Page 5
Bryant goes quiet again. The radiator knocks twice and falls silent. This time I know what he’s thinking. He knows what happened. Hell, everyone in Big Woods knows what happened.
My wife, Shiloh’s mom, left. She didn’t die. She didn’t disappear. She wasn’t taken from us in some horrible twist of fate no one could have predicted. Nope. She packed a bag on a Tuesday morning while I was out at a job site. Rolled it down the hall past the nursery, the wheels thumping over the same loose floorboard I’d been meaning to fix for months. She left her rings on the kitchen counter, beside a manila envelope holding signed divorce papers and a signed termination of her maternal rights.
The note said she’d realized she didn’t actually want to be a mother. She decided there was something else she wanted more than the little boy asleep down the hall. Shiloh was too young to understand it then.
He isn’t anymore.
He doesn’t ask about her often. But sometimes, when a car slows on our road, he goes to the front window and watches it until it’s gone.
“I’m not doing that to him again.” My voice chokes on the last few words.
Bryant’s expression shifts. “Mav—”
“No.”
“You can’t guarantee someone won’t leave.”
“I can make sure she understands the commitment before she comes here.”
“A contract won’t make someone love him.”
“I know that.” The words come out sharper than I intend. Of course I fucking know that. If love could be guaranteed, I wouldn’t be folded into this too-low chair in this too-warm office, sweating through my shirt.
The crayon snaps in my pocket. I let go of it.
I take a breath.
“The service specializes in long-term marital placements. Everyone who applies knows exactly what I’m looking for. No one is being misled.”
“Except possibly you.”
“I’m compensating her quite well. Someday she will walk away a very wealthy woman. She’ll receive an annual stipend for the duration of the marriage, plus housing and all living expenses. I’ll fund a retirement account in her name. Health insurance. Vehicle. Travel. Anything else she wants as long as it doesn’t negatively affect Shiloh.”
His stare gets flatter with every word.
“Then at the end of the marriage, she’ll receive a lump-sum settlement.” I tell him the number.
He whistles, long and low. “Maybe I should marry you.”
“Fuck you. Besides, you don’t need my money. You’re a Callahan. Silver spoon and all that.”
“Yep.” He doesn’t even pretend to be offended.
“It needs to be enough that she isn’t sacrificing her own future to help me raise Shiloh.”
For once he doesn’t have an immediate smart-ass response.
Because this part isn’t complicated. I’m asking someone to give me—my son— thirteen years of her life. I intend to make certain she’s compensated for them.
Finally, Bryant says, “And what are you giving her besides money?”
“A home.”
“That’s housing.”
“Security.”
“Money again.”
