Heart in a Box

by Ally Sky

  "I wasn't trying to offend you," I manage to say through the choke. "I didn't think, it was . . ."

  "Automatic," he completes the sentence.

  "Yes, automatic, like a lot of other things. Like making sure three times that she buckled herself up, and that the door is locked, and that no check has bounced."

  "Your checks bounce?" his voice becomes hoarse.

  "Not usually no, but the fear is always there. It was a struggle, Colin, it still is. Every day."

  "You can't live in fear," he says quietly.

  "Shall I remind you what brought me to this state?" I formulate my words carefully so as not to quarrel with him again. "Do you think I thought my life would look like this?"

  "I can't change what happened." He doesn't take his eyes off Vivian, and for a moment I think he apologizes to her, even if he refuses to regret what he did.

  "Would you change the decision you made, now that you know your daughter, that you understand what you've lost?"

  "I told you it was complicated."

  "You took everything from us—your security, your love."

  "I couldn't stay, Elizabeth." I'm not at all sure I want to hear his explanation, how in one day he just stopped loving me.

  "You couldn't stay," I repeat his words. Maybe if I do so enough times, I'll catch up. I'll understand why he disappeared.

  "I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have." He looks at me for a moment and then back at Vivian.

  "In the end, this is the point we got to, huh. You hurt me, and I hate you."

  "Do you really hate me?" his voice is almost a whisper.

  "You broke my heart, you left me alone, what do you think?"

  "Did you tell her?"

  "What?" I frown as I look at him.

  "Vivian."He tilts his head in her direction, "That you hate me, that I'm a piece of shit."

  "I have never spoken a bad word about you to her. Do you know how hard it is, explaining to a little girl where Daddy is when you have no idea?"

  "Did she ask?"

  "She rarely asked why you weren't with us. She just wanted to know if you didn't love her. I didn't know how to answer that."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "That you had to go, and I didn’t think you were coming back. I didn't want her to have false hope."

  "You still think I'll leave again."

  "Yes." My eyes go back to Viv. It's easier not to look at Colin when I tell him the truth. "I think anyone who ran away once, will run away again."

  "I'm not that boy anymore," he mutters.

  "That's what you say."

  "Do I look like him?" Colin turns his face to me. He seems to be on a mission of convincing me I'm wrong.

  "Your muscles are trying to hide the truth, but it's there," I insist. "In your stare, in your eyes, when I look at them, I see you, and you're still that boy."

  "Who you loved." The three words that come out of his mouth take me off balance for a moment.

  "You are still the one who appeared at my door with a bleeding lip. The one I hugged, who made promises and abandoned me."

  "Elizabeth." He doesn't seem to like what I have to say.

  "You didn't find anyone better, so you came back."

  "You know that’s not true," his voice, though quiet, booms. I turn my head to him and stare at him with my pain.

  "How many girls have you been with, Colin?" my voice cracks. "Do you have any idea?"

  "Not many."

  "Not many . . ." I don't want to imagine him with others. Whether there were few or many, the thought of him with someone else . . . "I had no one."

  "Say that again?" He pauses, his eyes searching my face, trying to identify if there is truth in my gaze. He knows I'm not lying.

  "Someone had to raise your child," I grumble. "I didn't have time to play games."

  "You’ve had no one?" He looks shocked. "Just me?"

  "Ages ago."

  "Only me," he repeats the words. How hard is it to understand? He knows me, he knows who I am.

  "Are you going to repeat that many more times, stroke your ego a little more?" Unlike me, I'm sure he likes the answer he got, but I can erase the smile off his face before it even appears. "It just goes to show you how much you've hurt me, how much my trust is shattered, that I haven’t wanted to be with anyone."

  "If it comforts you, I didn't love—" I rush in before he can go on.

  "Comfort me?" I snort, "What do I care who you loved? As far as I'm concerned, you don't know what love is."

  "You're wrong."

