“I guess we could,” I agree. “I don’t know if they’re going to listen to me this time, but?—”
“Oh, trust me, with me there, they won’t have any choice but to listen,” she replies.
I smile. Having her on my side sure does feel like the vote of confidence I needed.
She grabs the stroller and starts getting the twins ready for the trip across the city, and for a moment, I just sit there on the couch. It strikes me, all of a sudden, that the last time I was sitting here like this was when I was with Martin. My jaw tightens, and I do my best not to think too hard about the way his hand felt on my cheek, how his touch felt like coming home after a long day.
“You coming?” Sofia calls to me, and I snap out of it.
“Mhm!” I tell her, and as I rise to my feet, I promise myself that I will find a way to get by without him.
Even if, right now, his absence is a gaping hole in my heart that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to mend.
22
MARTIN
I stand thereoutside my ex’s apartment, with no idea what the hell I’m going to say. No idea where the fuck I’m going to begin. But as I lift my hand and knock on the door, I know that Martha and I need to take responsibility for everything that has led our son to this point—and do whatever is in our power to put it right, whatever that looks like.
It has been nearly a week since Thom turned up at Lila’s apartment, since the confrontation that ended with him fleeing down the stairs like a wounded dog. He’s been keeping himself to himself ever since, it seems. Martha hasn’t heard from him, as far as I can tell, and he hasn’t tried to close in on Lila again since I scared him off, which has to count for something. I told her when I sent her the money that she should contact me if he dared show his face around her apartment again, but I don’t know if she would even pay attention to that now, given how I walked out on her.
I wanted it to be easy. Because, on paper, it should be. I can’t be involved with my son’s ex, no matter what has happenedbetween us in the past, no matter what familial bonds might now tie us together.
When Lila looks at me now, I know she’ll only be able to see the man who raised the monster who abused her for years, and I can’t live with myself knowing that’s how she sees me.
And yet…
And yet, my body craves her. I wake up in the morning reaching for her, wishing I could pull her into my arms and wake her with kisses, make breakfast for her and the twins, whatever she wants.
It doesn’t matter to me that I’m twice her age and that the ground between us is so twisted up with doubt and chaos. I feel a connection with her, a draw to be part of her and the twins’ lives, and the thought of staying away any longer is making it hard to function.
I’ve been working my ass off all week to try and stay distracted, but it’s done little to make me feel better. I really just want to get this all out in the open and do what I can to put it right, but I have no idea where I would even start with that. I’ve been rolling it over and over in my mind, trying to work out where I can begin to dismantle it all, and it keeps coming back to one person over and over again.
Martha.
She’s the only other person out there who can begin to understand the kind of crap that our son has put people through, because she’s been there on the ground floor since day one. She might not want to acknowledge it, but she’s as responsible as I am for everything he’s done over the years. Her status and wealth has kept people from pressing charges when theywould have been able to, and the longer it’s gone on, the more emboldened he has become.
When I think of the terror on Lila’s face, the panic attack she was stuck in when I arrived at her apartment, the guilt feels as though it might rip me apart at the seams. I can’t believe I let Thomas get away with so much for so long. It’s not fair for me to just take my hands off the wheel and pretend like I’m not part of this. If I had put my foot down and tried to make him pay for his misdeeds years ago, I might have been able to spare Lila the abuse that she suffered at his hands.
He turned up at her apartment with a fucking knife—I don’t even want to think what he might have done to her or the twins had I not been there to step in. Even if it has blown up my entire life, I would never be able to live with myself if something had happened to her, especially knowing I might have been able to stop it.
After a few moments, I hear rustling on the other side of the door, and Martha answers it. She stands there for a moment in the doorway to her townhouse, staring at me, clearly baffled as to what I’m doing there.
“Martin…?”
“Can we talk?”
“Is this about Thomas?”
Her voice drops as soon as she realizes what I’m here for.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s about Thomas. Can I come in?”
She hesitates for a moment, but then thinks better of it, stepping aside to gesture for me to come in. I step over the threshold, thrown back into the memories of when I used to live in a placelike this with her. The click of the polished floor beneath my feet, the tasteful art lining the walls. All that time I could have done more to work with Thomas, and didn’t.
“You want a coffee?” she offers me, as she heads to the kitchen to make herself up a pot.
“Maybe something stronger,” I remark, and she pauses for a moment with her back to me, clearly wondering just how bad things are that I’m asking for alcohol this early in the day. But she opens her drinks cabinet and pours us both a vodka on the rocks, handing it over to me as she leans up against the counter.
