Love Disregarded

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “I have to go read for English,” Piper said. “God, I can’t stand this book. Blah, blah. I wish we could read The Fault in Our Stars.”

  And just like that, the conversation was over. Piper jumped down from the counter where she’d been sitting and grabbed an apple.

  “Probably because I’m the only seventh-grade parent who would approve that book.”

  “Oh, Mom, stop it.”

  She walked out of the kitchen, and I finally took a moment alone with my phone.

  aston: Text me as soon as you’re free and tell me what happened.

  aston: Bexley, I’m not joking.

  aston: Either text me back or I’m coming over.

  The last text had come in fifteen minutes earlier, and I decided it was time to answer Aston before he stormed through my front door and tore apart my carefully constructed life.

  bexley: Take a chill pill. My kids are older, they’re around. This is my first free moment. I’m fine. Nothing happened.

  The little bubble filled with dots appeared, and I decided a glass of wine was in order. I wasn’t sure of too much, but there was no way Aston was letting me off scot-free tonight.

  As I stuck the cork back in the bottle, my phone beeped again.

  aston: Yeah, older. Let’s discuss that, shall we? Do you want to come clean?

  bexley: For obvious reasons, I kept things to myself. I understand you’ve been snooping, so I don’t have to say much. You know.

  I gulped my wine, not able to down it fast enough.

  aston: I understand. But my understanding is over. I’ll have my lawyer draw up some papers for your ex, thanking him for what he did, but having him relinquish all ties.

  Oh boy.

  It didn’t take Seth long to figure out what had happened. As Piper got older, she looked exactly like Aston. Seth only had to see Aston once to assume, and the appendix surgery made it official. One look at our blood types, and it was clear we weren’t her biological parents. At least, Seth wasn’t.

  Once again, being the bigger guy, he forgave me and never spoke of it again. When Tyler was born, I believed I’d redeemed myself. I’d given Seth a boy.

  After the split, he stayed close with Piper. He knew he couldn’t be upset with her. She was an innocent party in all of this.

  Picking up my phone, I walked out the back door and toward the carport.

  Aston picked up on the first ring. “Don’t think you’re changing my mind on anything. I’ve been nice and stayed quiet. I let that ass raise my daughter because it was what you wanted or needed. Now I’m done. Especially after today.”

  “Well, hello to you too, Aston.” Leaning my head back, I rolled my neck and closed my eyes.

  “Cut it out, Bexley. I gave you plenty of latitude when it came to this. But she’s mine. Look at her . . . Christ. She’s mine, and I’ve missed all of it,” he growled through the line.

  “You didn’t want me.” A tear rolled down my cheek, and I swiped it away while trying to keep my wineglass steady in my hand. “How could you want her if you didn’t want me? You had a plan, needed to get that business for your mom. Without Federal, you were never going to be happy. A baby was never going to be a fair substitute in your mind. It was Federal or bust, and everything your dad wanted for you to do. How’s that working out for you now? You’re in trouble . . . what will happen to the business if something happens to you? Your mom’s plans will all be destroyed.”

  Years of rage spewed from me. Unable to stop the verbal diarrhea, I said, “Thank God your mom passed. At least she’s not here to witness this. You getting arrested, the company crumbling . . . all she ever wanted for you. Not a life, a family, a good marriage.”

  “Nothing’s crumbling. I’m innocent, Bexley. I don’t lie; I’ve never lied to you. At least I have that to hold on to. These charges won’t stick . . . you’ll see. I was wrong, okay? I didn’t realize it until my mom died. She died happy to be a grandma and see me all grown up, but I wasn’t happy. She didn’t know that, though. Or maybe she did—I don’t know. Point is, I have to tell myself the job could have been with anyone, any damn job, anything would have made her happy because I was her son. Otherwise, I can’t breathe. What kind of woman sets her kid up for failure and heartache? By the time she was sick, she didn’t care about the company anymore. She was consumed with her own destiny and my dad not by her side while she was dying. But by then, I’d already fucked up my life for it. Fuck,” he yelled into the phone.

