by Liz Crowe
Her mother appeared at some point, pushing him out of his chair with a string of murmured Spanish. He leaned against the wall, waiting for Melody to open her eyes for hours. He dozed in one of the chairs designed for maximum discomfort out in the waiting room, waking when Josefina prodded his shoulder. “She’s awake.”
He lurched forward, swiping his tongue over his teeth, so eager to see her that he almost tackled a gaggle of nurses in the hallway.
He ran to her bed. She was staring at the ceiling. He ran a finger down her cheek, tried to turn her face to his. But she wouldn’t budge.
“Please leave.” Her voice was hoarse.
“I know I was a shit. I was a total, useless ass and I am so, so sorry. Please, Melody. Look at me.”
“Go, Trent. You didn’t want me when I was pregnant. So you can’t have me now, sorry.”
She turned her face away from him.
“No. That’s not what…I mean. It was a shock and I…I wanted to call you. But…”
“It’s all right. I understand. You have your kid. You don’t want another. So you broke up with me without even giving me the benefit of a break-up.”
He sucked in a ragged breath. “I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t want to break up. I love you. You know that.”
“I knew that,” she said, turning to face him again. “But I don’t know it anymore. You left me alone. I was okay with that because I…I had…” She put a pale hand on her stomach. “I had something of you that would have been all mine. But now I don’t. So you can go.”
“You didn’t want kids either.” He hated himself so much right then he wanted to leap out the window. But the words wouldn’t stop pouring out of his mouth. “Don’t lie to me about that.”
“I didn’t want kids, no. But when I had your child, I fucking wanted it. But you didn’t and you didn’t even have the cojones to tell me that to my face. Leave, Trent. I mean it.” Her face was red. An alarm went off and he was shoved past again, forced out of the room, relegated to the chairs. He dropped into one, boneless, empty, realizing that she hadn’t said a single word that he couldn’t refute. He had bolted. He had been scared. He’d been utterly and completely ball-less. And now he’d lost his child, and his woman.
“Oh God,” he groaned. “Oh God. Oh God.”
Josefina and Evelyn ran up to him, clutching cardboard cups of shitty coffee. “What’s wrong? Trent, what is it?”
Josefina threw her cup into the trash and ran for the room, babbling in Spanish and crossing herself like mad. “I don’t know. I fucked it up. I fucked everything up.” He stood up and glared at her. “I did this. I own this. But she won’t see me.”
“She’ll come around.” Evelyn put her hand on his arm but he threw it off.
“No. She won’t and she shouldn’t. I don’t deserve her.”
He barely remembered the walk down the hall, the elevator, the ride home. By the time he got there and looked at his phone again, he realized he’d forgotten to meet Taylor at the doctor’s office so he could sign for her IUD. “Fuck!” He threw the phone against the wall, shattering it so thoroughly shards went in every possible direction. “Fucking fuck!” His hand fell on something. He picked it up, staring at it without seeing it, then heaved it against the wall too. The vase exploded into a million glass pieces, the flowers—dead as he’d not moved them since Melody had walked out of his life over a month ago—slid down the wall in a brown clump. He put his hands to his face and dropped to his knees in the middle of the floor.
Taylor found him there when she got home, pulled him to his feet and pushed him on to the couch. “Chill, Dad. I’ll get you a beer or something.”
“No, no, water. Please just some water.” She brought it. He drank it so fast he got a headache but the hydration helped him think.
“So, you stood me up but I’m guessing by all this something is really wrong.” She gestured to the phone shards, the shattered vase. “What is it?”
He could tell she was nervous by the way she was shifting her jaw around. Not unlike her old man, he thought, reaching out to touch her face. His baby girl, his pride, his treasure—the pain in ass and thorn in his side. All rolled up into a beautiful, near perfect copy of her brittle, acerbic, needy mother.
“It’s Melody, honey. I… I did a terrible thing.”
