I turned to her. “Let’s get you up to bed, Cass. You need to get a lot of rest.”
She looked at me for a minute, then must have felt bad enough to actually listen to me. She stood up, and I put my hand under her elbow.
“I’ll take her to bed.” Mike actually slapped her ass, jerking her forward. Cassie pulled her arm from my hand.
“I’ll go with Mike.” She sat back down at the table. “Why don’t you leave me alone, for once?”
“Cassie—”I stopped.“Goodnight.”
Slowly, I climbed the stairs to my room. I remembered that neither of them had known where Charlie was, and neither of them had asked me.
∞
What was that noise? I put my hand over my ear and buried my head further into my pillow. Stop.
I jerked up. My phone was ringing! I reached for it wildly. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Cinderella,” Tara’s voice said. “Do you ever look at your phone? I’ve been texting you.”
“Is Charlie ok?”
“He’s fine, just wants to go home. I’m sorry to wake you, but I seriously could not put him off any longer. Diego can drop him by.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “I’ll come get him. And it’s Sleeping Beauty, you dummy.”
I sat up and checked my phone again. There were four texts from Tara, and one missed call. Luke.
It was quiet in the house, which now smelled like stale cigarettes. I peeked into the hallway. Cassie’s door was firmly closed. I grabbed my clothes and bolted into the bathroom, locking it behind me, and showered and got dressed as quickly as I could.
The kitchen was a disaster. I looked at the pile of dishes on the table, covered in hardened food and ashes, and shook my head. I would have to come back to it. I wanted to get out of the house before I ran into Mike—I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from saying a few choice things to him, and I didn’t want to start the day that way. Cassie hadn’t been kidding when she talked about me moving out. If it came down to it, she would choose Mike over everything, every time. Over me, over her health, over her son.
In the car over to Tara’s I put the phone on speaker and called Luke, but it went right to voicemail. Darn it.
“Hi, Luke, it’s Emily. I mean, you know it’s Emily. I’m just calling you back. I was asleep when you called. I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I guess I’m a little tired. Oh, you know what means. I mean, I guess I’m a little upset, because Mike is back, and I’m not sure what to do. I’m going to get Charlie now and I know he’ll want to see his dad but I don’t want to bring him home because Mike, I mean, he really isn’t a good dad, like he never even called while he was gone, and it was months, and he didn’t even ask about Charlie last night. And I know he isn’t good for Cassie, and I’m not sure what she told him about—” The phone beeped and cut me off. Crap! Crap! I just threw up words into his voicemail box.
I put the phone down. Ok, it was ok. He probably wouldn’t think I was completely psycho. Maybe all the noise the car engine made would drown out some of what I said.
I got to Tara’s and found Charlie running around in the front yard, while Tara and Diego watched from the front porch.
“Hey, sweet pea,” I called. He ran over to me and threw his arms around my waist.
“Did my dad get here?”
“He did,” I answered, looking up at Tara on the porch. She mouthed, “Oh shit,” and I nodded.
“Yay!” Charlie yelled, literally jumping up and down.
“Charlie!” Tara called. “Come on in and get your sh…stuff together.”
“Everything ok?” Diego asked me. I guessed that Tara hadfilled him in.
“I’m not sure yet,” I told them.
“Are you taking Charlie back to see him right now?” Tara asked.
“I think I have to.”
Charlie came running out, his bag exploding with his sleeping bag, pillow, bear, and dirty clothes. His toothbrush fell out as he ran to the Bronco, calling, “Thank you for having me!” over his shoulder.
