Breaking Hearts (8 page)

My leaving wasn’t altogether altruistic. I couldn’t bear for Kieran to ask every day where Daddy went. How could I explain my mistakes to a kid like Kieran? Absent a good answer, I stole a page from Mom and Dad’s book and decided on a vacation that I intended as a more permanent move than a short-term holiday. I wanted to make up for the things I couldn’t give him--a happy family life--with things I could. So, I loaded him into the car, hyped it as an adventure, then threw myself into his enthusiasm.

Traveling slowly across five states, we visited the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, the Titanic museum in Branson and an Elvis Tribute Contest, the Spencer Museum of Art, the Topeka Air and Combat Museum, and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado. Even with a vocabulary rivaling some adults, he lost interest quickly. We traveled with only the GPS as our guide. When I wasn’t concentrating on driving or when the long stretches of road went on forever, I was willing Simon to call. I spent a lot of time disappointed.

Traveling with an over-intelligent toddler and a broken heart tested my resolve, but we made it work. However, when we arrived at the Grand Canyon, Kieran took fate by the short hairs.

It started with a simple question inspired by a book Keaton purchased when we were out buying baby things before Kieran was born. We’d read it to him cover to cover every night after.

“Do you know about dinosaurs?” If he never asked me another question, I would always have remembered this as the one that started it all.

“Of course!” I played along with the hundred and twelve dinosaur questions he asked in a day. Any time he could find a way to sneak one in, he did. He asked me if I knew about fossils and the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. If I answered wrong, he shared with me all he knew. I’d read him those books since birth. He knew a lot. I answered wrong on purpose.

“Did you know Brachiosaurus eats leaves off trees and he weighs as much as six hundred cows?”

“Wow. I bet he could eat a little boy like you in one bite.” I couldn’t help but smile at how smart my boy had become.

“Mom.” A serious frown darkened his features. “I’m not a leaf on a tree. I’m a Kieran.”

“Well, there’s a museum about four hours from here where we can go see some dinosaur bones.” Mesa had a museum exhibit he would love.

“How long is four hours?”

I smiled. “Two hundred and forty minutes.”

“How long is a minute?”

This line of questioning I could roll with. “Sixty seconds.”

“How long is a second?”

“Faster than you can say ‘I have the best mommy in the whole entire wide world.’”

He giggled as I reached down to tickle his ribs. He looked up at me with the sunset reflected in his light brown eyes. “Do they have a Quetzalcoatlus?”

I tilted my head trying to picture which of the dinosaurs I should be imagining. Wings? No Wings? It didn’t matter if I knew. He only cared if the museum had one. “Probably.” I gave his hand a little squeeze. “But let’s enjoy this while we’re here. Look how big that hole in the Earth is.”

“Do they have a T-Rex?”

His lack of attention to the natural wonder before us was my own fault. I’d mentioned the D word and he grabbed on with both mental fists and wouldn’t let go. I sighed. “Maybe.”

“And a Stygimoloch?” Thankfully, the books we had bought had been written with phonetic pronunciations and as I read them to him, we both learned to pronounce the names. His first word had been “dino.”

I nodded and he smiled.

“I love fossils.” And when he got stuck on an idea, nothing I did would shake him back to where I wanted or needed him to be.

As far as I knew, he’d never seen one, but his enthusiasm brought a smile to my lips.

“Did I hear someone say Stygimoloch?” A deep male voice, from off to our left had me gathering Kieran close to me. The words
stranger danger
flashed through my mind in bright red neon. Kieran looked up at me, and I turned to the owner of said voice.

Ignoring the don’t-talk-to-strangers rule (probably because a dinosaur hadn’t said it), he wiggled free from my grasp and stepped forward. “Me, Kieran.”

A very tall man stepped closer from out of the sun’s blinding glare. I blinked twice.
No. No way.
My skin grew warm. Of all the people in the world to be here, why him? Why now?

I said, “Sean?” at the same time he said, “Danielle?”

“How have you been?” He pulled me in for a hug. My arms stayed at my sides.

Kieran stepped between us, and I stumbled out of the embrace. “That’s my mommy.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You’re a stranger. Don’t touch her.”

“Your mommy?” Immediately, Sean’s face darkened. “And how old would you be?”

