Buried Castles

by Monica Alexander

  I walked over to her desk which was tucked away in a little nook in the kitchen. It was one of those two tiered Pottery Barn desks that looked less like a desk and more like modified bookshelves, but it fit the space well. She had framed pictures, mostly of her and Lily, lining the top shelf, but there were some of her friends and family too. I could tell, even if Lily’s father wasn’t around, that the child was loved.

  I grabbed a pen from the decorative mug Jen kept them in and stopped to gaze at a recent picture of Jen and Lily. They were both laughing, and the person who’d taken it had captured them at just the right moment. I wondered if it had been taken over the summer. I knew Jen had gone home to visit her parents for three months. They lived somewhere on the West Coast.

  As my eyes scanned over the pictures, I stopped when I recognized the guy in one of them. I’d seen the picture before, but it was before I’d met him, so he wasn’t familiar to me. Now he was. He had blond hair like Jen’s, tattoos covering his arms, and the same cheekbones. I laughed a little to myself when I realized what a small world it was. Jen was Derrick’s sister – Derrick, the drummer from Liar’s Edge who Rachel had hooked up with, who was friends with Zack. I swallowed hard. I wondered if Jen knew Zack. She probably did.

  And then I realized just how small the world truly was when I my eyes flashed to a picture of Zack holding Lily in his arms. Involuntarily, my stomach started churning. What was a picture of Zack doing on Jen’s desk? Why was Zack holding Lily? My heart clenched even more when I realized Lily was wearing the same dress in both the picture of her and Jen, and the picture of her with Zack. They were taken on the same day, and it had been recent.

  From that point forward, my mind wouldn’t turn off. I imagined the absolute worst, of course, as my mind flitted back to what Jen had told me about her boyfriend. He was a guy she’d dated before, who was a musician, who she really, really liked, who she’d started seeing over the summer. Then I remembered Zack telling me about a girlfriend he’d had named Jennifer and things just seemed to come to a screeching halt.

  God I hoped she wasn’t dating Zack.

  God I hoped they wouldn’t come back to the apartment together.

  Just then, Lily started crying, so I went in to see if she was okay, welcoming the distraction. She was usually a sound sleeper, but she must have had a bad dream. When I walked into the room, she was standing up in her crib, holding onto the side, and tears were streaming down her face.

  “Mommy!” she cried, as she reached out for me, obviously confused in her post-dream state.

  “Come here, Lily Lou,” I said reaching for her and pulling her into my arms.

  Her crying continued as she gripped my shirt with her tiny fists and rested her head on my shoulder. I bounced her up and down as we walked through the apartment. I knew movement helped whenever she was restless.

  “Mommy,” she said again, although it was weaker. Her cries were subsiding.

  “Mommy will be home soon,” I said, looking at the clock in the kitchen. Jen was due back in about an hour. “Do you want some milk?”

  “Miwk,” she mumbled into my shoulder, so I grabbed a sippy cup and filled it with the whole milk that Jen kept in the refrigerator for her.

  When I handed it to her, she eagerly pulled it to her mouth and started sucking, so I continued walking her around the apartment, hoping she would get sleepy again. When we made it back to the kitchen, I realized she was wide awake, so I stopped in front of the desk, feeling potentially shameless, but a little desperate at the same time.

  I pointed to the first picture of her and Jen, and said, “Who’s that?” It was a game Lily had liked to play in the past month or so as her vocabulary had increased.

  “Mommy!” she said, excitedly.

  Next I pointed to her. “Who’s that?”

  She shrugged her little shoulders. “I don know,” she said in her baby voice, and I tickled her tummy.

  “That’s you, you silly girl. Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the picture of Derrick.

  “Deck,” she said, and I realized she couldn’t yet say Derrick.

  “Yeah, that’s Uncle Derrick. And who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the picture of her and Zack.

  “Zack!” she said, clearly and obviously excited.

  “That’s right,” I said, as I fought to swallow the lump in my throat. She knew Zack by name. She liked him.

