"Have you tried calling again?" Mick was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at Lindsey with a sympathetic expression written across his face.
He was still in his sweatpants, an old t-shirt with messy hair and tired eyes. He hadn't slept well in days, not since she had kicked him out. He had tossed and turned for hours the last three nights, hardly thinking about anything other than his wife and the mistakes he'd made.
He regretted everything, all of it.
"I've called ten times, Mick." He wasn't being sarcastic when he said that, he was being serious. "She won't pick up the phone..." he added as he slouched down into the kitchen chair a little more.
Each time he had tried the house phone, it either went straight to voicemail, or Karen answered, who was literally no help... She had picked her side in that battle and she definitely wasn't team Lindsey.
With a shrug of his shoulders, the older man let out a soft chuckle. "Call ten more." He suggested, almost totally certain that Lindsey wouldn't get his wife back by sitting around, moping about the things he couldn't go back and change.
"She doesn't wanna talk." He stated with a gentle, almost defeated sigh.
"Then go camp outside the front door for awhile..." Mick was an innovator... He'd done it all before, probably twice. "Stevie will eventually feel bad and let you in." That wasn't a promise... He wasn't promising that sort of positive outcome, he was just being hopeful.
Rolling his eyes lightly, Lindsey brought his cup of coffee up to his lips. "I'll give her another call." He mumbled before he took a sip.
~~~
Sitting crisscross applesauce on the living room carpet, leaning her back into the sofa, Stevie's eyes stayed focused on the morning news as her two daughters sat only a couple of feet away.
They were working on making little necklaces out of beads and string... something that Clancy had begged her older sister to help her with for almost an entire hour before Lola finally agreed.
"The phone's ringing again." Lola announced, glancing up for a brief moment.
Shrugging a shoulder, Stevie didn't look away from the television. "We'll just let it ring." She knew it was Lindsey... He had called a hundred times, but she wasn't ready to talk, not yet.
She had thought about him nonstop since the moment he'd walked out the front door with his duffel bag in hand. She missed him, of course she did, but she couldn't get over what he had done... It felt like the world had caved in around her and suddenly she was trapped in the same situation she never wanted to be in- she was the wife.
And the way Carrie talked about the wife was more horrifying than the action of cheating ever could have been.
Stevie knew she hadn't made life easy for him since Allison had passed, but to hear just how unhappy he had been from someone else was just devastating.
"Mom, is Karen coming today?" Crew asked as he took a seat in the chair across the room from them.
Things had been a little hectic in the couple of days that had followed their fathers sudden absence. Stevie told them that she had fired Carrie, which really didn't go over too well with Lola. And then she informed the children that their father would be out of town for a couple of days, working... Which no one even believed.
Lindsey hadn't left them for solo work in years, not since before Clancy was even born... Crew and Lola knew, right away that Stevie was lying.
Lindsey wouldn't have left them with her. He just wouldn't have, not willingly.
Turning her head to one side, she gave him a soft smile as she nodded. "Yeah, she should be here in a little while." She assured as she glanced down at her cup of tea in hand.
She hadn't hired her full time again, only because she had other responsibilities at that point. Karen had an entire different family she had been working for for almost four years and Stevie didn't expect her to completely drop everything for them, even though that meant that she was in charge of picking up all the extra slack around the house.
She had been getting up early, driving the kids to school, coming back home, then day drinking until Karen brought them back in the evening... It probably wasn't totally ideal, but that's what got her through it.
"Good." Lola raised a brow, shooting her mother daggers as she twisted a knot into another string to tie off a bracelet. "Can't wait for a real adult to show up." She added in a tone as cold as ice.
She had been more argumentative in the last couple of days then she had been in a really long time... She hadn't cut Stevie much slack, not for anything.
She figured that the only reason Lindsey had suddenly gone MIA was because of her... She knew her mom had done something that sent him running.
"Mommy is a real adult, Lola." Clancy creased a brow as she slid over to be closer to Stevie. "You don't have to be so mean all the time." She added with a scrunched up nose.
Feeling her youngest lean into her side, Stevie wrapped her arm around her. "It's okay, sweet girl." She assured, not at all interested in listening to the bickering. "Anyway, kids..." she lingered, changing the topic before things got out of hand.
She wasn't going to argue with her daughter, not when Lola knew absolutely nothing about the situation they were currently in.
"I was thinking, this year for Christmas, we could go to Arizona to visit grandpa and grandma." It wasn't really a question- she wasn't asking them if that was okay, she was telling them that was what they were going to be doing.
She needed to get away.
"Wait, will Santa still be able to find us there?" Clancy wondered... she wasn't worried about too much else.
With a soft laugh, Stevie sort of admired the innocence in that question. "Of course, honey." That was a promise she was able to keep... probably the only one, actually. "I already spoke to Karen, so she'll be joining us too." She added as her eyes drifted towards the deep blue ones that had been burning into her.
"What about dad?" Lola asked as her brow creased gently.
Biting down on her lower lip, Stevie pressed a soft kiss to Clancy's head. "If your father makes it home in time, I'm sure he'd love to tag along."
