They walked out into the parking lot and got into the Blazer, Todd was quiet.
Blair reached over and took his hand, letting it lay on her lap. "Todd, I don’t want you to be angry with me."
"I’m not angry with you, Blair."
"Why are you so quiet?"
"I don’t know; maybe I need my SPACE."
"Todd, don’t do this. I don’t want to fight with you. I was trying to be really honest, isn’t that this is all about?"
Todd nodded.
"Okay, as long as you know."
They spent the afternoon painting, not saying much; Todd wasn’t talking and it was starting to bother Blair, but she decided that it best to leave him alone. She’d talk to him when he wanted to start talking. She wasn’t going to force it, she hadn’t liked it much when he’d forced things with her before. She was a little bothered when he’d stopped at the liquor store and bought another case of beer. She really didn’t like it when he drank but she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
Starr came home from school and Blair told her that they were going to do the garden on Saturday and Starr was ecstatic, she hadn’t gotten to do much in the new house and she really wanted to help. Blair showed her the printout from the garden store and ended up giving part of the garden to Starr to do with what she wanted. Blair would buy her whatever flowers and things she wanted and they’d do the whole thing together.
"Mommy, what’s the matter with daddy?"
"What do you mean, Starr?"
"You know what I mean, he’s being really quiet."
"I don’t know, maybe he’s just tired. He’s been working really hard on the house."
"I don’t like it when he looks like that, mommy; sometimes he gets sort of mean when he has that look on his face."
"Starr, are you afraid of daddy when he’s quiet?"
"No, I’m not; daddy loves us. He used to look like that with Tee sometimes and she was afraid of him then, though."
"Well, I’m not Tee am I?"
"No, mommy."
"I’m no more afraid of your daddy then you are. He just has lots of things to think about. He’ll be good as new in a few days, you now how moody he is."
"I know."
Blair leaned over and kissed Starr good night, tucking her blankets all around her, "I love you."
Mommy can you ask daddy to come in and kiss me ‘night?"
"Sure."
"Are you okay, daddy?"
"Yeah Shorty, I’m fine."
"You’re awfully quiet."
"Sometimes, I’m quiet Starr. I have a lot of things on my mind."
"Are you mad at mommy?"
"No Starr, I’m not mad at your mommy."
"Are you sure?" Starr wasn’t sure that she believed him.
"Shorty, I love your mommy; I’m not mad at her at all."
"Daddy, she loves you too. I lied about Freddy when we first came down here."
"What do you mean, Starr?"
"I knew that we were coming to see you because mommy was all happy. She smiled all the time, it couldn’t be anything else. She wouldn’t tell me, but I knew anyway. I could tell by mommy’s smile, I don’t want to go away again."
"Do you think that mommy wants to go away?"
"No, but Tee used to go away when you got really quiet like this and I don’t want that to happen with mommy."
"Mommy isn’t Tee, Shorty."
Starr started to giggle.
"What are you laughing about?"
"That’s what mommy said. She said that she wasn’t Tee and that you just had lots of stuff to think about."
"Well, I guess that she knows me pretty well; doesn’t she?"
"Yeah, she does daddy and she’s like me."
"What do you mean?"
"She loves you even when you’re quiet and grumpy."
Todd smiled and kissed Starr good night. "I guess that she does. Starr, I don’t want you to worry about mommy leaving or me leaving. We love each other so much, and we love you. We want really badly to be a family and we’re working really hard at it."
"It shouldn’t be so much work, daddy."
"I know, but sometimes it is. Good night, Starr."
"Night daddy, I love you."
"I love you too."
"Did you pick out a kitchen, Todd?"
"I don’t know, I couldn’t concentrate."
"Todd, I’m sorry about today. I didn’t mean to make you angry or upset you."
"What exactly did you mean to do, Blair?"
"Exactly, what I said. I said that I didn’t like you climbing in my head and…"
"Manipulating you?"
"See, there you ago again; except of course, manipulating wasn’t the word that I was thinking about, because I don’t feel manipulated."
"Like what you said about being able to lie to my face? That’s not what I meant either."
