by Shey Stahl
“Who was at the door?” Emmie asks. She hasn’t left our sides since Friday. It’s been a week since the news. I feel worse than a hot mess. I’m a dumpster fire.
“Neighbor. Another casserole.”
Emmie shuts the door to the fridge after retrieving a diet Coke. “Why can’t they bring something snatched. Like cake pops. Those are lit.”
“Probably because they know I’m going to eat my feelings.” I flip through the life insurance forms. I can’t fathom that here I am, five days from the day, and still unable to comprehend that he’s gone, and I’m referring to him in the past tense.
The days that follow Collin’s death are an absolute blur. My tears fall harder than the words around me. They tell me he died instantly, or within seconds of the impact. He ran off the road, and apparently, his self-driving car couldn’t correct it. It doesn’t really hit me until the viewing at the funeral home. The first time I saw him, the stillness that followed, I don’t think I will ever forget that moment between us. It was as if his arms were wrapped around me, giving me the courage to continue.
I’m given a bag with his belongings and what he had on him at the time.
His briefcase. Wallet. Phone. And… a condom. In his motherfucking wallet.
It sits with me for days. Why’d he have that in there? I’ve been on birth control pills since we had Tatum because I wasn’t anywhere near ready to have another baby. Yet he carried condoms?
Uneasiness had settled into my bones, a bitter taste of betrayal surfacing, and that’s all I had now—the constant nagging feeling that Collin had been cheating on me, but I’ve no way of asking him.
As I’m filling out the paperwork for the life insurance and wading through a mountain of debt we’ve accumulated, I think about the condom in his wallet. It weighs down on my chest, like a crushing sensation I can’t get out from under.
I can’t surface from it, and I don’t recall a single conversation or event since last week. I shut down my shop for three weeks to deal with the nightmare that is my life now. But other than that post on my Instagram page that has close to half a million likes, I haven’t surfaced back to reality. There are bits and pieces that come to mind, but nothing remarkable.
No words that move or comfort. I find in the wake of death, it’s not the ones who offer their condolences but the ones who stand with you in the days that come after that make a difference.
My tribe.
My sister, Sadie, my best friend, Nahla, and Emmie and Tatum. They’re with me, day and night.
I struggled with telling her, but in the comfort of her room at sunrise, I gave her the news. She stared at me with a concentrated expression for several seconds. No words. And then she sighed, tipped her head to the side, and asked, “Daddy had to go to heaven?”
That was the last time she mentioned him. Five days and she’s mentioned him one time. And I haven’t seen her shed a tear yet. It might be because there’s constant commotion in our house, and she not only has me and my tribe waiting on her every demand but maybe she hadn’t been that attached to Collin. It’s sad to say, but between him working long hours and golfing on the weekends, she barely saw him.
Sadie sits next to me and pours herself a glass of wine. “Where’s Tatum?”
“Watching a movie in the family room with Nahla?”
Sadie’s barely twenty-one and in college. She can’t pick a man who treats her right, and has an unhealthy obsession with musicians and Red Bull. With curly red hair (that she dyes blue), she has a million freckles and the most contagious smile I’ve ever seen. “Oh. I made her the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she asked for.”
“I don’t know what my kid is going to do without you guys here every day to wait on her hand and foot.”
“Eh, she has you.” She takes a drink straight from the bottle and winks at me. “Coolest mom ever.”
Suddenly we hear Tatum yell, “Cock!”
My eyes snap to Sadie’s, and we’re locked in a stare before we both burst out laughing. “Her mind is like a steel trap.” I wipe my eyes, tears following, though they’re not from sadness. “I let that slip over a month ago, and she can’t seem to stop saying it this week.”
Sadie stands, taking the bottle of wine with her and the sandwich. “I’m gonna take the little trucker her sandwich.”
