by Raquel Belle
My heart aches. I miss him.
I need him in my life. He’s my balance and everything feels so much more off-kilter now that he’s gone. Frankly, I don’t know how to function without him at my side. He’s been there for a long time, and his absence feels like a missing limb.
I trudge to bed but end up crying until my eyes are puffy and heavy. When I drift off, morning comes too early, and I’m up and at it again, forced to put a smile on my face, forced to hide the panic and pain and emptiness I feel lately.
At pickup, Eric and Amy start lobbying for a night away from the office the minute I walk in.
“Mom, it’s so boring,” Amy says.
“There’s nothing to do,” Eric echoes.
“Guys, I know,” I say, “but I have to go back and get this stuff done. And before you say it, you’re too young to stay home alone.”
“I have to finish my project,” Amy says.
“Well, you should have brought the stuff with you today. We’ll just have to do it later.”
“But it’s going to take a long time,” she says.
I grit my teeth, and just as I’m about to give her hell for whining so much lately, Tate steps in.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “I know you’re concerned or whatever, but I’m still here and willing to help. Why don’t you let me take them home, get them fed, and help her with her project? I can stay as long as you need tonight.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s fine, I’m …”
“You’re stubborn and you don’t take help where it’s offered,” he interrupts. “Give yourself some grace. You have a lot going on. It’s okay to accept some assistance every once in a while.”
I used to have assistance. Rob was my backbone. He was always there to help me out, and I totally took him for granted. I feel like a real asshole about it. But Tate’s right. I should accept help when it appears. So I agree to let him take the kids home for the night. They both cheer, and I just give Tate a weak high-five and turn to head back to the office.
When I get home, it’s after eight, and I can barely hold my eyes open. I find Eric asleep on the couch and Tate and Amy at the kitchen table, finishing what looks to be a very good poster board for her project. Tate says she should do her presentation for me, and heads off to grab Eric and take him to bed. I sit at the table as Amy gives her presentation on Helen Keller.
“That was great, honey,” I say, “and you two did a good job on the board.”
“Thanks, Mommy,” she says.
“Okay, head to bed.”
She hugs me, thanks Tate, and once I hear her door shut, I flop onto the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table.
“You look tired, mama,” Tate observes as he sits next to me.
“So tired,” I agree as my stomach lets out a heinous growl.
Tate chuckles. “And hungry, apparently. Let me warm you up a plate.”
He disappears, and I hear him rooting around in the kitchen. It occurs to me that Tate has obviously been through, at the very least, my kitchen cabinets. It weirds me out, a little, to think of him here in the house where Rob has always been the constant.
When Tate delivers a bowl of pasta with veggies, I’m floored.
“You cooked this?” I ask through a mouthful.
He nods.
“It’s so good. I had no idea you could cook like this.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Hope.”
“I guess I’m slowly realizing that,” I say.
“I’m not the devil, like you thought before.”
I laugh. “Maybe just a lesser demon.”
He smirks. “I can be a demon, for sure. Can I show you?”
“I’m eating,” I say, lifting my fork as evidence. “Lets save the bloodletting for later.”
“Suit yourself,” he says, shrugging.
I’m quiet, eating and thinking for a long time. “I think I’m going to have to sell the house.”
Tate chews on his bottom lip. His expression tells me to keep talking.
“I wanted the kids to have stability, you know? After Alex left. I felt like making them move just wouldn’t be good for them. They were confused. I mean, he just left. Just packed his bags and went.”
“You asked him to leave?”
“I did. I mean, what is the appropriate response when you find your spouse in bed with a leggy blonde?”
He shrugs. “You said ‘go’ and he just packed up and went? Just like that?”
“My guess is he was ready for an out. He was never very good at communicating. He was controlling, for sure, but he wasn’t good beyond that. So yeah, she put her clothes on, and he packed two bags, and then he left. And he went to an attorney right away. I hired one of my own, and he pushed me to fight for child support and alimony, but I just wanted him gone. All of that would have come with a price, you know? I would have had to see him, face him, and often. And I just couldn’t stomach it. And when he didn’t fight for custody or anything, I figured he didn’t care about them, anyway. So we signed off on a simple divorce, and he took nothing, and I got nothing, and I didn’t have to see him ever again.”
“What about the house, though? You didn’t have to buy out his half to keep it?”
“I did. At the time, I had some savings, but I spent it to get him off the mortgage.”
“But the mortgage was meant to be paid by two people, right?”
I nod, pushing out my lips. “It’s breaking my back. There are a million things that need fixing around here, and my car is on its last legs. It’s going to break down soon, and I will be screwed because I have no savings, and every extra penny I have lately has been going to pay for Eric’s hospital stay.”
“Something’s got to give,” Tate says. He runs a hand through his short hair, and I’m instantly caught up in a memory of Rob doing the same to his longer, blonde locks. It makes me sad. Sadder than I have a right to be.
“Yep,” is all I can manage to say.
