Her breathing starts to level off. And she looks more like the noncrazy version of herself. “Yeah. I’m okay now.”

She turns around and heads toward her car, where Raymond stands. Her finger points at him. “You should’ve told me, Raymond!”

“I didn’t want to make it worse,” he says.

“I love you! It’s my job to protect you and I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me when someone is hurting you!”

“I told Jake,” Raymond yells, gesturing to me. “And he helped me. Everything will be better now.”

Chelsea looks at me sharply. Unhappily. And I get the distinct impression things won’t exactly be better for me.

She takes a deep breath. “Okay. We have to pick up the other kids. Let’s talk about this at home.”

Chelsea is rigid and silent on the drive home. She walks over to the neighbor’s house and thanks them for keeping an eye on the other kids. As they scatter inside the house, she frowns. “I need to talk to you in the kitchen, Jake. Now.”

As soon as we’re through the kitchen door, she turns on me. “How could you not tell me what was happening with Raymond?”

I really don’t understand why this is such a big deal with her.

“He asked me not to.”

Her arms swing out from her sides. “Two days ago, Rosaleen asked me to dye her hair three different colors! We don’t always have to do what they ask us! I thought I could depend on you—we’re supposed to be a team, Jake!”

I don’t know if it’s the fact that she’s yelling at me or the totally unrecognizable state that is now my life—but I start to get pissed.

“What does that mean?”

“What do you mean, what does that mean? It’s us against them—I’m already outnumbered; you’re supposed to be on my side.”

Then she looks at my face. And her beautiful eyes cloud over.

With uncertainty. Doubt.

“Aren’t you?”

Feelings of responsibility for all of them sit on my back like a bank vault. Of obligation and baggage—all the things I swore I’d never get mixed up in. And now she’s giving me shit? What the hell more does she want from me? Christ, isn’t it enough that I think about her—them—all the time? That I’m totally distracted? I go into work late and leave early at the drop of a hat, just to see them sooner.

For fuck’s sake it’s . . . it’s . . . terrifying.

I point to my chest. My words come out clipped and biting. “The only side I’m on is my own.” I rub my hand over my face. “Don’t get me wrong—you’re a good time and the kids are a trip, but I’m not Mr. fucking Mom here, Chelsea. This is not my life. I have priorities and plans that, believe it or not, have nothing to do with anyone in this house.”

I breathe hard after the words are out.

And Chelsea is . . . silent. Unusually still for several seconds. Then, without looking at me, she all but whispers, “My mistake. Thank you for clarifying that.”

She turns away stiffly and starts to take vegetables out of the refrigerator for dinner. As the quiet stretches, I think about my words and how . . . harsh they sounded.

I step toward her. “Chelsea, look, I—”

“Hey, Jake, you want to play Xbox?” Rory asks, sliding into the room.

Finally, Chelsea looks up and I see her eyes. They swim with hurt, shine with pain. And a terrible pressure squeezes my chest.

“Jake can’t play right now, Rory. He has to go back to his side of the field.”

Rory’s eyebrows draw together. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

She may have been talking to Rory, but she was speaking to me.

“Rory, go in the other room,” I tell him, my eyes squarely on his aunt.

Miraculously, he does what I ask. And when he’s gone I snap. “Are you seriously gonna pull that shit? Put them in the middle? Holding them over my head?” My finger points hard. “That’s fucked up, Chelsea.”

She comes at me, eyes blazing. “I would never put them between us. Besides, there would have to be an ‘us’ in the first place, and according to you, there’s not! And me not wanting you around Rory right now has nothing to do with this discussion and everything to do with you acting like a dick!”

From the other room, Rosaleen says, “Oooh . . . Aunt Chelsea called Jake the D-word!”

Rory’s voice carries into the kitchen. “Dipshit?”

“No.”

“Dumbass?”

“No.”

“Douchebag?”

“What’s a douchebag?”

“Rory!” Chelsea and I yell at exactly the same time.

Our gazes hold and clash, neither giving an inch.

“Maybe I should just go.”

It’s not a question, but she answers anyway. “I think that would be best.”

I’m the one who brought it up, so there’s no fucking reason her words should leave me feeling cold inside. Hollow. But they do.

Without another word, I turn and walk out the door.

19

Thursday starts off shitty and goes straight to hell from there. It’s raining, and my morning run is crap because I had a terrible night’s sleep. No matter how many times I punched the hell out of my pillow, I couldn’t get comfortable. I’m late getting into the office because some moron who didn’t know how to drive in the rain slammed his car into a telephone pole, backing up traffic to East fucking Jabip. Then, an hour after I finally get settled at my desk to start working through a pile of files taller than I am, I end up spilling hot coffee on my favorite shirt.