the
couch. “What do you mean by ‘illegal.’” Her spine was now almost as straight as
his.
“Corrupt dealings.
And last week, it got worse. A lot worse.”
He was stalling. This
time, there was no doubt about it. He knew he was stalling.
“Just say it,
Thomas.” But she sounded like a large part of her didn’t want him to.
His eyes strayed down
to her hands, which were gripping the edge of the cushion beneath her. Her arms
were taught with the effort.
Evans ripped off the
Band-Aid. “I was told to kidnap someone.”
Her beautiful green
eyes got big with horror.
“A young woman.
Another senator’s daughter. My employer” – the word tasted rancid coming out of
his mouth – “wanted to swing a vote.”
“You didn’t say no,
did you.” The way Sarah said it so bleakly, she wasn’t asking. She already
knew.
Evans shook his head
anyway. Three times and very slowly. “No. I didn’t.”
“Thomas.” She
breathed his name in a way he had never heard from her lips before.
It was like she was
disappointed in him. Horribly, heartbrokenly disappointed. As if he wasn’t the
man she had married.
He hated it. In that
moment, he rather hated himself too.
“It was a lot of
money, and it was supposed to go off without a hitch. But it didn’t. I should
have known it wouldn’t.”
He had known it wouldn’t.
Call it a fighter’s sense: something akin to feminine intuition. It came from
seeing too many bad things already and expecting more to follow. After being in
enough dangerous situations, he had learned to go with his gut. And his gut had
said the mission wasn’t going to end well. Which it hadn’t.
Evans kept explaining
while those reminders filled his conscience. “We were instructed to grab the
wrong girl first, and it was too late to let her go by the time we realized our
mistake.”
“I don’t want to hear
this,” Sarah said to nobody in particular.
She didn’t move
though, so he went on. It was as unmerciful an act against himself as it was to
her.
“So Greyble decided
to hold onto both of them until the vote was tallied. He had every intention of
letting his colleague’s daughter go after everything was taken care of; but the
other girl, Kayla, was a liability.”
“Oh my God.” She
buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God.”
Evans understood the
plea perfectly. “His plan was to drop her out in a bad part of D.C. and let
someone else finish her off for him.”
Sarah interrupted
then, not with words but by raising her head back up. Her glare was as intense
as he’d ever seen it. And it was directed at him.
When he raised his
hands in surrender between them, there wasn’t a single part of him that was
trying to be funny. “I didn’t let him, Sarah! Do you really think I could have
let him?”
“I don’t know.”
She didn’t say it
loudly, but her voice trembled with a variety of strong emotions that were almost
screaming on their own accord. If not for the children in the other rooms, he
thought she might very well have flown at him, nails outstretched to claw his
face off.
“I never thought you
would stoop this low to begin with, especially after –” She grabbed for a
tissue, though she wasn’t crying yet. It seemed more something to do that
didn’t involve murdering him. “After everything.”
“You’re right, Sarah.
You’re right.”
He wanted so
desperately to put his hand on her leg, to calm her down, to let her know he
was still the man she married. That he hadn’t changed, at least not to the
drastic degree she thought. But he knew if he touched her right then, it would
end badly. Every detail about her radiated livid contempt.
“It was
unconscionable what I did. To her. To you. And I’m sorry.” Evans was starting
to sound frantic, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. His pride meant less
than nothing if losing it meant he could convince her not to give up on him.
“You have no idea how sorry I am. But I’m trying to make things right.”
“How in the world do
you think you can make things right?” She snapped, her eyes blazing for another
long minute.
Then she crumbled,
her face scrunching up and the tears flowing fast and free.
If possible, he felt
worse. His hands literally ached to hold her.
“What were you
thinking, Thomas?” She cried, stifling the sounds behind both hands. “I don’t
understand how you could have done this: going from protecting people to
kidnapping them.”
He knew why she was
trying to keep quiet. As always, she was being a good mother and putting the
girls first. When she brought the tissue she was still clutching to her face,
she even made sure to blow her nose softly.
The sight and sounds
lacerated Evans’ insides. “I was thinking I couldn’t do it anymore. The whole
good-guy-comes-last routine. I wanted out.”
It was the truth. He
had never flat-out admitted that to Sarah before, though she had probably
figured it out on her own after last year, when he suddenly announced that he
wasn’t renewing his contract with the military.
Evans had started out
in the Navy right after college, and then served as a SEAL for years after
that. But when he met Sarah, she had flat-out refused to get serious with him
after she found out what he did. He remembered her citing statistics about divorce
rates and such, declaring that she didn’t need that kind of drama in her life.