“Well, use that big brain and that college degree and find something that pays more. You have technical skills. You have this big project almost done, and it will look great on a resume. You’re clearly undervalued by your boss. I think you should clear some time to do some work on finding something new.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” I say.
“Why not? Why not, at the very least, push for a title and pay increase based on this project.”
“I mean, I guess I could …”
“You can,” Tate says firmly. “You deserve it. And if he says ‘no,’ then redouble your efforts to look for something else.”
“You’re right,” I say.
“I know I’m right,” he says, cocky. “But if none of that works, this is just a house. You make a home wherever you are.”
I give him a soft, appreciative smile. “Thanks, Tate.”
He pulls me into a hug, which I appreciate. It’s nice to be held. But when he again tries to kiss me, I push him gently away with an apology.
“I’ve let myself get too wrapped up in things lately,” I say. “Lust is … it’s not helpful to my life circumstances right now. It seems to tip the balance of my life in a way that makes me feel really out of control, and if I’m going to do the things you said, I need to be in control. You know what I mean?”
He stands and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, okay.”
I stand, too. “I’m sorry, Tate. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate your help tonight. The conversation, too. It was nice to talk.”
He huffs a short, humorless laugh and leans in, kissing my cheek. “You’re welcome. Goodnight, Hope.”
Chapter Eleven
If I can thank Tate McCullough for anything, it’s for introducing us to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. As it turns out, they have a summer camp that is free to low-income families. This will save me a lot of money, money I wasn’t sure I would be able to come up with if the kids had done the community center camp.
“None of my friends will be there,” Amy whines as I stuff her backpack with the day’s supplies.
“Yeah,” Eric says, “and we won’t know anyone.”
“You’ll have a chance to make new friends,” I say. “And this one has a pool so you’ll get to swim every day. I think you’ll really like it.”
“Why can’t we just go to Mr. Tate’s summer camp?” Eric asks.
“It’s too expensive,” I say.
They continue complaining all the way to camp, but both seem excited when I drop them off. The camp is held at a real campsite, with horses and trails and everything. It’s a bit further away than is convenient, but I can live with it. Amy actually recognizes a school friend and runs off without saying goodbye. Eric, however, clings to me until someone with a stomp-rocket catches his attention.
When I get to work, I review two test batches that I migrated to make sure the data migration worked the way I planned. I’m pleased to see that things worked, so I wander in to Roger’s office to let him see the process map and tell him about some of the quirks I had to work out from one system to the next.
“So, as you can see,” I explain as I point to the map, “that the few little bugs seem to be worked out because of the tweak I made here. There are some semantic differences between the systems, and once I caught those, I was able to track back to the problem points.”
“Semantic issues?” he asks, peering beady-eyed at the process map and probably thinking it looks like a totally different language. In fact, I’m not confident he knows what the word semantic even means.
“Yes,” I confirm. “For instance, we’ve always entered proposals as proposals, but DataBrand has a whole potential-client area that they call opportunities. It’s a secure area, which is nice because it mitigates some of our risk in taking baseline information and plugging it into illustrations.”
Roger grunts and nods, as I run through all of the tiny changes I’ve found between the two systems, as well as the ways in which our work should be better served by the new system. I add a “But you knew all this, or you wouldn’t have purchased the system,” just to stoke his ego a little.
“They seemed competent,” he says dismissively as he taps his fingers on his desk. He’s bored by all of this talk about project management and data migration.
“Well, they have been somewhat helpful, though this migration process certainly was worth at least what they would have charged. It’s a lot of work—very technical work.”
“Well, thankfully you can do more than get coffee, then, huh?” he asks, a snide tone in his voice.
“I think I’ve proven time and time again that I do more than get coffee,” I say.
“Oh, I forgot,” he says, still smug, “you make copies, too.”
“Roger, that is not fair,” I say. “I prepare all of your illustrations and client briefing materials. I have presented, in your absence, to new, potential clients. I run the business operations and office budget, even though you supposedly have an office manager on staff. And now I’m doing a massive data migration that is most assuredly not in my job description.”
“Do you want a gold star or something?” he asks.
“No, I want a bonus,” I say, “and a promotion in title.”
His eyes go wide, as he assesses me to see if I’m serious. Then he chuckles. “Oh, you want a bonus, do you? Well, I had you do the work because I didn’t want to pay for the extra service. Why would I then pay you for the service I didn’t want to pay for in the first place?”
“Because I did a damn good job, and it’s way outside the scope of my actual job description,” I say sharply.
“This is a small office, Hope,” he answers, waving a hand at me as he looks at his computer. “We all wear many hats. I appreciate your work, but I won’t be paying you extra.”
“Roger,” I say, “At least promote my title to Administrative Manager or something. I’ve worked really hard on this, and it would be awesome to have you recognize good work for once.”
“Hope, I said ‘no,’ and I meant it.”