“Three.” Sean held up his hand, counted on his fingers mumbling random words. “Arizona,” then “limousine” then “shit.”

Kieran looked up at me with all the confusion a kid his age could possibly display--wide eyes, open mouth, crinkled forehead. “What’s he doing, Mommy?”

“Math.”

A range of emotions danced across Sean’s face before the equation morphed into an answer and his eyes popped wide open. He glared at the ground for the longest part of a minute, then turned his gaze back to my face and grabbed my arm. Before I could dig in my heels, he pulled me ten steps out of Kieran’s earshot.

“Mommy!” He screamed a monster-under-the-bed kind of wail. He might have sounded all grown up, but seeing his mother manhandled brought out the baby in him. I shook free from Sean’s grasp, rushed back, and knelt in front of my son.

“It’s okay, buddy. He’s just an old friend of Mommy’s, and he wanted to talk to me for a second.” I hugged him close.

He swiped the back of his arm across his face, pushed me away, and walked over to stand in front of Sean, hands on his hips waiting for an explanation.

Sean cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Mommy says it isn’t nice to grab people.”

Sean’s incredible height made Kieran seem even smaller. “Your mommy kept a secret from me. Does that make it okay?”

“No.”

“Should I say I’m sorry, then?”

Kieran nodded.

Sean grinned the most handsome grin I’d had aimed at me in a long while. “I’m very sorry.”

Kieran hugged my leg.

Sean glared and lowered his voice to an almost whisper. “We need to talk.”

I took a minute to contemplate the wisdom in that. I’d already leaped up to my eyeballs in this drama. What did I have to lose by going all in? “I rented a cabin for tonight. We can talk there while he takes a nap.”

After ironing out a time to meet, I took Kieran to the car. My heart beat a thousand angry thumps a minute and my mouth dehydrated. I would just tell him the truth and let him be on his way. No harm done. Why I hadn’t corrected him from the first moment he started calculating time in his mind, I couldn’t imagine, but I promised myself to take care of it first thing when he arrived. I’d learned my lesson about keeping secrets, about letting men think they fathered Kieran. I put Kieran down for his nap and went out to pace the front porch while I waited for Sean to arrive. Leaning back against a post, I closed my eyes.

The night we met, he’d hired a limousine. Now, he pulled up in a shiny black Porsche that purred through gleaming silver pipes as it idled before he shut it down. He climbed out of the car, larger and more handsome than I remembered. His hair glinted golden brown with little shots of blonde, which meant he either worshiped the sun, or paid pretty good money for natural-looking highlights. His eyes stormed gray with little sparks of blue--a combination that reminded me of cool summer nights at the lake…with Simon… Simon who hadn’t called…hadn’t had anyone call on his behalf. I cleared my head and aimed a smile at the man approaching.

He took a seat next to me on the front steps. “I don’t want my son to grow up in a single parent household.”

I opened my mouth to spill the truth. “Sean, he’s--”

“I think we should get married. Tonight.”

“M-mar-married?” My mouth dropped open and any thought not revolving around white dresses and flower bouquets flew from my mind.

He grinned. “You know. Two people joining their lives together until death do they part.”

“I’m familiar with the concept.” I hadn’t meant to snap the words. “What if he isn’t yours?”

“Are you in the habit of screwing random strangers?”

“Are you?” I didn’t usually taunt people, but marriage? Really? Our relationship consisted of two five minute conversations, three tequila shooters, and a quickie in a car. Marriage seemed a little over-the-top.

“Is he mine?” He glanced over, leaned forward, and clasped his hands in front of him.

I kicked at a rock trying to formulate an answer to explain my behavior away.

His voice lowered to a desperate whisper. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I think destiny gives us certain chances in life, and you being here, in this place, on the two weekends I have ever been in Arizona in my life is destiny trying to tell me something. I would be a fool to let a family slip away from me when it’s all I have ever wanted.” He shook his head and took my hands in his, turning his body to face me. “I have a nice life, but without a family, none of it means anything. I’m lonely and fate is giving me this chance with you, with him.” He jerked his thumb toward the door of the cabin. “I don’t want to waste an opportunity I might never get again.”

