Chapter 3: Chapter Three

It wasn't quite that. In the middle of the week, the two women got together at Ava's place, and by the time six o'clock rolled around, she was completely prepared to receive her guest.

Well, perhaps the house could have been a bit cleaner, but cleaning definitely wasn't her thing, although she'd done what she could the past several nights. One of the nice things about getting out of work so early was that she had a lot of time at the end of the day to clean or do last minute things and cook before Sheila arrived.

By the time she heard the knock at the door, April had already been fed and bathed and was just waiting to be put down. Ava answered the door with her on her hip, and the first thing Sheila did was reach for her. "Mmm, come here! I need some of that clean baby smell!"

She held her the entire time Ava was fussing with the last bits of dinner and even volunteered to put the baby to bed. Ava could hear her talking to the little girl the entire time, reading her a couple of stories, and then putting her to bed.

When Sheila reappeared, dinner was already on the table.

"Oh, my word! This looks delicious!"

"Thank you!"

They took their seats and dug in to the family style meal Ava had made—stuffed peppers, garlic roasted green beans, garlic bread, and cheesy potato casserole. Sheila took one bite of the potatoes and leaned over to put her hand on Ava's arm and say, in all seriousness, "Will you marry me?"

Ava giggled at that.

"I swear, I adore my Jack, but he would never have gotten dinner on the table for me while I was putting the kids down. I did it for him, of course, but I don't think the impulse to reciprocate would ever have even crossed his mind."

"No division of labor in your house?"

"Lots of division, no labor," Sheila replied sarcastically. Then she had to backtrack. "That's wrong, that's wrong. It's the usual division—he does the outside, I do the inside. Which means that, when it's winter, he does nothing, maybe a little shoveling in the morning, but maybe once or twice a year. That does not count, since I do literally everything else, year-round. Like I said, it would never enter his head that he should offer to cook or do the laundry or vacuum. You'd think he was physically incapable of doing any of that stuff."

They did a lot of laughing and talking all through dinner, until they adjourned to the living room, where they were enjoying coffee and homemade tiramisu.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help clean up?"

She'd already offered multiple times, even as she'd brought her own plate as well as Ava's into the small galley kitchen.

"No, thanks. I clean as I go, so there's not much other than the dinner dishes, and those'll go into the dishwasher and be done overnight."

"Well, if you're sure."

"I am, but thanks for the offer."

"That's it. I'm divorcing Jack," Sheila declared upon tasting the dessert.

"Well, I have to warn you that I spent two days making this place slightly—but not really—presentable. I'm a slob, too."

"Yeah, but you're a slob who can cook and take care of a baby. I'd even volunteer to do yard work—which I hate—if you'd just do that."

"Then I accept your proposal. Who's wearing the wedding dress, or are we both?"

A little later in the conversation, she came out with, "So. How did your date with Kurt go if you don't mind my asking—and even if you do?"

Ava laughed. "It went well, I think. We're going out again this weekend."

"That's right. I get to babysit for her again."

"Yes, and thank you so much for doing that, but I really wish you'd let me pay you."

Sheila shook her head. "Uh uh. No way. I'm so glad to see Kurt dating again that I should be paying you. And I am perfectly, utterly serious when I say that you are welcome to bring her to me any time you might need to, especially if you're going out with the lieutenant, but even if you just need some time off from being a parent for a while. I have to say that I really admire what you're doing."

Ava blushed. "I'm just doing what I said I would."

"Even so, there are plenty of people who would have just handed April over to the state."

"Thank you." She didn't know what else to say.

Then Sheila put her empty plate down on the end table and looked at Ava with no trace of humor on her face. "I had an ulterior motive in asking if you'd get together with me, you see."

"You did?" She tried not to sound too suspicious but wasn't sure if she'd pulled it off.

"Yes." The other woman fiddled with the tassel on the throw pillow next to her. "Did Kurt tell you anything about his past at all?"

She frowned. "Come to think of it, no, he didn't. I didn't notice it at the time, though."

"He's a smooth talker, that one. I bet he got you talking about yourself more than he talked about himself."

"Yes, he definitely did that, " Ava agreed. "But it was so nice to be with a man who asked about me and actually listened to my answers, and then he asked thoughtful questions that let me know that he'd heard me. It's like finding a unicorn."

"Yeah, that's Kurt all over."

"But?" Ava asked, wondering what the other woman wasn't telling her.

