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"I don't think—"
But I wasn’t done. Not even close. "She manipulated me and I let her. And she used your daughters to do it!" I was shouting now, and both girls had stopped what they were doing to watch me rant. "I don't understand why people can't just leave me the fuck alone. All I want is to sit here in my new house and have some fucking peace."
"Girls," Cormac ordered, pointing to the door that would lead to the back of the house. "To the porch. Taylor, watch your sister."
The girls' eyes had rounded and their mouths had dropped slightly open. Taylor took Maddie's hand and led her from the room as the sound of Maddie's shock turning to upset tears floated back to remind me that cursing in front of little girls was unacceptable behavior. The hard ball of anger inside me loosened a bit, unrolling into a knot of shame. Those little girls were probably the only people in my life willing to take me exactly as I was now. They were the last people I wanted to hurt or scare.
"You need to watch yourself," Cormac said in a low steady voice, stepping closer to me. "If you're in the midst of some kind of nervous break, I need to know it. I'm not going to have my girls—your nieces—around you if you're raging around, drinking and cursing in front of them. They've been through enough." He punctuated this last statement with a hard poke to my chest and then stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest and moving to the front window. His voice broke as he added, "We all have."
"Cormac," I said, as I realized the level of ugliness I’d just modeled for my little nieces. "Listen, I'm sorry, I just—" I took a step toward my brother, but stopped, my feet suddenly as leaden as my heart.
"You just can't seem to see that self-pity isn't a solid plan for the rest of your life," Cormac finished for me.
Anger pricked my neck and I lifted my head to respond, but I didn't have the energy to form the words. Besides, Cormac wasn't wrong.
"Look," Cormac came back to where he stood, his voice softer. "I know you had to give up a lot. I know it was hard, heartbreaking, to end your career like that. But your life isn't over. And I can't have the girls around you if you're going to continue acting like it is. They love you, and they're excited to spend time with you. But I have to think about what's best for them. I want them to see that, yeah, horrible things happen. But then we take a step, and another, and we keep moving forward. There is no other choice."
Shame washed away the anger I had been feeling as I considered Cormac's words. Those girls had their mother ripped from their lives. And they were still able to smile and laugh and dance. If they could move forward like that, couldn't I? "You're right," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I won't blow up in front of them again."
"Good." Cormac let the argument fall away—he'd always been good at forgiveness. He bent down to pick up the enormous bag with exterior lights in it. "You planning to put these up yourself?"
I shook my head. "Definitely not. I was thinking of hiring someone."
"Oh yeah? What'll you pay me?"
"You don't need to do that," I said. "I'll find someone."
"I'm here. You got a ladder that'll reach that high?" He peered out the window again at the soaring eaves of the huge house in the fading light.
"There's another one out in the shed," I said, looking at the low ladder April had used earlier. “They came with the house."
A little later, as Cormac strung lights across the soaring front of the enormous house, which turned out to have convenient hooks all along the roofline from some other holiday-inspired owner, I stood below, holding the ladder and handing things up as needed. We’d turned on the bright garden lights that shone up at the front of the house and all the lights in the front rooms, and between the lingering daylight and the glow from the lights, Cormac had insisted it was light enough to see what he was doing. Taylor and Maddie circled beneath their father, watching the progress and commenting on it at intervals. They also gave me some advice.
"You should have let April help," Taylor said. "You didn't have to make her leave." Her lip poked out dramatically as she stared up at me.
"Ape-will," Maddie agreed, mimicking the pout.
"Plus," his older niece said, tilting her head and putting a finger to her lip in a thoughtful pose. "Maybe you should take her out on a date or something."
"What?" I said, not that I hadn't considered a few non-work related things I could do with April myself. I thought I had been pretty restrained when April had been with us, but clearly my nieces had picked up on something. Or maybe it was just that in their minds, any unmarried man and woman might be a good fit for one another.
"She's pretty and you don't have a girlfriend."
"Ape-will is pretty," Maddie agreed, taking my hand and melting my heart at the same time.
"She is," I said slowly, not wanting to promise anything to two little girls who seemed very invested in this stranger.
Cormac was climbing down the ladder to get the next box of lights. "They do have a point," he said. "You might get to know her a bit. She seems like a nice girl."
"Whatever she is, it's about the last thing I need," I said. "Besides, she's only here for a little while."
Cormac lifted a shoulder, but held my eyes. "What have you got to lose?"
"I'd have to agree to do that stupid show." I’d expected the words to be bitter coming out, but as I said them, I didn't find the vehement opposition I’d felt earlier. Maybe giving April what she wanted—helping her out—would be good for me too. And the girls weren't wrong. April was pretty.
Actually, April was more than pretty. She was smoking hot. I didn't want to admit, even to myself, how many fantasies I’d already had about wrapping that thick dark hair around my hand and pressing her against a wall so I could do dirty, dirty things to her.
"You have a weird look on your face," Taylor told me, bringing my mind away from April's body and back to the present. "Were you thinking about elves? Maddie gets a weird look when she thinks about elves. Or kangaroos."