"Well maybe we don’t read each other as well as we thought."
"It could be. So what did you mean today?"
"Todd, therapy is going to be really tough for me. We talked a lot about when I as growing up and the orphanages, foster parents and that kind of stuff. I don’t like to think about those things." Blair looked away, trying to find the right words, "Look, I’m not sure what any of that has to do with us, that’s all. I don’t want to talk about it to you, it makes me feel like some kind of a reject and I don’t like that feeling. I don’t want you to see me like that, so I really don’t want to talk about it to you. Sometimes it makes me really sad to think about it and I don’t want you to think that it has anything to do with how I feel about you. Okay?"
"Okay," Todd slipped his arm around her and kissed her on the forehead. Blair, I could never see you like that. I love you and nothing is going to ever change that."
"Thank you, Todd."
"I wish that you wouldn’t do that, Blair."
"Do what?"
"Thank me for loving you."
"I’m glad that you do, I’m just letting you know that."
"I know, but loving you is as easy as breathing for me, loving you makes me happy so you really don’t need to thank me for it; sometimes, I should thank you for it."
Blair smiled, "let’s go to bed, enough talk. We’ll talk about the kitchen stuff tomorrow, you have to help me pick. It’s your kitchen too and you’re paying the bill."
"We’re paying the bill, Blair. You get whatever kitchen that you want."
They made love and Blair settled into his arms and he felt her relax into sleep. He pulled her closer to him and hoped that she didn’t have any more nightmares. They had started not too long after moving into the house. He was afraid to say anything about them, he remembered his own and knew how hard they were to talk about. He had stopped having them a long time ago, at first because of all the medicine that they gave him and later because he’d learned to understand what they were and why he had them. At first he thought that she’d remember, but she didn’t mention them. When she started to obsess about the house, he figured that she did remember them and was just trying to keep busy so she wouldn’t think about them. She’d had a really bad one last night and he had heard her crying in her sleep, usually he’d just pull her close and smooth her hair like he would Starr and she’d stop, last night, she’d rolled away from him and thrown his arm off of her when he tried to touch her to comfort her. She was pushing him away, she’d pushed him away a thousand times; but before, she was always doing it on purpose. This time she wasn’t, he thought. He was afraid to ask her because she’d told him today that she didn’t want to talk about it. He wondered if he should talk to her therapist but he knew that she wouldn’t tell him anything, he didn’t want to get into it with Dr. Gross because he knew that Blair would be angry if he found out. He let himself drift off to sleep, he knew that if she had one that he’d wake up. He wasn’t a sound sleeper and he was kind of glad about it.
Blair packed a picnic lunch for Todd and Starr to take with them. They were going to do some fishing, eat lunch and then she was going to meet them at the Marina after they had the boat dry docked. She had planned on doing the back garden and had gone out to do the weeding with her gloves on but realized that it was so overgrown that it would just need to be wiped out. She hit it with the scythe chopping back everything in site, except the fruit trees. She was only about half way done when it was time to go meet Todd and Starr. She decided to leave early so she could pick up the flats from the nursery, she could set them out and she and Starr could plant tomorrow.
"Daddy, do you miss Llanview?" Starr was strapped into her own fishing chair sitting next to Todd.
"No, not a bit, do you?"
"Sometimes I miss my friends."
"Are you making friends at St. Mary’s?"
"Yeah, I guess so, but it’s not the same. They’ve all known each other for YEARS; at least since kindergarten. Everybody already has a best friend. The nuns are so mean daddy, they never smile."
"Well their job is to give you and education and that’s what they’re going to do." Todd was firm on the private school in spite of what Blair and Starr had said. Blair was wimping out, he figured that she must have issues with nuns because they seemed to intimidate the hell out of her. He didn’t have a problem with them, they crossed him; he’d cross them back. Starr just missed her friends, she’d get over it. Starr never had trouble making friends before and she wouldn’t now. She’d adapt.
"I hate my uniform."
"It IS pretty ugly, but at least everybody else has to wear one too."
"But every day, I wear the same thing. Back in Llanview, mommy let me pick out what I wanted to wear to school."
