Destruction: The December People, Book One (5 page)

“I just need to do something before we get home. I’m sorry.”

He pressed speed dial one. He couldn’t think about it. Just jump in, as if diving into a cold lake.

“Hey, babe,” Amanda said. “You almost here?”

“Yes.”

“Finally.”

“I know this might seem a little odd to you, but can you come meet me in the Pappadeaux parking lot?”

“That does seem odd. Is something wrong with the car? Oh, I think I know what it is. Hang on, we’re driving right by.”

She hung up.
We? No.
No. No.
He redialed.
Too late. The Expedition drove into the parking lot. They must have been on the way back from Jess and Carson’s family gathering.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Would you please stay in the car?” he asked his newest kids. “Please.”

He got out of the car, and so did Amanda. A cold front had moved in, and her hair whipped around. She hugged her bare arms.

“Are there people in the car?” Amanda asked. “Who’s with you?”

Patrick got out of the Expedition first, then Jude and Emmy.

“Stay in the car,” David commanded.

He could tell they sensed the darkness in his voice because they stopped in their tracks. But they still didn’t get back in.

“Where is it?” Patrick asked.

“What are you talking about?” David asked.

“We thought you were going to surprise Patrick with his new car,” Amanda said.

Evangeline and Xavier got out of the car, bringing the number of his children who ignored his command to stay in the car to a full one hundred percent.

“Who’s the guy? He’s cute,” Emmy said.

“Shut up, Emmy,” David said. “For once in your life, just shut up.”

For all she talked, David had never told her to shut up like that. All the Vandergraffs glared at him, even Patrick, who told Emmy to shut up several times a day.

“David, what’s the matter with you? I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but did you kidnap these children?” she said with a weak laugh.

David saw something in her eyes now, a trace of panic bubbling up under the cool blue. She knew. She didn’t know what she knew, but she could feel the wrongness coming. She kept looking at Xavier. The eyebrows. Some part of her had already figured it out.

“I really need everyone except Mom to get back in the car.” He tried to say it in his most deadly serious tone. He looked back at Evangeline and Xavier so they knew the command included them. They climbed back into the car.

His other kids looked unwilling to budge, but Amanda said, “Go on,” and they obeyed her. Before Patrick got in behind his siblings, he gave David a look that could sour milk. He had always been the brightest one. He’d caught on to something, too.

Amanda shivered and rubbed her arms. She seemed different in silence. Vulnerable. Talking was her super power and silence was her Kryptonite. She waited for him to explain.

“I don’t know how to say this,” David said. “So, I’ll just say it. The people in the car are my children. Xavier and Evangeline. Their mother is dead. I am taking custody.”

Amanda laughed, but her eyes made it clear she didn’t think it was a joke, perhaps she only hoped so. “What?”

“I had an affair when we were first married. It ended twelve years ago. These are my kids.”

“I don’t think so,” Amanda said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Your kids?” she asked absently.

He had expected fury. This was worse. She looked frightened and confused, a child lost in a strange place.

“Their mother is dead. She was murdered by her husband, their stepfather. I’m taking custody.”

“Custody,” she repeated as if she learned a new word.

“I’m sorry.” He hated the way it sounded. So far from good enough. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Two children. Years apart,” she said. “Years apart,” she repeated. “Who was she?”

“Do you remember Crystal Carr?”

Her whole body tensed, but her eyes came to life, as if flares lit them from behind. Amanda took a few quick steps forward and hit him in the face. Not a slap. A punch. His cheek vibrated with the sting. His eyes rattled in their sockets. Then she sat on the curb, put her face in her hands, and whispered, “Crystal.”

David couldn’t take his eyes off her and didn’t notice when his Vandergraff kids came back out of the car. Emmy put her arm around her mother.

“What did you do?” Patrick asked him.

Jude didn’t look as if he needed to hear a reason before he planted a punch on David’s other cheek. But he didn’t get the chance. Amanda got up and herded them all back in the car like she had the stretchy arms of the woman from
The Incredibles
. And they drove away. Gone. Just like that.

David got back in the car and turned to Xavier and Evangeline with a bright pink cheek.

“I—―”

“You didn’t tell them we were coming?” Xavier asked.

