by Annie Jocoby
“Damn,” Ryan said to Nick. “You certainly have a way of getting things done.”
“You just gotta be firm and unwavering. Natalie's like Alexis in a lot of ways. They're both like children, and you need to treat them that way.”
“Well, thanks,” Ryan said. “I owe you one.”
“Speaking of children,” I said, hearing Dalilah calling for me through the baby monitor. I went upstairs to get her.
I came back downstairs with her, and she saw Nick and reached for him. “Uncle Nick,” she said, as Nick took her from me. She put her little hand on Nick's nose and smiled. He laughed back. “Wow, she is a Gallagher. A Whitney, really.”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “She's artistic and brilliant like my mother and father. But I see a lot of Iris in her as well.” Indeed, it looked like her hair was going to be red, which was probably going to be the only major thing that she inherited from me.
Nick sat down on a chair with Dalilah on his lap. He addressed both of us. “What can I do to help with this Andrew situation?” he asked.
“Uh, let me talk to Iris alone, ok?”
“Sure,” Nick said. “I'll be downstairs if you need me, ok?”
“Thanks, buddy,” Ryan said. Nick headed, with Dalilah, to the downstairs area that housed the game room, the wine cellar and two bedrooms. Then Ryan addressed me. “I need to talk to you about something important.”
“Ok,” I said, already dreading this.
“I've been trying to find the best time to tell you this,” he said, then hesitated slightly.
I started to feel the ice cold feeling of fear creep through my veins.
“Anyhow, I know that this is probably the very worst time for this, but...”
“Go on.”
“There's another trip I need to take for the bank. We're in merger talks with another bank that is headquartered in New York City. I am going to be gone for a week.”
“New York. That's great. It'll give you a chance to maybe see Nate and see if you guys can patch things up there.”
“I thought about that. Nat doesn't know about this trip, of course, so I'm not sure that calling Nate while I'm there would be such a great idea. It might be too much of a distraction. But that isn't the point, here. The point is that I need to make sure you're safe while I'm gone. A bodyguard is out of the question, of course.”
I suddenly knew what idea he had for me. “You want Nick to stay here while you're gone, don't you?”
“I was going to ask him, but only after I talked to you.”
“Nick, is he trained like you are, with weapons and that?”
“Yeah. He's an excellent shot himself.”
“Alexis isn't going to care about this?”
“Alexis doesn't have a say. I don't think that they're going to stay together anyhow.”
I sighed. “If he'll do it, sure. What's Plan B, though?”
“I stay here. The problem with that is my job wouldn't exactly be happy with me about this. This is an important merger that we've been working on for awhile. But I can't leave unless I know that you're in good hands. And Dalilah, too. Both of my girls have to be safe.”
“Ok.”
At that, Ryan went downstairs to get Nick.
“So, what's the big secret?” Nick asked upon coming up.
“I need to go out of town next week,” Ryan said. “And I wanted to know if you could stay here with Iris and Dalilah.”
“Sure,” Nick said without hesitation. “Hell, it'll get me out of the house and away from cray cray, so that's a bonus. But anything you need, buddy, you got it.”
“Now, you have to know that there might be a time when you're going to have to face down Andrew. So, you're going to have to be on high alert and packing all the time that you're here.”
“I know the drill,” he said.
“Good,” Ryan said.
I felt relieved that Nick could stay here with me, but I also felt a sense of sadness and loss that I would have to spend a week apart from Ryan. Ever since I’d been back, I'd felt a need to be with him always, so a week away would be horrible.
But I sucked it up, and prepared for Ryan’s leaving and Nick’s staying.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Ryan left on an early Monday morning, after making love to me several times. I tried to banish the thought that our lovemaking had an urgency because both of us were afraid that we wouldn't see each other again. But it was in the back of my mind. What if Andrew came for me that week, and I just never saw my beautiful husband again? Or my beautiful child? I mean, I guess that I wouldn't know differently, because I'd be dead. But, still, just the thought of not seeing him again frightened me.
