by Julie Kriss
She smiled at me again. I racked my brain trying to remember what I knew about her. She’d gone to Westlake High, but I’d never even talked to her until that night at the party. I’d never tried, because in those days I always had plenty of girls to talk to. Amber was just one of a long line.
Fuck, I didn’t even remember what we talked about that night. It was all a blur. I didn’t usually drink that hard, but my team had just won a big game. Amber and I had ended up in a bathroom, and we’d fucked against the sink while someone pounded on the door. We’d both thought it was funny.
That moment had led directly to this one, eight years later. You make your decisions and you live with them.
“You look good, Ryan,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. The waitress brought us a couple of Cokes, which we didn’t touch.
“I suppose you’d like to know where I’ve been,” Amber said. “I’m sorry I’ve been absent. The fact is, I’ve been on a spiritual journey.”
“No,” I said. “You’ve been in Thailand with some guy, according to your parents.”
She sighed. “I’ve been trying to find myself. I just felt… constricted here. Penned in. Like I couldn’t breathe.”
“So you goofed off for seven years.”
“I was an unformed spirit back then.” She said this with deadly seriousness, as if this was an actual thing people say to each other. “I needed to search for my truth. Haven’t you ever wanted to search for your truth?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I’ve been too busy making sure Dylan got fed and not nabbed by a serial killer. That’s pretty much all I do.”
“The east is so much more enlightened than here,” Amber said. “You can truly center yourself there in a way you can’t in our society. It’s been so jarring, being back in the States. You can’t even think here.”
“So why did you come back?”
She traced a finger through the sweat on her Coke glass. “I realized that part of my truth is that I’m a mother. I’m connected with the One Mother, the oneness of womanhood. And to deny that truth was causing me pain. So I’ve come back to embrace it. To embrace the motherhood within me.”
It was like she was speaking another language. She couldn’t possibly be this dense. “He’s a kid, not a concept,” I said. “What are you saying, Amber? Are you saying you want our kid?”
It wasn’t going to happen. One of the things I’d done, not long after Dylan landed on my doorstep, was make him fully, legally mine. I’d done it on Wes’s advice, because at the time I wasn’t sure that Amber’s parents wouldn’t try to take him back. Her parents had a lot of money, which was why Amber could afford to do fuck all with herself on their dime. I didn’t want them hiring lawyers and taking Dylan back.
So I petitioned for full custody, which they didn’t contest. Amber didn’t contest it either, so custody went to me. She had no play in this game.
I wondered if she’d get lawyers. After seven years away, she’d have a fuck of a lot to prove in order to get anywhere. And it would be very, very expensive. Then again, maybe the parents would pay, like they paid for everything.
“I don’t want to fight, Ryan,” Amber said.
“Good, because you won’t win.”
“This is already feeling very confrontational,” she said. “I sense a lot of defensiveness coming from you. And anger. It’s negative energy. It’s so unhealthy.”
“I’m defensive because you showed up on my doorstep and upset my kid,” I said. “How do you not see that?”
“Our child,” she corrected me. “We made him together.”
“We fucked in a bathroom, you mean.”
For a second her pupils dilated. “Crudeness is another form of defense,” she said, her voice softer.
I leaned forward. “Cut the crap, Amber. What’s your play?”
Her pupils were still dark, and her gaze was still fixed on me. “I want what’s best for Dylan,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Both his parents.”
I stared at her for a long minute. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? After eight years?
“You can’t possibly be serious,” I said.
She bit her lip. “That woman. The one back at your house. Who is she? My parents said you weren’t married.”
Now I was starting to see red again. “She’s none of your business.”
“But she’s not your wife.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and didn’t answer.
“It’s a circle, Ryan,” Amber said. “A sacred circle. The male and the female powers combine to create life. The child flourishes best under the influence of both the yoni and the lingam. The ones who created him. Me and you.”
I closed my eyes for a second. I had a headache, and pain was crawling up my shoulder and down my back for the first time in weeks. “Amber,” I said slowly, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I could not be less interested in your yoni if I tried. And you are never getting anywhere near my lingam ever again.”
She licked her lip, uncertain. She had nice lips, I’d give her that. At nineteen, that move would have given me a boner. At twenty-seven, I just wanted her to go away. “Could we at least try?” she said.
And then it clicked. All this shit about her yoni and the rest of it—it was exactly that, bullshit. We’d known each other for a drunken hour eight years ago. And I may be good-looking, but I wasn’t so fucking amazing that a woman would cross the planet after eight years just to get into bed with me.
She wanted access to Dylan. For whatever reason, after all this time she wanted to get near him, and she couldn’t because she had no rights. She could probably hire lawyers, but why bother doing it the hard way when you can do it the easy way—get slutty Ryan Riggs to start fucking you again?
After all, I had no standards, right? I’d fuck anything that moved. So she gets me into bed, and she gets everything she wants without a fight. And—judging by the look in her eye and the body language she was giving me right now—the good girl gets to have a few orgasms with the bad boy in the process. She gets convenient dirty sex while pretending to be above it all, more spiritual than me. Sex and rebellion had always been my specialties.
