The evening after they moved in, Callie was drinking a glass of juice and accidentally spilled some of it on the floor. She immediately dropped her head and closed herself off. I couldn’t get her to talk to me for the rest of the night, no matter how hard I tried.
When I’d get home from work, dinner would already be done, the table set, drinks poured. It was a full on Leave it to Beaver family spread. After the third night, I’d informed Kenzie that she didn’t have to make me dinner every single night, but she was insistent. When I told her the least I could do was clean the kitchen after she cooked, she simply shrugged and told me she was just doing her part. If it wasn’t the cooking, it was the laundry, or the cleaning, or the yard work. If she could find something that needed to be done around the house, she was determined to do it.
But the moment that finally did me in was when Cam was playing in the living room and accidentally knocked a picture frame off one of the shelves, breaking the glass. I rushed over to make sure he hadn’t cut himself, but he’d cowered away from my touch before finally taking off into the bedroom he and Callie were sharing. Enough was enough. I’d had it with the fucking walking-on-eggshells routine.
Storming into the kitchen, I’d found Kenzie exactly where I knew she’d be, perched in front of the stove, watching over dinner like a hawk. It was as if she was terrified to let anything burn. Flipping off the burners, I ignored her protests and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her through the back door and into the yard.
“What the hell, Brett! I’m in the middle of making dinner. It’s going to burn if I don’t get back in there.”
“Then let it burn, Kenzie! That’s what happens sometimes. Dinners burn. Drinks spill, glass breaks, accidents happen. It’s not the end of the world.” I saw those shutters of hers start to slide into place, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen.
“Beauty, you and those kids don’t have to be perfect, not here. You don’t need to do all of this. You don’t have to work all day, then come home just to start all over again. I moved y’all in here because I wanted you safe, not because I wanted a maid service.”
Her head dipped down in an attempt to hide the tears that were forming in her jade eyes. Jesus Christ, the woman was killing me.
Taking her chin between my fingers, I forced her to meet my gaze, trying to make her see how sincere I was. “I can’t stand that you, Cameron and Callie feel the need to walk on eggshells when I’m around. I want y’all to be comfortable. Twice this week one of the kids has done something by accident, and the result has been them running off to their room and hiding from me. That guts me, Kenz. I hate it when they won’t talk to me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, those tears breaking free and making tracks down her cheeks.
Seeing her pain was tearing me apart. “Don’t apologize, beauty. Talk to me. Please. You can trust me, baby. I can help you if you’d just let me,” I pleaded, needing her trust more than anything.
“I do trust you.”
I couldn’t explain why, but those four words made me feel invincible. Reaching up, I brushed her tears away with my thumb. “Then trust me to be able to help you. Talk to me, Kenz.”
We stood in silence for a minute before she finally spoke. “Okay.” Her voice was so soft I barely heard it. “After the kids go to bed. I don’t want to talk about this when they can hear.”
I nodded. I could give her that.
Knowing what I had to do and being prepared to do it were two different things entirely.
I’d left Brett standing outside and gone back into the kitchen to finish dinner. The conversation around the table was stilted, and no matter how hard Brett tried, he just couldn’t get the kids to interact. I had every intention of talking to them, letting them know that Brett wasn’t upset about the broken picture frame, but I wanted to do it with just the three of us. Apparently, Brett had other ideas.
He stood from the table without a word and headed into the kitchen. The sound of cabinet doors opening and closing echoed into the dining area until he came walking back in with a small stack of plates and glasses. Sitting the dishes on the table between Cameron and Callie, he picked up one of the glasses, took a few steps back, and dropped it right on the floor, sending shards of glass flying everywhere.
The three of us sat in shocked silence as he picked up a small salad plate and did the same thing, breaking it into a million pieces before turning his full attention to my kids.
“Things break. Accidents happen. I’m not going to get mad at y’all for breaking something as minor as a picture frame. I can replace a picture frame. I can buy new dishes.” He crouched down so he was eye level with them. “I don’t need those things. What I need is for y’all to be happy here, to be comfortable with living in this house and with me. You two are more important to me than a stupid picture frame. Understand?”