"Well you can wear whatever you want when you’re not in school, Starr." Todd looked over at her, she was wearing a pair of black baggy shorts, a tube top, black fingernail polish, that had to be removed on Sunday night, Birkenstocks and her hair was in five or six strange looking ponytails all over her head. She had thrown a fit last night because Blair wouldn’t let her dye her hair green with Kool Aid.
"No I can’t, mommy wouldn’t let me dye my hair last night! We could’ve washed it out tomorrow night! She’s mean sometimes, daddy. I think that she’s worse than the nuns."
"She is not mean, she wouldn’t let you dye your hair with Kool Aid because she KNEW that I wouldn’t like it and little girls only need green hair for Halloween."
"Well it is MY hair daddy; and I wanted it to be green!" Starr settled back into her chair and pouted. Todd had to laugh to himself, she looked just like Blair.
"Well you’re OUR daughter and we want your hair to stay the way it is," Todd sighed, "we let you keep the ponytails and the black fingernail polish; didn’t we?"
"Daddy, I can’t stay a baby FOREVER!"
"You’ll always be my baby," Todd laughed, "even when you’re 40!"
"My friend Raquel says that we have to be allowed to grow just like people. You and mommy are not allowing me to ‘grow’ daddy."
"You can grow some other time. Right now you’re seven years old and you’re just going to have to deal with it."
"I don’t like being seven years old. I can’t wait until I can get big. I’m going to dye my hair green, not go to stupid schools where you have to wear dorky clothes and listen to mean old ugly nuns!"
"I can wait," Todd knew that he could. He wondered what she’d be like when she was 16. She’d be hopping in cars with boys and she’d be drop dead gorgeous just like her mom; she’d probably be wild as hell. She already was; Starr had no fear, and no problems with authority figures whatsoever. He knew as well as Starr did that she didn’t make good grades out of fear, she made them because she CHOSE to. The minute that she CHOSE not to, she wouldn’t. It wasn’t the consequences that bothered Starr, it was her own drive. Starr was the kind of kid that would go either way, but it would be her choice. He hoped like hell that he and Blair would teach her to make the right choices.
Starr unfastened herself from the chair and started for the galley below.
"Where are you going?"
"I’m going downstairs to get lunch."
Todd started to unfasten himself to go help her.
"I can do it, Daddy. You just sit there, do you want a new Pepsi? That one’s getting warm."
"Yeah, that’d be nice," Todd held his arms out, "Hey Starr, I know that you’re growing as a person and all, but do you think that you could climb on your old man’s lap and give him a little hug before you get too old and mature?"
"Yeah," Starr smiled and climbed on his lap.
"I love you daddy," she looked at him smiling, "you’re okay."
"You’re okay, too." Todd had to smile, she was okay. In spite of all that she’d been through with him leaving, Blair’s craziness, the custody battles, living at Dorian’s; she was normal as hell. She wasn’t fearful, she wasn’t scared of anything and she seemed pretty sure that she was the center of the universe, rightly so; because in Todd’s eyes, she was.
"When will be able to get the boat out of dry dock?"
"We’ll get it out after Christmas."
"It’ll be cold then, we won’t be able to take it out!"
"Yeah, we will. It doesn’t get cold and snow in St. Thomas. It’ll be nice enough to go boating as soon as we get it out."
"Do you mean that it won’t snow at Christmas?"
"Nope, it never snows here."
"Not even at Christmas?"
"Not even at Christmas. It stays warm all year round, just like it is now. We just put the boat in dry dock because the rainy season starts soon and the storms could damage the boat."
"Are they bad storms?"
"Sometimes, mommy has been through lots of them. She grew up in Florida and it’s not very far away. Do you remember how you had snow days in Llanview last winter; when you couldn’t go to school because of too much snow and ice? In St. Thomas, I think that they have storm days, they get pretty bad sometimes, but our house is strong; it’s seen lots of storms."
"Storms scare me, daddy."
"I know, but me and mommy will keep you safe."
"I know." Starr climbed down off of his lap and disappeared into the galley to get the lunch that Blair had packed for them.
# 49
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