  The sound echoed in the background, and I assumed he was in a garage talking with me, away from his kids. The ones he’d always known about.

  My mom had warned me I was playing a dangerous game when I met Aston and brought him home way back then. Unfortunately, she’d passed away in a bad car wreck while I was pregnant with Piper. I missed her terribly, but honestly, I was relieved she never had the chance to see me for the liar I was. She would have known what I did, how I’d lied, and called me out on it.

  “Fuck, Bex, I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. I want to hold you and cherish you and tell you I messed up. I ruined so many years of our lives, and I need to get that time back. At the very least, your heart. I need you.”

  Aston shook me out of my memories with his soothing words. No matter what he said, it was a salve for all that ailed me.

  “We can’t get the years back. That’s not how it works, Aston. We can only move forward. I get that you want to know Piper, and I’m sorry I kept her from you. I need to talk with Seth, and then we can move ahead with it. I owe him that much. So do you.”

  “I don’t owe him shit. He should’ve manned up and told you to tell me. That’s my daughter.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with Aston. I knew better than to think I could win.

  Bexley

  “Everything okay?” Seth said after he picked up on the second ring. “I’m real busy.”

  I’d called him at work. Admittedly, it was a chicken move, but first, I knew he’d pick up, and second, he couldn’t yell at me.

  Seth was a senior account executive in an advertising agency where they worked in one of those open floor plans. With no doors or walls, creative juices supposedly flowed free amongst the air particles. Seth had worked his way up through the ranks, reminding me every few days of our married life that nothing had been handed to him.

  “Everything’s fine. Kids said they had a good weekend. Thanks.” I didn’t owe him my gratitude, but as always felt compelled to give it.

  “Well, they’re my kids.”

  He had a comeback for everything these days. Although he was once a nice guy, Seth’s contempt for me poured out of him lately. Not wanting to make it worse, I didn’t bring up how often he’d tried to get out of having the kids with him. I assumed they cramped his dating life.

  “Well, you know what I mean,” he said, this time a tad more quietly.

  He wouldn’t yell at the office, but that didn’t stop him from lobbing jabs at me. Over the years, he’d had plenty of opportunities to call me out, to force my hand when it came to Piper, but he’d cared for her from the moment she was born. He often rocked her to sleep when she was little, and on the first day of preschool, he’d held her hand.

  Even if he’d done those things because it was what he’d thought he should do or had to do, he didn’t have the right to be resentful about it now. I’d given him some of my best years . . . and a son. Plus, he’d been able to save face among his coworkers at his beloved advertising agency by me not exposing the truth.

  “Funny you mention the kids . . . being yours. I was hoping to meet you for a coffee. Maybe sometime tomorrow? I have to discuss something about Piper with you.” I was trying to be vague. Seth could pull a tooth from me if I wasn’t careful. He had this way about him, his I’m such a nice guy, poor me, I need to know right now routine.

  It had been three days since Aston threatened me with blowing the cover off my full-of-shit life. I’d dragged my feet for two days and spent m
ost of today spoon-feeding myself courage. I’d held Aston off, but he was coming over tomorrow, “with pizza and all the kids,” he’d told me.

  Seth sighed. “I’m in the middle of putting together a big presentation. Can it wait? I lost a lot of time last weekend with taking the kids around, you know.”

  “I wish it could wait, but I think it’s best to discuss quickly.”

  “Okay, well, why don’t you tell me now? Just rip the Band-Aid off. Did she get her . . . you know? Is she a woman now? She’s about the age.” He whispered most of it, but I heard him.

  “No, she didn’t get her period, and if she did, I would probably let her decide whether to share that with you. Anyway, how is tomorrow morning, right after I drop the kids off at school? I’m not at the clinic.”

