Our Options Have Changed: On Hold Series Book #1

by Julia Kent

  Like a Beacon Hill nanny, but older.

  Except she doesn’t sleep.

  She scowls, she spits out her binky, she wrestles with her blankets. She is dissatisfied. She makes threatening sounds.

  Determined, I keep walking. Through the Gardens, past the Skating Pond, over to Charles Street. Past the antiques dealers and the cafes. I’m about to give up and head toward the Red Line stop when I realize I’m about two blocks from Nick’s.

  Is dropping in cool?

  At his house, I could change her diaper, refill my water bottle, warm up for ten minutes.

  Okay, let’s be honest. I can do all those things in a coffee shop. I just want to see him.

  This is so high school.

  I turn onto his street, which climbs steeply uphill. The sidewalks here are antique brick, charming but so uneven that I can barely push the stroller forward. Holly is being rocked wildly from side to side. Finally I resort to walking backwards and dragging the stroller up after me. Here’s a plus: I definitely do not need to work out after this.

  Finally the street levels off a bit. I check Holly.

  Sound asleep. Go figure.

  Well, I’m here now, in front of Nick’s townhouse. After the trip up the hill, I don’t really need to warm up anymore—in fact, I am sweating profusely—but at least I can see Nick. I pull the elastic out of my ponytail and re-tie it as best I can without a brush. Before Holly, I never would have left the house without lipstick. I feel in my jacket pocket, and yes! I find a tube. I pull it out. ChapStick.

  And yet, tucked into the pockets of the stroller are diapers, wipes, Balmex, bottles of formula, an extra binky, pajamas, a sweater, sun lotion, and a bottle of baby ibuprofen drops. Enough baby supplies to last a week.

  I ring the doorbell, and keep jiggling the stroller. My nose starts to run from the chilly air, and I am wiping it with a tissue when I hear the clicking and scraping of locks being turned from the inside. My heart beats a little faster.

  The door swings in, and there stands a woman so perfect in every respect, I wonder if it might be Siri. She is wearing an ivory tweed suit and lots of pearls, and if that sounds boring, trust me, it isn’t. Looks like Chanel. Her dark brown hair is pinned up in a smooth twist.

  She’s not smiling.

  “Oui?” French Siri says.

  “Uh,” I reply.

  “Is it the recycle, or the whales?” she asks impatiently. “Where must I sign?”

  “Um. Is, um, is Nick here?”

  She looks at me closely now. Her glance falls on the stroller and her eyes narrow.

  “And you are?”

  I hesitate. “Chloe?” Even I’m not sure anymore.

  “I will see if my husband can come to the door,” she says coldly. Or maybe it’s just the French accent. I really can’t tell. “He is busy with our children. Un moment.”

  The door slams shut. As I regard the brass knocker, I hear her muffled voice, “Nicolas!” and then an angry flood of French words, from which I can make out only a bit, but did she just ask him if he was properly dressed?

  Oh, god. I’ve been so stupid.

  Again.

  I turn away from the door, and as I do, my jacket catches on the railing post. There’s a tearing sound, but I can’t stop. I untangle my jacket, kick off the stroller’s brake pedals, and go back in the direction from which I came.

  Downhill is easier.

  At the bottom of the street, I turn right towards the T station.

  Really there’s not a thought in my head. There is a huge, heavy pain in my chest, but not a single thought in my head. The sidewalks are crowded with shoppers, all the urbanites who have been cooped up in their apartments and are now out for air. They are slowing me down considerably. Holly sleeps on, oblivious. Every once in a while her binky quivers as she sucks automatically, dreaming of milk and clouds and happy mommies.

  There are noises behind me, a disturbance. A fight, or someone hurt? I glance over my shoulder nervously, and try to pick up speed. Everyplace seems more dangerous these days. I just want to get us home now. Where we can be safe.

  Suddenly the disturbance is right behind me, and I hear “Chloe!” as someone grabs my arm. I pull away, hard, terrified, but it’s Nick yelling “Chloe! Stop!”

  Then I pull away harder.

  He has no coat on, and he’s panting. Wouldn’t you think someone, anyone, would ask if I need help? A woman with a baby being accosted by a frantic man? But no, the crowds just step around us. We get one or two looks of annoyance for blocking the way.

  “What?”

  “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry. Simone is playing some kind of game. You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand all too well, Nick.” My voice is an iceberg. “Go back to your wife.”

  “Ex-wife!” he roars. “Simone is here for Amelie’s concert and she wanted to stay with the kids. It’s the first time she’s ever done this. It’s not what you think!”

  “That’s what you all say,” I hiss, with a bitterness I didn’t know was in me. “Go home to your wife, Nick. Go home to your family.”

  I look down at my little angel.

  “I’ve already got mine.”

  And with that, I walk away.

  Nick

  “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” I roar as I enter my own home, winded from running back, destroyed by the look on Chloe’s face and her final words to me.

  That’s what you all say.

  Jesus. She just lumped me in with that bastard ex of hers. My god.

  I do not care that Simone’s recoiling, physically terrified, her impassive face now expressing nothing but sheer horror at...me.

  At who I am right now. Right here.

