My story wasn’t the ugliest out there, not even close to it, but for me, seeing my baby the way he’d been when he’d told us what’d happened… it felt like I’d been dragged through a pit of emotional vipers. I should be worrying about what was going to happen next and if any of this would sit eating away at my son and manifest itself at some point.
But glancing over my shoulder and seeing Cody standing between Alex and Dave, laughing at something with the other men and then grinning up at Dave, who’d slung his arm around his shoulder, something settled inside me.
I could fight what was coming, and I’d get through it no matter what, because all of the people around us, and others who weren’t, made it tolerable without even realizing it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alex
I’d left earlier to give Cody and Evie some time together. I didn’t want to rub our new relationship in his face after what he’d been through, and I’d figured he might want some alone time with his mom.
Plus, I was always wary of kids being around their parents’ partners too quickly. One of the kids DB had gone to school with turned into a mess because both parents introduced him to their flavors of the week throughout his childhood—literally the week.
The guy now had eleven kids with different women, was unable to keep a relationship going for long, and was also doing time because he kept failing to pay child support on all of the kids. I couldn’t say for sure it was because of what his parents had done because I wasn’t his shrink, but statistically speaking, it could be a big part of it.
I was exhausted due to lack of sleep, but I just couldn’t get my brain to switch off to seeing Mrs. Carpenter earlier. It was primarily because of what’d happened to Cody last night, though.
Both me and DB had kept our eyes on him all day to make sure he was as okay as possible, and I know my son had pulled him aside to touch base with him to make sure of it, too, but it was too early to categorically say he was great. What I’d class him as was ‘he was good right now.’
Shaking my head to clear it, I pointed at the new button in front of Bernice. Doing training with her was always a great distraction for me.
“Okay, you have two cuss buttons down perfectly.” Yeah, my dog could say shit and asshole now, but I’d done some thinking over the last thirty minutes, and I didn’t think teaching her more of them was a good idea, so I was moving her on.
“Now we work on these.” Putting the chunk of tuna I’d just scooped out of a can and put in one of her bowls down in front of her, I wrinkled my nose when she backed away. “I know you don’t like it, so we’re going to apply it to the word ‘gross.’”
Then, putting my foot down on the button with the word written on it, I showed her.
“Gross—gross—gross.”
Bernice cocked her head and looked from the bowl to me and back again.
“Try it.” I nudged the bowl closer to her and suppressed a chuckle when she growled. Hitting the button with my foot again, I waited for her to get the idea. “Press the button.”
Instead, she hit one of her other ones.
“Bad—bad—bad.”
Pressing gross again, I waited on her response—which was to push ‘bad.’ We made this move back and forth until I realized the bowl of tuna was too close to the gross button, and she was determined not to go near it. So, lifting it, I put it on the end table.
Sure enough, she stood on the new one immediately.
“Gross. Why—gross—dinner—Dad—hmm?”
I used another new button to answer her. “Sorry—Bernice—gross—dinner—I love you.”
Before she could reply, my phone beeped with a message, and I saw Cody’s name on the screen.
Cody: She’s making me hug her. Save me.
Chuckling, I tapped out a reply.
Me: That’s moms for you. Just hug her quickly and say you’re tired.
The bubbles indicating he was typing danced above it for a while.
Cody: I tried that, but she wants the hugs that are actually cuddles. It’s false advertising! Save me.
“Where—Cody—Evie—Dad—hmm?”
While I was typing out a response on my phone, my foot also did it on the buttons.
“Cody—Evie—home—Bernice.”
Me: Your mom needs time with you, bud. Remind me to show you Bernice’s new buttons tomorrow. She’s asking where you are just now, so I think she’ll show off when you’re here.
“Want—Cody—Evie. Sad—sad—sad.”
Cody: Please come back? We miss you guys. Mom said it’s okay.
This was uncomfortable territory. It’s not that I didn’t want to be with Evie around Cody or that I wanted to stay at mine on my own. I just didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t have one of us without the other one around. He needed to have a path to both of us if he needed something or wanted to talk, and right now, the most crucial path was to his mom.