#Chapter 63 – Everything According to Plan

“I didn’t mean it,” Amelia gasps, looking down at Ian and tugging his arm to pull him to his feet.

“Owwww!” Ian shouts, howling even louder.

“Just leave him!” Victor says, shooting her a dirty look and crouching down beside his boy. “Are you okay, Ian?”

“My shoulder,” Ian sniffs, “it really hurts.”

“Can you sit up?” Victor gently helps him into a sitting position and then gently probes his right shoulder with his fingers. “Yeah, it’s dislocated, buddy. I’m going to pop it back in, but it’s going to hurt a little. Can you be brave?”

Ian sniffs but nods his head. Victor takes a moment positioning the arm and then gives it a sharp yank. Ian howls louder for a moment and then tests his arm, smiling. “Okay,” he says. “That feels better.”

“You have to go gentle with it,” Victor says, turning his attention to the cut on Ian’s arm. “It’s going to be sore for a couple of days. Come on, let’s go get a Band-Aid on this cut.”

As Victor stands up, he gives Amelia a dirty look.

“It was an accident,” she insists, stomping her foot, her face pale and grave. “He jumped at me – he was flying through the air! Stalking me, like I was his prey!”

“He was just playing around,” Victor says, his voice cold. “You have to communicate to him that he’s going too far, not just knock him around.”

“I didn’t have a chance –“ she insists.

“You dislocated his shoulder, Amelia,” Victor says, raising his voice and ending the debate. “I think there’s room to say that there was another solution to the problem.” With that, he turns, pointing Ian towards the bathroom.

Amelia watches them go, frustration and anger boiling over in her, tears filling up her eyes.

“It’s okay, Amelia,” Alvin says, wrapping his arms around her leg and smiling up at her. “You didn’t mean it.”

snaps, shaking her leg to dislodge the boy. She can’t take being touched right now,

Amelia jumps at the sound. Though she barely moved her leg, Alvin falls away from her – directly into the sharp debris left by the broken glass. Alvin falls hard on his rump, his hands going directly into the shards as he

Ian spin back, taking in the scene – Amelia shocked, Alvin sitting in the glass, crying, staring at his hands which prick red

serious, Amelia?” He

whimpers, staring up at her with a betrayed

didn’t –“ Amelia

inches from her. “I will not let you touch my sons, let you hurt them like this. Shoving a little boy who was just trying to comfort you

to tremble, hardly able to figure out what just

up his son, who wraps his arms around Victor’s neck, careful to keep his hands free. “Come on, buddy,” Victor says gently to Alvin.

go, Alvin picks his teary face up off of Victor’s shoulder and looks directly back at Amelia, giving

more subdued than it was earlier, but Victor doesn’t mind. He’s exhausted now – exhausted with frustration, and anger, and disappointment in Amelia. How could she behave like this, with his children,

how she treats two little boys just trying to play with her, to comfort her, how was she going

waiting on the counter.

He needs a

ice cream sit, Victor heads for the bar in the corner and grabs the decanter of whiskey, pouring himself a big serving in his favorite cut-glass

back door. “I’ll be back inside in a minute, boys,”

don’t respond, except for one small bandaged hand popping up

heads out

the pool, letting the cool air and the whiskey

Amelia and the boys, Victor thinks, the more I

apart, hardly ever out of bed. It had seemed like their lives were so aligned.

chic, sophisticated. And life with kids…it wasn’t always that. It

suddenly finds himself thinking. A great mom, but also clever,

not to let his thoughts go any further.

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