Fragile Bonds

by Sloan Johnson

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll have to deal with that,” Xavier huffs dramatically. I punch him in the shoulder, twisting my face in feigned anger. “Ouch, that hurt!”

  “Weenie,” I laugh. Xavier opens each cupboard, acquainting himself with Tyler’s organization system. When he gets to the pantry, he seems elated to find it fully stocked. I sit and watch as he explores each room of the house, muttering his appreciation with how everything looks.

  The rest of the afternoon is fairly low key. Tyler heads back to the office as soon Xavier and I are done talking. I offer to head back to my place, giving Xavier and Jacob some time to themselves, but Xavier asks me to stay. When I hesitate, he makes sure to tell me it’s for Jacob’s benefit, not for his. I’m pretty sure he’s full of crap, but we both know there’s no way I’ll turn down a chance to spend time with the little boy who has completely stolen my heart.

  “Miss Melanie, are you having supper with us?” Jacob asks as the credits roll on Cars 2. I look over his head to Xavier, who is sitting at the opposite end of the new microfiber couch. It’s not as comfortable as his old leather one, but it fits the space. He shrugs, leaving the decision up to me.

  “I have to go and let Brody out, but I could probably come back over after that,” I say, pulling Jacob into my lap. It’s going to be strange to go home tonight. I’ve grown accustomed to reading him stories at bedtime and then sitting on the balcony with Xavier until we are both falling asleep. “What are you cooking for us?”

  “I can’t cook!” Jacob giggles, shaking his head as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “Can I go with you to take care of Brody?”

  “Sure, buddy,” I say, lifting him off my lap. I might as well bring Brody back here since Jacob is going to want to be wherever the dog is. “And maybe, while we’re gone, your daddy will find something to make for dinner.”

  I hear Xavier mumble something as I reach for Jacob’s hand, leading him out of the apartment. More than likely, he’s cursing me for tasking him with figuring out dinner and implying that he’s going to cook. I can count on one hand the number of meals I remember him preparing while we were together and once I arrived at the condo, we easily fell into a routine where the kitchen was my domain. As much as I love cooking, I’m making a conscious effort to not be in the kitchen now that we’re back home because Xavier needs to learn to do these things for himself.

  “Miss Melanie, can we go swimming later?” Jacob asks when he sees the fenced-in swimming pool across the parking lot. As I look over to where he’s pointing, I realize that I’ve spent so much of the past two years buried in work that I can’t remember ever taking a break to lounge beside the pool with a good book. I make a mental note to find a nice, conservative swimsuit so we can spend as much time as possible over there this summer.

  “Not today, buddy. It’s still a bit too cold.” Jacob’s shoulders slump forward in defeat. I understand what he’s feeling because, now that he’s put the idea in my head, the only thing I can think of is how it’s going to feel to have the sun beating down on my skin on a hot summer day. It’s even harder because we’ve just returned from the beach, where it’s already warm enough to spend most of the day playing outside. “But as soon as it’s warmer, we’ll go to the pool every day if you want, okay?” I add, hoping to bring a smile to his face.

  Before taking Brody out for his evening walk, I quickly sort through the stack of mail on my breakfast bar making piles for the junk, bills, and anything that genuinely interests me. Of course, this last stack is the shortest. I’ll flip through the magazines later, but I reach for the envelope with a local postmark and no return address. My stomach churns as I slide my finger under the flap.

  Melanie,

  I get that you’re pissed off at me, but this is a bit ridiculous. I get that you think I fucked up by not letting you talk to Xavier, but you have to understand where I was coming from. Over the time you two were together, I saw the way you started turning to him for permission to do anything. The way you made every decision based on what he would think. I saw you losing yourself and it killed me.

  The night that you decided to go to the party with me, I felt like a proud mama. Yeah, it’s stupid and cheesy, but there it is. You didn’t call him ahead of time, you didn’t change your outfit twenty times so you were wearing something he would approve of. You did what you wanted to do.

  And then X had to go and fuck that all up too. The minute he showed up, with all of his macho-bullshit attitude, you followed him out of there and I thought I had lost you.

  When you called the next morning, begging me to give you a ride and let you crash at my place, I was happy. You finally realized what he was doing to you and you got out of there.

  I don’t bother reading any more of the letter. For a second, I allowed myself to hope that my so-called best friend had realized that she was wrong to make decisions for me without me having any knowledge, but with every paragraph, it seemed more and more like she was trying to get me to see her side of the situation. She’s delusional if she thinks there’s anything she can say that will make me throw my arms around her in gratitude.

  “Miss Melanie, can we go back to my house now?” Jacob asks, tugging on the hem of my shorts. I should have had him stay with his dad while I came over here. That way, I could have jumped in the shower to wash off the road funk. And I would have had privacy to call and tell Stacey to piss off and stay out of my life. Okay, so maybe it’s for the best that Jacob is here. But I still want a shower.

