“You should go out to those dance clubs with that funny friend of yours. I bet there’s a lot of nice boys at the dance clubs.”
I had to laugh at how Mary thought about dating in the current day. Sure, there were a lot of men at the dance clubs, but they weren’t the kind of guys you started relationships with. The guys I had met at clubs were pretty much only good for one-night stands and nothing more than that. Online dating didn’t seem to be much better, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved in the whole matchmaking business.
Dating and finding someone to fall in love with seemed so overwhelming now that things were crumbling with Brandon. I couldn’t even think of getting back out in the market until I figured out what had gone wrong with choosing him. He had felt so right to me. I felt good around him and that was hard to understand now that other things were coming out. Nope, I was definitely going to be taking a dating break.
“Yeah, my friend Mattie wanted me to go out with her this weekend. She always wants to go out now that she broke up with that jerk of a boyfriend.”
“You should go out. We can keep Connor here again.”
“No, no, he’s already stayed over for two weekends. I can’t have him imposing on your guys all the time.”
“Imposing,” she said loudly. “Absolutely not! Connor is our grandson, and we love having him here. I’d come over and steal him from you every weekend if you’d let me.”
“I know you guys love him and he really does love coming over, I just don’t think going out three weekends in a row is a good idea. Plus, have you seen my dance moves? I’m no good at dancing, anyways,” I laughed.
“You stop it right now, young lady. I’ve decided already that Connor and I have a date Friday, so you’ll just have to go out with your friends. He’s wanted to see that new animated movie and I really want some buttered popcorn,” she said. “So, it’s decided. I’ll get him from school Friday, and you can go do whatever you want to do. You can just sit in your bathtub and read a book for all I care; but take some time and relax or go out and have fun.”
“I remember Spencer telling me about this bossy side of yours,” I teased. “Fine, I’ll let you take him to the movies.”
She reached her arms around me and hugged me tighter than I’d been hugged in a very long time. I loved the feeling of her arms wrapped around me and the comfort I felt there with Mary. For a moment, I considered telling her everything that was going on with Brandon, but I decided against it. When I knew more, then I’d tell her.
We spent the rest of the evening as a family, cooking dinner, eating around the table, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. I hoped that when I finally found someone else, they’d be able to understand just how much Mary and Steve would always mean to Connor and I. It was a tall order to think that a new man would be accepting of my late husband’s parents, but if I ever actually settled down, I wanted to find someone that had a heart big enough to understand this complex part of my past.
By the time I was driving home with Connor, we were both exhausted. Visiting others almost always took an emotional toll on me. I had to be happy and funny. I had to interact without making them sad because of the loss we’d endured. Even though I felt very comfortable with Mary and Steve, I still had the stress of trying to show them how well adjusted I was.
When we pulled into the driveway and climbed into our beds, there was a relief that drained from me. At home, I could be myself. In my own bed, I didn’t have to worry about making anyone else happy or if they were uncomfortable because I brought up my late husband. In my house, all I had to worry about was me and my son; I really liked that.
But when I was with Brandon, I hadn’t worried, either. As much as I tried not to think about him, as I lay in my bed, I did think about Brandon and just how comfortable I was around him. I knew Connor would have been comfortable with him, too, and that made me incredibly sad.
There were three voicemails from Brandon that I deleted without even listening to them. My life was complicated enough – I didn’t need whatever was going on in his life interfering with the stability I had built for Connor and me.
Chapter Eighteen
Brandon
“Everything is frozen, Josh!” I screamed into the phone after trying to use my card to get coffee.
Not only was my credit card frozen, my bank account, my brokerage account, everything had been frozen. When I called the bank, they said it was frozen from an unknown entity. There weren’t enough swear words to encapsulate how I was feeling.
“I’ll meet you at your house,” Josh said.
“No, I’m going to my attorney’s. You can meet me there if you’d like. It’s Sunset and Twelfth.”
I had waited long enough to get the attorney involved – probably too long. I had to get him and the private investigator figuring this mess out. My life was falling apart right before my eyes. Delilah hadn’t returned my calls all week, my house had been broken into two additional times, and now my money was all frozen. It didn’t seem like this was my life – it seemed more like I was living a nightmare.
When I arrived at my attorney’s office, he was waiting for me. My frantic call to him before calling Josh had been enough to get him to cancel whatever else he had scheduled for the day and get me in.
People of my stature just didn’t get their accounts frozen for no reason. No agency wanted to be involved in such high-profile cases and when they were, I was certain they would follow all the rules. Something outside of the rules was going on with my life at the moment and I needed all the help possible to figure it out.
“Okay, sit down, tell me what’s going on,” Dick Anderson, my lawyer, said as I walked into his office.
&n
bsp; I went over everything with Dick, and the private investigator came in and filled him in on the other details I hadn’t learned yet. My life was an absolute disaster and neither man could figure out what had started it all or how we were going to get my accounts unfrozen.
“You haven’t received any notices in the mail regarding your accounts being seized?” Mr. Anderson asked.
“Seized? What do you mean seized? Holly hell, is the government going to take all my money? What’s going on here, Dick? I’ve done nothing. I’m not guilty of anything, except maybe a little stupidity. Billy, tell him what you found out about the official investigation.”