  The man she made me become.

  “You told her I’m your husband!” I bellow at Simone, who gives me a look of pleading. “That’s a role you kicked me out of years ago. Get out. Get out of my house now.”

  “Nick, you misunderstand.”

  Funny. I just said that to Chloe. Deep rage makes me feel the need to apologize again. How anemic are those words. I let her go because there was nothing I could do in the moment.

  Nothing I could say to make Chloe stay.

  But I could come back here and right a wrong.

  Simone puts together all the puzzle pieces of her face and suddenly, she’s back to being Simone, pulling on a pearl earring with impatience, as if I’m the one who has transgressed. “I told your little lover that—”

  “I heard every word. I was right behind you. Don’t lie.”

  “How dare you call me a—”

  “Don’t dare me to do anything right now, Simone.”

  Her face goes pale as fresh cream.

  “You will leave. Get a hotel. We’ll tell the kids you needed some space. They won’t question it, because you’ve always needed space.” My temples pound with fury, my breathing still ragged around the edges from sprinting after Chloe, then racing back to get Simone before she could slip out and avoid the confrontation.

  I need this.

  I’ve needed this for years.

  “You do not get to make this my fault, Nick!”

  “I’m not making it your fault, Simone. You did that nicely all on your own.”

  “Chloe – is that her name?—is worth all this?” She titters. “Good for you. Finally acting like a man.” She sniffs. “Nice to see you have it in you.”

  That’s it.

  Gloves off.

  “You do not get to define my maleness, Simone. Not now, not ever. Damn it, you made me feel like less of a man for wanting to be more of a father!”

  She blinks, hard, her elbow covering one breast as she twists her earring, a sure sign of stress in her. She did that exact movement the day she told me she was leaving. Perfect sleeveless dress, perfect lipstick, hair pulled back in a tight knot at the base of her neck, her skin flawless.

  Execution, too. Rejection sounds so impersonal spoken in a second language, as if it’s ju
st another lesson you need to learn. It’s almost pretty.

  “We were young. You—you became obsessed with the children. You stopped paying attention to me, Nick. You were just a roommate suddenly. Up all night with the babies, arguing with me that they couldn’t be left to cry themselves to sleep, telling me that we didn’t need to go out, that the babies needed us more.”

  “Because they did!”

  “And meanwhile, my womanhood withered on the vine. You looked at me like a mother. Not as a desirable woman. Not as a romantic partner.”

  “Because you were a mother! My God, Simone, you gave me the three greatest gifts of my entire life. You gave me my life’s purpose! I loved you even more for that.”

  “I wanted to be your life’s purpose. Can’t you see? I gave you children and you cast me aside as if you were done.” Her eyes flash with indignity, as if my words are weapons designed to hurt, rather than explain.

  She never gave me a chance fifteen years ago.

  This time, I’m taking that chance.

  “No. No, Simone. You can’t re-write history. That is not what happened. I wanted to find deeper love with you by raising those beautiful children. Our children. With you. We were supposed to find even more love by creating them. Not less. You don’t get less from me because they get my love, too. The only way to make that happen is to leave. And you did. You took your love away from me. From them. You don’t get to make me the bad guy here. I didn’t cast you aside. You cast me aside.”

  “Nick, I—”

  “You chose Rolf.”

  “Oh, please, this tired argument? It was a fling, and then—”

  “But long before you chose Rolf, you chose yourself. You showed your true self to me, and I loved it. Loved you. But once you weren’t the center of my world—the only center—you couldn’t handle it. You couldn’t share, could you? You’ll never, ever know what it’s like to have that deeper sense of love, the purity and divine that comes from giving more than you know you can give.”

  The air crackles as if I’d slapped her.

  “How dare you. The children love me.”

  “They do. They love you more than you’ll ever know. They miss you, too, Simone. Miss you deeply. I’m the one who had to make excuses for you for years. Why Maman didn’t visit more. Why she didn’t call. All the didn’ts. Why didn’t Maman this. Why didn’t Maman that....”

  “We talk! I have a good relationship with my children!”

  “Of course you do, because they still crave the love they never got! But you might as well be Aunt Simone. You have a surface level relationship with them, and you’re damn lucky for that. They extend you a courtesy. You chose Rolf over them.”

  Over me.

  “Va te faire voire!”

  “You always shouted that whenever I spoke the truth, Simone.” A bone-weary tiredness begins to replace rage. She’s diminishing before my eyes, all surface, no depth. All shell, no interior. Instead of making herself vulnerable, trying to find a more authentic truth in the past we share, she needs to win.

  “We can’t all be saints like you, Nick.”

  And there it is.

  “Never pretended to be one, Simone. All I am is one man.”

  “All you are is a father.” Her lips curl up in a snarl. A smear of burgundy lipstick mars one cuspid.

  “Is that supposed to be an insult?”

  “It means you’ve chosen not to be whole.”

  “Said by the woman whose sense of self is created by the man she’s with.”

  “Then we’re two of a kind, Nick, because your sense of self comes from being a father.”

  “No. Fatherhood connected me. But it didn’t define me. I define me. No one else can do that.”