Like Kate, whose only compliment to me was You are so sexy. No matter what I did or how hard I tried. You are so sexy.
And suddenly I was tired. Very fucking tired. I had a bad shoulder and a kid to raise and calluses on my hands from working with them all day, and this woman wanted a guilt-free fuck so she could get what she wanted. Which was access to my son. Kate said I should respect myself; I was about to start now.
“This act,” I said to Amber. “Does it get you a lot of dick?”
She blinked at me, shocked.
“Yeah, I bet it does.” I answered my own question. “This spiritual act of yours. I bet guys fall for it like dominoes. Well, here’s the deal: You’re not a mother. Giving birth to Dylan doesn’t make you his mother. Got it?”
“Ryan—”
“He had a stomach bug last week,” I said, interrupting her. “He drank grape juice, and then he puked it all up. He tried to get to the toilet but he didn’t make it. I cleaned for an hour, and I was still finding bright purple chunks of puke the next day. He tried to go to school and he puked on the driveway, and I had to get out the hose. Where were you?”
She went pale and didn’t answer.
“Right,” I said. “He has nightmares. He gets sick. He thinks fart jokes are the height of humor. He can be stubborn and pissy. He’s in tears over multiplication tables. And you’re in Thailand, meditating over your yoni. It doesn’t work that way.” I stood up. “If you want to see him, get your lawyer to draw up a petition for visitation. My lawyer will let you know if I agree or not. And do not fucking come to my door again.”
I left, and I got in my car, but I didn’t go home. I couldn’t. I was still mad, and I didn’t want Dylan to see me this way. I felt like someone had doused gasoline over my rig
ht shoulder and lit a match, the pain burning down my back. And I couldn’t help but remember that when Dylan had been upset over his multiplication tables, it wasn’t me that helped him with it. It was Kate.
Kate, who didn’t want me.
I wanted her. And if she didn’t want me back, then the only thing I wanted was those fucking white pills.
I turned the key and started driving.
Twenty-Four
Kate
* * *
I heard the front door open upstairs. I opened my eyes in the dark and rolled over in bed. I was lying on top of the covers, still fully dressed, as I’d been when I lay down a few hours ago. I blinked, disoriented, listening to Ryan’s quiet footsteps in the hall.
For the second night in a row, I followed the sound of his footsteps into the living room, then the hallway, then as they receded up the stairs.
I’d sat with Dylan until he fell asleep. He was confused and tired, his emotions in a jumble after the sudden appearance of his mother. I had no idea what to do, so I’d walked him through his bedtime routine, hoping something would come to me. Then I’d read Harry Potter to him while he lay in bed. It took him a long time to drift off, but he finally did it.
When will Dad be back? Dylan had asked. And I’d said Soon. It wasn’t a good answer, but it was the only one I knew. Because I had no idea where Ryan had gone, or what was taking him so long to come home.
I rolled over and found my phone on my bedside table in the dark. I touched it and looked at the time. It was two thirty in the morning.
I stared at those numbers, feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach. Feeling everything drain out of me, leaving nothing left.
He’d left with Amber. He’d said they were going to talk. And he came home at two thirty in the morning.
He’d been angry with her. He hadn’t wanted to talk to her, I knew that—he’d made the suggestion just to get her out of the house without shouting at her in front of Dylan. I didn’t like watching them leave, but I’d told myself that it was for Dylan’s sake, and that if Amber was back from wherever she’d been, he was going to have to talk to her sometime. He may as well get it over with now.
And then he’d stayed out with her for over six hours.
The pain surprised me. The suddenness of it and the force of it. It took my breath away, thinking of Ryan with her all night. She was beautiful and sexy, and she was Dylan’s mother. And she wanted Ryan—she’d made that clear, at least to me. Maybe it was an impulse of hers when she saw him, or maybe she’d carried a torch for him all this time. I didn’t know which one it was, but I knew that Amber wasn’t back just for conversation. She wanted all of it—the man, the boy, everything. The package deal.
And what was I? The nanny, the sometime fuck. I wasn’t Ryan’s wife or even his girlfriend; I was the paid help, the one who found him convenient to sleep with. It would be easy to sweep me aside, calculate me out of the equation. A smart woman, a sexy woman, one who had a deep and irrevocable claim on Ryan, could do just that.
She could try, at least. All Ryan had to do was say no and come home. But he hadn’t.
Whatever they’d done, he’d said yes to—for hours. Whether it was talking or fucking or something else, he’d said yes to it while I sat home alone, wondering where he was.
I rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed. I rubbed my face and realized my cheeks were wet with tears. “I’m not doing this,” I said out loud.
The words hurt, so I said them again. “I’m not doing this.”
You can be his nanny, or you can date him. You can’t do both. Actually, I couldn’t do either. I already wasn’t dating him. And I couldn’t be his nanny while Dylan’s mother worked her way back into the picture. I couldn’t watch that, and if Ryan expected me to, then he wasn’t the man I’d thought he was.
