All for Maddie

by Jettie Woodruff

  And once again Maddie had a meltdown. I actually smiled when I saw Alex’s number just after ten at night.

  I could hear her crying for her mommy, before I heard him. “I need you.”

  “Of course you do. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  The predictable reunion was the same as the night before. I held Maddie on his sofa, while she curled into my chest and fell asleep. Alex once again sat across from me. He didn’t speak, I didn’t speak, and we only glared at each other.

  “What, Alex?” I finally asked. He wouldn’t quit staring at me, like he was contemplating me or something. I didn’t like it. I still wanted to punch him in his stupid face.

  “I have a proposition for you, Whitley.”

  “A proposition? Fuck you, Alex. I’m not interested in your propositions. I want you to go to hell.”

  “Now see. I really don’t think you should be using that language around my daughter.”

  Unbelievable. “She didn’t hear me. She’s asleep, and further more I don’t use that language around my daughter.”

  “You should really hear me out,” Alex alleged, almost as a threat. He propped one foot over the other and slid down a little, slumping.

  “Fine, Alex. Go, proposition away.”

  “I want you to move in here with Maddie.”

  I sat up. Surely he didn’t say what it sounded like he just said. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I want you to move in here with Maddie. You don’t need to worry about money or working. I will take care of you.”

  “You’ll take care of me?”

  “Yes, I’ll take care of everything that you and Maddie need. You’ll have your own room, of course.”

  “I’ll have my own room?” Why the hell was I repeating everything he said? Oh yeah, because it was absurd.

  “Stop doing that, Whitley.”

  “I’m not moving in with you. What on earth would ever give you the impression that I would move in here?”

  “The way I see it, you don’t have much of a choice.”

  “I don’t have much choice?” Shit, I was doing it again.

  “Not if you want to see your daughter. I mean I would let you see her, of course, but she is going to live here with me. I’ll see to it. I’m not denying that she loves you and she needs you, but she also needs a father. It’s the best choice for all of us.”

  “She has my father. She doesn’t need you.”

  “I disagree. I’m not going to be a weekend dad. I want her here with me every day. I want to take her to the zoo, to the park, read to her, teach her to ride a bike, and swim. I want to be here for her. I’m going to be here for her.”

  “Alex, this is crazy. What about your girlfriend?”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. I dismissed her this afternoon.”

  “You dismissed her?” Damnit. Stop doing that. I couldn’t help it. This guy was insane. He dismissed her?

  “She’s not the motherly type. I’m not interested in anyone that can’t love my daughter as much as I do.”

  “You don’t even know her.” How the hell could he sit here and say he loved her. He’s known her for forty-eight hours.

  “I do love her. It’s crazy how much I have fallen in love with her.”

  I plopped back to the couch. Maddie squirmed at the movement.

  “Take the week and think about it, Whitley. Just know what you’re getting yourself into, if you choose to fight me on this. You may end up being the every other weekend parent.”

  “I’m going to go lay her down,” I said, standing as she clung to me. My head hurt. He made my head hurt.

  Alex stood and led us to Maddie’s room. He pulled the covers back and I tried to lay her down. She held onto my shirt not letting me go. I laid down with her once again and rubbed her back as she fell asleep.

  “You can stay with her if you want,” Alex offered. “You may as well get used to it.”

  He walked out and closed the door. I never said I was staying. I didn’t want to stay in his house. I wanted to take my daughter and go home to my cabin at the resort. I wasn’t moving in with him, it was crazy.

  I didn’t leave her. I stayed right there with her snuggled up to me. I don’t think I slept for five minutes. I never removed my jeans and let my sneakers hang off the side of the bed. My mind reeled a million different directions. How could this be? This just doesn’t happen, this was worse than any Lifetime movie I’d ever seen.

  Maddie was up at eight the following morning. I could have sworn I had just fallen asleep. My eyes felt like sandpaper.

  “Mommy!” she exclaimed, surprised that I was with her.

  “Good morning, are you ready to go home?”

  “I have a potty,” she stated, sliding off the bed. Where was the bathroom? Great, I hoped Alex was up. I hated the thought of snooping around his house.

  I should have known smarty pants, Maddie, already had that figured out. She was sharper than a shiny new penny. She pulled me by my hand to the bathroom off from the dining room.

  I stood in the door checking out the elaborate bathroom while she removed the dry pull-up and tossed it to the trash.

  “Mommy is going to go get your clothes. I’ll be right back.” I turned and ran right into Alex.

  “Good morning,” He smiled down at me, grasping my arms to steady me. Jesus, did he always look like a million bucks? It was eight o’clock in the morning. He had already showered, shaved, and dressed to kill, and he smelled— No, no. I didn’t give a shit how heavenly he smelled. I darted around him and back to Maddie’s room.

  She was standing on some sort of fancy scale in the corner, naked butt and all. Alex watched her amused. I slipped around him with her clothes and sat on the edge of the tub bigger than my kitchen.

  “How much me cost?” Maddie asked, looking down at the numbers.