So he had done
something most SEALs would never dream about doing. He promised that, if she
gave him a chance and things showed long-term promise between them, he’d switch
out at his next opportunity. And he’d kept that word.
Sarah hadn’t given
him a hard time about any of the rest of it, not the base hopping or the four
overseas tours of duty he’d done once he was back to being a regular squid
again. But they’d both agreed he would settle into a nice desk job after that
last one, staying there until he’d reached his twenty-year mark, where he could
retire with a full pension.
That had been the
original plan, and it had been a good one until the horror of what happened to
Sarah started wearing off and bitterness started creeping in. Looking back,
Evans was sure he could have tried harder to handle the disgusting irony his
life had become. Yet a large part of him had wanted to be angry about how he
was protecting American society when American society was out to screw him over
by literally screwing his wife.
As a general rule, he
wasn’t the hotheaded type, more than capable of keeping his cool well enough to
consider all the angles. So maybe he would have been able to find a way past
the anger if not for Sarah’s tearful phone call saying she was pregnant.
She didn’t need to
say anything else when, at that point, they hadn’t had sex since he got home.
Since the attack.
That was it: the last
nail in his patriotic coffin. Right then and there, Evans decided he was done.
He could barely wait until the remaining months of his current contract was up,
and he began considering other jobs right away.
Greyble’s opening for
a security team leader had come to his attention during Sarah’s third
trimester. He had known right from the beginning that the man was as crooked as
they came. Sailor’s sense had nothing to do with it either. The senator
practically radiated corruption.
How any American
could be stupid enough to vote for that kind of a person was beyond Evans. Then
again, he had done more than vote for the man; he had worked for him. So he
supposed that made him just as stupid as Greyble’s willingly delusional
constituents. Maybe even worse.
Definitely worse in
the morality category.
“You couldn’t do the
‘good guy’ routine?” Sarah was asking, her tone incredulous behind the sobs.
“Well, it sounds like you proved you can play the bad guy just fine. Are you
happy now? Does it feel like you’re finishing first? Was it worth it?”
Happiness had never
been his goal in making the switch. For that matter, he’d never expected it as
a side-effect either. It was more that he’d wanted to show America what
happened when a good sailor went bad. He wanted to teach the country he had
risked so much for that it couldn’t treat him so poorly without expecting some
undesirable repercussions.
Evans was now
thinking the only person he taught a lesson to was himself, and it wasn’t a
lesson he was liking. His wife’s particular word choices managed to make him feel
that much more of a monster.
Over in the dining
room by the table, Lizzy must have sensed that something was very, very wrong
because she started to cry too.
Sarah stood up,
wiping her nose with another tissue that she kept locked in her fingers. She stooped
over the playpen to lift the baby out, cradling her against her shoulder and
whispering sweet little nothings at her, the soothing sounds punctured by her
own sobs every few seconds.
The way she held onto
Lizzy, it wasn’t clear who was supposed to be comforting who.
Evans went for broke.
“I went over to Kayla’s place this morning.”
“Kayla?” She asked
brokenly. “The first girl you kidnapped? The one you were supposed to leave out
on the street to die?”
“I didn’t leave her
out on the street to die, Sarah! I didn’t!”
The words came out
more harshly than he meant them to. Evans wasn’t angry at all, just desperate
to make her understand. To make her stop crying.
He tried to moderate
his tone. “I got her back to her place in Catonsville. You can go see her if
you want. She’ll tell you everything.”
“Maybe I will,” Sarah
shot at him.
“Maybe you should!”
He willed himself to be calm, which wasn’t an easy task by any means. “I told
her I would help her take Greyble down if she wanted. But one way or the other,
I’m done with him. If Kayla says she just wants to go on with life, my next
phone call will be to turn in my resignation.”
And then he would
start looking for a new job. In a lackluster economy, no matter what the
government unemployment rate said. Maybe he would have to start looking for a
new apartment while he was at it.
Evans really hoped
not.
Still clutching
Lizzy, who was just whimpering now, Sarah had been pacing up and down a short
swath of carpet. But something made her stop in her tracks. It wasn’t apparent
whether it was something he had said or hadn’t said, or if it was something
else far apart from anything he could control. He just knew she had come to a
decision of some sort.
Closing her eyes, she
shook her head, still not looking at him when she spoke. “Thomas, you need to
leave.”
Everything inside him
that was already cracked and broken completely cratered, falling somewhere far
past his feet. In its place, he felt empty, shell-shocked at the sudden
viciousness of the command.
She hadn’t delivered
it meanly. If anything, the main emotion she was emitting was desperation. But
it still felt like she had taken a bat to his knees with malicious and savage
intent.