  “Bexley, I don’t have time for a long thing today or tomorrow. You’re already interrupting my workday. You know, how I pay for the kids you want to talk about? So, out with it . . . what does this have to do with? I send the money, you kept the house. Is there anything else?”

  He spoke softly. I pictured him at work with a smile painted on his face, appearing as though everything was fine and dandy.

  “I can see you’re making me talk now. Look, there’s no sugarcoating this. Piper met Aston; he ran into us in an ice cream shop. He knows. And he wants to tell her.”

  “That’s what you want to talk about? You can do whatever you want. Call the lawyer, though, and make Aston pay up for all the years he missed. You know, when I was raising Piper like my own, and then you kicked me out. Honestly, I was a good guy. I fell for you and your scheme. Don’t be mad at me over this.”

  That’s not exactly how it went. After Seth had an affair at work, we decided there wasn’t any love left between us. In exchange for my keeping quiet about his workplace infidelity, he’d agreed to my terms.

  “She has a right to know,” I said.

  “You took that away from her. Not me.”

  “Yes. I’m taking all the responsibility. I wanted to make sure you knew, for you to understand. I didn’t plan to diminish how important you were to her.”

  “Listen, Bexley, I’m at work. I knew this day would come, especially after we got divorced. Reunite our daughter with her criminal father, do what you must. Remember, Tyler is ours, and I’ll have a say in everything that pertains to him. I have to go now.”

  He disconnected the call without allowing me to even say good-bye or thanks, or go fuck yourself.

  Taking a deep breath, I rested my forehead on my desk at the clinic and continued to breathe. I had five minutes before sprinting to school to pick up the kids, and all I wanted was to take a nap. Or a giant coffee.

  I’d just decided to settle for a few minutes of meditating when there was a knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I called, sitting up in my chair and shuffling the papers around on my desk.

  “Heya, Bex.” Aston opened the door and stood in the doorway, wearing what I assumed was a very expensive suit and holding a coffee in one hand.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as an array of emotions caught in my throat.

  “Delivery with a smile,” he said, setting the coffee in front of me.

  “Um, I have to go get the kids from school. But thanks. I was just craving a coffee.”

  “With whole milk, dirty blond, just the way you like it.”

  He waved his hand in front of the large to-go cup, and I couldn’t lie. My mouth watered.

  “Thank you. This right here, right now, is definitely the way to my heart. Although, I don’t think I should give myself away like that.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and I looked away.

  Anxious about what came next, and unsure of what to say or do, I stood to walk out. I was at work, and this visit was unprecedented.

  “Walk with me?” I finally asked after grabbing my bag and taking a sip of my coffee.

  “How about I drive you to get the kids?”

  It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little odd? My car is here. And what about your kids?”

  Could I have any more excuses?

  “No, it’s not odd. I plan to do it a lot more after our night tomorrow. When we come clean. Notice how I said we? I don’t plan to throw you under the bus, Bex. You did what you had to do. I’m not a bad guy. I may have acted badly, but I’m not the enemy.”

  I felt my head shaking. Standing by the door, I said in a hushed tone, “I’m at work. We can’t have this discussion here, where anyone could listen. It’s not fair to me.”

  “Okay, let’s roll. You can tell the kiddos we got together for coffee after running into each other the other day. By the way,” he whispered, “you look sexy. Are you sure you’re working?”

  I was wearing a black jumpsuit with short sleeves and a plain zipper up the back. “This is hardly sexy, but thank you.”

  “I want to tell you about my lawyer. He’s drawing up some papers for Piper, but also, we have a new witness in the case. It’s top secret right now, but I want to fill you in. Also, I spoke with my dad. I know he came to see you, and I won’t tolerate it.”

  We were outside by the time he finished, and Aston was unlocking his SUV and ushering me inside.

  “Do you have more hours in your day than everyone else? Wait just a minute—you talked with your dad?” I swiveled in my seat and stared at him. Aston seemed to work at a speed I couldn’t keep up with.

