Matthew's Children

Gillian rolled her eyes, as if this was nothing new to her. “I wish you would talk to him.”

“I did. I told him he was grounded for the rest of the week.” He remembered the men’s shoes in her room. “By the way, is your boyfriend staying the night now?”

“What?”

“I saw a pair of men’s dress shoes in your bedroom—”

“You were in my bedroom?”

“I was walking past your bedroom.”

“Whose shoes are on my bedroom floor is none of your business, Matt. Or who is in my bed, for that matter.”

“When it comes to my kids—”

“This has nothing to do with Derrick or Violet.”

“I don’t want strange men spending the night.”

“Bruce doesn’t spend the night, okay? He’s a doctor and he works shifts, and sometimes he needs to shower and change after we’ve gone out.”

His ex was dating a doctor. That stopped Matt cold. Of course, he’d assumed that eventually Gillian would move on with her life. But what bothered him was that his kids had a new man—a permanent man—in their lives.

“How long have you been seeing him?”

“That’s not any of your business, either. I don’t ask you for an accounting of your dating life.”

“Well, maybe you should.” Matthew was about to elaborate, when Derrick walked into the room. As earlier, he headed for the fridge.

“Derrick. Your father tells me you were home late.”

“Yeah. He grounded me,” Derrick said, as if it were some kind of joke.

“I don’t understand why you find that so funny.”

Derrick just shrugged and looked at his mother. Then he grabbed a soda from the fridge and left again.

“That kid,” Matthew muttered. “You better watch that he sticks to the grounding I gave him.”

“Really, Matt. And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Tell him to come straight home after school, that’s how.”

“And when he shows up at six, saying he missed the bus? Or at seven because he had to stay late to work on a school project?”

Matthew wondered how long these problems had been going on. “I guess you’ll have to pick him up after school and drive him home.”

“That easy, huh? And what about Violet? Nursery school ends at three-thirty, the same time Derrick gets out of classes. How am I supposed to be in two places at once?”

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