Uncomplicated Choices

by Cara Dee

  "I have some design proposals to go over," I lied. "Is Haley staying the night or do I pick her up later?"

  "She's more than welcome to stay. You get some rest." Ade headed to her desk next and opened a drawer. "How's Ellis doing? Haley told me he's over at the house often. I think that’s great, by the way. It's about time he spends more time with family."

  I scratched the side of my head and glanced over at an oblivious Haley. She and Lyn were whispering and giggling.

  "Isn't she a little young to be a gossip?" I asked.

  Adeline snorted a chuckle and lifted a brow. "You think she wouldn’t tell us that Uncle Ellis has lots of sleepovers with Daddy?"

  What did that mean, exactly? Ade wasn’t reacting the way I thought she would if she were to learn what those sleepovers entailed. There was no surprise or disbelief—or her trademark demand for details.

  "When he finds his own place, I hope that doesn’t change," she went on. "Either way, I'm glad he's with you rather than spending all his time on the boat."

  Oh. Oh. Right, I was only the friend who lived five minutes away from the marina, and spending time with me helped him get over his divorce. Was I getting that right?

  "Huh," I muttered. "Being family really is a good cover." It made me wonder what it would take for people to suspect it was more than friendship. A slap on the ass would be interpreted as a joke, I assumed. What if they saw us having dinner together?

  "What?" Ade gave me a strange look.

  I lifted a shoulder and pulled out my car key. "I guess I thought people would raise brows, that’s all." Eh. I had to get home and come up with a strategy for handling Marilyn. I could chitchat with Adeline another day. "Anyway, I should get going."

  *

  As soon as I got home, I broke out the rum—that was my strategy—and sat down in the kitchen to text Ellis.

  Having a crap day. Hope yours is better. Miss you. Oh, and Marilyn is on her way over.

  I wanted some fresh air, and the backyard looked like shit. That left the porch on the front, and I brought my good friend, the rum. It started raining when I stepped out, kind of fitting to the mood I was in, and I sat down in the corner and kicked up my feet on the railing. My head hit the house wall, a heavy sigh escaping me.

  No matter what, I was going to do everything in my power to convince Marilyn I could be a good side dish in their dynamic. I'd do whatever it took, basically, because I wanted this house to be the home of a family, not a handful of people who were divided by restrictions and custody agreements.

  The sound of a car pulling in drew my attention, and I peered over the railing to see what neighbor was coming home—oh, she was already here. I slapped a hand over my face to look alive.

  She was out of her car and about to open the gate, her stride purposeful.

  "Hi, Casey… I, um—" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder for some reason. "I was in the neighborhood. Is now a good time?"

  Well, she did say after work. This was after work.

  "Yeah, it's fine." I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. "How are you?"

  The confidence in her step faltered. She closed the gate after her and approached almost cautiously. "Before I forget, I wanted to return this to you." She opened her bag, and it was the damn camera again. "Ellis forgot it… It's his—it should be here."

  Was she moving him out of their house? Surely, he had a lot of crap there. Most of his clothes were on the boat by now, if not in the closet upstairs. Some work-related items had found their way into my house too, something I admittedly got a kick out of. Nevertheless, there was still other stuff. They'd shared a home for eleven years. There had to be more than a camera.

  I accepted the camera, feeling awkward and on edge.

  Marilyn fidgeted with the strap of her bag. "I…I haven't seen him that way before. That happy and…so peaceful."

  I looked at the camera in my hand and turned it on. The photo was still there, the one where he kissed the spot above my sweats.

  "Not that one." She cleared her throat. "The, uh—the other one. I think you took it."

  Clicking to the previous one, I saw the goofy selfie I'd taken. This time, he was kissing my shoulder while I was smirking into the camera. The sun was shining down on us. He did look happy. Serene, almost. Even with his eyes closed, his expression was telling.

  "He told me you were serious about each other a while back," she mentioned. "To be honest, I can't say it wasn’t shocking to find out about you two. If there hadn't been a picture to go with the story, I wouldn’t have believed him."

