Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“No,” Cathy cried, “I don’t want him to go to jail.”
“He can’t hit you and get away with it,” Sam told her. “No one should get hit.”
“Your daughter hit Tim,” she retorted, “and you beat the crap outta Ray.”
Sam squinted at her, obviously too annoyed to even reply.
“I think I need ice for my forehead,” Kola said, walking up beside his sister. “That ball really hurt.”
Hannah did a slow pan to him.
“What?”
The cops took one look at Tim, who jolted back to consciousness seconds before they reached him, and then at Hannah, and threw the growling, swearing man in the back of one of the SUVs. They took Hannah’s statement, listened and nodded, took note of Sam’s badge, and then of how tiny and delicate my daughter looked standing next to her father with her swollen nose and lip, and went back to the car and zip-tied Tim into a position that looked more like pretzel-tied than hogtied.
Ray’s treatment wasn’t much better.
They called Cathy’s brother, who arrived not ten minutes later, and from the look of him, I figured Tim was lucky he was in police custody. He arrived with their mother, and they took Cathy with them, but not before the matriarch of their family had some scathing words for Joe.
“What kind of a man are you? Your son hits the woman he claims to love, and smacks around a little girl?” The disdain was dripping from every word, and her face held nothing but disgust. “You must be very proud.”
Part of me loved her for saying it, but the other part didn’t.
When we were home, much later, having spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening at the hospital, I was in the kitchen trying to make sense of all the thoughts buzzing around in my head.
“What do you think?” Hannah asked Jake, sitting on the counter watching him make cinnamon toast.
“For one,” he said, smiling at her, “I’m never letting you out of my sight again. For two, you’re super lucky that Chilly thinks the little demon cat is his baby or something, and can’t stop grooming him, and for three, what the hell is it with parties and your extended family? I say, from now on, your folks just say no.”
“I agree a hundred percent,” Sam chimed in as he strode into the kitchen, stopping to give his daughter a kiss on the cheek. She had been given a clean bill of health; nothing was broken, but there would be bruises, that was all. Still, Sam wanted to stay close in case she needed him. “And besides, if I ever see Tim again, he’s a dead man.”
“Dad,” Hannah scolded him, “that’s not productive.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But I wouldn’t mind you giving him the punch he gave Hannah.”
“Pa,” she chided me next, “violence is not the answer.”
The look Sam gave her told me he was going to make an exception for Tim. “But I do agree with Jake. No more parties with extended family. Just us.”
Of course “us” included Dane and Aja and their boys, Duncan and Aaron, Pat and his brood, Chaz and his people, Dylan and Chris, basically all our friends, his parents, and of course, without question, Harper and Jake. As for his siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, Sam was done with mandatory family functions.
“Your brain is working very hard,” he rumbled, walking over to me and tapping me on the forehead.
“I was thinking about what Cathy’s mother said. That really wasn’t fair to put Tim’s failings on his father.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “You have to think that everyone has personal experiences that shape them. I mean, yes, some psychopaths are made, and you can trace that back to a horrific childhood. But not all of them.”
“You think Tim’s a psychopath?”
I growled at him. “You know what I mean. I’m giving you an example.”
“Ah,” he teased me.
“Now, about what I said?”
“You’re right. Not all psychopaths have bad childhoods.”
“And lots of kids of alcoholics don’t drink, and, let’s be frank, you were raised in a home where your father hit you with a belt when you made poor decisions.”
“He spanked me,” Sam corrected. “He didn’t hit me.”
“I’m not going to debate that with you,” I apprised him. “Why is it assault if I hit you with a belt, but if I hit Hannah, it’s spanking?”
“If you hit me with a belt, I think it would be spanking too.” He leered, giving me an eyebrow waggle.
“I will smother you in your sleep if you don’t stop teasing me.”
“I’m sorry, who’s hitting me?” Hannah asked.
“Just eat your toast,” I told her.
“Can’t,” she reported. “Jake made charcoal briquettes instead of cinnamon toast.”
“Jake,” I called over to him. “Honey, use the toaster oven, not the broiler.”
“Oh, okay,” he said excitedly.
I turned back to Sam. “All I’m saying is, at some point you can’t blame a shitty homelife for what you do out in the world.”