"Well, I am going to tell you a tale out of school, and I would bet that Kurt isn't going to be all that happy with me doing so, but I want you to be forewarned about him."

"Uh oh. That doesn't sound good."

"No, no. Then I said it wrong. There's nothing wrong with him. In fact, he was a model husband and father."

Ava looked surprised, since this was the first she was hearing of that. "He was?"

"Yeah. I'm not surprised that he didn't mention it to you." She adjusted her seat a bit, and Ava got the idea that what she was going to say was going to be very important—to her and to Kurt. "He was married until about five years ago, to a wonderful woman named Maureen, and they had a gorgeous little girl named Hannah."

Ava swallowed hard. She had a million questions, but she didn't want to interrupt the flow of what Sheila was saying. She had a feeling that it wasn't easy for the other woman to say this to her.

"I have never in my life seen any man as much in love with his woman as Kurt was with Maureen, and I include Jack in that reckoning, too. Maureen was his everything, and when the baby came along, well, there just wasn't enough time in the day for him to spend with his little family. He'd always loved kids, but his little girl was the light of his world. He worked his ass off to make sure they both had everything they ever wanted or needed. And the feeling was mutual. Maureen adored him and their baby. They were disgustingly happy. Everyone around them was jealous as hell, but then, they were so nice that you couldn't come anywhere near hating them, you know?"

She found herself tensing, already realizing that she might well not want to know where this was going to lead, although she nodded at Sheila—half wishing she'd continue, half wishing she'd stop.

As if she knew how uneasy Ava was feeling, Sheila's eyes—eyes that already had a sheen of tears in them—met hers. "You know how I-25 gets slick in the rain, especially during the summer, when it's an absolute downpour?"

"Yes," Ava whispered, gripping the arms of her chair.

"Well," Sheila began again, looking down at the hands in her lap. "There was a storm late at night at the end of July. Kurt was working an overtime shift, and Maureen had taken Hannah up to her parents' place in Rio Rancho, north of the city."

Ava closed her eyes, wishing she could close her ears, too.

"She was driving home at night, during what became a deluge." Each word was painfully extracted from the poor older woman. "A drunk driver clipped her from behind, and she hydroplaned into another car, then off the road, flipping over several times."

"Jesus H. Christ," Ava breathed.

"Yes. By the time the EMTs got there, there was nothing they could do. Kurt heard about it and came racing to the scene, just in time to see first, the baby, then Maureen draw their last breaths."

"Oh my God." Ava's chest felt painfully constricted, as if she couldn't get enough air, and her eyes filled with tears, too, as Sheila's overflowed with them.

Sheila struggled to regain her composure as Ava offered the box of Kleenex to her then took one herself. As they both wept softly, Ava took Sheila's hand and held it tightly when she began to speak again. "He went a little crazy after that. The department gave him as much time off as he wanted, of course, but he didn't take long at all—he couldn't even have begun processing his grief. He came back only a few days after their funeral—he buried them together—because he wanted to be busy." She blew her nose, dried her cheeks, and continued. "And from that moment on, he's not been able to tolerate being around children—babies in particular—but any little kid, especially a girl. Those who partnered with him knew that they were going to have to be the ones who did that. He'd do any other shit job, just to avoid coming in contact with a baby or a little kid."

Ava nodded. "I'd noticed that about him and April."

"I don't know if you heard it or not, but I warned him that day you came into the office to let him know that you had a baby with you. But there was no one else there who could talk to you, and I knew Zapata was dodging you, and I didn't want to put you off again. I have to say that I was really surprised when he decided to talk to you, though. I thought he'd just flat out refuse."

"I'm glad he didn't, in a way, but it must've been torture for him."

Sheila nodded.

"He's—he actively avoids her when she's around him. He doesn't look at her or react to her. Nothing. It's as if she isn't there."

"Yeah, I thought you might have seen that, and I wanted to explain his behavior to you, since you're now April's mother." She caught the younger woman's eye. "You're the first woman he's shown any amount of interest in in more than five years. When he called to ask me if I'd watch the baby for you, Jack had to pick me up off the floor. I would have done it even if I had to get up off my deathbed."

"He mentioned it had been a while." She rubbed her thigh as if it ached when it didn't, out of force of habit. "It's been a while for me, too, although not for that reason."

