Demon 04 - Deja Demon (27 page)
Read Demon 04 - Deja Demon Online
Authors: Julie Kenner
“I mean I’m ungrounding you, Allie.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, kiddo. I am.” He looked at me—really looked at me for the first time that night. “Okay?”
“Sure,” I said, sounding as baffled as Allie looked.
“Okay, then.” He stood up, holding Timmy close to his chest. “My night to bathe the rugrat,” he said without being reminded. He headed into the living room, Timmy squirming and giggling in his daddy’s arms.
Allie looked at me, her eyes wide and her face pale. Then she took off running after them. At the table, I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of my family.
I heard a loud sniffle, then the clomp, clomp of my daughter barreling up the stairs. A few moments later, I heard Stuart’s more regulated footfalls, then the squeal of pipes as the water in the kids’ bathroom began to run.
I sat a moment longer, nursing a now-cold cup of coffee. Then I stood up and started to clean the kitchen.
Honestly, it wasn’t one of our more stellar attempts at family night, but we’d survived. And I think that meant a lot.
Stuart was sitting
on the closed toilet and drying off Timmy when I stepped inside, then leaned against the doorjamb and watched the two men in my household. Stuart looked up and smiled at me, his hands full of a wriggling, giggling little boy, and something in his expression told me that all was forgiven.
on the closed toilet and drying off Timmy when I stepped inside, then leaned against the doorjamb and watched the two men in my household. Stuart looked up and smiled at me, his hands full of a wriggling, giggling little boy, and something in his expression told me that all was forgiven.
I swallowed a throat full of tears, certain I’d gotten better than I deserved in this man. Hell, in this marriage. And definitely with my kids.
“Kate?”
“Sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes. “You’re a great daddy.” I shrugged. “That’s all.”
“And that makes you cry?”
“Tonight, I think pretty much anything is going to make me cry.”
He pulled the Nemo towel off Timmy, then gave his bare bottom a swat. “Go put on a nighttime Pull-Up, okay?”
Timmy gave a thumbs-up and hurried naked from the bathroom. Inevitably, I’d find twenty-seven Pull-Ups scattered across his floor five minutes from now, but in the moment the sacrifice seemed well worth it.
“Come here,” he said, and I came. He settled me on his lap, and I balanced my feet on the edge of the tub, one arm around his neck and my face pressed against his shoulder. “Did I do the right thing?” he asked.
I leaned back so I could look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”
“With Allie. Dropping the grounding.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, exhaling loudly. “I don’t need to hear ‘I’m sorry.’ I want to hear that you love me.”
“Of course,” I said hugging him tight. “Desperately.”
“That’s enough for now.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, leaning back in his arms and searching his face. “I should have told you. I shouldn’t have just taken her to the carnival. I should have called you. Discussed it with you. Argued with you that night you grounded her in the first place. But I should never have taken her like I did. Even if you hadn’t found out, it wasn’t fair to you. I undermined your authority, and there’s no reason on earth that justifies doing that.” The words poured out, and I meant every word I said. I’d blown it on this one, and now my whole family was paying the price. It was, I knew, time to fess up. “I’m sorry, Stuart. I’m so, so sorry, and I owe you one whopper of an explanation.”
“Just tell me one thing. Is our marriage in trouble?”
“No,” I said fiercely, the answer both true and automatic. Yes, I loved David or, at least, I loved the man he used to be. But my marriage was solid.
“Then there’s nothing else to talk about.”
"But...”
He put a finger on my lip, then shook his head. “I don’t want to hear anything else. Please, Kate. Right now, I only want to hold you close. At least for the next five seconds before Timmy comes looking for us? Can you give me that? Just you and me tonight and no justifications or explanations filling up the space between us?”
I hesitated only a nanosecond, his wishes warring with my need to ease my own guilt. “Yes,” I said, snuggling close. “Of course I can.”
I woke up at Six
A.M. to the clock radio blaring, then sat bold upright, frantic that I hadn’t yet been to the grocery store for the dinner party that night.
A.M. to the clock radio blaring, then sat bold upright, frantic that I hadn’t yet been to the grocery store for the dinner party that night.
That panic lasted about forty-seven seconds, and then I remembered that it was—thankfully—only Monday. I had more than twenty-four hours to worry about the dinner party. Today, I only had to worry about the committee members who were coming to work on the Easter party.
I made a mental note to thank Laura again for inviting everyone to descend on my house, and to subtly suggest that the next time she thinks a group project is a good idea she ought to hold it in her own living room.
I rubbed my face with the palm of my hands, listened gratefully to the still-silent baby monitor, and plotted ways to kill Stuart for setting the alarm so early.
Then I remembered.
I lunged for the remote and clicked the TV on just in time. Sure enough, there was my honey, all decked out in his best suit and tie, chatting with the morning-show host about the details of his campaign platform.
After his five-minute interview was over, I clicked pause on the TiVo control and let Stuart’s image fill the screen as I got dressed. Ask me about the details he’d discussed during the interview, and I doubt I could repeat even one. But I was certain that the polished, articulate man I saw on television was sure to draw voters by the droves.
Honestly, I couldn’t have been more proud. And the real upside? I was awake a full hour before I’d planned to get up. On a normal day, that would be grounds for divorce. Today, I was happy to have the extra time. With any luck, I could rid the couch of Cheerios, peel a few gummy bears off the bookshelf, suck a few dust bunnies into the vacuum, and still shower and change before the neighborhood hordes descended on my front stoop. And, honestly, who doesn’t want to spend her morning couch diving for loose change and Cheerios?
I’d already found sixty-seven cents, two dice, and a Candy Land game piece by the time Allie stumbled downstairs, blinking and tugging her robe tight around her, and looking even more comatose than she usually does in the mornings.