Then again, Evans
didn’t know how he could have possibly expected anything better.
“Sarah, please,” he
begged, standing up, his hands half outstretched. He felt at an utter loss as
to what to do with his body, or any other part of him. “You don’t have to do
this. We can talk. Or I’ll drive you over to Kayla’s right now.”
He would. Forget his
promise to leave her alone until she contacted him. Desperate times called for
desperate measures, and he was nothing short of desperate in that moment.
“Thomas,” she
repeated his name slowly. Carefully. Like he was a dangerous animal she
couldn’t show fear in front of. “You just dropped a lot on me. And I need some
room to think it all through. So you’re going to have to be somewhere else for
the next few hours.”
It wouldn’t have
sounded like such a bad plan if not for the very real risk that, after he
walked out the door, she wouldn’t ever let him back in.
Sarah went on with
another sniffle. “After you get back, we can talk everything through, and maybe
you can make me understand what exactly happened and why it happened and what
you didn’t let happen. Alright?”
There was little room
to do anything but agree with her, so he nodded, his throat tight while he
looked at her holding their little girl. Sometimes, Evans reminded himself, a
tactical retreat could lead to a significant victory instead of a worse loss
down the road. Yet he still felt like he was surrendering way too much by doing
as she asked.
He stood there a
moment longer, hoping beyond hope that she might reconsider.
She didn’t.
“Please go.” Judging
by the tremor in her voice, she was on the verge of crying hard again. “Please.
I promise we’ll talk afterward. Just you need to leave now.”
She wasn’t going to
change her mind. He could see that. Worse yet, he wasn’t in any way convinced
she’d meant her demand before for just a “few hours.” Judging by everything
about her now and everything he knew about her beyond that, it seemed a safe
bet that she was saying whatever she could to get him out of the house. Nothing
more.
Even knowing that any
additional efforts to apologize would be fruitless, he still wanted to stay. It
was excruciatingly painful to do as she asked.
Taking in a trembling
breath, Evans stared straight at his wife, studying everything about her right
down to her damp eyes and the tear trails stained on her cheeks.
She was breathtaking.
So why he had allowed things to get this bad was beyond him. Jeopardizing what
he had with someone like her was hands-down the most inexcusable thing he had
ever done.
He wanted to ask how
long she really needed, but the day’s previous lesson in feminine ambiguity
came back to him. If Kayla, who had been so much calmer, had reacted the way
she had, then Evans could only imagine how Sarah might if he brought up
timelines.
“Okay, babe. I’ll
go.” The pet name slipped off his tongue with a surge of possessiveness: a
reminder of what they still had together if she would only hold onto it.
Sarah didn’t say
anything in response. Her attention was turned back to Lizzy, blocking him out
altogether. In her mind, it seemed he was already gone.
“I’m just going to say
goodbye to Ava,” he told her.
She nodded, as rigid
a sign of permission as she could possibly give.
Evans walked the path
to his daughter’s bedroom, his steps heavy in what should have been a
comfortable setting. But the pristine white walls and the peach and black
accents of the hallway might as well as have been from a different planet. He
felt that ill at ease in his own home.
Through Ava’s door,
he could catch the faint happy hum of her singing something or another.
Probably an incorrect interpretation of the lyrics from one of her princess
movies. Unlike her, Evans knew each one of those songs by heart thanks to how
many times she’d watched the films.
He would have happily
popped any five of them into the DVR, pulling Ava onto his lap and watching them
one after another all over again if he could.
His little princess
looked up when he opened the door. “Do you wanna play, Daddy?” She held out her
favorite stuffed animal to him: a giraffe named Riffy.
Evans crouched beside
her. “No sweetie, Daddy has to go out.”
“But. But.” Her nose
scrunched up in puzzlement. “But you just got back.”
Her childish
bewilderment didn’t make the goodbye any easier, and he ended up hugging her
long enough for her to start squirming. So he forced himself to give her one
last kiss on the forehead before shutting the door behind him again.
Despite his highest
hopes, the additional time didn’t play out the way Evans wanted it to. When he
walked back toward the living room area, Sarah hadn’t changed her mind. He
hadn’t really expected her to, but he was still sorely disappointed when she
proved him right.
“I love you,” he
informed her anyway, pausing one last time with one foot in the hallway and the
other lingering inside his home.
Sarah inclined her
head in one sharp, jerky movement, keeping her face turned away from him and
offering him nothing else in response.
As he stepped out completely and closed the door behind him, Evans felt sure he knew exactly how Rod had felt the night before with Kayla.
