Another Piece of My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gaggia sitting on the counter.
    “Which bit?” Andi pauses from her reenactment of the scenes from last night’s drama to take a tentative sip, complimenting Drew. “Delicious.”
    “None of it, but I really don’t like that you and Ethan haven’t spoken since then.”
    “I know.” Andi stares down into her cup, then back up at Drew, fear flashing for a moment in her eyes. “It’s the first time he’s walked out.”
    “But he came back, right?”
    “He had to shower and stuff, so we saw him, but it was just cold and awful.”
    Drew shakes his head. “It’s not insurmountable,” he says finally. “But you have to communicate. If you leave these things, they build into bigger resentments, until the resentment is so big there’s no way to get beyond it. You cannot let this relationship get to that point. You have to talk about this.”
    “Resentment.” The word emerges from Andi’s lips in a long, low whistle. “That’s how I feel. All the time. Resentful. I resent that he doesn’t stand up for me. I resent that he allows his daughter to treat me like shit. I resent that he thinks I am somehow culpable in this, that I have a part.”
    “Maybe you do.”
    “Drew!” She looks up at him sharply. “You know how I am with Emily. I don’t deserve any of this.”
    “I didn’t say you deserve it. I said that maybe you have a part. Not even consciously, but from her point of view, she had her daddy all to herself. She was his leading lady until you came along. Her real mother might not be interested in her, but she’s still going to feel an intense loyalty to her, and how disloyal would it be if she loved you? How would that make her mother feel?”
    “I do get it.” Andi sighs. “I know all of that, but Drew, I couldn’t be any nicer, I couldn’t do more for this kid, and I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t know what else to do.”
    “You could try setting boundaries,” he says.
    “How?” Andi’s voice rises. “Ethan can’t set a boundary to save his life. He’ll set a curfew, then not enforce it. Take away her car and give it back when she says sorry and turns on the tears.”
    “Honey? This isn’t about Ethan’s setting boundaries, this is about you. You can’t change him,” Drew muses, “it’s true. But you can set boundaries of your own.”
    “I try,” she says, “but…” and she trails off.
    “What?”
    “I’m as scared of her damned screaming as Ethan is. He’ll do anything to keep the peace, give in to anything to keep her happy, and I just want to…”
    “What?” he says gently.
    Andi looks up at him with tears in her eyes. “Leave.”
    *   *   *
    Oh God. She said it. She can’t believe she actually said it out loud. Until this moment she wasn’t even aware she had actively thought about it, but now that it’s out there, hovering in the shocked silence, she knows it’s true.
    But it’s not always true. That pendulum swinging from love to hate, the pendulum driven toward hate by resentment and fear, can come just as swiftly back to love, back to safety and security.
    The nights Emily and Sophia are with their mother, supposedly one night a week and every other weekend, are the nights Andi looks forward to the most, the nights she doesn’t have to worry about being held hostage by a teenage terrorist, doesn’t feel the weight of dread sinking upon her as they pull in the driveway, not knowing whether they will find good Emily or bad Emily.
    The weekends when they go hiking, or poke around the farmer’s market in the CVS parking lot, or run down to Sausalito for sushi and a game of pool at Smitty’s. Then they are just another couple strolling around the bay, looking at the boats, hand in hand, Ethan pulling her in for regular kisses.
    “Do you know how happy I am?” he says, smiling down into her eyes.
    “Do you know how happy I am?” She’ll reach up and kiss him. And in that moment, it is true. In that moment, those moments, Andi knows they will