  I laughed and looked up to Alex who also laughed. “You cost more money than the world could hold, but,” I said, looking down at the scale, “you weigh twenty-eight pounds. Here put your foot in,” I coaxed, holding her panties out.

  “I’ll go start breakfast,” Alex smiled our way.

  “You don’t have to do that. We’ll just grab something on the way,” I countered.

  He gave me that stern look, like my father would, and repeated himself. “I’ll go start breakfast.”

  Maddie helped with the awkwardness as we ate scrambled eggs, sitting at Alex’s table. Unfathomable….She busily talked about the zoo animals, the pond outside, the swimming pool slide that I hadn’t seen yet, and her papaw. She was ready to go see her papaw and so was I.

  Alex put her in her car seat and kissed her. “I love you. Daddy will call you later, okay?”

  “I come back, K?” she told him as though she sensed that he was sad that she was leaving him.

  “Okay, sweetie, you come back.”

  I got in and started the truck. Damnit. Why couldn’t he just walk away? I rolled down the window.

  “I don’t like you driving her around in this thing,” he admitted.

  “What thing? My truck? This thing’s a tank. I’d drive it to Florida.”

  He snorted. “Not with my daughter, you wouldn’t. From what year is this thing anyway?”

  “94, it has been very faithful.”

  “I’ll buy the next one.”

  “Yeah okay, I’ll see you later,” I said, cranking the handle to raise the window.

  “Bye, Maddie,” he waved, blowing her a kiss.

  Ahh, Maddie, don’t blow it back.

  Chapter 5

  It felt amazing to be home. I loved the cozy feel of home: my home, Maddie’s home. This was where we belonged, right here at the resort. Right here with our secret little beach and with friends and family who loved us both, more than Alex could ever think about.

  We hadn’t been home five minutes before my dad was pulling up in his golf cart.

  “There’s my girl. You come down here and give papaw a big hug,” he demanded,
catching her as she leaped from the top step into his arms. He hugged and kissed her all over.

  “Don’t you ever leave me for two whole days. I missed you too much.”

  “I feed a fish, Papaw.”

  I could only shake my head. That kid would never forget about those damn fish.

  “You do what you need to do. I’m taking my baby for the day. We have to go feed the fish,” my dad, explained.

  “I drive?”

  “Yes, you can drive,” he assured her.

  I watched them drive out the dirt road feeling a sense of defeat. What the hell was I supposed to do? What choice did I have?

  I started a load of laundry, jumped in the shower, and dumped the spoiled milk down the drain. I needed to go to the grocery store. I wasn’t doing it. I would snatch some milk from the dining room. I didn’t want to do anything, but enjoy my home. I wasn’t sure how much longer I had to do that. Oh Lord, was I thinking about this so-called proposition? Of course I was, Alex was leaving me with one option, his. I prayed Maddie kept her mouth shut and didn’t say the D-word around my dad. She wouldn’t. She would spill, and that would be how I explained Alex Wesson to my dad. He would kill Alex. How was I supposed to explain anything?

  So far so good. My dad brought Maddie home when she started getting whiny, needing a nap. Mommy needed a nap too. That sounded wonderful. I’m not sure who was asleep first, her or me, but it was just what I needed. A nice sound sleep without any thoughts.

  I woke startled by my new ring tone, ‘I fucking hate you’ by Godsmack. I downloaded it while I waited for hours at Kylie’s to talk to my daughter. I sat up and searched around me, finding my phone between the cushions. Oh no, where’s Maddie? I instantly wondered, seeing the empty loveseat.

  I walked toward the clank in the kitchen, answering my phone.

  “Hello,” I answered, with my hand on my hip, sternly looking down to my daughter, spreading peanut butter up her legs with a spatula.

  “I not find a bread,” she said looking up with that oh-shit-I’m-in-trouble look.

  “Hi, you made it home okay, I presume,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, we’re home.”

  “Good, can I speak to my daughter?”

  “Not at the moment, she’s in the tub. Call back in a little bit.” I hung up, not because I was being rude like when he did it. What else was I going to say? No, you can’t talk to her because she’s covered in peanut butter. I was proving myself unfit, I didn’t need his help.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I not find a bread,” she said again.

  “That’s because we need to go to the store. Were you planning on eating your legs?”

  “I not like dis,” she said, holding up a stale onion bagel, also covered in peanut butter.

  I took a spatula out of the crock that was setting on the dishwasher and scraped her legs, trying to get the majority off before moving her. She giggled. I didn’t find it funny at all. She had peanut butter all up and down the cabinet, the floor, and I have no idea how it got on the handle of the freezer. She wasn’t tall enough to even reach it. I picked her up and stripped her clothes. Standing her in the bathtub while washing her legs, arms, and fingers before starting the bath water.

  “Why do you always do that?” I asked as she sat down.

  “I did cook.”

  “You did make a mess. Stop doing that. You wake mommy up.”

  “But me hungry.”

  “Mommy will cook. You’re too little.”

  “I free. I have a birfday a marrow.”

  I groaned and picked up the soiled clothes, turned the water off, and walked out. “What do you want to eat?” I asked after depositing her clothes into the washer and walking to the kitchen to clean her mess.