  "Am I really? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not. You've had plenty of opportunities to come back, but you chose to stay away from us for all these years, from me and your own daughter, who needed you." I breathe. "I think the conversation is over, we're going home."

  "When can I see her again?" He looks up at Viv, who keeps on jumping.

  "I don't know. I'll let you know." I stand up and straighten my t-shirt.

  "Call if you need something, anything." He stands beside me, and I feel myself diminished by his enormous body.

  "Vivian!" I call aloud and wave my hand at her. She continues to jump in complete disregard of my existence.

  "Viv!" I wait another moment and try again, and get the exact same response. She doesn't hear me, or chooses not to listen, and I begin to lose patience.

  "Vivian," Colin's voice booms over me, "your mother wants to go, let's see how fast you run!"

  She hears this, and her competitiveness, which she inherited from him, makes her leap out of the castle and reach us at top speed.

  So you listen to Colin?

  "Thank you," I grunt, holding out my hand to Viv, who grabs it.

  "It's nothing," he answers quietly. "Good bye, Vivian."

  "Bye, Colin, thanks for the book," she remembers to thank him.

  "My pleasure." His smile widens. "I hope Daryl loves it too."

  "He'll die for it. Can I take it to daycare, Mama?"

  "You can," I agree immediately. We'll see if Daryl ever says again that no one buys my daughter anything. "Let's go home."

  "Bye, Colin!" she calls back at him once again as we walk toward the parking lot.

  "Bye, Viv!" He remains standing there. "Good bye, Elizabeth."

  I nod quickly and wait for the moment we get into the car and drive away.

  "I need to pee!" Vivian whines from the back seat of the Toyota that decided today, of all days, not to start.

  "Just another second," I sigh and turn the key for the umpteenth time.

  "Pee! Urgent!" she cries miserably.

  "Just another second, Viv!"

  "It's coming out!" She waves her legs in the air. "Why can't Colin drive us home, doesn't he have a car?"

  "I don't know!" I raise my voice and give up trying to get the car to move. Colin has a car, all right. The maniac drives a terrifying jeep while I'm stuck with this shit. "Let's go back to the restaurant, you can go to the bathroom."

  She unfastens her seat belt and opens the door quickly.

  "Wait for me!" I call after her and hurry out of the car. We'll just go into the restaurant, use the toilet, and call my mother and ask for help, again. How wonderful.

  "Elizabeth," my mother sighs as we sit at my dining table drinking coffee, after she came to the rescue and called the towing company. Vivian fell asleep only a few minutes ago, and we're waiting for my father to bring me his car so I can get to work tomorrow. "We need to talk to your father."

  "Do you really want to tell him I took Viv for dinner with the guy who broke his nose?" I defy.

  "I want to know you're making plans and not letting things just happen."

  "We're talking about Colin, remember?" I snort, "What's the point in making plans if he disappears again?"

  "The way it looks from here, you're trying to scare him away."

  "And that's so terrible?" I roll my eyes.

  "I can understand why you want him to suffer, and he earned it honestly, but you'r
e destroying yourself, don't you see?"

  I know she is right, but this desire for vengeance refuses to be released. After all these years I'm finally the one with the power in her hands, and it's up to me now.

  "Why couldn't he stay away?"

  "Is that what you really want?" Her gaze penetrates. "Think of Viv."

  "What about me?" I burst out. "What about what I feel, when will I think of me? All I did was for her."

  "You're her mother." She doesn't really have to remind me.

  "I'm twenty six, look at my life." I sigh in silence.

  "You're upset." She puts her hand on mine and presses her fingers into mine. Of course I'm upset. I'm going to be unemployed, dependent on the money I don't want to make use of and the man I can't trust, and worst of all Vivian is dependent on me, which means now she is dependent on him too.

  "What kind of a mother am I," I wonder aloud, "that I want to care about myself first with this?"

  "Human." She isn't moved by my real distress. "You're a good mother, you've made her your top priority. You're allowed to think about yourself, you deserve to be loved."

