“Paige?” I dashed out the gate.
“What the heck is this?” She asked, pointing at the evil-looking little statue sitting in the passenger seat.
Cormac was grinning and the girls looked uncertain about what to think.
Daniel arrived at my side. “It’s Thaddius,” he said. “But I didn’t mean for him to scare you.”
I gazed at the boy, shaking my head and grinning.
“It’s the new feud,” he said. “A harmless one,” he added quickly when he read what he must have thought was disapproval on my face. “I’ve read about other families having a gnome like this one. And they take turns hiding him around each other’s property, either in hard to find spots or doing funny things. And once you find him, it’s your turn to hide him in someone else’s house or yard.” Daniel looked so happy about this idea, I couldn’t shoot him down.
“I love it,” Paige said, surprising me.
“Yes!” Taylor was bouncing and clapping her hands, and her sister imitated her perfectly.
“It’s a kinder, gentler feud,” Cormac suggested, and I nodded. It was perfect.
“You’re a pretty smart kid,” I told Daniel, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into me, and his face broke into an abashed grin.
We turned to find Michael standing just behind us, smiling in a distant way, like he was thinking about something.
After we’d said goodbye to all the guests, and even Mom had left with a smile on her face, the three of us went back inside and cleaned up what was left of the dishes.
“I’d say that was an incredible success,” Michael said. “And I think there might be something going on between your mom and my uncle.”
“Right?” I asked. “I noticed that too. Good for them.”
Daniel made a face, but even he seemed to be happy with the way the night had gone.
“All right, Dan,” Michael said, turning to him. “School tomorrow. How did you sleep in your own room last night?” We’d set up a room upstairs for Daniel, with a bed and a desk of his own.
Daniel looked at me and said, “thanks for the room. It’s incredible. I know my dad didn’t put that together. Why aren’t you an interior designer, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I always wanted to be. I even took some classes online a while back. I just . . . got busy, I guess.”
“Well, your taste is way better than Dad’s!”
Michael punched him in the arm, and Dan turned and bounded up the stairs.
We exchanged a smile, and a quick kiss, and then went our separate ways for bed. And as I settled in for the night—even though I was alone, I felt less alone than I ever had before.
29
Feuds and Fun Houses
Michael
We had two weeks to plan a feud-themed haunted house. Luckily, my son was more motivated about this project than I’d seen him about anything before.
“We should totally park the Corvette on the lawn,” he suggested as the three of us sat around the kitchen island Thursday night the week after our successful Sunday dinner. Shelly hadn’t said another word about sole custody, and so far I hadn’t let the kid out of my sight, had made sure all his homework was done, and had generally done everything in my power to prove I was a good father.
My attorney had told me that unless she formally filed for sole custody, it was just a threat—but it was one that got my attention. I’d begun to think that maybe I could be a good father and still have a life of my own, but if anything threatened my relationship with Daniel, it was an easy choice to decide what was most important.
Only . . . looking at Addison across the island as she discussed the intricacies of creating realistic fake blood with my son, I wondered if having her in his life wasn’t actually a good thing. Maybe having another responsible and successful adult invested in him multiplied his odds of success, gave him an even firmer ground to launch from. The relationship that had grown between them made me smile to myself when I was doing tasks around the store, had me chuckling when I remembered the two of them laughing together.
If something real developed between me and Addie, how would having her in my son’s life be bad? I was so accustomed to pushing away anything that seemed like a distraction for me, anything that pulled my attention in another direction. But with Addie, I was beginning to see things a different way. Of course, Daniel had no real idea what was going on. All he knew was that we had a house together thanks to a very odd legal arrangement.
“So the raccoon is going to leap off the mantle when the door opens?” Addie was asking Dan now, her eyebrows adorably wrinkled.
“Or maybe when people walk by,” he suggested.
We spent an enjoyable evening, drawing up plans and figuring out each aspect of our haunted house, and I said goodnight to my son, knowing the next day would be bittersweet—he’d go back to Shelly for the rest of the week. But I’d have time alone with Addison. And after sleeping in separate bedrooms for the week, I was ready to hold her in my arms again.
Just before bed, Dan insisted on going out to look around the yard in order to finalize some plans. I was trying to finish up installing some shelving in the master bedroom for Addie, so I told him to use his phone flashlight and be careful. As Addie and I worked together to put up the shelves, I had a strong sense of serenity—everything was working out.
Daniel came in after about twenty minutes, and at first I didn’t notice the limp.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Nothing. I’m good.” He shrugged and walked away, but the limp was definitely not a good thing.
“Hey,” I called after him. “Why are you limping?”
“Dad,” he insisted. “I’m fine.”
I should have been more insistent, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
The following morning, I took Dan to school and went into the store, to find Virgil and Emmett grumpy and muttering with their heads together.
“What?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“That gnome showed up here last night,” Virgil said, his face dark as he crossed his arms over his chest.
I laughed. “Oh, the new feud gnome? Thaddius?”
“Laugh all you want,” Emmett growled. “This means war.”
I shook my head, dropping a hand on the counter loudly enough to startle a customer wandering past. “Sorry,” I told her, waving toward the garden pots she was examining. Then I turned to my cousins. “This doesn’t mean war, actually. This means that both sides of this stupid feud have agreed to take the whole thing down a notch. We’re moving this ridiculous feud to level where it can’t hurt anyone’s business or prized possessions, to a place where we can continue pranking each other but know that it’s all in good fun.”
They just stared at me, their faces remaining dark.
“Where was the gnome?” I asked.
“He was sitting out front on one of your Adirondack chairs this morning when I opened,” Virgil said.
“That’s perfectly harmless,” I said.
They exchanged a look.