For the sake of his daughter, she might have to.
Just as she pulled out her cell, she heard some sort of commotion inside the house. It sounded like somethingwas knocked over, and then someone screamed. Was Lindsay throwing a tantrum in there? Trashing the place?
Another voice shouted something, and Ashlyn gasped. That was a male voice. Lindsay wasn't alone in there. She was skipping school with a boy, and it sounded like something was wrong.
Chapter
Eighteen
December 13th
12:27 P.M.
It was weird how the feeling of home could change over time.
When he and Lara first bought their house, for Grant, it was his oasis. Every day he couldn’t wait to walk through the door to his wife’s smiling face, whether he’d spent the day doing paperwork, comforting a sobbing victim, or putting cuffs on a violent criminal.
Home was home.
Bringing one little bundle of joy through the doors, and then three years later a second, had only added to that feeling.
But then he lost Lara and their third baby, and everything changed.
Home became a place he dreaded because when he was there, he drowned in memories of the woman he’d lost, and the life that they’d never share together.
In those early days, whenever he could, he got the kids out and about. The zoo, the library, museums, art galleries, the park, the beach, the local shopping mall, it didn't matter where theywent so long as he didn't have to be swamped by memories of Lara.
But over time, things began to shift again.
Those memories were still there, but they became a little softer, a little sweeter, not quite so tinged with sadness and grief. The house began to feel like a home again, and he stopped trying to hide from it.
Then Ashlyn entered his life, she started spending more time with him and his kids, he fell deeper in love with her, and she began to feel like home. Only at the same time, he had his daughter growing angrier and more distant with each passing day, and his home began to feel like a battlefield.
The war they were fighting began to feel unwinnable, and he didn't know where that left him.
Walking away from his daughter wasn't an option, but walking away from Ashlyn didn't feel like one either.
“You look lost in thought,” a voice spoke beside him, making him jump, and Grant realized he was standing at the sink in the precinct break room, filling up his mug to make a cup of tea, only the water was cascading down his hand.
“Yeah,” he said with a weary nod as he shut off the water. “I am.”
“Things with your daughter still not settling down?” Jessica Davidson asked. She had also been a single mom for years after her husband bailed on her and left her to raise their then two-year-old son alone. Freddie was now eight, and Jessica was no longer a single mom since she’d married Donovan last February.
Too bad his daughter hadn't embraced having a new parental figure the same way little Freddie had.
“No improvement,” he answered, not sure quite how much Ashlyn had shared with her brother and sister-in-law.
“Being a parent is the toughest job in the world,” Jessica said.
“Thought it was supposed to get easier as the kids got older. Instead, it’s getting harder. What would you do? If you were in my situation?” Grant wasn't ashamed to admit he needed another parent to tell him he wasn't an utter failure for continuing his relationship with Ashlyn despite his daughter’s objections.
“That’s tough to answer, because every situation is different,” Jessica hedged as he carried his mug to the microwave and stuck it in.
“It feels like I'm failing both of them. Lindsay and Ashlyn,” he admitted.
“You're not failing either. You're trying to balance two conflicting sets of needs the best you can. If it helps, Ashlyn loves you very much, and she feels like you're supporting her through this. She just doesn’t want to be the reason you lose your daughter.”
“I don’t want to lose either of them. Just feels like I'm stuck in an impossible position. Lindsay is still a minor, but she’s not a child. She knows better than to treat another person the way she’s been treating Ashlyn. But she is still a minor and my responsibility. I just don’t want to teach her that throwing a tantrum is going to get her what she wants. In just a couple of years, she’s going to be an adult, graduate, and go off to college. I want her to be mature enough to handle the adult world, and breaking up with Ashlyn just because she doesn’t want me dating doesn’t feel like achieving that.”