AFTER TAKING SOME time to compose myself, which means bawling in the bathroom, I make my way to the living room where the girls are. Sitting next to Tatum, I hug her to my side. She snuggles right into my arms, and I nearly burst into tears. It’s not even that I’m terribly sad over anything that’s happened. I know that might seem heartless of me, but maybe I’m still in shock? Numb? Confused? Now there’s a shitload of adjectives thrown at you.
About an hour into being on the couch with the girls, and most of that bottle of wine, Tatum is asleep on my lap. “Can you refill my wine?” I ask Sadie when she opens a new bottle.
“Sure.” She pours me another glass.
Emmie smiles. “Can I try it?”
“No way, kiddo.” Sadie pulls the wine away. “I don’t corrupt minors.”
I laugh. “Yeah, right.”
Reaching for my empty wineglass, I lean forward, and my hand hits something squishy and wet. At first, I think Tatum’s taken off her pull up and stuffed it in the couch cushions. Moms of toddlers understand this. If they don’t, lucky you.
Pulling out my hand, I find her sandwich from earlier. Tatum loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, in theory. But once you serve it to her, somehow, at least half of it ends up in a couch cushion. She’s like a squirrel, and she’s saving her food for winter. In my couch cushions.
I hold it up, laughing, my cheeks flushed with the alcohol swimming in my veins. “Think she’s saving this for later?”
“Prob—” Sadie’s cut off by another knock at the door. She looks over her shoulder, spills her wine, and then jumps up. “Ha. Only spilled a drop.” Leaning down, she licks it off the coffee table. “No sense in wasting any. I’ll get it.”
While I run my fingers through Tatum’s hair as she sleeps on me, I glance at the door, unable to see who’s there. “At least I know it’s not another death notice,” I tease, trying to make light of my situation.
Nahla shakes her head, pouring herself another glass. “Truth, girl.”
We knock our glasses together, just as Sadie returns with an envelope in hand. “Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Greyson.”
I take the notice from her. Hmmm. And as I open it, I wished I hadn’t. Not only do I have no money and no way of getting into my accounts, it looks like Collin was avoiding another part of our lives he neglected to tell me.
Our home. Do you see what I’m holding there?
Foreclosure notice?
What. The. Fuck?
For the batter: when the count contains more strikes than balls. For the pitcher: vice versa.
CASON
“What took you so long?” I’ve been waiting on Ez to get out of the shower for an hour. How there was enough hot water for that long is a miracle.
Ez moves past me, a bowl of cereal in hand. “Drowning boneless babies in the shower.”
I stare at him and notice what he’s wearing. “What the fuck?”
He makes a jerking off motion and walks past me in a leopard robe. If you’re not 100 percent comfortable with male nudity on a daily basis, do not join a baseball team.
I scratch the side of my head, unsure if I want to ask my next question. “Why are you wearing a robe?”
“Because it’s classy as shit.”
I set the bag of jelly beans I was eating for breakfast on the couch. “No man should ever wear a robe. Ever.”
“Bitch, please.” He makes a tsk sound, his lips pressed into a firm line. “I look good.”
“No, you don’t.” There’s a door slamming outside, so I peek out the window to see his uncle Luca standing outside his dust-covered SUV with a blonde, scared-looking girl. I’ve been sleeping here long enoug
h to know that Luca is about as unstable as Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining. “Dude, what kind of shit is your uncle into? He’s either burying bodies in the desert or bringing them home.” Shit doesn’t add up. He’s got hiking gear everywhere but doesn’t hike. His car is constantly covered in a thick layer of dust, and he’s gone at all hours of the night.
Ez stares out the window with me and the chick getting into the black SUV like some kind of kidnapping gone wrong. “Don’t ask. The less we know, the better.”
“That’s exactly what people who are into shady shit say.” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. “He just shoved that chick into his car.”
With a mouthful of cereal, he quirks an eyebrow out the window. “I think it’s his girlfriend.”
“You think or you know? Last week he had a fucking chicken running around the kitchen.”
