Page 49 of Guarding Over You
“I meant you. You were no angel.”
“Me? I don’t remember throwing things in the house and breaking plates on the floor in my anger. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at our daughter causing her to burst into tears and hide behind you for protection.”
“Stop,” Billy said. “I mean with us. You always have to bring every last thing up.”
The last thing she wanted to do was get into it with him in a parking lot. “I’m not blameless, but I didn’t cause our marriage to crumble. I didn’t do what you did and I sure the hell didn’t cheat.”
“I’m sorry. I’m going to be saying it until my dying day.”
“Words mean nothing. Sometimes it’s your actions that come back tohauntyou.”
Felt like the perfect opening to slip that word in there. The one left on the note.
She watched his face. No reaction at all.
Nothing.
Not a flicker of recognition or of guilt.
That didn’t mean a thing though. Billy had always been good at lying, even under the influence.
“Not much can change what I did. I’m trying. Can’t you give me that much? I thought you were putting a wrench in it all.”
He lifted his hand and waved, she turned and saw Gracie waving back at him with a smile on her face.
Not one as big as she had for Blaze, but it wasn’t forced for her father either.
“I see that. I applaud it. You still have a way to go. And as I told you, I didn’t tell Julie and tried to diffuse it.”
“I realized that afterward and me losing my temper with you only made you think otherwise. Tina is great. She’s keeping me on the straight and narrow.”
“Glad someone can do it.”
Seemed that Arden didn’t have that ability.
“She asked to meet you. Is that something you’re willing to do? I know you’ve got to meet her first under these rules, then you’ll feel better about her meeting Gracie. Even supervised. You know, on one of these outings.”
It was the way he said it. That it could be possible that Tina could show up here, watch Billy with Gracie from a distance and get some answers.
She couldn’t stop that. Couldn’t even prove it either not knowing who this woman was.
Maybe if she met her, she’d have an idea.
“Do you think it’s smart to introduce anyone into Gracie’s life when you don’t know where it could go? How long have you even been together?”
“Almost six months. She wants to move in with me, but I asked her to hold off.”
“Because then she’d be in the house when Gracie came,” she said. “Unless I tell the courts no. That it’s not allowed, even with Julie. So again, it’s about that?”
“I’ll do what you say,” Billy said.
“That’s a first.”
“Why do you have to be such a bitch? I just don’t get it.”
She moved closer to Billy so that Gracie couldn’t hear. Pushing through her anxiety to be heard. To stand up for her daughter.
“What you don’t get is that you put my life and Gracie’s throughhell,”she hissed. “I mean worse than hell. We never knew the person we were going to get when you were drinking or using. Ever. The only way to keep the peace was to not engage with you. Which wasn’t easy to do when you’d taunted me for staying quiet.”