Then again, if he’d just spent the night in bed with Amber, then he already wasn’t the man I’d thought he was.
I stood up. I was too tired to think about this. The night’s events had exhausted me, and I couldn’t think straight. It was technically Sunday, my day off, and I couldn’t spend it sitting in my little apartment, listening to Ryan and Dylan overhead. The idea was torture.
I switched on the bedside lamp and put my glasses on. I pulled a bag out of the closet. I packed some clothes, some toiletries, my notebooks and textbooks. My laptop. I tied my hair in a knot and found my sweater, my coat, my boots.
I sat for a long minute, listening to the silence of the house. Wondering if Ryan was awake, or if he’d fallen asleep already. Wondering if he was thinking about me at all.
But no. I needed to think about myself, not him. “I’m not doing this,” I said one more time, this time a whisper. I stood up and picked up my bag.
I should leave. Just go. But I thought of Dylan and I couldn’t quite do it. So I found a piece of paper and wrote him a note. Going away for a few days. Be back soon. Kate.
I tiptoed upstairs and found Dylan’s backpack, the one he could never find. I put the note in the pocket. Only one I had done that could I finally walk out the door.
I found a hotel downtown, the kind of hotel business travelers came to for meetings and PowerPoint presentations. I couldn’t stay here forever, but I could afford a few days. I slept for a while, and after the sun came up I showered and went out for a drive.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no plan. But this was what I needed: quiet in my head, in my heart. Quiet to think about myself and what I wanted and nothing else.
Just after eight, my phone rang. It was Ryan. I sent it to voicemail, and he sent a string of texts instead, because he knew I was ignoring him.
Kate
Where the fuck are you
You aren’t downstairs
Kate??
Tell me you’re okay before I lose my shit
I pulled into the parking lot of a breakfast place. I texted him back. I’m fine. I’m just taking some time. Some space.
The phone rang again, and I sent it to voicemail again. I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t.
The string of texts started again.
Shit I did something, right?
What was it
Tell me
That was like a stab to the chest. I felt like shouting at him: You don’t fucking know? You stayed out with your ex until two thirty in the morning and you don’t fucking know?
But I had no heart for a fight right now. I was too tired and confused and heartsick. I didn’t want shouting and recriminations. I wanted peace.
I’m turning my phone off now, I wrote.
I didn’t see what he wrote after that. I pressed the power button and watched my phone shut down.
I’d grown up in the suburbs of Detroit, where everyone said the nice people still lived. The people in my neighborhood growing up had money, though they never struck me as particularly nice. Or particularly happy.
Westlake was different. It was smaller, but it wasn’t a small town. The downtown had a few office buildings and parking lots and a mall that had been partly demolished and reworked as an open-air shopping space, plus a newer mall near Riggs Auto Two. It was half an hour’s drive to woods and beaches, so there were vacation places. And of course it had the railroad tracks. One side was where the nice people lived, and the other side was where the Riggs brothers lived. Where I lived.
I drove until I found a sign that said Pike’s Point, and I followed it. Pike’s Point turned out not to be a point at all—it was just a grassy stretch of land surrounded by trees, with the cold gray of water beyond. Now, in October, the trees were stripped of leaves, the ground was dirty brown, and the sky was chilly. There was no one here. I got out my laptop and sat at a picnic table, winding a scarf around my neck.
There was no wifi, but it didn’t matter. I’d downloaded a week’s worth of exercises for my course, and I worked on them for a while, getting my textbook out of the car and reading a few of the lessons. Then, with inspiration tickling the bac
k of my mind, I opened a blank document and started typing ideas.
Forty-five minutes later I had brainstormed two pages, filled with bullet points, dates, dollar signs, and question marks. My fingers were numb and my nose and cheeks were cold, but I felt an excitement I’d never felt before. Like I had something at my fingertips that I could really want. That I could actually do.
I brought my laptop back to the car and dumped it in the passenger seat. In the driver’s seat, I picked up my phone and powered it on again, steeling myself for what I might find.
But the phone powered up, and all the little icons appeared, and nothing. Not a text, not a phone call had come in. Nothing at all.
So Ryan hadn’t responded at all after my last text. I felt a slow burn of pain at that. He had nothing to say.
Then again, what had I expected? I’d told him I was turning my phone off. Did I want him to sit there, calling and texting me while I didn’t answer?
I scrolled through the numbers on my phone. I had been given everyone’s number, because I had to have all of the emergency contacts. Because I was the nanny.
Or maybe I wasn’t the nanny anymore.
Ignoring the way the pain blossomed at that, I dialed one of the numbers. A familiar woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Lauren, it’s Kate.”
“Hey, Kate. What’s up?”
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
I had to square my shoulders, as if I was in a job interview. “If I was going to start a business, would you help me out?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean money or anything. I’d get a loan from the bank. But I could use your advice on how to do all of that. Where to start.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll try not to take up a lot of your time. And I know you’re burned out and everything, but—”
“Yes, Kate,” Lauren said. “I’ll help you start a business. In fact, I’d love to. I think it would be fun.”
“You don’t even know what kind of business it is.”