She leaned back trying to look nonchalant but kept swinging the leg she had crossed over the other—another of her mother’s clear tells. “What did you do?”
“She was pregnant. I… I left her alone. I couldn’t handle it. I was scared and a real shithead about it.”
Taylor’s huge green eyes widened. “Pregnant? You told me you couldn’t anymore. You sure she wasn’t getting some on the side?”
He dropped his head back with a groan. “I’m sure. I got myself tested. I am apparently still able to do my evolutionary duty, if you get me.”
“Jeez, Dad, TMI.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “But you knew it was your kid and you dumped her? That’s a serious asshole move. Well done.”
“I know, I know.” He got up and paced, running his hands over his scalp, muttering under his breath.
“So, what happened? I’m gonna have a baby brother that I can’t ever see, or what?”
“No.” He stopped and pressed his hands against the large window. The cool panes soothed him somewhat. “She had a miscarriage. She almost died. I just came from the hospital.”
“Where I assume she kicked your sorry ass out of her room.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “As a matter of fact, yes, she did.”
“Well, good. I think I might like her after all.”
He sighed and leaned his forehead against the cool panes. “Fuck me,” he muttered.
“Don’t worry, Dad. Maybe she’ll come around.”
“Probably not.”
“Well, then I guess you’ll have to make some effort. Sounds like you want to.”
“I do. But I don’t know…”
She grabbed his arm. He turned to face her, marveling all over again at her extreme beauty. Her eyes narrowed and she took his cheeks between her fingers, pinching tight. “Hettingers don’t give up.”
He shook his head but she pinched harder.
“God damn you, Dad. I’ll never respect another word you say to me if you give up on her now. She needs you. Man the fuck up.”
She let him go, popping her gum and looking like a surly teenager again. “I need some painkillers,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “I’m cramping like a bitch.” Rubbing his cheeks, he sat, pondering this day and all it might mean.
“Can I use your phone? Mine’s kinda…out of commission.” She handed it over, then stuck a heating pad in the microwave. “Thanks, babe.” He called Evelyn first.
“Hey. How is she?”
“She’s fine. Eating something actually. They’re impressed with how she’s bounced back.”
“Good. Listen, I need your help with something.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Yes. You do. You’re the one who called me in first place.”
“Yeah. And if I’m lucky my friend might speak to me again someday.”
“She will. And if I play my cards right, she’ll be back where she belongs, with me. But you have to advocate for me.”
“I have been, you giant shit head. But taking a powder on her after finding out about the pregnancy….” She made a tsk-ing sound. “That’s kind of unforgiveable, really.”
“I know, I know. But I want…I mean I can make it up to her. I love her. I know she loves me. I have to make this work.”
“You are so cute when you’re begging.”
“Evelyn…”
“Oh all right, fine. But don’t think you can just saunter back in to her life. She’s gonna make you work for it.”
“I’m not averse to hard work. Especially if I know what the end game is.” He clenched his fist on his thigh. “I fucked it up but I will make it right. So help me. I will get
her back.”
“Is Aunt Kayla coming over?” Taylor dropped into the other end of the couch, clutching the heating pad to her stomach. He tossed her the phone. She caught it without looking.
“Do me a favor and text her. I need all the female brain power I can muster right now. Then we’ll order out—Chinese I think.”
She tapped out a message. That night, he laid out a plan of action. A full-on romance effort that would bring most women to their knees in days.
“I think you’ll be at this for at least a month, T.” Kayla sipped a soda and picked through the fried rice for chicken.
“I say six weeks,” Taylor said, taking a bite of the lo mein.
“I heard he paid off her credit card without telling her,” Kayla said, bumping Taylor’s shoulder.
“Jeez, Dad, that’s kind of stalker-ish. Who do you think you are? Some kind of sugar daddy?” She winked at her aunt who dissolved in peals of laughter.
“No,” he said, grabbing the container of lo mein from her and digging in. He felt good, for the first time in weeks. He had a plan. And it would work. It had to. There was no other viable option.