Nick, for his part, chose to work from home that week on a drafting project. I was grateful to have somebody around, and the fact that he was handy with weapons was a definite bonus.
Not having Ryan around that week gave me a chance to focus all my energies on Dalilah, who was stringing together more words every day. At just under seven months old, she was talking better than an average 2-year-old, which was amazing to me.
“Daddy go away?” she asked, after Ryan kissed her goodbye and told her to be a good girl.
“Yes, baby, daddy is going to be gone for a week. He'll be home Saturday.” That was one good thing – he was only going to be gone for a business week, not a calendar week.
“Uncle Nick stay here?”
“Yes, Uncle Nick is staying here. Now, what would you like to do?”
“Draw,” she said. “With paints.”
I gave her some of her water colors, which were the kind used by elementary school children in the little white tray. I mixed up the water with the little disks in the tray, and gave Dalilah some art paper and a brush. I got a set for myself, and Dalilah and I lay on the floor, side by side, painting all morning long. Dalilah was becoming more sophisticated with her paintings and drawings – she was able to draw dogs, cats, birds, flowers, trees, houses and bumblebees. For my part, I was able to draw little stick figures, and I colored them in different colors. My houses and flowers were less sophisticated than my tiny daughter's, as were my dogs and cats.
One thing was for sure – Dalilah got her artistic bent from her father, not from me.
We worked quietly downstairs, while Nick was working in Ryan's office upstairs. I could hear him talking on the phone to clients, which gave me a sense of security, just knowing that somebody was around. I had to admit that I missed Nat, because she always kept me company while Ryan was at work. Now it was Nick's turn.
I wondered if there ever would come a time when I wouldn't need a babysitter anymore.
The first few days with Nick were fine. We started to become tentative friends, after having gotten off on the wrong foot when we first met, because Nick didn't think that I was good enough for Ryan. Not sophisticated enough, not worldly enough, and not attractive enough. He pretty much confirmed all my own insecurities with his attitude towards me in those days, so I really didn't like him.
However, I soon found out that he developed a newfound respect for me.
“You know, when I first met you, I have to admit that I didn't see it. I didn't see you and Ryan together at all,” Nick said over a dinner of take-out pizza and beer. Nick apparently wasn't a cook like Ryan, and I, myself, was always too busy with Dalilah to cook.
“I know that,” I said. “I heard you guys talking on the night that you and I met.”
“I mean, I was pissed when I found out that you took Dalilah from him and didn't tell him about her. Don't get me wrong. But Ryan told me that you didn't want a thing from him when you divorced him,” Nick said with a shake of his head. “Every time I get another call from Rielle's lawyer, demanding more and more, I start thinking about the wisdom of finding a girl like you. Just down to earth, not pretentious, not in love with money and possessions.”
“Well, thank you, Nick,” I said, clinking my beer bottle with his. “I admit that I wasn't too fond of you, either, b
ecause I thought you were judging me. Ryan loves you, though, and you've always done so much for him. That means a lot to me, too. Just because Ryan means so much to me.”
Nick and I bonded that week. We watched movies together in the evenings, finding that we shared a similar sense of humor. We both laughed until we cried at Chris Rock standup comedy and Monty Python movies. I showed him my favorite movie, The Way We Were, and, to my surprise, Nick teared up at the conclusion of that movie, even more than I did. He showed me one of his favorite movies, The Departed, and I was enthralled with this movie from beginning to end.
He was also great with Dalilah, playing with her in the evenings after he finished his work. He sat with her at our new baby grand piano, which arrived that week after being on back order for over a month. The enormous piano was the centerpiece of the living room, fitting in with the masculinity and dark colors of this room perfectly. It turned out that Nick was an excellent piano player, and he helped Dalilah put her chubby hands across the keys. I wondered if she would be musical as well as artistic. It did seem that she was understanding and appreciating the music.
Nick and I were becoming friends, at long last.
