Lifetime Risk

by MEGAN MATTHEWS

  Nate shrugs again but eventually lifts his attention and answers. “Ridge put together a new team of guys and asked for my help.”

  Ridge must be an important guy if he can ask and people move to a little town in Maine to work for him.

  “Why did you move to Pelican Bay?” he parrots one of my questions back at me.

  “Divorce and a fresh start. I took a job as an administrative assistant with the city in Clearwater.”

  “Where is your family?” Nate’s as good of an interrogator as I am.

  I’m much better at answering. “Bangor with my ex.”

  “You don’t miss them?” he asks.

  My attention falls, not sure how to answer his question, and I notice his laptop looks like mine. Although I guess most laptops are black. “Bangor isn’t that far away. I still see them.” Unfortunately.

  I love my family, but my mother has a serious case of “I told you so” syndrome that I’m happy to be away from most days. She never liked Barry and hasn’t wasted an opportunity to remind me of the fact now that we’re not married.

  “Are you planning to buy a house here?”

  “Possibly?” That’s a weird question. “Why?”

  Nate spins the laptop around and on the screen are the images of a house I’d been looking at a few hours before the accident.

  “Hey! That’s my laptop.” And my house. I hadn’t gotten the chance to even set up a second showing yet and now with unknown medical bills, the house-buying prospect is fading away. But still, laptops are private. I’m not ready to share my dreams with Nate.

  He pulls the computer back to his side of the table. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I checked my email.”

  “But you didn’t just check your email. You snooped through my stuff.”

  “It was open in the browser.” He laughs, but I don’t find it funny at all.

  Emma cries, upset by my raised voice, and I stand up quickly to grab her without considering my hurt ankle. My knee hits the underside of the table and pain shoots up from my foot.

  “Owww,” I cry before sitting down hard.

  Nate leaps from his chair coming to my side. His hands rest on my shoulders as I breathe trying to get the pain under control. “You need to be on the couch propping up your ankle.”

  “But Emma,” I protest as he tries to help me stand.

  “Let me take care of you. Then I’ll get her.” His voice is soft and full of wonderful promises, but he’s clueless on what he’s volunteering himself for when it comes to Emma.

  Boredom kicks itself into high gear about two hours later as I contemplate counting the number of speckles on my apartment’s tiled ceiling. I’m not great at sitting still and doing nothing, which is what a serious sprain requires you to do. Thankfully, the doctors promised it at least wasn’t a break. But a sprain is still a sprain, and until I’m able to get around better without searing pain shooting up my leg, I’m on desk duty.

  Except desk duty is the couch in my living room with my foot propped up on a pillow over the coffee table. I hate being helpless. Yes, I agree with the doctors about being glad it wasn’t broken. A twisted knee and sprained ankle are better than a break, but it’s still a nuisance. He said a full two weeks off it, but by then the Disney Jr. theme song will cause me to lose my mind.

  I also don’t like the fact that practically a stranger — the same one who hit me with a truck — is watching my child play with blocks on the floor. He was the one to chase after her the last time the toilet flushed when neither of us were using the room, and most recently he ran off to figure out why it was so quiet in the hallway before he could drop off the laptop. At least if I had my laptop I could work.

  I need the money, but I’m also concerned about my job. The Environmental Quality Office in Clearwater is understaffed at the moment, and the more work I get done from my couch the better. I don’t have enough hours at my part-time job to qualify for FMLA, and my inability to make it to the office for the next two weeks — until I get better at getting myself around — means I’m back to living off my savings account.

  When I left Barry, I promised myself I’d never depend on someone else again, but that’s what I am right now. At Barry’s urging, I’d quit my job when I gave birth to Emma and believed all his lies about taking care of me for the rest of my life. It was such a wonderful idea—one I wanted so badly to be true.

  There’s a knock on the front door, the sound echoing from the living room of my apartment. The problem is, everything echoes in this apartment and half the time I get up to answer the door, it’s someone knocking on a neighbor’s door. Then I looked like the weirdo spying on everyone else in my hallway.