“I never said what he did was legal. Stop asking questions. My last roommate did and pissed him off.”
I look around the small house in south Phoenix. It’s pretty far from campus, doesn’t have air conditioning, and smells like weed. Constantly. For two college athletes, that’s a bad thing. “What roommate?”
“Exactly.”
I snort, shaking my head. “I need to find a place to live.”
“I said you could sleep here. Not that it was safe. Yeah, you do. You’re a horrible roommate. Why do you leave your shit everywhere?”
“I don’t.”
He points to the couch and the clothes I have strung out all over the place. “Really?”
I reach down and take my shorts from the kitchen counter where I left them earlier and toss them on the pile of not clean clothes I have next to the TV. A baseball falls to the floor, so I reach down and pick it up. “You’re being dramatic.”
Frowning at the mess, Ez plops himself on the couch, using my pillow to support his head, and he props his arms up and swipes his finger over the screen on his phone. “How do you get kicked out of a college dorm with a full scholarship? That’s next to impossible.”
“I don’t know. Good luck, I suppose.” It’s a long story about how I ended up on Ez’s couch. He’s living with his uncle, who is as scary as the rest of his family. I’m pretty sure I saw him kill a dude last week, though I’m too terrified of him to ask if what I saw was real.
“You need good luck for tonight. Chiasson is gonna have your ass if you don’t pitch good.”
I toss the baseball in my hand from one to the next. The last thing I want is to lose my starting spot to our backup pitcher again. “I know.”
Noticing my bag of jelly beans, he picks it up. “Did you pick out all the butter popcorn ones?”
“Yep.”
“Damn it.” He digs through the bag. “Any cotton candy left?”
“Probably somewhere.” I think about what Ez said and my pitching lately. “I ran into Brie the other night after the game.” As much as I don’t want to admit the sudden pitching slump I’m in, it has everything to do with Brie. Girls can really fuck you over. And it’s always the innocent ones who destroy you because you’re least expecting it. It’s like seeing a short skinny kid come up to bat thinking it’s going to be a base hit, maybe a pop-up, hit short to left field, and they drive one out of the park.
You’re never expecting it, but it happens.
“Oh yeah?” Ez sets his bowl on the coffee table and leans back, adjusting his robe, and continues texting someone.
I sit next to him and stare at the ball in my hand, running my fingertips over the stitching. Baseball got me through a childhood where my mom basically handed me off to anyone willing to watch me. It got me through the death of my best friend when I was seven and through a rough freshman year, but it hasn’t gotten me through this.
Why? Had the game given up on me, or was it back to that old saying my dad told me. Baseball gives you what you deserve, good or bad.
Maybe.
With his attention on his phone, he kicks my leg. “What did she say?”
“Acted all fucking innocent. Gave me some bullshit about loving baseball over her.”
“Bitch ain’t wrong, but why they all always pull out that goddamn line?”
“No idea.” Leaning forward, I sigh into my hands. I don’t need to be thinking about Brie, or women in general. I need to focus on why my fastball is suddenly the most hittable pitch in the league and where I went wrong. We’re two games into our series with Oregon State, and it ain’t looking pretty. “Ready?”
Ez sets his phone down, and I notice that he’s texting Remi. “Sure. Let me put some shorts on.”
I reach for my bag on the floor. “Are you dating Remi now?”
“No way.” With a shrug, the robe falls to his feet. I advert my eyes. He’s buck-ass naked again. “We’re not dating. I give her a base hit every once in a while.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m assuming he’s talking about a one-night stand here and there. But this is Ez, could be anything like drowning boneless babies. “Isn’t she dating that banker dude?” I’ll admit, Remi, she’s fucking hot. I’d probably be trying for a base knock with her, too, if I could. Long legs, blonde, absolutely gorgeous. And not in a stuck-up way either. Can’t say she’s all that bright, but fuckable nonetheless.