  “I eat wobber,” she called.

  I looked toward her, dumping water from a cup with a confused look. What the hell was wobber? “You want wobber?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I ignored her. I wasn’t even going to try. She was getting hot dogs and French fries.

  “My daddy make me wobber,” she explained.

  Stop saying that. “Alex gave you wobber?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  My phone started singing the hate song just as I finished scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees.

  “I told you to call back later,” I answered.

  “It is later,” he replied.

  “She’s still in the tub. She’ll call you. What the hell is wobber?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maddie wants wobber for supper. She said you made her wobber.”

  He laughed. “I think she is trying to say lobster.”

  “Oh.” Maddie wasn’t getting wobber. Maddie was getting a hot dog. “She’ll call you back.” And again I hung up. I did do it to be rude that time.

  I had just cleaned up our supper dishes when my new favorite song went off again. Maddie mumbled the words, I had to change it. I didn’t have the explicit version, thank God. Jesus he was persistent.

  “You’re ridiculous,” I answered.

  “I want to talk to my daughter.”

  “MOMMY!” Maddie called from the living room. I walked over to her kneeling down looking attentively at something on the area rug.

  “A t-wex in da house,” she claimed.

  “That’s not a t-rex. It’s a grasshopper. Here, Alex wants to talk to you,” I said handing her the phone and scooping up the bug in my hand. I heard him laugh as I handed over the phone.

  Maddie talked for maybe two minutes and then was on to something else. I hung up.

  I declined the invite to eat supper with my family. Maddie hadn’t spilled the beans yet, and I wasn’t ready for that. We stayed home, walked to the river, and were in our pajamas by eight. I was still feeling the effects of no sleep from the night before and didn’t foresee it being any better tonight. How could it? I still didn’t have an answer to my problem.

  Maddie fell asleep on the couch, watching the Lion King. I slid from beneath her and pulled her legs to a laying position. I took a beer, walked out to my front porch and sunk to the first step. I wanted to call someone. I needed to tell someone what I was being forced to do. Who? There was no one to call. I honestly believed that my dad would have been the only one to believe my story. I couldn’t tell him. This was going to happen. Alex was going to force me to live with him or take my daughter. My dad would end up in prison and Alex would live far, far under the earth’s surface.

  I rolled my eyes and hit the end button as I sang, “I fucking hate you,” with Alex’s ring tone, not omitting the word that was blanked out. I wasn’t talking to him. I had nothing to say to him. He wasn’t going to dictate what I did. I chugged my beer and went in to get another one. I finally answered my stupid baby daddy on the fourth ring.

  “Oh my God, Alex. What do you want?”

  “Why are you ignoring my calls?”

  “Because, I don’t want to talk to you.” I hung up. I hadn’t planned on doing that. I just did it.

  “Yes……” I answered again.

  “We can do this all night.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

  “I wanted to tell Maddie goodnight.”

  “Too late, she’s already asleep,” I had my finger on the end button when I heard him.

  “Don’t you dare hang up on me.”

  “Is there something that I can do for you?” I smartly asked.

  “Yes, you can bring my daughter and get back here. I miss her.”

  “You don’t even know her.”

  “I know her well enough to know that she is mine.”

  “She’s mine. You shouldn’t have any rights to her at all.”

  “I guess you should have thought about that before you decided not to press charges when you were twenty-one.”

  “I wasn’t fucking twenty-one, Alex. I am twenty-one now. I was seventeen. You raped me when I was seventeen.”

  Dead silence.r />
  “Alex?”

  “Are you serious, Whitley?”

  “Yes, I am dead serious. I was a senior in high school.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Yeah, and you fucking raped me.”

  “Will you stop throwing that word around? I hate hearing you talk like that. You told me you were twenty-one and that you went to NC State.”

  “I lied.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. It was stupid. One of the guys had some shit that he said was sure to get us laid that night. I took it. I guess, because you made it so easy. You didn’t fight me at all.”

  “I couldn’t fight you, Alex. I wanted to. I did try.”

  “For whatever its worth, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not worth anything. You’re ruining my life. I don’t want to move to Lincoln with you. I don’t want my daughter to know you. Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

  “I’m not going to do that. Regardless of the circumstances, she’s still my daughter. I’ve missed three years of her life. I don’t want to miss another day. You should have told me. You have no idea how infuriated it makes me to know that you hid her from me.”

  “Alex,” I said exasperated. “Maddie is a product of you raping me. If I would have told you then, it would have been because you were arrested and registered as a sex offender. I wish I would have told someone that night. I wish you did go to jail; at least I wouldn’t be going through this right now. I wouldn’t even have her right now had I done that. I would have had the morning after pill.”

  “I’m glad you have her.”

  “So am I. But I’m not glad you are doing this. I don’t understand you. I don’t know why you think you have any right to stake your claim.”

  “When are you coming?”

  “Did you hear anything that I just said?”

  “Yeah, I heard. I’m not listening. How about two weeks?”

  “I never said I was moving in with you. My dad is going to freak out. What the hell am I supposed to tell him?”

  “Tell him that you’re in love with me and that you want us to be a family.”