"She's sitting by the pool with a few of her friends. She decided to extend our vacation. Didn't want us traveling after what happened."
Of course she would use the plane crash to extend her time away. Charmaine looked for any reason to avoid her responsibilities. In this case, being a good mother and making sure her son was okay.
"What about school?"
The only reason I agreed to this vacation in the first place was because it was only a weekend and Andrew wouldn't miss classes or many practices.
"I emailed my teachers and they sent me work. I talked to my coach. He understood the situation and said to take a few days off, but there's a community center at the resort, so I've been practicing."
All I heard was that my son was forced to be the adult in this situation rather than his mother.
"I'm glad you're able to keep up on things." I did my best to keep my anger in check. "Hey, buddy, can you bring the phone to your mother, please?"
I listened as Andrew moved through what I'm assuming was a large house or even mansion. My ex wouldn't accept anything less. Especially if she invited her friends with them. Keeping up appearances was Charmaine's number one priority.
"Hey, Mom? Dad's on the phone and wants to talk to you."
I could hear the collective gasps from her friends before Charmaine snapped, "I told you, Andrew, your father's dead."
"Andrew, bud, put me on speakerphone, please." I waited until I had his go-ahead that I was indeed on speaker and his mother could hear me. "Charmaine," I hissed. "I'm very much alive and I don't appreciate you speaking to our son that way. If Iweredead, I would sure hope you’d have more compassion for him than that."
I wished I could see the look on her face. I'm sure it was something like a fish out of water with its gaping mouth open.
"Give me that phone!" I can only assume the phone was snatched out of my son’s hand. The sound of heels clicking against tile was all I heard for the next several seconds before Charmaine spoke again. "How are you alive?"
I wasn't the least bit surprised by the venom in her voice.
"Glad to know not even my death would change you." I gave her attitude back to her.
"Well, excuse me, but according to the airline, there were no survivors."
"And from what I hear, you wasted no time calling about my death benefits."
"For Andrew!" she screeched.
I didn't bother to call her out on the lie because little did she know my benefits would only go to my son. Black had made sure of it. Charmaine would continue to receive the monthly child support payments I was making but my actual death benefits would go to Andrew when he turned twenty-one. Karma was a bitch like that.
"Our son should be back home, not vacationing in Canada while you and your friends enjoy some girl time."
"He was mourning." I could practically see the hair flip she was famous for. "I thought the time away would be good for him."
I took a deep breath. And then another. Flipping out on her wouldn't get me anywhere. She would just shut down even more.
"I want to see my son." If I thought for a second Charmaine would act like a compassionate human being, I was dead wrong.
"You know what the custody agreement says, it's not your weekend." I wanted to smack the smugness out of her voice.
I hated our custody agreement. Andrew could come see me at my place if he wanted but I wasn't allowed to intrude on histime with his mother. Since they were still away, that would be considered her time. It didn't matter that just hours before she was claiming I was dead. The bitch held on to every word of that agreement like it was written in stone.
"I understand that, but considering Andrew thought I was dead, don't you think it would be good for me to see him?"
"You can see him when we get back." And with that statement, she hung up on me.
I was seriously tempted to throw the phone across the room, but considering it wasn't my house and this wasn't my phone, I decided against it. I put the phone back on its base and turned around just in time to see Sarah walk through the bedroom door.
Then my mind short-circuited when I saw what she was wearing.
CHAPTER TWELVE