Sheila took a deep breath. "Well, you're under no obligation to tell me your story, of course, but if you ever feel like you want to talk about it, I'm here. I'd love to become friends if you're interested—regardless of whatever happens with you and Kurt."

Ava met Sheila's eyes and gave her a watery smile. "I would like that, too."

"And if you should confide in me, I promise that I won't say anything to Kurt. I don't want you to think I go around betraying my friends' confidences. But I thought you deserved an explanation for what you must have seen as his unusual behavior towards April, and, frankly, I didn't want you to let it discourage you from dating him."

"I really appreciate you telling me. I don't know if it's going to help a lot—knowing that about him. I mean, April is now a part of my life, and if he can't stand to be around her, I'm not sure that this is going to work out between us."

"Please give him a chance, though. Really. Like I said, you're the only woman he's asked out in a very long time. Be patient with him. I think it means a lot that he's dating you even though he knows you have a baby."

"Yes, but maybe I'm just the first."

Sheila nodded. "I don't know. He might be built and reasonably good looking, and he used to wear a uniform, which a lot of woman find hot, but even then, he was never the Casanova type. He found the woman he wanted and was very happy to settle down with her and build a family. If he'd been an asshole, this might have been a bit easier."

"Well, thank you for telling me, anyway. You've answered a lot of my questions."

"I'm not surprised that he didn't. He's a very private man, and this is a very deep wound."

"Of course, it is."

"All I would ask of you is that if you're interested in him at all, you give him some time to make some… adjustments."

Ava said exactly what was on her mind. "Well, it's too new for me to tell that. But it would be really hard to have to work around his aversion to the baby. I'm not at all sure I'm willing to do that."

"Maybe that answer will become clearer to you as you get to know him."

"Yeah. I've already told him that, because of my past experiences, we're going to be taking this very slowly."

"I'm glad. He's not the love 'em and leave 'em type, anyway."

"Yes, well, the men in my recent past haven't been much on the loving part, anyway."

Sheila leaned forward and patted Ava's hand. "I'm sorry for that. But Kurt's not like that." Then she seemed to reconsider and said, "Well, I guess all I can really say for sure is that he didn't used to be like that. But I can't think that all of a sudden, he's going to be callus and uncaring. He may be gruff and bristly at times, but he's still dealing with a lot of pain. But I don't think his character has changed that much. And he certainly didn't do what so many widowers do."

Ava's brows drew together in confusion. "What's that?"

"Get married six months later—or less—to whoever is available at the time, because they can't stand to be alone."

"Oh."

"Anyway, I didn't mean to take up your whole night."

"I enjoyed it and thank you very much for telling me."

"I did too—very much—the food and the company."

Ava saw Sheila to the door, where the woman gave her a quick hug, which startled Ava a bit, and Sheila noticed it. "Sorry. I come from a family of huggers."

"No, that's fine." It was her turn to have her eyes fill with tears. "Teara and I hugged all the time."

"I'm sure you were a wonderful friend to her, especially because of what you're doing for that little girl in there." She hugged her again before saying as she ducked out the door, "We'll get together again—maybe sometime this weekend?"

"Sounds great!"

As she rinsed and put the dishes into the dishwasher then cleaned off the counters and put everything away, Ava couldn't help but think about what she'd learned about Kurt this evening.

It was mind-boggling, but it also answered a lot of questions she'd had about his reaction to the baby. She couldn't imagine how horrible that must've been for him, and she felt badly about how she'd thought it was a bit of a red flag when he'd mentioned that it had been quite a while since he'd dated, but how was she to know?

She turned off the lights and headed for bed, visions of him dancing in her head. Ava wondered if his unusual situation was a bit more than she needed to take on at this point in her life, considering what else she was already taking on unexpectedly.

It would have been an entirely different thing if April wasn't in the picture. It would have been a consideration, yes, but becoming April's guardian—when he couldn't stand to be around children—made it a huge deal. What was she supposed to do, pretend that she didn't have her? Tuck her away from him at a babysitter every time they went out on a date? That didn't seem practical or realistic. If he was just an average guy, she'd expect him to get to know April and want to spend time with the both of them, or that would have been the end of it.

But this was a very special circumstance, and she already liked him quite a lot, despite the fact that he sometimes set off alarm bells in her head. They weren't at all the same kind as what she used to get—and ignore—from Jeff. And some parts of her were already in love with him, if the condition of her panties was anything to go by, anytime she was near him.