  "You won't let it go, will you?" I grumble.

  "I don't want you to grow old alone because you're scared. Colin hurt you, but it's been years, he's not the only man out there."

  "No one will want me." The words roll from my mouth, echoing in the air and dissipating in front of the unhappy look on my mother's face.

  "Don't talk nonsense."

  "I'm faulty. You know it, I know it, and it's not something I can hide."

  "You should stop using that word and trust the right guy to come and accept the situation as it is." She insists that someone will want me. How wrong she is.

  "I have a new word for you," I defy her, "barren."

  My attempt to push back the pain fails. First I lost Colin, then I was bleeding on the operating table just to wake up from the anesthesia and discover that I'd lost my womb and, along with it, the ability and perhaps the desire to meet someone who would want to start a family with me.

  "Elizabeth," her pain comes through in her voice.

  "The right guy will come," I continue, "and accept that I can't have children?"

  "There are other solutions," she tries to cheer me up, not for the first time.

  "The only thing I have is a scar on my stomach that reminds me every day that I'll never be pregnant again. Excuse me if I think I'm defective, if I don't jump into bed with anyone," I mumble as I recall Colin's reply to my question.

  How many girls have you been with?

  Not many.

  I don't know if I believe him or why it even matters. He was with others, while I stopped my life.

  "Why do you believe every man you meet will leave when he finds out that you . . ." She refrains from saying the word.

  "Why should he stay?"

  "Because you are smart, beautiful and loving, and you have other things to give."

  "Except for children," I insist.

  "If Colin couldn't have children, would you leave him?" Her question lands on me like a ton of bricks. Nothing would have made me leave Colin. Not getting into UT, not the constant struggle for the next paycheck, and certainly not the inability to have children. Nothing would scare me away.

  What if my mother is right? I deserve someone to lean on, someone to be there for me. Vivian deserves someone like that who will be part of her life, and her father I have already learned not to trust.

  I sip my coffee quietly and meditate over the last few years. The last weeks. I think of the lost boy who returned from the desert, a man I don't know.

  Chapter 13

  My ragged nerves refuse to settle as I walk around the shop forced to spend the day with Henry, Danielle and my ex. If I thought it would be bad, I had no idea just how bad it could be.

  His smell stayed the same, and every time he walks by, a wave of memories shatters upon me without warning. I don't know if Colin is aware of it or just doesn't care, because he seems to be near me all the time. Occasionally his hand rubs against mine and sends a shiver that makes my skin stand on end.

  I'm tortured by every passing minute. Glancing at the clock again and again, I pray the workday is over so I can run away from him and his blue eyes, that are sneaking me glances I cannot decipher.

  What does he want from me?

  I really don't know, because if he has something to say, he is keeping it to himself. Danielle, on the other hand, doesn't hide anything. She goes on giggling with Henry, making him blush. She seems to derive great pleasure from it.

  "Elizabeth," Colin calls out to me in his rough voice from the far end of the store, "do you know anything about jeans?"

  His question is met with silence. I stare at him confusedly, standing with the phone to his ear and waiting for an answer.

  "I don't understand what you're asking," I admit nervously. I know American literature, biology, even in math I'm not bad at all, but fashion? I'm not the right person to answer his question, and he knows it.

  "How much?" he frowns.

  "I still don't understand what you're asking. Maybe if you care to explain yourself instead of being vague, we'll all be smarter."

  Yes, Mr. Young, if you explain yourself and we all find out why you left, maybe we won't feel like complete fools.

  "Danielle?" Colin raises his voice to the blonde, who stops the mock giggle she is throwing at Henry.

  "Not more than a dollar, and call Elijah," she answers without asking what it's all about.

  Does he do it on purpose? Show me I don't know anything?

  "Good idea." He nods at her and returns to the conversation.

  "Thanks a lot," I mutter in frustration.

  "You're welcome," Danielle replies sarcastically, tossing her hair from side to side.