  Then I tried to rationalize what I was feeling. Just because Zack was in a picture didn’t mean anything. He and Derrick had been friends for years. Maybe he was friends with Jen too. It did not mean he and Jen were dating or that she was the Jennifer he’d dated before. Jennifer was one of the most common names in the English language.

  “Okay, Lily Lou,” I said, staring down at the little girl who was still wide awake. “Do you want to listen to some music?”

  She nodded vigorously, so I walked to my backpack to retrieve my iPod. I headed into her room and set it on the dresser, selecting a few songs I knew she liked that were more in the lullaby range, singing softly as I rocked her in my arms.

  “One time, I met a handsome prince,” I whispered, and her eyes got wide. “And even though I’d never tell him, mostly because he’s a serious musician and he’d completely make fun of me, this is the song I listened to over and over again the night we met. Isn’t it a pretty song?”

  Lily nodded. “Pwetty.”

  “One day you’ll meet a handsome prince too,” I told her.

  And hopefully he won’t break your heart and leave you without any explanation.

  By the end of the third song, I could tell she was getting sleepy, her brown eyes starting to close.

  As I set her down in her crib, she looked up at me and asked sleepily, “Emmy, where Daddy?” and it just about broke my heart as her little shoulders scrunched up in question. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? I had no clue where or even who her daddy was.

  “Night, night, Lily,” I said, ignoring her question and kissing her forehead.

  Luckily her attention span was sparse, so she just grinned and said, “Night, night, Emmy.”

  ***

  “How was she?” Jen asked later that night when she got home from her date.

  “Perfect,” I said, because Lily was a perfect little girl. “She got up for about a half hour – I think she had a bad dream, but that was it. I got her back down pretty quickly.”

  “Good,” Jen said, as she kicked off her heels and walked into the kitchen. “Do you want a beer?”

  “Sure,” I said, tucking my legs up under me on the couch.

  “Here you go,” she said, coming back into the living room and sitting at the opposite end of the couch, facing me. “God, I have so much nervous energy. Hopefully this will help me calm down.”

  “Good night?” I asked, taking a sip from my bottle.

  Jen leaned her head back on the couch and turned to me. “Great night.” Then she grinned. “I haven’t really dated anyone since before Lily was born. My boyfriend and I sort of broke up during my sixth month, and after she was born it just was too hard to balance grad school and work and Lily, but now I think I’m ready to get seriously involved with someone again.”

  Jen and I had never really talked about her past before, so I was surprised she was opening up to me. I knew very little of her history, especially pre-Lily.

  “That’s awesome, Jen,” I said, smiling at her.

  She grinned. “Yeah, he’s a really good guy, although he’s a musician, and I swore I wouldn’t date any more musicians, but like I told you, I sort of have a thing for them. Lily’s dad was one.”

  My stomach took a dive as I wondered how Zack, the musician, who was in a framed picture in Jen’s kitchen fit into her history and her present. Was he her new boyfriend? Had he dumped me for her?

  “Lily’s dad was a musician?” I asked, knowing I might be crossing a line with that question.

  “Yeah,” Jen said, stretching her legs out in front of her and r
esting them on the coffee table. “We dated for three years, and I spent a lot of time at his shows. He was, is, really talented. I’m hoping Lily gets some of his musical abilities, because I can’t sing to save my life.”

  “And you guys broke up before Lily was born?”

  Jen looked over my shoulder, as if remembering the past. She shook her head and met my gaze. “No, it’s sort of a little more complicated than that. We broke up almost a year and a half before Lily was born. I was dating this other guy, and my ex and I had one night of bad judgment that turned into Lily, but I guess everything worked out for the best. Lily’s dad is a great guy, and the guy I was dating at the time, the one who left me because he wasn’t ready to be a father, is sort of an asshole, so I lucked out.”

  “Does Lily see her dad often?” I’d never heard her mention him before. Lily had only ever asked for her mommy until that night. “She asked for him tonight, and it kind threw me. She’s never done that before.”