The week ended without incident, with Ryan arriving that Friday night on the red-eye. He got in around midnight, climbing into bed with me. I verbally acknowledged him in the bed, so that he would know that I wasn't sleeping, so he put his hands on my breasts and stomach, then got undressed and made passionate love to me. “I missed you,” he said. “God, how much I missed you,” he said while he thrust, his head buried in my shoulder. He quickly came, then rolled over and continued to stroke my body until he was hard again. He kissed me slowly and tenderly, and entered me again, without the urgency of the first lovemaking of the night. “I love you so much. So very much. I would die for you,” he was saying. “I would die for you.”
We made love like that, slowly, tenderly, leisurely, into the morning. The sun came up when we finally disentangled and tried to get caught up on some much-needed sleep.
Of course, Dalilah got up, herself, around 8 that morning, so it turned out that I only had about three hours of sleep.
But it was well worth it.
Chapter Fifty-Six
I found out unpleasant news that week – Rochelle wasn’t going to plead, so the trial was scheduled in a month. It had been over two years since the incident happened, and the trial should’ve gone several times, but, each time, there was some kind of continuance for one reason or another. I was also supposed to be deposed several times, but this kept getting put off as well. Now, finally, I was going to be deposed, and, since the trial was getting near, the media was becoming interested in the story as well.
I started getting phone calls from random media personnel, asking for some kind of comment. They were interested in not just the trial and the crime, but also my personal life – why I divorced Ryan, yet was still with him, and they also wanted information about our daughter. I politely told each person who called that I didn’t have a comment, and I didn’t watch any 24-hour news channels, so I had no idea if I was being discussed on the shows. I probably was, but I didn’t want to stress out, so I didn’t bother with watching these shows.
Yet, somehow, information was being filtered to these media people. Some of the messages on my voice mail referenced my drug abuse and rape, and my stint in rehab. I had no idea who was feeding the media this private information, but I would imagine it would be somebody with a bone to pick – probably Natalie, maybe Alexis. Alexis seemed to have given in to her dark side again, like when I first knew her. Only now, she wasn’t hassling Ryan, she was hassling Nick. Nick was threatening to break up with her, but he confessed to Ryan that he couldn’t cut the cord completely because “the sex was just too good.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “When she’s manic, it usually is good. But the mania brings out all sorts of other goodies from her as well. Just wait. You’ll be begging to leave in a matter of days.”
Nick reported that Alexis was staying up for days on end, talking incessantly. She had also broken into an Hermés store because she wanted a bag from there after hours, and couldn’t wait until the store opened. She left the money for the bag, $8,000, on the counter, but the surveillance video caught her and she was charged with trespassing and property damage. Nick also reported that David was coming around more and more, and he and Alexis would be going at it long after Nick had left the room. Nick wasn’t sure how David could keep up with her, but Nick was happy to have a buffer there.
Ryan nodded his head. “This is all sounding very familiar. Just wait until she starts doing lines again. Just wait.”
It wasn’t a day before Nick was back, wanting to stay at our house again. “Alexis kicked me out, throwing all my stuff out on the lawn,” Nick explained. “And it’s my house! I need to stay here until she cools off.”
“Get a restraining order,” Ryan said. “Trust me, you’re gonna need it.”
I sighed. I was in the middle of examining the discovery documents in preparation of my deposition in the morning. I didn’t need the distraction of Nick staying with us, especially as I knew that Alexis was probably going to be at our house as well.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my deposition tomorrow,” I said, going downstairs.
Not a half hour later, I heard Alexis upstairs, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Asshole,” she screamed. “Or should I say assholes? You two are peas in a pod.”
“Good to see you, too, Alexis,” Ryan said.
“Good to see you too, Alexis,” she mocked him. “What’s good about it? Nick here just ran off, just ran off, leaving me to fend for myself with that sex maniac David. And, what about you, Ryan? You’re so fucking pussy whipped that your stupid slut can do anything to you and you’ll just take it. I’d like to see your reaction if I would’ve hid your daughter for as long as she did.”
