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“There is something,” the teen said, her voice low. “I knew it.” Worry darkened her brown eyes. “What is it? Are you feeling all right?” She went pale. “Is it Bethany?”
“It’s not the baby.”
Jackson called out. “Summy! Eat!”
“He shouldn’t be alone,” Summer said. “But after dinner, you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
Allison nodded, not sure how she was going to come up with a convincing lie. And if she didn’t, she was going to have to tell Summer that her father was in jail and she didn’t have a clue as to why.
3
Erica checked her calendar, then added her availability to her email. While she no longer saw clients, she refused to let her hair skills atrophy. In addition to attending classes the salon offered the stylists, she did the hair of several employees every month. Between the four salons she owned, it took her a while to work through everyone, but she kept at it. Not only was it a good way for her to stay current with trends, but the time she spent with her staff also allowed her to get to know them and them to feel more connected with her. In the next few weeks, she would do a cut and color for a massage therapist and a nail tech. A level-four stylist was getting hair extensions. For that appointment, Erica would act as the assistant. While she was certified in hair extensions, she hadn’t done them enough to be good at them.
Most months she managed to get to around four employees, but this time of year, that was impossible. Summer’s softball season was starting and that meant at least twenty games in less than three months. Erica did her best to get to every game, so the season seriously ate into her work time. Still, she wanted to be supportive and that meant showing up every single time.
Her calendar updated, she closed her computer, then glanced at the clock. Nearly eight. Summer should be getting home soon. Her daughter wasn’t usually one to ignore curfew.
Erica prowled her home office, more restless than usual. If she was by herself in the evening and wasn’t working, she often didn’t know what to do. Watching a movie alone wasn’t very fun and while she read most nights, that was more of a before-bed activity.
She needed a hobby, she thought for possibly the eighty-seventh time—although she had no idea what. Crafts had never been her thing. She supposed she could text her mother and see if she wanted company. Mara lived in the carriage house at the rear of the property. Not that it was likely her mother was home. Mara was the most social of the Sawyer women with a large cadre of friends and a rotating selection of men with whom she did the wild thing on an uncomfortably regular basis. Erica often tried to tell herself she should be happy her seventy-year-old mother had a healthy sex life. While on an intellectual basis, she was okay with it, emotionally, she was still a little grossed out by knowing her parent had sex. She supposed there were some things a child never outgrew.
She walked toward the family room. Once she knew Summer was safely home, she would take a bath and maybe give herself a minifacial. That would fill the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, she would spend some serious time thinking about a hobby. Or making a list of female acquaintances she thought might be possible friends. A transition she frequently found awkward and uncomfortable.
Peter had always teased her about being slow to warm up to people. No, she corrected silently. At first he’d teased her. At the end of their relationship he’d accused her of being a heartless bitch who refused to trust anyone.
“Not going there,” she murmured to herself. While she was long over the man, thinking about the end of their marriage always depressed her. She’d come to terms with the divorce, but even after four years, she still didn’t know what had gone wrong, nor could she understand the speed with which everything had changed between them. From her point of view, one day they’d been perfectly happy together and the next he’d told her he wanted a divorce. When she managed to recover from the shock enough to ask him why, he’d claimed that he no longer loved her, that he found her sexually repugnant and regretted every second he’d spent in her presence. But not to worry. His loathing was quickly changing to indifference.
They’d been standing in the main bath. She remembered how the chandelier over the large tub had almost created a halo over his head. Then he’d crossed to his vanity and pulled out a drawer. He’d tossed a prescription bottle toward her.
“I have to take these to get it up,” he’d said coldly. “I’m not willing to do that anymore.”
He’d walked out then, leaving her staring after him, unable to grasp what had just happened. She’d picked up the bottle and read the label. Viagra.
Shame flooded her, then and now. But with the passage of time, Erica was better at shaking it off. Peter had changed. He’d fallen out of love with her. Her job had been to accept that and move on, which she had. The cruelty wasn’t her fault or her responsibility. While that lesson had taken longer, she’d been determined to learn it.
“Why am I even thinking about the man?” she asked herself, not that she had an answer. She supposed it was because Summer was spending the evening with him and his family, as she often did.
Summer burst into the house from the garage.
“Mom! Mom! Where are you?”
Erica heard the tension in her daughter’s voice and hurried toward the kitchen.
“I’m here. What’s wrong?” Her chest tightened as a thousand possible disasters filled her mind. “Were you in an accident?”
Her daughter came running around the corner and barreled toward her. She’d been crying. Her face was blotchy and her eyes red.
She dropped her bag on the floor and flung herself at Erica.
“Oh, Mom, it’s so awful. We have to do something.”
Erica grabbed her daughter’s arms and shifted back enough to see her face. “What are you talking about? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It’s not me. It’s Dad and Allison. Dad’s in jail!”
Erica stared at her daughter. “What are you talking about? Peter can’t be in jail.” It was a ridiculous thought. He was an ordinary person. He rarely drank, wasn’t much of a gambler and ran an accounting business, for heaven’s sake. Accountants weren’t wild enough to go to jail.
Summer twisted free of Erica’s hold. “He is! It’s horrible.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “Allison was so upset, which freaked out Jackson. Mom, it’s awful. The accounts are frozen and there’s no money and Allison couldn’t eat. She’s scared and I am, too. We have to do something!”