  “Yeah, she does,” Jen confirmed, “but I guess she’s been seeing him more lately, which is great, because she adores him, however we’re trying to break her of this bad habit she’s picked up of calling him by his first name.” She shook her head and laughed to herself. “Zack thinks it’s cute, but I know he prefers it when she calls him ‘Daddy’.”

  It was like things were moving in slow motion, all of a sudden, and I was having trouble processing what Jen had just said. I felt like I’d been socked in the stomach and had to swallow a few times to keep my beer from coming back up.

  She’d said Zack. She had a picture of Zack in her house. That only meant one thing. Zack had a kid. Zack was someone’s father. Zack was Lily’s father – the little girl I’d been babysitting off and on for over a year. Never, as I’d been wondering how Jen knew Zack, had I even considered this option.

  Holy shit.

  Suddenly I realized he’d been right – I hadn’t known him at all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emily

  “He has a what?” Rachel asked when I bombarded her with my news on Sunday morning.

  “A kid,” I said clearly, perching on the end of her bed.

  Chase, who had come back down for the second weekend in a row, was getting coffee, so I capitalized on the opportunity to have Rachel to myself so I could share what I’d learned the night before.

  “Holy shit,” she said, pulling herself up to a sitting position and staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Yes, and not just any kid – Lily.”

  “Who?”

  “Lily,” I said, exasperated that she wasn’t following me. Rachel wasn’t so good before she got coffee in her. “The little girl I babysit about twice a month. Jen’s daughter.”

  “So he slept with Jen?” she asked, connecting the dots in the air with her finger.

  “Uh yeah. Apparently at some point he and Jen slept together and she got pregnant, and viola, Zack has a kid. I’m not sure I want to know the specifics.”

  Evidently she was the infamous ex-girlfriend who’d been afraid of his mom’s cancer, who he’d broken up with, and then apparently slept with again.

  “And he never mentioned this?”

  I gave her a pointed look. “Um, I think it would probably recollect if he’d told me he had a kid. I’m not sure that’s something I’d forget.”

  “Who has a kid?” Chase asked, coming back into the room with two cups of coffee, one which he promptly handed to Rachel. I grabbed for the other one, but he held it out of my grasp.

  “You’re the best,” Rachel said, taking a big sip from the steaming cup. “Ow, that’s hot. Zack.”

  “Get your own,” Chase said to me, moving to stand by the dresser where I couldn’t reach him. “Zack what?”

  “Zack has a kid,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes at my brother, as she handed me her coffee cup, so I could share. I took a liberal sip and handed it back to her.

  “Really,” Chase said, not as fazed as I thought he would be after hearing such epic news, but Chase wasn’t really the type to get emotional, so I guess the reaction fit.

  “Yes,” I said quickly, trying to catch him up so we could continue the conversation. “The girl Jen, who I babysit for, her daughter is also Zack’s daughter.”

  “No shit,” Chase said, blowing on his coffee before taking a tentative sip.

  “Yes shit. There was a recent picture of him in the apartment, and Jen pretty much confirmed it for me.”

  Rachel leaned forward. “Does she know about you and Zack?” she hissed.

  I shook my head, grateful to be able to do so. I didn’t think I wanted Jen knowing about my summer with Zack. She was obviously tied to him in a much more permanent way, and without knowing the details of their relationship past and present, I sort of wanted to keep quiet about the fact that I’d also slept with him.

  “So how did he look?” Rachel asked, switching tactics. “In the picture?”

  I sighed. “He looked like Zack – amazing, hot. I don’t know. I just miss him, and looking at a recent picture of him smiling didn’t help matters.”

  “But he lied to you,” Chase said, cutting right to the point I didn’t want to think about.

  Rachel and I could be dreamy and hopeful about love, but Chase was a guy. He didn’t think that way. Facts were facts, and with Zack, he’d omitted something pretty big when he failed to tell me he had a kid. All summer I’d been under the impression I’d been getting to know him. He let me in little by little, and when I met his mom, I figured that was it. But now knowing that he didn’t share something so huge had me rethinking everything between us.