  Real fear flickers in her eyes. She drops her hand from her ear, lips tight, nose wide with fury as she snatches her purse off the table by the door.

  “You can explain to the children. Explain to them why I cannot be there today.”

  “Won’t be the first time. I’m a pro at it.”

  Her shocked look quickly turns to utter fury. “You asshole.”

  I deserve that. Doesn’t make my statement untrue.

  “I’ll have them text you. They’re adults. I won’t be your go-between any longer.”

  “You’re really going to ruin this?”

  “This… what?”

  “This chance. I came here to try to re-ignite the spark between us.”

  “I thought you came to support Amelie at her concert.”

  She laughs through her nose, the sound irritatingly painful, like a paper cut. “You are so singular. I can accomplish both with one task.”

  “Task?”

  “Don’t do this, Nick. Don’t analyze my words and give them more meaning than they have.”

  “I’m a task? Your daughter is a task?”

  “I won’t let you do this, Nick.”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel less.”

  “Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”

  She blinks, hard, hope filling her face. “Yes?”

  “Because I won’t let you make me feel like less of person either, Simone.”

  And with that, I leave her alone in my townhouse, walking away, abandoning her.

  Because I know exactly where to find more.

  Chloe

  “It’s not what you think,” he said.

  That’s what they all say.

  I shouldn’t turn around and look, but I do.

  He’s gone.

  The heavy pain in my chest has radiated out to every cell and nerve in my body. My fingernails hurt. My eyelashes ache. I keep moving forward, because what else can I do?

  That’s what they all say. But I thought he was different.

  As we approach the turnstile at the T entrance, I automatically reach in my pocket for the card case where I keep my Charlie card.

  Nothing. The pocket is empty. In fact, my hand goes right through the cloth.

  Shit.

  That ripping sound on the doorstep.

  Now what?

  Oh no no no. Please no. Not a walk of shame all the way back to Nick’s. Not hunting around the front of the house in full view of anyone who might be looking.

  NOT—please NOT—having to knock and borrow cab fare if the card case is not there.

  If it were just me, I could suck it up and walk all the way home. But I can’t do that with Holly. And it’s not just my T pass that’s missing, it’s my driver’s license, my debit card, my O access card. I have to try to find them.

  I turn around. I have no choice.

  The streets are not as crowded, now that lunchtime is over. We make better time. And Holly, my good girl, stays sound asleep. I don’t care if she’s up till midnight, just let her stay asleep now. Has anyone considered nominating the inventor of the binky for a Nobel Peace Prize?

  At the foot of Nick’s street, I pause and pull the hood of my jacket over my head. I’m already wearing sunglasses. This subterfuge will certainly prevent me from being noticed. A panting and disheveled woman hauling an orange Italian baby stroller up a somnolent and otherwise dignified Beacon Hill street is practically invisible, right?

  I take a deep breath. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.

  Summiting the peak, I set the stroller’s brakes and commence my search. Nothing on the steps or the sidewalk. I inspect the ground closer to the house.

  One of the windows above my head is cracked open, just an inch or two. Classic New England style, gotta have fresh air, even in autumn weather. I hear voices inside, but very faintly. That’s good—if they’re in the back of the house, they won’t see me skulking around here. No card case in sight. I’m about to move to the other side of the steps when the voices rapidly get louder.

  I freeze.

  Nick’s voice is cold. “They’re adults. I won’t be your go-between any longer.”

  Then a woman’s voice that can only belong to Simone. “You’re r
eally going to ruin this?”

  I’ve got to get away from here.

  They must be standing right by the window. If I move, I’ll draw their attention.

  If I move, I won’t hear what they’re saying.

  “This… what?”

  “This chance. I came here to re-ignite the spark between us.”

  My stomach turns over.

  “I thought you came to support Amelie at her concert.”

  She laughs. “You are so singular. I can accomplish both with one task.”

  “Task?”

  “Don’t do this, Nick. Don’t analyze my words and give them more meaning than they have.”

  “I’m a task? Your daughter is a task?”

  “I won’t let you do this, Nick.”

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel less.”

  “Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”

  “Yes?”

  “Because I won’t let you make me feel like less of person either, Simone.”

  I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t. But my heart surges in Nick’s favor, as if it’s cheering for him. His voice is tight, full of anger and regret, emotions he’s never shown me, and a tiny piece of me is jealous.

  Jealous that his ex can elicit that kind of reaction from him.

  Why do I want men I can’t have?

  Suddenly the wind rustles a small pile of dead leaves in the corner, and I see a silvery sheen underneath the brown. My card case! I bend down, and just as my fingers close on it, the front door opens fast and slams shut. I look up to see Nick come shooting out the door and down the steps, but he isn’t expecting a baby stroller to be parked directly in his path, and he runs right into it.

  Nick trips, and regains his balance. But the force of his stumbling into the stroller jolted Holly awake. She bellows as he rights the carriage, reflexes kicking in with military precision, the baby never in danger.

  He looks around and sees me. He is completely vulnerable, a thousand emotions flashing through his strong face, a rawness to his movements and expressions I’ve never seen before.

  I hold my breath from the intensity.

  I was wrong.

  I guess I can elicit that kind of reaction in him.