Page 8 of Hometown Harbor 4
“No, he’s doing something with Deenie tonight. They carved their own paths this summer and haven’t spent much time together. I’m sure they have a lot of catching up to do.”
April and Carmine walked down the beach at least a mile from the pier and back again. As the sun set, they chose a bench on the pier as April spilled her guts, and Carmine listened compassionately. She was embarrassed that she even moved in with a man who would hit her. Carmine said that an abusive man doesn’t usually show his violent side until he gets a woman where he wants her. His sister had a similar situation, but she was caught off guard, and he broke her ocular bone.
“Did she leave?” April asked.
Carmine nodded. “She ended up in the hospital, and when I saw her, I visited the guy. I did to him what he did to my sister and more. My sister didn’t want to press charges, but I said I would if he called the police on me. The weasel crawled back under a rock, or at least he tried. I found out that he never passed the bar after taking it three times. He faded into obscurity, and my sister is happily married with three kids. She’s a part-time paralegal, and when the kids are grown, she will go back to law school. She wants to be an advocate for abused women and work for legal aid.”
“It took me a long time until I trusted a man after that. I’m not overstating it when I say you’re the first man I’ve trusted,” April said.
“That’s a compliment, thank you. I’ve gotten to know Kylen and know he’s not a kid with his head in the clouds. He probably suspects that things with his bio dad were not so cut and dry. It’s not like you had some huge court battle over Kylen, and you ended up kidnapping him.”
“I probably would have if I had to. The lie was easy, and it was so long ago. I didn’t give it a lot of forethought or afterthought until Kylen asked about it,” she said.
“It was probably for the best. Charlie sounds like he made a life for himself and wanted to forget about that dark period in his life. That’s pure conjecture. He might be as much of a jerk now as he was then.”
“I don’t want Kylen to know I lied. Look how Deenie turned out, and her parents aren’t together,” April said. “He might imagine the same could have been possible with him and his father.”
“You’re comparing apples to oranges. Greg cheated on his wife. Charlie raised a hand to you. Men like that don’t get second chances,” Carmine said.
“Do you have any advice in that handsome head of yours?”
“It’s really up to you, beautiful. Either way, you’ll win. If you tell Kylen, he’ll understand because he’s a smart kid. He is not only streetwise but also emotionally mature. On the other hand, if you say nothing, I don’t think he’ll find out. I truly believe he wants to see what Charlie looks like, and that’s all. You said he’s never shown any past curiosity, and he never mentioned it to me. We dove deep on our drive to Miami and back. It was never brought up.”
“Good advice, and I feel so much better. You mentioned a few weeks ago how we move this thing we have forward. I’m ready to talk options,” April said. “I was broken tonight, and you made me whole. That’s something I want to have more of, and I want to help you when you need it in return.”
“Where should we start?” Carmine asked with a huge smile on his face.
“Give me a couple of days. I have a few calls to make, and I’m emotionally drained. How about we grab a pizza and a couple of beers,” April suggested.
“We’re made for each other in so many ways. I love that I don’t have to prepare myself to get my heart crushed,” Carmine said. He grabbed her hand.
They walked to the closest pizza parlor, and it turned out that they liked the same toppings – sausage and onions. April kept looking for something wrong with Carmine, but she couldn’t find it. There surely was because everyone has flaws, but she would deal with them just as he would deal with hers.
6
Tabitha had rolled out the awning on the deck so she could sit outside in the rain. It was the first measurable rain since the women had been in Melbourne Beach. Summer rain made everything smell alive. The weather and being alone in the house allowed her to reflect on her summer. The other girls would leave in just over three weeks, but she was staying through September. The time alone would be a good opportunity to get mentally ready to return to work.
She compared the time that she was having to the trip she had planned to Maine. She couldn’t compare the two, which she considered a good thing. If she had tried to duplicate Maine after it was canceled, she would have been disappointed. Instead, she stepped into an unknown little trip twenty-five miles from home. Tabitha wasn’t alone, but she was with the friends and family that she loved. Mel, Deb, and April were lucky in love and their bliss warmed her heart. For her part, Tabitha was learning to explore the other parts of herself besides staying on the boyfriend carousel.
Tabitha always encouraged Deenie to spend time alone so she could get to know herself, but then failed to take her own advice. It was good advice, and she was glad she was finally following it. She had boyfriends from the time she was sixteen right up until she met Greg. That couldn’t have been good for her mental health.
As Tabitha reminisced about her relationship with her daughter, she thought of her own mother. Their relationship was special in its own way and had changed as they grew older. They were never as close as she was with her daughter, but when they had to be, they were there for each other. Her mother came from Arizona for two weeks when Greg moved out. Tabitha couldn’t have done it without her because she was a walking zombie at the time.
Before that, there was the death of her father, Tank. Years on the football field caught up with him, and Gloria was quite unprepared for life without him. For two years, she spent time with Roth in New York and Tabitha in Florida. Thank goodness she met Chet, who escorted her into her golden years in Arizona. They were two peas in a pod and happy as could be.
Tabitha picked up her phone.
“Hey, Mom. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time. I always forget the time difference until it starts ringing, and by then, it’s too late to hang up.”
“No, it’s fine. We were just about to sit down for an evening cocktail. We haven’t been out of the house all day because it’s 112°. The streets are empty when it gets this hot because everyone is in air-conditioned bliss. Is everything going well in Melbourne Beach?” Gloria asked. “Last time we talked, you were smitten with a realtor.”
“That didn’t work out in the long run. He moved to California and broke my heart,” Tabitha said.
“You sound upbeat, nothing like you sounded after the Greg debacle.”
Tabitha wasn’t even going to tell her mother that her ex-husband was staying with her. She loathed him more than anyone else Tabitha knew. She had learned not to tell her mother things that she didn’t need to hear.
“I couldn’t allow myself to fall apart. First, the two don’t compare because I was married to Greg, and he was the father of my child. I have good friends surrounding me and I worked on myself,” Tabitha said.