Page 5 of Stand

He pulled the first aid kid out of his SUV and had her lean against her door while he squirted his water bottle at the back of her leg.

“What are you yelling at her for?” Matt snapped. “God, what a waste of a day.” He slammed himself into the back seat and slumped down, pulling his hood over his face.

“I didn’t yell.” But Ty counted to five anyway. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said to Alyssa. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that I let you get hurt. Let me see.”

Now washed, the back of one leg was okay, but spots of black were embedded in the graze on her other leg. Alyssa sniffed a little. “I’m okay.”

She always said that, and he knew it. He should have remembered. Recently, she’d been more vociferous when she was unhappy with something. Before, when the divorce was going through, Alyssa had always been “fine.” Today had been a cranky day for all of them.

He gave her a one-armed hug, noting the changes in her height and weight in just a year. Being her dad had been tricky the first year, bliss the next few, and painful the last couple. Now that she was officially a teenager, he knew it was going to get a whole lot worse.

He pulled out the cotton balls and hurt-free antiseptic and was as gentle as he could be while he cleaned her up. “You’d better take a bath when you get home. Soak out the dirt.”

“N’kay,” Alyssa said. His heart squeezed. He had a spare blanket in the back and had her sit on it while he strapped her in. She was plenty old enough to do it herself, of course, but she let him this time.

The ride home was quiet. They’d just turned onto his street when his phone rang.

He looked at the caller ID on his dashboard. “It’s Mom,” he said in an even tone. Despite that, he felt the atmosphere behind him thicken with apprehension. You never knew with Julia. “Hello?”

“Hey, guys!” Her voice came through the speakers high and crystalline. Sharp enough to break. Or to hurt. “Are you in the car? Having a good day?”

“Yes, thanks,” the children echoed dutifully. Ty felt guilty, again, about Alyssa’s legs.

“Oh, good. Well, let me tell you how my day’s been. I’ve had the best time!” Julia said. “My friend Tania—you know, I told you about her, she’s so special to me, we met at the supermarket a few weeks ago, I tell you, it’s amazing how we connected, you know how you feel when you just know you’ve found your soul mate? Friend soul mate, of course. Nice try, Ty; bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you!”

He cringed openly this time, and the kids did too. God, he could only wish that Julia would find a new partner. Why would she think he’d care what gender that person was?

“Well,” Julia went on, “she told me she’s buying a timeshare in Florida, right outside Disney World, and she wants me to go in on it with her, isn’t that amazing? And it’s got two bedrooms, so there’s room for the kids, and you could come when it’s my turn and we could go to Disney and Universal and just be in the sun and wouldn’t that be great? So she wants us to go down and see it, and I thought—”

Here it comes.

“You wouldn’t mind if I took the kids, Ty, ’cause it is summer after all and this way you can work uninterrupted ’cause I remember you used to bitch all the time if I tried to talk to you when you were—”

“Julia,” he finally interrupted. They had pulled up in front of his house. “Kids, go inside.”

“Disney?” Alyssa said.

“Universal?” Matt said.

“Let me talk to your mom.” The children got out and walked slowly down the path to the front door.

Julia had started talking again as soon as he stopped. “I know what you’re going to say, Ty, but this time it’s a good deal. A friend of Tania’s bought one, and she got two weeks down there every year, and it cost barely a thousand dollars a week. Can you imagine what a week at the Cape would cost? And this would be Florida!”

“Julia,” he said again. “You are not allowed to take the kids out of state. Remember?”

“Only without your say-so, and you have to see this is so great for them! Who wouldn’t like it?”

“Florida in August? No one likes it.”

“You just don’t want me to be with my kids!” she shouted, and her voice went from hyper to hysterical in a second. “You’re keeping them from me!”

Ty slumped, trying to ease the pulsing pain that had started again in his lower back. Julia did that to him. At least he’d gotten the kids out of the car before they heard her tone. “I’m not keeping them from you any more than you’re allowed to have them. We have an agreement. With a schedule that your lawyer read over with you in my presence and that you signed. Remember?” Stupid question. She didn’t remember anything she didn’t want to. Same as when she’d decided to leave the family when the novelty of being a mother wore off.

“But this would be barely more than a night!”

“No, Julia. Last time you took them out, you left them at the diner. I’m not letting you take them to God-knows-where in Florida.”

She began crying—rich, messy sobs he’d witnessed so many times he could tell within a millimeter where on her perfect cheeks the tears would fall. “You’ve been telling them I don’t love them, haven’t you! That’s why they don’t want to come with me!”