  She wanted to chitchat before she laid into me? I drained my drink and made a vague gesture to the available seat next to me. In the corner of my eye, I caught the sight of when her thick cardigan parted, displaying a baby bump.

  Oh God. It was real. The baby was really fucking in there. A few months to go, and then a little baby boy who hopefully looked like Ellis would be here.

  I thought of last night, Ellis with his head on my lap, browsing through an online catalogue of bedding for babies. Haley had been there too, sitting snugly in the little space between him and the back of the couch. She'd gotten so used to his presence now, and she was excited about the baby. Although, upon learning it was a boy, her initial response had been, "Um, Daddy, what do I do with a boy?"

  My chest tightened. Everything I wanted was suddenly in the hands of Marilyn.

  "I have a question I'd like to ask you," she said. "It's not my place, so I understand if you wish to keep it to yourself." She waited for my response; I merely dipped my chin. "It's about Kendra." That threw me. "May I ask what pushed you to seek sole custody of Haley?"

  Wasn’t that obvious? "Well, Kendra left," I said slowly. "We agreed to do the right thing and raise Haley together, and a month after she was born, Kendra went back home."

  I wasn’t going to pretend everything had been perfect. Hell, I'd still been on parole; I was busy with school and getting my life back in order. She became the breath of fresh air, and we were friends for a long-ass time before anything happened. Because it was always her plan to return to Pittsburgh. She was only here for school. Then one thing led to another one night, and we started dating.

  It'd been an awesome month. Then she got knocked up because we'd been careless.

  "But she came back," Marilyn pointed out.

  I frowned. "Hasn’t Ellis told you this?" It wasn’t exactly news, nor was it a secret.

  Marilyn shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I fear I wasn’t particularly interested when it happened."

  A snort escaped me.

  Having no clue where this was going, I offered her the CliffsNotes so we could get on with things. "All right, yeah, she came back after a few months because Lincoln hired lawyers for me. I was gonna take her to court. For no other reason than the papers arriving at her house—she lived with her parents—she flew back here." And it turned out she'd never told them squat. Her parents were, to this day, oblivious to the fact that they had a granddaughter. "She claimed she'd panicked because her folks are strict." Frankly, I didn’t give a shit. Either she was a mother to Haley, or she wasn’t. There was no in-between. "I think she stuck around a couple months, going back and forth before coming up with the stupid idea that she could be a temporary mom who visited whenever she could. That way, she wouldn’t have to tell her parents anything."

  By then, Lincoln and Ade were ready to send a pack of dogs after her.

  The legal option was sharks in the shape of lawyers, and with Haley as my only focus, I didn’t hold anything back. I told Kendra to choose.

  "And she left permanently," Marilyn concluded.

  "That was her choice," I replied and refilled my drink. "My goal was to get full custody. She could fight me for visitation rights, but that sort of thing would've eventually gotten back to her parents." I didn’t have the right to forbid Kendra from ever seeing Haley, and there were plenty of distant parents who only had their kids on holidays and whatnot. The problem was h
er refusal to be honest with her parents.

  That spoke volumes to me, and my daughter wasn’t gonna be anybody's goddamn secret.

  In the end, Kendra signed all the papers and headed home. I hadn't heard from her since, though I knew Lincoln kept tabs. As long as she wasn’t on her way here, I didn’t wanna know.

  "I'll never understand it," I muttered into my glass. "Useless pieces of shit—dare call themselves parents, only to split." To the men and women who completely skirted their responsibilities, I had nothing good to say.

  What sounded suspiciously like the ragged breath one took before falling into tears made me whip my head in Marilyn's direction. What the— She fucking was falling into tears, and I didn’t know how this was happening, or what I was supposed to do, or why. Oh God, why was she sitting on my porch crying?

  "I'm sorry." She whimpered and eyed my no doubt bewildered—slightly drunk—expression and wiped at her cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I'm sorry."

  Get your shit together, man.