  “Yeah, one sec.” He handed me back my coffee, shut my door, and ran around the front. Seated in the driver’s seat, he said, “I have just as many hours as everyone else, but I have a staff that helps, and I also want to get my life back together. As for my father, I told him about Pipe—”

  “Wait a minute? Pipe? Her name is Piper . . . don’t give her a nickname. You haven’t even formally met her.”

  “Yeah, I know. Piper. I’m just a little wound up. So my dad . . . of course he knew about her, the slimy fucker. He finally admitted to paying you a visit, and said he was working on things, so I didn’t need to worry about my little problem. That’s what he called Piper . . . the fucker. He actually said he was working on making it so Piper wasn’t my concern.”

  Grimacing, Aston went on. “I almost punched him, but I’m working on remaining calm, so I didn’t. I had plenty of harsh words with him, like threatening I would walk into every CEO’s office on the Strip and tell them what a cocksucker he is, disparaging Federal along the way, until they took their business to the cheaper outlets with less customer service and quality, but I didn’t care.”

  “Take a breath, Aston. You’re going to faint. Slow down. You don’t need to defend me to your dad. He’s not going to make any problems go away, because I don’t do business the way he does, with payoffs.”

  Aston ran a hand through his thick hair and then dropped it to take my hand in his. “Don’t worry. He’ll stay away now, especially after I brought up his wife and her tennis pro. He’s so fickle. The business, Nan, he doesn’t want his legacy disrupted. Well, he’ll have to accept a granddaughter born out of wedlock and kept a secret.”

  Then Aston actually winked, like this was fun. Like telling a teenage girl she was a long-lost secret daughter of your teenage love affair . . . was fun.

  “This isn’t my life,” I said, staring out my window as he pulled out, cocky and confident. “You don’t even know what school we’re going to . . . oh, wait. Of course you do. Anyway, you can’t just keep threatening people. First me, and now I got involved with Seth after your threats, and now you and your dad. Oh, and by the way, you’re still being investigated.”

  We sped along the correct route while I ranted and Aston let it roll off of him, staying calm as he drove.

  “Bexley, I’m protecting what’s mine. Get used to it,” he said, but I didn’t respond. “And before you go down the whole path that I didn’t protect you back then . . . I wasn’t a man yet. But now I am.”

  “I’m going to need some time alone with Piper to sit down and e
xplain everything. I did some reading on how to break sensitive topics to teens. I’m going to be as honest as possible with her. I thought about how I may leave your dad’s part in this out of it, let him save face—”

  “Absolutely not!” Aston turned his head for a second to glare at me. With his eyes back on the road, he spoke firmly. “No, he doesn’t get to be absolved of the role he played. I’m never going to be close with him, and I doubt you will. Piper will know the truth.”

  As we neared the school, I moved on. “I’m not sure whether Tyler should be around or not. I would ask Seth, but he barely had time for me when I called about Piper. He was thrilled you’re stepping up—”

  Aston interrupted again with a quick flash of his smug expression. “More like me letting him off the hook financially.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I said, trying to reason with him.

  “It does, and don’t defend him.”

  “Listen, I wronged him first.”

  “No, you wronged me first—”

  “Aston! That’s not fair.”

  Glancing at me, he sighed. “You’re right. Listen, why don’t you let me take Tyler to the arcade with Little A? And you can have time with Piper.”

  As we pulled up to the school, I asked, “How would we pull that off?”

  “Simple. I need a helper.”

  My eyes rolled on their own. Aston had an answer for everything. As usual, he ruled his world.

  I opened the car door and walked toward where I met the kids when I picked them up. The lower school and junior high shared a campus, which was great for a single mom like me. They took the bus when I couldn’t be here on time, but I tried to pick them up one or two days a week. Today, I wished it had been a bus day. As the kids ran out of school from all directions, I wondered how I would explain Aston’s presence.

  “Hi, Mom!” Tyler called to me first.