“Help yourself to breakfast,” I said. “I’m going to go wake up the Timster.”
On a normal day, we’d be dressed and out of the house already. This was spring break, though. So while Allie vegetated on the couch watching scintillating morning programs, I started to clean the kitchen, stopping only when I heard signs of life coming from Timmy’s room. I headed up that way, tossing off the suggestion to Allie that perhaps she might want to finish wiping down the counters in the kitchen while I got her brother dressed, but I wasn’t taking bets that she’d actually do it. So imagine my surprise when I came downstairs to find her breakfast dishes put away, the dishwasher loaded and turned on, and the counters sparkling.
It was, I thought, shaping up to be an amazing day.
That’s when the phone rang and suddenly I was thrust into a hell the likes of which I’d never experienced in all my demon-hunting days: finding a replacement Easter Bunny less than a week before the big day.
“No, an Easter Bunny,” I said into the phone, trying to communicate the direness of my need to the guy at the other end. As soon as my bunny had bagged, I’d let my fingers do the walking, turning up absolutely nothing useful. Desperate, I’d called a temp agency. “Do you guys have any Easter Bunnies who can work this coming Saturday?”
“Lady, we send out professional temps. You want a bunny, you’ll have to call for an acting gig.”
All well and good, but that was what I’d tried to do in the first place. The phone book, however, wasn’t my friend.
“We really need to drag you into the twenty-first century, Mom,” Allie said from her perch on the couch. She pointed to my laptop, now sitting forlornly on the breakfast bar. “The Internet.”
Now I’m not nearly as techno-savvy as Laura or my daughter, but I can handle Google. And though I didn’t find anything promising in San Diablo or Santa Barbara, I found a couple of agencies in the L.A. area that seemed amenable to sending their actors up the coast for worthy gigs.
And, really, what could be more worthy than making small children happy at Easter?
“I certainly understand your dilemma,” the manager at one such agency said, “but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the Monday before Easter. We’re all out of bunnies.”
No problem. After all, I had eight more agencies on my list to try. Unfortunately, all eight said essentially the same thing. Rough translation: Lady, are you insane?
Great. Just great.
“Any luck?” Allie asked, following me as I headed toward the kitchen to refill my coffee, sit at the table, and eat frozen M&Ms for breakfast.
“Lots,” I said. “All of it bad.”
She took the seat across from me and snagged a brown M&M.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I asked, thinking about the candy and, more specifically, about the many times she’d complained that if she ate one more piece of candy she’d burst out of her cheerleading uniform. Patently untrue, but definitely fourteen.
Her eyes widened in a classic deer-in-the-headlights manner, and then a wash of something that could only be described as guilt painted her face. “Um, no?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Tell me another one. Seriously, Al. Why didn’t you tell me you’d dropped out of cheerleading?”
Her shoulders sagged and she closed her eyes. “Oh, right. I should have,” she rambled, sounding completely relieved to finally have it out there on the table. “Absolutely. I’m sorry. Totally.”
“So why’d you do it? I thought you loved cheerleading.”
She lifted on shoulder, then let it fall again. “Dunno. I guess with all the demon stuff it just didn’t seem important anymore.”
“But sweetie, it’s part of high school, part of growing up. And you were having fun.”
“I guess.”
I leaned back in my chair, not sure where to go from there. “I don’t know, Al. I wish you’d asked me before you dropped off the team. Cheerleading is the kind of thing I missed out on by not going to high school, and looking back, I wish I’d had the chance to do something like that.”
“Do you really?”
I considered the question, wanting to give my daughter an honest answer. “Sometimes,” I said. “Most of the time I’m content, but that’s because my life was my life.” So much for deep philosophy. “My point is that I’m not going to stand back and regret the way I grew up. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want more for my kids. That I don’t want
normal
for my kids.”
normal
for my kids.”
“But I’m not you, Mom,” she said, slapping me without even meaning to. “And besides, I’ve done the cheerleading thing. So I can mark it down, and if my kids ever ask, I can say I was a cheerleader. Right?”
How could I argue with that?
“So what are your plans for the day?” I asked, shifting away from the deep mother/daughter discussions. “Hanging with Mindy?”
"She’s in L.A. today, remember? With her dad.”
"Right. I forgot. We should make a trip to L.A. soon,” I said. “A girls’ day out.”
“Really? That would be so cool.”
“You’d like that?” I asked, probably sounding completely desperate for reassurance that my teenager still wanted some closeness with her mom.
“Totally,” she said, beaming. After a moment, the beam turned to a frown. “So is that what’s gonna happen with me?” she asked.
I didn’t follow.
“Getting shuffled between you and Daddy,” she explained. “Mindy hates it, but her parents hate each other. At least you and Daddy still love each other, even if you’re not supposed to,” she added, her words like a knife blade twisting in my heart.
“Allie . . .” I trailed off, not even sure where to begin.
“No, it’s okay. I get it. Daddy died. It’s not a divorce, so it’s not the same.”
“It’s not,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. Your father’s here now, but he’s—”
“Not exactly my dad? Yeah, I kind of get that.”
I pressed my lips together, not sure where to go from here. “Do you want me to talk to Laura again? Maybe if you could talk about this with Mindy, it might help.”
She shook her head and sighed. “It’s not talking I need,” she said. “Honest. And even if it were, how big a jerk would I be to shove my dad in Mindy’s face right when hers is packing up with his new fiancée and moving to L.A.?”
The kid had a point. I’d certainly had similar thoughts about sharing all of my secrets with Laura.
“The only thing I really want is to spend time with Daddy.”
“I know. And we’ll figure that out soon. But we—”
“He wants to spend time with me, too,” she said, her chin rising and her voice a little too sharp.
“You talked to him about that?” If David was airing our parental laundry, I was going to do way more damage to him than any zombie ever would.
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