  “Nate,” I yell, hopeful it’ll be him wasting his time going to check.

  Hey, if he’s here at my disposal I might as well use him. He hit me with his truck after all.

  He doesn’t answer. The last sound I heard from the hallway was the giggles of a two-year-old who figured out she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Fear refused to let me ask what she’d done now.

  The knock comes again and this time it’s obviously from my apartment when the door rattles against the frame. With more effort than it should require, I find my crutches and plop my leg down from the pillow, making my way from the couch. It better be worth it. Like a huge ass box from Amazon with buckets of cash.

  Except when I open the door, I’m met face-to-face with the last person I want to see. Now that I’m not madly in love with him, it’s easy to see his flaws. Nose too big for his face, the balding spot on the back of his head, which I can’t see from my angle but is there, and eyebrows that if he doesn’t get ahold of them soon, he’ll resemble a fuzzy caterpillar at a rave within the next five years.

  “Barry.” I try to greet him like you would greet anyone you’ve known for a lifetime but hate in the most abrasive way. However, I’m only able to pull off irritated. It’s been a long day.

  He takes a step into my apartment, his eyes on the boot covering my foot. “Josie, I heard the news, but wasn’t sure it was true.” His cologne, old man spice, fills the area around him. How did I once find it attractive? Nate has his own woods smell, like he sleeps with pine trees, and while I’ve never been a woods girl, I’d sniff him all day.

  “What news is that?” My mind fills with lots of newsworthy bits he might have heard. How much I can’t stand looking at him. How I hate he’s breathing my air. Or that I’ve envisioned it was him being hit by a truck more times than is legal. I mean seriously, how is it he’s the one who cheats, but I’m the one hit by a truck? Karma really is a bitch.

  “Your Aunt Millie called and said you had an accident. Almost broke your ankle.”

  Oh, he’s here about that news. Damn Aunt Millie. She was the one person on my side of the family who liked Barry. I always wondered if she’d flip and provide information for him. There was no other explanation for how he found out where Emma and I moved after first coming to Pelican Bay. I had to tell him eventually, only he showed up to inspect our new apartment and double check for safety the day we moved. I realized at that point I had a mole in the family.

  “Yes, I hurt my ankle, but I’m not dead if that’s what you hoped. You could have called rather than drive all the way here.”

  He sighs, rolling his eyes to the ceiling in a move that has pissed me off since we started dating. He’s a teenager who was playing house with me but hasn’t had the time to grow up yet. “Contrary to how you may feel about me, Josie, I don’t wish you any ill will. I want what’s best for our daughter.”

  “Yes, but the problem is Barry, you believe that is with you and not her mother where she belongs.”

  “I’m concerned about you and your health. If it’s a bad sprain, you need to be resting. Do you have someone here to help you?”

  If it is hurt? Did he just say that if it really is a bad sprain? Like I would fake a sprain. I don’t get how you can be married to someone for so long and share a bed with th
em, yet know so little about that person.

  How is it somebody who promised to love you for a lifetime gets wrapped up with the nanny and throws all your happiness away?

  That’s not quite true. Is it? Because his happiness wasn’t thrown away. He just tossed mine in the garbage. In Barry’s world he traded up for more happiness. I was last year’s American Girl doll, the one who wears colonial American dress rags. And Lindsey is the newest version with a cute little sequin dress from the 1920s, happily living in the Jazz Era before the depression hits.

  “How do you plan to take care of Emma?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “The same way I have every day since she was born.”

  Like having a sprained ankle makes me incapable of taking care of my child.

  “It can’t be easy and I’m sure the hospital gave you pain meds. I don’t like you in this apartment alone with Emma while you’re taking drugs.” His words make me sound like I’m a drug addict getting hopped up in the bathroom.

  My skin heats as anger builds, and even though I shouldn’t, I picture Nate’s big black truck running him down as I watch from the sidelines. Oh no, Barry. Watch out…. Not. I’d at least pretend to be upset.