At least he had finally said something.

avid took the kids to Golden Corral for dinner. The concept of a buffet baffled his newest children.
I can eat whatever I want? I just go up there and take it? Are you sure?
They made odd meal choices. Evangeline got a big pile of fruit, a hard-boiled egg, pizza, and a pile of shredded cheese from the salad bar, and then ice cream with sprinkles at David’s suggestion. Xavier got cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, and an egg roll, and then ice cream as well.

“We’re going to stay in a hotel tonight,” David explained while they took tiny bites of their soft serve. They looked overstuffed. No one eats ice cream that slowly. Feeding them too much too fast and risking vomiting seemed like the least of his mistakes. “You’ll like the hotel. It has an indoor pool.”

“I don’t know how to swim,” Evangeline said.

“Oh. Okay, well, you’ll still like it, I think.”

“Shawna said we were going to stay at your house,” Evangeline said.

“I’m afraid I’m not sure if we will or not. My wife is upset with me.”

“Because you had sex with our mom and had us,” Evangeline said. “And didn’t tell her about it until just now when you were about to bring us home?”

“Yes.”

“That was stupid,” Evangeline said.

“Yes it was.”

She wrinkled her nose. Disgust. Or judgment. Either way, he had disappointed her. Her father turned out to be a non-magical adulterer with no house.

“It was a mistake… Not having you, that wasn’t a mistake. Not telling my wife until now was a mistake. But I was afraid to tell her.”

“Because she’ll want a divorce,” Evangeline said.

“Yes.”

“You don’t think having us was a mistake?” Evangeline asked.

“No. Of course, not.”

“Why not?” Evangeline asked.

“Because then you wouldn’t exist,” he said.

She looked thoughtful, considering the concept as she would a new food.

“And because I loved your mom,” he continued. “If I had to do it over again, I would.”

“That’s stupid,” Evangeline said.

David smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She had called him stupid twice. A man she barely knew. A father. She didn’t act like a scared, abused girl. She acted spirited and fiery, like her mother.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

They didn’t ask the questions he knew they must have.
So… if you loved her, why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you marry her? Raise us? Why didn’t you save us?
They must have wondered.

Xavier had the same look he had during the wizard conversation. Hardly readable… but listening. He watched Evangeline while she talked, and then turned to David when he talked. It wouldn’t seem like much to someone else, but David knew better. Unlike most conversations that went on around him, Xavier cared enough to listen.

“It probably is stupid. But I’d do it again because I still haven’t come up with any other alternative. I love your mom, and I love my wife too.”

Present tense. He didn’t even mean to say it, but he hoped they caught that.

They looked at him as if they would have been less shocked if he transfigured the plates into mice.

The phone rang. Amanda. Fear shot from the pit of his stomach to his heart. He stopped breathing.

He answered the phone and said, “Amanda.”

“Bring them here.”

“What?”

“What are you going to do, take them to a hotel? Bring them here. Now.”

She hung up, and he remembered to breathe again.

In the dark, David couldn’t see his kids’ reaction to their new neighborhood. When he imagined seeing the houses through someone else’s eyes, they seemed pompous. Too big. His college-age self would have thought so, anyway. But the houses would have impressed the kid David. The kid David had wanted to be rich more than anything but had parents who considered poverty a badge of honor.

He parked the car and unloaded the trunk and the kids, while Amanda watched from the doorway, her dark silhouette looming ominously. David’s attraction to fiery women had a dangerous side effect: if he pissed one off, anything could happen. He couldn’t rule out the possibility Amanda had taken a gun out of the lock box and tucked it under her sweater.

When they reached the front door, she spoke to the kids as if she couldn’t see David.

“Come in,” she said. “Have you eaten?”

“They have,” David said.

Amanda put her hand on Evangeline’s shoulder as she led her through the doorway.
No touching.
But neither of them burst into flames upon contact. After Xavier and Evangeline had passed, Amanda blocked the doorway.

“Just them. Not you,” she said.

“What?”

“They need a place to stay and haven’t done anything wrong. But we’re done. You’re out of the house. You can come by and get your stuff while I’m at work.”

“I can’t leave them here with you. I’m their legal guardian. You’re no one… I mean, you’re no one legally… to them.”

“If you think I’ll let you in, then you don’t know me.”

“Can we discuss it privately?” Evangeline and Xavier stood right behind Amanda.

She shut the door in his face. He had no inclination to turn and leave. Everything that mattered to him slept in that house. And he legally owned that house. So, he would live here unless the police dragged him away.