“I gotta go,” Kayla said, standing and stretching. “Early diner shift tomorrow.” She kissed the top of Taylor’s head then gave Trent a tight hug. “You’re all right, baby brother. For a jackass.”
He smiled and kissed her cheek. “You all right still? Sure you don’t want me to—?”
“Nope. I’m good. I’m safe. I’m clean. You don’t have to take care of me.” She winked. “Go take care of Melody. If she decides to take you back, maybe you’ll be redeemed.”
“I’m gonna give it the old college try,” he said. “And she will take me back. Trust me. She won’t know what hit her, poor dear.” He flexed his biceps and kissed it. Taylor groaned and threw a fortune cookie at him.
“Such confidence.” Kayla chucked him under the chin. He mimed falling backward as if she’d slugged him one. “Keep me posted, T. I’ll be rooting for you.” He walked her to the sliding metal door out to the hallway with the elevator, his arm around her shoulder. “I love you,” she said, pecking him on the cheek then ducking out the door.
“All right, all right. Time for bed.” He swept the cartons into a garbage bag and switched off the TV that Taylor had just turned on. “I need rest.”
He brushed his teeth and put on a pair of soft pants. For the first time in weeks he honestly thought he’d be able to sleep. But it eluded him after about an hour of fitful dozing on the couch. So he did his usual, wandering into Taylor’s bedroom and watching her a while, then drinking some tea and staring out into the street lights below, counting the minutes until the morning and he could begin his campaign to win Melody back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Dear Lord, that man.” I watched while the delivery kid staggered under the weight of the flowers. “Over there, with the rest.” I pointed to the amazing display of floral incentives already gracing my desk, Evelyn’s desk, Amy’s desk, pretty much every flat surface in Fitzgerald Brewing Company.
After spending three nights in the hospital, chafing to get out of there, they’d sent me home. My mother had driven me, still muttering darkly in Spanish as I’d leaned my head against the window, never more grateful for the sun on my face. Trent’s full court press had begun the second I’d opened my door to find the place spotlessly clean, my fridge stocked and mounds of my favorite flowers filling the entire room with beauty and fragrance.
My mother had launched straight in with a string of expletives. She’d actually managed to toss two of the bouquets into the trash before I’d stopped her, laughing, but suddenly so tired I could hardly see straight. “Enough, already, Mama.”
“He’s a terrible man. Just terrible. You did the right thing not letting him near you.”
“Ah, Mama. Give it a rest.”
We’d spoken in Spanish which made my head hurt. English had been pressed upon me by both my parents. They’d insisted on it, convinced the only way I’d ever make anything of myself would be as an Anglo. I spoke Spanish at home, of course, but the way I had of thinking—in two languages simultaneously—always wore me out. “I’m tired. I need to go to bed.”
“Oh my darling, I’m sorry.” She’d bustled around, distracted as I’d planned while I touched a petal of the lilies, taking a deep breath of them. I slept for hours that week. And when I wasn’t sleeping I was eating. Trent had food delivered daily, including thick, juicy steaks which I devoured like a starving person. A nurse came every day that week to take my blood pressure, pulse and test my iron. By Friday I was sick of the whole thing and ready to go back to work.
But the onslaught continued there. Flowers every other day. Rich Belgian truffles a few times a week. Bottles of horrifically expensive red wine which I didn’t dare drink. Boxes stuffed with tissue paper and some of the most beautiful lingerie I’d ever seen.
For two Tuesdays in a row he’d sent over a muscular, good-looking guy with a massage table. He set it up in Evelyn’s office and the two of us were treated to deep tissue therapy and a serious case of the giggles, considering her increasingly unwieldy body and the extreme hotness of the man digging his knuckles into our flesh.
I got tickets to the ballet, which I loved and shared with Evelyn. We also went to the opera and saw a traveling version of a Broadway musical. And not once did he call or demand that I see him. I always sent a text with a photo of whatever it was he’d chosen to bribe me with that day. He always replied with the same five words—You’re welcome. I love you.