  I shook my head in a daze, and I tried to get my shit together. A pregnant woman was crying on my porch; I had to make myself useful. "Will, um, I mean…what's wrong? Do you want me to call Ellis?"

  "God, no." She definitely didn’t want that, given how quickly she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm…so exhausted, and, and, and—" She let out a sob and covered her face with her hands, and I acted out of instinct and left my chair. "I'm horrible. I came here to see… I want you and Ellis," she hiccupped, "to have this whole family thing, because then I'd feel less guilty…" She crumpled once more, and I got down on one knee in front of her, tentatively placing a hand on her knee.

  "Less guilty?"

  She sniveled and exhaled shakily. "Wh-what if I'm like Kendra?"

  I furrowed my brow, immediately rejecting what she said. I could list dozens of things that made Marilyn and Kendra different.

  "I highly doubt that," I responded mildly. My ass hit the floor, and I brought my drink with me, leaning back against the railing.

  She sniffled some more and hiccupped again as she fruitlessly wiped away her tears. "Mind you, I would never abandon my son, but things aren't so black and white, either."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Ellis left me a message the other day and said we needed to sit down soon and discuss custody." She closed her eyes, and she took a couple deep breaths to calm down. "He presumes we're going with shared custody, and I'm wondering if-if there are other options." She drew a shaky breath, seemingly scared to look me in the eye. She was literally the opposite of how she'd come across in her text today about coming here. I didn’t know what to make of it. "My mother suggested it, actually. She knows I'm struggling and how…how liberating this new sense of freedom has been for me. Without the guilt and the fighting with Ellis hanging over me—all of that gone—I've finally been able to focus on things that make me happy."

  Wait, what…? I didn’t want to be right here, if my suspicions were correct, and they couldn’t be. She'd already mentioned never wanting to abandon her son.

  That she treasured her newfound freedom wasn’t weird. Ellis was doing the same, only in his own way. Their marriage wasn’t one I was going to waste time playing the blame game with. As far as I knew, they'd both fucked up and were now more than ready to move on.

  "What is it you want, Marilyn?" I had to ask.

  I understood the baby's arrival was…inconvenient, for lack of a better word. Rather than divorcing and going separate ways, she and Ellis would be tied together in some way for as long as they lived. Lastly—and I prayed this wasn’t wishful thinking—it was entirely possible she didn’t know what she ultimately wanted. There was a time I didn’t know a baby would be good for my life. Learning Kendra was pregnant had turned my life inside out, and it'd taken some time to adjust and grow into the person who couldn’t fucking wait to see those ten little toes and ten little fingers.

  Marilyn looked downright ashamed. "I would like to propose to Ellis that this…" She faltered, swallowing heavily and closing her eyes for a moment. "That this becomes our son's primary home."

  I blew out a breath, stunned, and felt the need to look over my shoulder to make sure she was actually talking to me. Where was the hatred? Where was the speech on how she didn’t want me in her kid's life?

  She went on, her posture screaming of defeat. "I wanted to discuss it with you first because—because I won't bring it up with Ellis if you think there is the slightest chance this will end up with me losing my baby boy. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I love my son dearly already. I will always be here for him. It's the matter of a primary home I want him to have here, not his only home."

  Okay…it was getting slightly clearer. "What you're saying is, you want him on weekends and stuff?" Was this happening? "How the hell would this make you even remotely similar to Kendra?"

  "No, I mean," she stammered, "about the whole selfish thing. This would be my way of having the cake and eating it, too. I have this vision." She sighed softly and leaned back, closing her cardigan as a wind swept through the porch. "I was thinking Ellis's home—" she flicked me an uncertain look "—your home…would be the place he calls home. And then there's me. 'Going to Mom's place.'" My mouth twitched at her use of air quotes. It was almost sweet. "I want to be there, Casey. Always a call away. I could picture myself coming over for dinner and holidays…" The discomfort made a swift return. "If I'm welcome, that is, of course. I would also want certain weekends, school nights here and there—a schedule that’s more flexible. Like how you and Adeline and Lincoln do for your girls."

  With each word she spoke, I relaxed more and more.