  For Emma’s sake.

  “I’m fine, as you can see.”

  Of course, just my luck, my balance takes a hit as I stand back up trying to let Barry see I’m fine taking care of myself. Thankfully I don’t fall over on my ass and I’m able to regain my balance without my crutches. It requires me to take one small step back and I grimace through the pain.

  “See?” Just from his smug face he thinks he’s already won. “I’ll take Emma off your hands until you’re better. There’s no way you can take care of her by yourself. Lindsey will be more suited.”

  My mouth falls open in shock. Was he always this rude and callous, or is it a new trait he picked up since our divorce?

  “How dare you imply that I’m incapable of taking care of our child? Is Lindsey still babysitting as her main source of income? Is that why you think she’d be so much better because she has experience? Which other daddies do you think she’s having affairs with?”

  Barry narrows his eyes in my direction. These are all insults we’ve used before, during, and after the divorce. “Lindsey is putting herself through school.”

  I’m sure she’s is, except now her tuition payments come from what used to be my joint checking account.

  “Well, how will she be able to take care of Emma if she’s so busy studying human anatomy?” We all know whose anatomy she was studying not that long ago.

  “Stop being ridiculous, Josie. The point remains the same. You cannot care for Emma alone in this apartment. You can either hand her over now with less trauma or I will get a judge involved.”

  Those words are enough to take my anger from pissed off to straight through the roof — the level of angry a woman can only express through tears and sometimes throwing things. How was I ever attracted to this man? I also drank cheap Boones Farm wine in my twenties. My standards were clearly much lower.

  My fists clench and I inwardly swear at my eyes not to shed a tear. I refuse to let him see how he continues to hurt me. Because Barry is so sure of himself and his superiority, he would get a judge involved. And by the time it would take to drag it all out and get a court day, I’ll be healed, but between the court costs and the stress it would all take its toll. And he knows it.

  When it comes down to it, money always wins and the one thing Barry has a lot of is money.

  “Josie, you didn’t tell me it was Barry’s day to pick Emma up.” Nate’s booming voice carries from the hallway. It’s not that he speaks rudely or harshly, but simply with authority. He so sure of every word he says.

  I turn, just enough to not knock myself over on the crutches, and wipe away a tear while facing the other direction. He stands just at the start of the living room, Emma safely tucked between his arms. Her hair is lopsided and floppy, but she has a smile on her face and Nate ignores her attempts to bash his collarbone in with the oversized LEGO building block. For his part he doesn’t seem fazed in the least even as his neck where she hits turns red.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Barry asks.

  I twist back to him. “Don’t swear in front of Emma.”

  “I’m Nate,” my brown-eyed savior says, stepping closer and attempting to put a hand around my shoulder. But the way I move my crutches makes for an awkward pose and he soon gives up on the embrace.

  “And what are you doing in my wife’s apartment?”

  My eyes widen and my body goes stiff. “Ex-wife,” I say with as much of venom as possible. He doesn’t get to tote a wife and a girlfriend too. Not anymore.

  If possible, Nate’s smile widens, and he bounces Emma on his hip. “I’m here helping until Josie is back on her feet.”

  “That’s very nice of you, I’m sure,” Barry says. “I don’t like it when people try to use my daughter to get in her mother’s pants.”

  I gasp, not because he’s so blunt, but because isn’t that what he used our daughter for when he started screwing the nanny? Plus, Nate hasn’t even seen my underpants.

  Nate leans in a little closer, almost like he’s about to whisper something to Barry, but he ends up saying it loudly enough I have no problem hearing. “That’s why I’ve got muscles, mate.” He looks at the flabby skin on Barry’s arms and dramatically cringes before Emma hits him again with the LEGO block.

  I laugh and pinch my lips together before I’m caught. Barry is proud of himself and if you upset him too much, he’ll make my life horrible.