By the third week of treats, goodies, outings and massages, I was wondering how he might up the ante. Because I knew he would. What I didn’t know was how I would ultimately respond to it all.
“So, you have to help me with this wedding,” Evelyn said, rubbing the firm drum of her belly. “It’s all I can do to get to work every day, no thanks to you.”
“No thanks to Mister Gifty, best I can tell.” I chose a truffle from the week’s stash and popped it into my mouth, relishing the rich, melty chocolate and getting a sweet, familiar shivery feeling as I pictured him, ordering up all this nonsense.
“Ugh, seriously. You are going to help me, right?”
“Of course. But I’m curious. How will you marry them both? Not sure I can find an officiant for that.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “You know damn good and well I’m marrying Austin. Ross is…just a bonus.” She blushed, then fanned her face with a piece of paper.
“I hate you sometimes.” I patted her belly. I’d gotten over being unable to look at her, at the way she was blossoming into her pregnancy. “But mostly I love you. Here.” I put a truffle in her mouth. “Let’s talk details.”
She chewed, swallowed and put her chin in her hand. “I can’t think straight about anything right now.”
“Fine. So I assume you want to have it at St. Vincent’s. How many attendants?”
She smiled at me. “Just one. You. And Brock, of course.” She named Austin’s twin brother. “I’d like to keep it small, maybe seventy or so people. If we go much beyond that, we’ve got to open it up to over two hundred.”
“Yeah, let’s avoid that.”
Someone knocked on her office door. When it opened, I saw another delivery kid. But this time, instead of an obnoxious bouquet, or box of chocolates, or wine, or tickets to yet another event that I’d always said I wanted to attend but never wanted to spend the money on, he held a large, rectangular box. I tipped him, took the box and set it on the work table. It was a deep red color with the name of an expensive dress shop on it. I’d gotten one like it once before.
Evelyn joined me, rubbing the small of her back and eating another truffle. I ran my fingers over the surface, feeling the raised lettering. So, the time had come. He’d given me four weeks. And now I had to make a decision. I opened the box, peeled back the tissue paper and saw the dress. It was black this time, strapless, with a beaded bodice and a flowing, diaphanous skirt. I
held it against me while Evelyn whistled. The shoes were like a dream—a dozen razor-thin black ribbons up the instep, ending with a thick ankle strap studded with what looked like diamonds. The heels were so high I thought I’d get a nosebleed if I wore them.
“Damn, sister. You’ve got this man wrapped up.” She held up the deep red rose that lay next to the shoes and handed it me. “Somebody’s got a serious date night.”
I sighed and put everything back in the box. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, Evelyn. I won’t. He…he just left me, remember?”
I put the lid on the box, resting my palms on the lid and taking a deep breath. There wasn’t a single thing in this universe that I wanted more. But I wasn’t ready. My friend put her hands on mine and stared at me. “All right, I’m sick of this shit. You…” She pointed over my shoulder. “Get in here. And you.” She poked my shoulder. “You pull your self-righteous head out of your ass. I’m sick of you both.” She shoved the box across the table at me. “I love you, Melody, but so help me you have got to be the most pig-headed woman on the planet. That man adores you. Yeah, he fucked up, big time. But Jesus please-us he’s going broke trying to prove that he’s sorry.”
I sensed him behind me. I straightened, and crossed my arms. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
“Oh honey, I just did. Do your worst, Hettinger. It’s go time.” She walked toward the door. Trent emerged from the gloom as I turned to watch her go. “Don’t blow it, Melody. He may be big and ugly but he’s yours.” She gave him a little shove, then disappeared down the metal steps.
“Thanks,” he said to her retreating back but keeping his intense, blue-green gaze on me.
He pulled up two chairs, set them facing each other and sat in one, patting the seat to indicate what I should do. I hesitated, knowing that if I did this, there was no going back. I sat. He took both my hands.