  Marilyn wasn’t like Kendra at all.

  I wasn’t entirely certain Marilyn was like Marilyn, either. The Marilyn I used to know, anyway. Thinking back on holidays and dinners, the words forced politeness came to mind. She was formal, rigid, and cold. Yet what I'd witnessed today… Fuck, I'd been introduced to a person who was more…human.

  "I know it's selfish of me," she said and looked down. "I'm supposed to want everything, right? This last week…I've been up all night reading mommy blogs and magazines, and it's all so…" She released a heavy breath and looked up for a moment. "These amazing women identify so strongly with their motherhood. It's everything to them, and here I am, dreaming of taking a higher position at my father's company."

  Yeah, so?

  "Are you turning this into a gender issue?" My forehead creased, and I had to admit I was confused. I mean, in this day and age… "I'm not gonna deny biology, but there's more to a woman than having kids. Some will burn passionately for it, some won't. Just look at me." I widened my arms. "Dads are either these stereotypical providers or distant deadbeats, right? Yet here I am, proudly getting my nails painted and braiding hair. Likewise, there are gonna be women who don't want that as much."

  The lines in her forehead smoothed out slightly, her teary gaze softening. "I suppose I haven't thought of it that way before." As she looked away, a pensive expression on her face, she touched her belly gently. "I do believe I'm being selfish, though. I'm not certain I like this vision of mine because it seems like a healthy upbringing for a child, or because it's self-serving."

  "That word," I said, shaking my head. "Fuck it, Marilyn. We're all allowed to be selfish at times. In fact, I'm selfish every damn opportunity I get. As long as Haley doesn’t suffer, I will continue to take time for myself. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that."

  "But I wouldn’t be taking half the responsibility," she argued.

  "And you wouldn’t reap all the rewards," I answered. "You do realize your kid will view me as a parent at least as much as he does with you, yeah?"

  Her delicate brows knitted together. "Is this an issue for you? I apologize, Ellis made it sound like that was what you want—"

  "It is," I was quick to say. "Jesus, you have no idea. But before you came here today, I was under the impression your pressing matters wa
s about telling me to take a hike." That seemed to genuinely surprise her, so I pointed something out for her. "Last time you visited me here, you called me a distraction and hoped I wouldn’t be around Ellis too much."

  Guilt clouded her features once more. "I owe you an apology for that. So far, this pregnancy has been a roller coaster from hell. I'm sorry. I've been so overwhelmed, and I have all these emotions that freak me out."

  I cut her off gently because she could set herself off. She looked damn close to tears again.

  "It's okay, Marilyn." In fact, I could barely describe the relief. She wasn’t going to ask that I remove myself from their family dynamic. I was gonna be a part of it. "For the record, I don't think you should feel like you're selfish. Will you be here for your son whenever he needs you? Actually needs you, not when he whines. Kids whine a lot."

  "Of course I will!" She was affronted I'd suggest otherwise.

  I lifted a shoulder. "Then you're not much different from the parent who works a lot while the other stays at home." She'd brought up coming over for dinner and holidays, which I honestly thought was a brilliant idea. Their son would see us as a united front, and there would be less shuffling between different places. Whether we hosted birthday parties here or at her house didn’t matter, as long as we got along well enough to spend them together.

  Marilyn relaxed further, despite some lingering skepticism. "You and Ellis work full time and run your own businesses, as well."

  I nodded. "And since I had Haley, this is sort of all I've dreamed about. I may love my career, but I'm a family man. I love coming home to a full house." The fact that I'd get the chance to share that with Ellis was nothing short of mind-blowing. For once in my life, everything was falling into place. It wasn’t the time to be shy about what I wanted. It was the time to jump in headfirst and live the dream.

  This could be one of those lucky breaks Marilyn should accept and not question. Because there were three of us, no one would be neglected, Ellis and I would get our madhouse, and Marilyn could be a career woman and still be a great mother. If she'd hired a nanny so she could work more, people wouldn’t bat an eyelash. It was those fucking stereotypes again. They needed to die.