  “Emma has daycare for when you go to work. Right?” Barry asks. Funny how he remembers the daycare I use now when a few minutes ago I was incapable of taking care of Emma. As a new mother, I said I’d never put my child in daycare, so I hired a trained nanny to come to our home whenever I had an appointment or afternoon with my mother. Now I realize what a horrible decision that was, and I plopped Emma in the largest daycare center it in the county. She’s had every sickness known to man, but I figure it’s prepping her immune system for when she goes to school in a few years.

  “Daycare? How can I let my girlfriend’s child go to daycare when I’m capable of taking care of both of them? Plus, with Josie unable to work she’ll be missing a paycheck, something I’m sure you, as a concerned father, care about and want to open up the checkbook and help with the extra expenses.” Nate ends his short speech with a knowing smile and my heart blossoms for the man who a few hours ago I worried had a criminal record.

  Barry and I both stand looking at him with our mouths open. Me because I can’t believe he called me his girlfriend. He’s doing it for shock value because that’s something he should ask for approval on in advance.

  “Well, um, things haven’t been great at the firm, but I can slip you extra grocery money. I can keep a record and make the courts take it out of future child support checks once you’re back on your feet,” Barry stumbles over himself getting all the words out.

  This time it’s my turn to roll my eyes. I may hate the trait, but I picked it up from him. “Don’t worry about it. I hate to put you and Lindsey out. I have money saved.”

  His face reddens because we both know all the money came from with the generous divorce settlement my amazing lawyer was able to get me. I may have been sad about my divorce, but I wasn’t stupid.

  Emma rests peacefully. Her little head with her hair rumpled across the pillow looks quiet and serene. When she sleeps, there’s no evidence of the terror she possesses through her waking hours. She’s like a little angel. I give her a quick kiss on the top of her head and then spend another minute trying to memorize this exact scene as I lean against the doorjamb.

  When I turn into the hallway, my steps squash in the wet carpet. There’s a clang and I hurry to close her door so the noise from the bathroom doesn’t wake her.

  Most of Nate’s body blocks the view into the bathroom where he watches the maintena
nce man with his hands down the pipe. I hope the apartment complex pays their maintenance crew a lot. With a swish and squeak of rushing water, his hand comes up, his wrist wrapped in fake blonde doll hair.

  “This looks to be the problem,” he says staring in disgust at the doll. “You shouldn’t try to flush things like this.” He looks past Nate and makes eye contact with me, like I’m the one who flushed the head of a doll down the toilet. I don’t plan to ask where the rest of her went.

  Nate turns noticing my presence. “I’m sure it was an accident,” he says, smiling as if he too wants to blame this on me.

  The maintenance guy — whose name I still haven’t learned — dumps the doll in the trash and I make a mental note to throw it away in the dumpster tonight. If Emma sees it, I’ll never get it away from her until she flushes it again. The rest of the cleanup goes quickly as he reattaches the toilet and uses one of my nice brand-new bathroom towels to dry his hands of the toilet water.

  A large fan at the end of the hallway spins on high, working to dry the carpets, but the evaporation is cold and before long I’m forced to leave the area so the cool air doesn’t give me goosebumps.

  The couch is a welcome haven when I truck my way to it and plop my foot back on the pillow, which has been stationed at the coffee table all day. It’s barely 8 o’clock, but it feels as if today I’ve lived a lifetime. They say the days are long, but the years are short. It’s a bunch of bullshit if you ask me. The days are long and a few of them longer than others, aging us enough for an entire year. Barry and I planned for four children before things went to crap right after having Emma. I planned to get pregnant right after her first birthday, but our happy marriage never made it that far. Looking at the current state of my home, it may have been a blessing.

  What if Barry is right and I can’t take care of Emma as well as he could? It’s the pain from my ankle and the exhaustion from the day talking, but he has a point. My shit isn’t together when I’m 100 percent healthy. I wouldn’t have been hurt if she hadn’t gotten out of my grasp and run in the middle of the parking lot. What mother lets her child almost get hit by a truck?