  "If that's how you're trying to get me to stay, you're dumber than I thought." I strain again and seal the large cardboard lying on the floor at my feet with tape.

  "Dumber?" Colin comes up behind me, making me face his intoxicating smell for the thousandth time.

  "What do you want from me?" I sulk as he sits down on the couch in front of me, crossing his long legs and folding his hands.

  "Do you want to try to close the deal?" He looks at me closely.

  "How many times do I have to say it?" I let out air demonstratively. "I'm not working for you."

  "It's a pretty simple deal," he deliberately ignores my disapproval. "You buy the jeans for a dollar and sell them for three."

  "Wow!" I answer with exaggerated enthusiasm. "You just earned two dollars. Well, Colin, no wonder you can afford the jeep you're driving if these are the deals you do."

  "Ten thousand dollars." He shrugs his shoulders with an arrogant smile and hands me the phone. "Are you sure you won't try?"

  "No one will buy your jeans for ten thousand dollars." I emphasize the contempt in my voice.

  "Maybe not, but Elijah would be happy to buy five thousand jeans for three dollars a piece, if you call him."

  "Five thousand?" I crinkle my forehead.

  "Tell him they're packed in cartons and the shipping is on him. He will try to lower the price. Don't let him. Give him the shipping but leave the price at three dollars a pair."

  "I'm not working for you!" I raise my voice to match Danielle's laughter, who seems amused by the situation as she approaches us in the tight purple dress she wears, her high heels knocking on the floor.

  "Give me the phone." She snatches the phone from Colin's hand with a smile. "Elijah won't refuse me. He'll pay for the shipment and, if I have to guess, he will also invite me to dinner the next time I'm in Chicago." She turns quickly to the shy boy standing stunned by the incident. "How far is it to Chicago?"

  "One thousand sixteen miles, the trip will take about fourteen hours and thirty eight minutes, do you want to know how much it will cost?"

  I look to Colin, who raises an eyebrow at the knowledge my friend pulls out effortlessly.

  "That won't b
e necessary," Danielle laughs, "Elijah will pay anyway. And you," she turns and points the phone at me without intending to hand it, "you lost your commission."

  "Don't say I didn't offer it to you first." Colin raises his hands submissively.

  "Keep your games to yourself," I clench my teeth, "and don't involve me in your dubious deals."

  "You're missing out, Elizabeth." He smiles smugly again.

  "The only thing I'm loosing is time with my child." I take a deep breath trying to soothe my muscles that start to tighten. "I'm going to pick her up now, enjoy your jeans."

  Without waiting for a response, I turn my back on them, grab my bag from behind the cash register and leave the store angrily. The nerve he has, trying to drag me into his business with his smiles, the confidence he radiates and the arrogant behavior. That doesn't work on me. And Danielle . . . throwing at me the commission I lost. Let me tell you something, lady, I've been raising my child on my own for years. I've lost a lot more than his miserable commission!

  How much did he want to pay me anyway?

  "Mom, look, it’s Dr. Diaz!" Vivian hops enthusiastically around the shelves laden with bread and pastries at our nearest Walmart branch. Our car finally came back from the shop and it cost me a fortune. I shift my gaze to the end of the aisle and examine the man smiling at us.

  It really is Dr. Diaz. Wearing dark jeans and a black button shirt, he's tall, but not as muscular as Colin.

  You don't think of Colin that way!

  I smile back at him as he approaches us and holds out his hand.

  "Hello, Vivian and Vivian's mother. Please, call me Luis." He reveals perfect white teeth.

  "Elizabeth." I shake his hand quickly.

  "Hello, Elizabeth." He bends down and leans in front of Viv's bright face. "How's my patient?"

  "I'm fine," she chirps.

  "I'm glad to hear that. Are you taking care of yourself?"

  "Yes, I'm careful." She glances at me for approval, and I nod in agreement. She does a pretty good job.

  "I see they took your stitches out." He examines her hair line.