"What's up, buddy?" I asked, trying like hell to chase the tension out of my tone. "Everything okay? You're up late."
"Grandma fell asleep in her chair again," he signed.
"Maybe she's just resting her eyes," I said while firing off a text to my attorney. "It's not easy keeping up with an almost-five-year-old. You're a high-energy kid."
He responded with a glare that my mother would call a taste of my own medicine. He climbed out of bed and crept down a short hallway, muffled television sounds increasing with each step. With a flip of the screen, I found my son's grandmother asleep in her recliner, a stainless steel tumbler in the crook of her arm, and a pair of reading glasses perched on top of her head and another pair sliding off her nose. A rage-bait cable news show blared in the background and a knee-high pile of newspapers teetered next to the recliner.
"She's been asleep since after dinner," he signed.
I pressed a fist to my mouth to keep from yelling,Are you fucking kidding me, Brenda?
At least he'd eaten this time.
"Okay, man, take me to the front door. Let's see about these locks."
We went on a journey locking the doors, checking that the kitchen appliances were off, and getting Percy's teeth brushed. I kept one eye on him between blowing up my attorney's phone about this custody agreement and searching for flightsto Saginaw. I'd meet with Audrey in the morning and still have time to drop in on Brenda by the evening for a chat.
Percy returned to his bedroom and spent several silent minutes rearranging his stuffed friends until he was satisfied. When he climbed into bed, he settled his tablet against the wall and flipped the screen back to me, signing, "When can I come home?"
I felt those words like a hatchet to the chest. "I'll talk to Grandma. We'll make it better."
"I want to go home," he replied, his motions sharp. "Don't make me stay here."
Nothing hurt like watching tears roll down my son's round cheeks. Even Audrey couldn't hurt me like this and she'd ripped my heart in half—twice. "I will fix this. I promise," I said. "Have I ever broken my promises to you?"
His lips pressed into a pout as he shook his head.
"I'm not going to start now," I said. "Let me work on it. I'm going to make this better for you. In the meantime, it's far past your bedtime, sir. Hell, it's pastmybedtime."
"You don't have a bedtime," he signed.
"Believe me, I do and you'll love your bedtime when you're my age." His watery laugh filled the rental car and everything in me ached. I just wanted to get my boy, take him home, and shield him from all the shit that kept turning his little world upside down. "You know you can call me anytime. Grandma knows it too. And you know you can go next door to Miss Maddie if you ever need help."
He nodded and clutched a stuffed wolf to his side.
"I love you," I said.
"I love you too, Dad," he signed.
"I'll stay on with you until you fall asleep. Do you want a story?"
He shook his head. "It's okay. You can go."
"If you think I have more interesting things to do than watch you try to fight falling asleep, you're wrong."
Another soft laugh, then a sniffle. "I'm sleepy."
"Then take off your glasses and put your head down. I'll be right here."
I started the car and pulled out of the lot. From what I could tell, the party under the tent was still going strong. If I knew that crew—and unfortunately, I did—they'd go hard until the booze ran out. And then order the underlings to fetch more.
Audrey wasn't in there. No one had to tell me how good she was at disappearing when the air grew thin. Good at slipping into the cracks when nobody else was looking. She'd live in those cracks if the choice was hers.
If I were smarter—or maybe just meaner—I'd have let her. Let her dissolve into the background until she was nothing more than a ghost of my past. There were times when I wanted that more than anything…and there were times when I fucked myself into situations I couldn't solve without her.
I leveled a glare at the tent one last time, the gulf between the resentment I had for this place and the energy I wanted to waste on it growing wider as my son's breathing evened out. I'd watch him until I reached my hotel near the airport. Longer, if I couldn't get the rumbling panic of being seven hundred miles away from my functionally unsupervised child out of my chest.
I swore under my breath as I turned onto the main road. I wouldn't get another second chance after tomorrow.