“Oh, probably.” After yanking on shorts, he grabs a shirt from the couch I’ve been sleeping on for the last three weeks. “He ghosted her though. She’s freakin’ the fuck out.”
There’s a reason why Ez doesn’t date. We have something in common.
Women fuck us over.
Senior year of high school, just as he was thinking of signing with the Dodgers, his girlfriend got pregnant. So he turned down the offer, and then she left him for turning it down and had an abortion. He hasn’t heard from her since.
Now he has absolutely no interest in dating, wraps it up, and never calls a girl back. Aside from Remi. And only because she’s dating someone else, so he figures there’s no attachment, so it’s all good.
Maybe I need to find someone who’s looking for some on the side? That way, there’s no chance of attachment.
My mind immediately goes back to the chick with the cold brew. She’s married. From what she said. Too bad I didn’t get her number.
A pitch that curves or breaks from a straight or expected flight path toward home plate.
SYDNEY
Fairy tales. You know, that saying that you live happily ever after when you kiss the prince?
I think I kissed the devil because blah fucking blah, fairy tales do not exist.
Two weeks ago, I thought I had my life together. And then reality heard me and was like, wrong, bitch, hold my beer. My dad once told me that a pitcher’s curveball is his greatest asset as a pitcher. I’ve got a curveball for you.
A foreclosure notice.
They say I have options. At least the letter from the bank tells me that, and I googled it just to be sure.
With my hands in my hair that I haven’t washed in three days, I stare at the letter again.
Negotiate with the bank. Okay, well, Collin worked at the bank, and seeing how I can’t even use my debit card or credit cards, I’m not sure how much they’re going to negotiate with me.
Loan modification. That will result in higher payments, and seeing how our mortgage was already nearly three grand a month, without Collin’s income, I don’t know how I would afford that. I should have his life insurance coming in soon, and it’d pay for the house, but what am I going to do in the meantime?
File for bankruptcy? Uh, no, not doing that. I’d lose my business in the process. Then what would I have to make money?
Short sale? So that means I’d be selling the only home and security Tatum knows. I don’t want to do that either.
I can’t even form thoughts on what to do next other than what the fuck?
Tatum opening the container of blueberries next to me draws my attention to her.
“I like blueberries.”
I smile at Tatum as she picks blueberries from the tray. Yes, I washed them. No, they’re not organic. As I watch my daughter eating berries without a care in the world, I’m jealous of her innocence in all this.
Sighing, she frowns at me, the smallest hint of sadness in her eyes. “Daddy’s not coming back?”
“No, honey. He went to heaven.”
God wanted his lying ass back.
I would never tell Tatum anything derogatory about her dad. I want her image of her father to be exactly what it has been for the last three years of her life. The one of Saturday mornings at the park with him. Or the nights he’d come home late only to sleep on her bedroom floor to ensure no monsters get under her bed.
Though lately, they didn’t get to spend any time together, he was still her hero, and I’d never take that from her. Even if he’s a lying asshole.
Sadie slides into the booth next to Tatum, her hair a mess from sleep and still in her pajamas. “Care to share, Loretta?”
Happily, Tatum slides the package over to her. “They yummy, huh?” And then she waits, curiously watching Sadie’s face for her to take a bite. “You like ’em, Auntie?”
Sadie pops a handful into her mouth. “Nothing like little blue balls in the morning.”
I snort, folding the foreclosure notice up. “I have to meet Nahla at the bank this morning, and Emmie is at school. What time is your class today?” Sadie’s been attending ASU for about three years now. Still hasn’t declared a major and spends more time getting to know a local band than she does learning. I love her, but she has absolutely no direction in life. Exceptionally beautiful and a heart to match it, she’s a pushover. She lets people walk all over her and clings to the unstable ones she thinks she can fix. Which for her, currently, is a drummer named Diesel. She’s living at our aunt’s house, and Diesel’s van, has never held a job, and can’t decide if she wants her hair purple or red, so currently, it’s a shade of blue.