I start to argue but realize he’s not listening anymore, so I stomp out of his office, back to my desk. Pulling open one of the major job sites, I research what project managers and data integration specialists make. Lots more than I do, it turns out. I make barely enough to keep my head above water. No, let’s be honest. I make almost nothing when I have two kids to support and a mortgage to pay on my own. I’m in way over my head, and this salary is never going to let me get air. My salary is not enough at all, not as a single parent with kids who need new shoes and clothes each time they hit a growth spurt. I have day care to pay and hospital bills not covered by the crappy insurance my cheapskate boss carries here.
I’m so angry as I research opportunities at other companies—companies that advertise flexible work schedules and bonus opportunities. I have a college degree. I’m smart and resourceful. I could do these jobs.
I write down everything that looks good, and as soon as five o’clock hits, I am out the door without so much as saying goodbye to my boss. The kids seem shocked when I’m actually on time, and they’re not the last ones left for pickup.
“Do we have to go back to your office?” Eric asks.
“Not today,” I say.
“Can we stay a few minutes more, then?” he asks. “They said I could help feed the horses.”
“Sure,” I say. He cheers and runs off to help with the horses as Amy gathers her things.
While we wait for Eric, she tells me about her day, and it sounds like it was good, but she goes quiet, and I know something is on her mind. “What’s up?” I ask.
“Are we poor?” she asks quietly, cringing a little.
I rub my hand over her hair. “I mean, we’re not rich.”
“Kids here say this is a camp for poor kids,” she says. “We must be poor if we’re here, right?”
“I don’t make a lot of money,” I say. “That’s why I’ve had to work a second job sometimes. But we have enough. We have a house, and we have food. You and your brother have soccer shoes and baseball gear when you need them. We do okay.”
“I hate our dad for leaving,” she grumbles.
“Oh, Amy,” I say, pulling her into a hug. “That’s not … it’s not that simple.”
“Well, where is he, then? He hasn’t seen us in two years. He doesn’t help.”
I don’t know what to say right now. She’s not wrong, and I carry a lot of baggage when it comes to Alex, but I’ve tried not to bash him in front of the kids, just in case he decides he wants to have a relationship with them someday.
“I’m actually going to spend tonight looking at some other job opportunities,” I say. “There are better paying jobs out there. That would help a lot.”
Amy doesn’t say anything else, but seems sullen through dinner. Eric, on the other hand, chatters happily about his day. He had a blast, so I guess that’s good. When the kids head outside to play with the neighbor kids after dinner, I sit down at my computer, ready to work on my resume and get some applications sent out.
I find myself really wishing I could talk to Rob about Amy. She’s a pre-teen and at the age where things matter. Some of her school friends were signed up to go to expensive adventure camps this summer, even multi-week, sleep-away camps. She didn’t ask to go—she already knew we wouldn’t be able to afford it, and it makes me sad that this is her reality, that I can’t give her more than a free camp for poor kids. It makes my stomach hurt to think that she’s feeling upset or embarrassed about our financial reality. It just isn’t something a kid should have to worry about.
I spend a couple of hours working on cover letters and submitting to jobs I think fit my qualifications. When the kids come in, it’s getting dark, so I have them take showers and then put them to bed. Eric’s asleep the minute his head hits the pillow. When I check in on Amy, she’s staring blankly a
t the wall.
“Did someone make you feel bad today?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “They’re all poor, too. They just made a comment about thinking I wasn’t poor enough to go to a camp like this. It made me feel weird.”
“People can be weird sometimes,” I say, “but was it a fun camp?”
“It was,” she says. She’s quiet a while. “Doesn’t our dad love us?”
“I think he probably does,” I say.
“Why did he just go away then?”
“He was in a relationship with another woman,” I say. “I told him to go.”
“And that means he can’t be a dad to us anymore?”
“No, it doesn’t mean that at all.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t spoken to him since the divorce.”
“Have you tried?”
“No, I haven’t. But neither has he.”
Amy is quiet for a long time after that. I curl up and hold her while she thinks. Finally, she says, “I miss Uncle Rob.”
“Me too,” I say.
“Do you hate men?” she asks.
I laugh out loud at this. “No, I don’t hate men. Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know. I just thought you and Rob were maybe together like a married couple, and then he just went away like dad.”
“Life is complicated sometimes. Relationships are complicated.”
“I guess,” she says. She takes a big breath and then lets it back out. “Night, Mom.”
“Night, honey,” I say, kissing her head and slipping out of the bed.
***
That weekend, Meredith and I sit at the baseball field for the start of summer league. It’s not as crazy-competitive as sandlot season, which is nice. Eric waves at us from the dugout as Meredith’s son, Brandon, shakes his butt at us.
“I couldn’t be prouder,” Meredith says.
“He’s got sass,” I grin.
“He’s got ass,” she says, laughing. “No, he is an ass.”
We giggle at this as the game gets started. Meredith’s voice is low when she asks, “Have you been keeping up with the situation with Professor Duncan lately?”