“Nick,” Ryan said. “Remember what I told you?”
I felt for both of them up there, Ryan and Nick. I wondered what Alexis was really capable of when she got like this. I remembered the last time, when she revealed to me that Ryan was bisexual. What might come out of this tirade?
Then I heard “Holy fucking Christ!” It was Alexis. “Fuck, that’s Mia with red hair.” Then she started sobbing, loudly. “Mia, Mia, Mia,” she repeated, over and over. “Oh my god, my baby. My baby. My baby.”
Nick was talking next. “Alexis, you’re going to have to leave.” Leave it to Nick to be completely insensitive about Alexis breaking down upon seeing little Dalilah, who was apparently the spitting image of Alexis and Ryan’s child.
Then there was absolute bedlam in the living room. Dalilah started screaming and crying, Ryan started admonishing Alexis about scaring her, Alexis continued to howl, Nick continued to yell.
I went upstairs to try to straighten everything out. I found Alexis looking disheveled – her blonde hair was tangled and askew, her makeup was running down her blotchy face, and two of her fingernails were broken, while the others were long. She was dressed in a skimpy, filmy negligee that revealed all of her magnificent body, with no coat on, despite the fact that it was below thirty degrees outside. She had on one sock and no shoes. She had a frying pan in her hand, and was brandishing it like a weapon.
She saw me immediately, then came over to me and wrapped herself around me, frying pan still in hand, and sobbed into my shoulder. I looked over her shoulder at Ryan, who was watching Alexis with a half-amused, half-pissed, look on his face. Nick was looking at her with a one-hundred-percent pissed look on his face.
I wondered if the guys expected me to be the official Alexis caretaker for the evening.
I couldn’t deal with that. I had enough on my mind as it was.
Alexis was like that for a good five minutes, clutching me hard while sobbing. Dalilah had calmed down, and was now like her father and Uncle Nick – her chubby hand was shoved in her mouth, and she was just staring at the circus sideshow known as Alex
is. She was dressed in a blue Winnie the Pooh onesy, her little red curls rioting around her face. She was sitting on Nick’s lap.
I finally had to extricate myself from the sobbing Alexis. I got a better look at her, and it seemed that she wasn’t quite in touch with reality. She had an expression that was one of extreme pain and fear – her beautiful mouth was quivering, her blue eyes were saucers, and her pupils were extremely dilated. She was looking at me, yet didn’t really seem to see me. Her hands were trembling wildly.
“There, there, Alexis, why don’t you have a seat?” I said, directing her to one of the chairs in the living room. She obeyed, and sat down, staring into space, her eyes glazed over in catatonia. I went to the kitchen to fix her a cup of hot chocolate. Ryan followed me in there.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful, about all this. I know that you have a stressful day ahead of you tomorrow, and you don’t need this kind of bullshit occurring in this house.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said, thinking that bullshit just came with the territory of being with him. “She needs back on her meds, obviously. So, you better talk to her somehow. You were the one that she listened to the last time. I don’t think that Nick is equipped to deal with this.”
“You’re probably right,” he said, with a sigh.
Before we got out of the kitchen, Alexis was back at it. She was screaming at Nick “You’re an asshole, a goddamned asshole. I hate you,” she screamed, then hauled off and wacked him with the frying pan in her hand. Nick caught the frying pan before it could smack him a second time, and grabbed it away from her.
This made her howl even more.
Ryan sighed, nodded at Nick, then disappeared briefly. He came back in a few minutes, a syringe in hand. He then tackled Alexis, overpowering her while Nick held her feet, and injected her while she screamed and kicked. In a few seconds, her screaming and kicking subsided, and she was passed out on the couch.
“It looks like she’s going to have to be checked into the hospital,” Ryan said, stating the obvious. “I doubt that she’ll go willingly, though. At any rate, we can’t take her over there right now. We need to just let her sleep this off, then deal with it in the morning.”