I should have asked him why he thought he would never get another chance at a family, or about his career, or even what kind of nut-job asks a girl he screwed in the back of a car and never saw again to marry him. But I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell. The next day, off to Vegas we went. Within a few hours of our arrival, we became Mr. and Mrs. Sean Turner.

I thought of Simon every day and no matter how wonderful my life appeared, a part of me was back in Storybook Lake--the part that truly lived and loved. My mother kept me informed of his condition and the remarkable speed with which he continued to recover. For me, that had to be enough.

Sean and I settled in California, where he owned a night club and a house situated high on a cliff with only one way in and one way out. The first few days were fine, then Kieran had a tantrum when I made him go to bed. My entire world erupted. Suddenly, my new home was a riot of screaming and yelling. First Kieran, then Sean in response threatening to spank Kieran if I couldn’t shut him the hell up. While Kieran’s will outlasted mine, but mine outlasted my new husband’s. Sean stormed to the garage, and with a roar of his engine and the squeal of his tires, left.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, he stumbled in the front door, tripped over a dinosaur toy, and hit his head on a marble table in the living room. I hadn’t bought the table, dropped the toy, or forced him to drink so much he could lose his balance over whatever obstructed his path. He yanked me from the bed by my arm and dragged me through the house to show me the table, as though I’d pushed him. Three drops of blood landed on the floor, and he stood over me (more swayed over me), as I scrubbed the carpet before he let me go back to bed.

When Kieran woke two hours later, I got up and coffee’d my way through the day. That night, Sean went out, and I smiled at the relaxing peace. Earlier than ever before, I took Kieran to bed with me. All was forgotten.

Sean and I got along fine for a while. He even planned a trip home to Storybook Lake so he could meet my family. I booked flights for the Thanksgiving weekend, still under the assumption that he was the prince in my fairytale.

The day before our trip, Sean came home and decided we needed a bigger house, since I was “rolling” in money from my “little clothes business.” I hadn’t commented with the appropriate enthusiasm. Instead, I told him I liked our house. I must have liked it, anyway, as I’d paid off the mortgage only a couple weeks earlier. In his mind, though, stating a contrary opinion meant I questioned his judgment. I’d stepped outside the wifely box he believed I belonged in and humiliated him. As retribution for my ‘bad’ behavior, he slammed my head into the counter. Within minutes, a bruise and bump added a bit of new character to my face.

I couldn’t go home looking like I’d been in a bar brawl. He left me no choice but to cancel our flights and make the appropriate apologies. Later, when he left for the club, I didn’t waste any time packing bags for me and Kieran. We were leaving. I would go home to my parents and beg them to help me with Kieran if I had to. So long as my baby was safe, I could live through seeing Simon with someone else.

Kieran fell asleep during my packing, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. The morning would be soon enough.

The next morning, Thanksgiving Day, I woke to the sounds of dishes clattering against one another and the smell of a freshly baked turkey in the oven. I climbed from the spare bed in Kieran’s room, wiped my eyes, and walked out to the kitchen. A woman in her early senior years stood at the counter peeling potatoes.

“Hi. I’m Danielle.” I gave a quick glance of all the area I could see, hoping to catch a glimpse of my soon-to-be ex-husband, then turned again to face her. “Where’s Sean?”

She dried her hands and extended one to me. “I’m so happy to meet you. He’s told me so much about you.”

“I’m afraid I’m at a disadvantage.” He’d mentioned no one to me.

She grinned and winked as though we shared some great secret. “That boy. What am I going to do with him?” It seemed rhetorical so I stayed quiet. “I’m Sean’s mother. He called me yesterday and asked me to join you for dinner today. He said you weren’t much of a cook, so I jumped right in.” She patted my hand. “After the holidays, I’ll come by and teach you. Can’t have my boy eating TV dinners. He works hard and deserves some home-cooked meals.”

But I could cook. I didn’t have my own show on the food network, but I could throw together a suitable dinner--Thanksgiving or otherwise--if the urge so struck.

She leaned close enough I could smell roses and baby powder. “Now, where’s my grandbaby?”

She didn’t mention the bruising and swelling on my face, but walked around me down the hall, presumably to wake up my boy or hers. Making a left, she went for mine, then stormed into the room like a paratrooper on patrol. I caught up just in time to see her yank back his blanket. She snatched him out of bed to hold his limp body at arm’s length.