  He dumped you. What does it matter?

  I wanted to pinch the little voice in my head for reminding me of that key fact, but a part of me was deeply hopeful that Zack would realize his mistake and come back. It was a stupid notion, I know, but I was holding onto it in vain.

  “Maybe he’s not really involved in Lily’s life,” Rachel suggested. “I mean you’ve been watching Lily for over a year, and you’ve never heard Jen mention Zack before.”

  I shrugged. “You know, I don’t think she ever mentioned him but then again, if she had, why would I have cared. I probably wouldn’t have paid it any attention. He was just some guy. He wouldn’t have been significant to me back then.”

  “True,” Rachel said. “But, you were with him for six weeks this summer, and not once did he leave the island, right? If he was involved in Lily’s life, he probably would have seen her – he would have come here or she would have gone there at some point during that time.”

  I shook my head, having already thought of that while I was up half the night stewing over the news. “Jen and Lily were on the West Coast with her parents all summer. I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t all that involved, but that picture was recent, which means even if he wasn’t in her life before, he is now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I felt my shoulders slump. “Be miserable about it and wallow. I’m not sure there’s much else I can do at this point. Zack failed to tell me something huge which can only mean that he was under the impression that we were just casual, and I have to be okay with that.”

  “He failed to tell you two things,” Chase chimed in.

  Both Rachel and I turned to stare at him, waiting for him to finish the open-ended statement he’d left hanging in the air.

  “He didn’t tell you he was in Liar’s Edge either,” Chase said. “Rachel pulled that out of him.”

  “That’s right!” Rachel said, the volume of her voice rising.

  “Yeah, that is right,” I said miserably.

  I really just needed to get over him already.

  ***

  Monday night after our chapter meeting, Taryn and I walked from the house to the library. We were meeting Noah and Shelby to work on our Mass Comm project, and I was dreading it. Ever since Shelby had dismissed me and walked out of the library a month earlier, things between us had been awkward and strained. I was glad
the project was winding down. We presented in a few weeks, so I only had to endure a few more uncomfortable group meetings.

  “I slept with Noah this weekend,” Taryn blurted out, and I did a spit-take on my vanilla latte before I stopped short in the middle of campus.

  “Excuse me?” I wheezed, as I tried to clear the coffee from my windpipe. I coughed a few times as she turned around to face me and walked the five feet back to me after she realized I’d stopped short.

  “I slept with Noah. We were both drunk, he was all bummed about his shoulder and football, it might have been a mercy-fuck, whatever, but it happened, and I’m really not looking forward to seeing him.”

  She was completely calm about this, as if she was telling me she’d happened run into him at a party.

  “Have you talked to him since?”

  Noah was Ben’s roommate, and they lived in the same apartment complex as Taryn.

  She shook her head. “No, I got up before he did the next morning and did the walk of shame back to my apartment. Then I strategically avoided going outside yesterday which was probably just as well because I was outlandishly hung over. I spent the day on the couch watching SNL reruns.”

  “Geez, Taryn,” I said, knowing these group meetings were just going to be that much more awkward now, but not only that, I was pretty sure Noah was dating one of our sorority sisters. “Isn’t he seeing Marnie?”

  She shrugged. “I guess, but I don’t think they’re serious. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

  “You’re being really flippant about this,” I said, as we started to walk again.

  “It’s just sex, Em. I know you’ve always been a good girl, but sometimes it’s fun to cut loose and sleep with a guy with no consequences. You should try it.”

  “I have tried it,” I mumbled, my mood declining as I thought back to Zack and the mistakes I’d make with him over the summer. Taryn didn’t know the half of it, but I wasn’t ready to share what I’d learned over the weekend with her.

  She put her arm around me and pulled me close. “Aww, sweetie, that’s cute, but what you had with that guy you dated this summer wasn’t casual. You don’t fall in love with someone you’re casually fucking.”