  “Yeah, buddy. Can you grab Brody’s toys?” I point to a small canvas bag on the floor by the entrance.

  Spaghetti. It’s going to be one hell of a mess, but it’s simple and I have all of the ingredients for it. Looking through my pantry and refrigerator, I briefly wonder if Tyler would be interested in doing my grocery shopping every week. It’s as if Melanie told him how hopeless I am in the kitchen and he took the time to get simple meals that even I can’t screw up.

  No, you have to do this eventually. You cannot lean on everyone around you to help you get by. Especially not her.

  I still have my concerns that moving in to an apartment so close to Melanie is a wise choice, but then again, I wasn’t given a choice. Melanie, being the nurturer that she is, decided that we were going to be her neighbors and that was all there was to it. What I haven’t told her is that being close to her is part of why I contemplated staying in North Carolina. When she’s near, it’s as if something short circuits in my mind and she’s all I can think about.

  The door opens and my head whips to the side as Jacob and Brody pass me in a blur. “No running inside, Jacob,” I warn him. I have a feeling this is going to be an issue for a while, but he needs to learn that we have people living below us who don’t want to hear him thundering across their ceiling all day and night.

  Seeing Melanie walk through my front door settles something inside of me. It’s something about the way she nearly floats through the rooms, as if this is where she belongs. And in those moments when I’m not pissed off at the world over the fact that it should be Alyssa who is here with me, I feel like this is where Melanie belongs.

  Every day, I tell myself that she and I are friends that that is all we can ever be. It doesn’t matter that we’ve fallen into a routine where we work together to make sure every day is a good day for Jacob. It doesn’t matter that she makes every day better for both of us. None of that matters because it’s been six weeks since I lost my wife and I would be a complete asshole to even think about moving on with anyone else, especially the woman who inadvertently caused so much pain for Alyssa when we first got together.

  But then, I look at her rolling around on my living room floor, wrestling with Jacob and I start to question my sanity. Someday, the day is going to come when I do want to move on. Not for myself, but for Jacob. He deserves the best life possible, and I know that I’m not equipped to give him everything he needs. And when that day comes, will I find another woman who will lov
e him the way Melanie does? Is there another woman out there who will embrace the fact that there was someone before her and encourage Jacob to remember her? There is no handbook for dealing with this shit, but there really should be.

  “Miss Melanie, are you and Brody going to spend the night with us?” Jacob asks as he tries to catch his breath. I know what her answer is going to be, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like a slap in the face.

  “No, buddy. I’m going to sleep at my house tonight,” she says, pulling him back onto her lap when he looks like he’s ready to cry. Jacob is too close to her already. She’s been a fixture in our lives for almost six months and she’s been the one to tuck him in every night for the past few weeks. “Your new room doesn’t have bunk beds, so there’s nowhere for me to sleep here and I really need to go home and take a shower. I stink.”

  Jacob bursts into a fit of giggles again, letting go of his disappointment that she won’t be here in the morning when he wakes up. That’ll be the real test because she is the first person he wants to see every day. It stung the first few mornings after she came to North Carolina, but I locked that pain away with all the rest, somewhere deep in my mind, telling myself that I can cope with anything as long as it makes my son happy.

  “But you can take a shower here. And now that I have a cool room, I won’t need to sleep with Daddy, so you could share his bed.” I spit soda from one end of the kitchen to the other. I wonder if Jacob senses something more going on between me and Melanie than there really is. No, he’s too young to understand what it typically means when a man and a woman share a bed.

  “That’s a nice offer,” Melanie says sweetly after giving me a wide-eyed ‘what do I say to that’ look. “But I really miss my own bed. Maybe some night, you can come over and we’ll have a slumber party. Then you can see how awesome my bedroom is.”

  Is it wrong to feel the slightest hint of jealousy because your four-year old son has just been invited into the bed of the woman you’re trying to convince yourself is nothing but a friend? Yeah, probably.

  “Dinner’s ready.” I put some noodles and sauce into a bowl for Jacob. When I look up to ask Melanie to strip Jacob down to his undies, I shake my head in disbelief. My boy is already sitting in his booster seat at our new table, wearing nothing but his Superman underwear. Someday, Melanie is going to be an awesome mom.

  Chapter 14

  After helping Xavier get Jacob into bed, I gather all of Brody’s toys and walk home. That stupid girly part of me keeps looking over my shoulder, hoping Xavier will run after me, begging me to stay with them just one more night. You know, to make sure Jacob doesn’t have any problems acclimating to a new place.

  Keep telling yourself that. Eventually, maybe you’ll stop using a four-year old child as an excuse to get close to his father.

  I open all of the windows in my apartment, hoping to air it out a bit. Right now, it feels stale from being closed up for over a month. I find a bottle of red wine in the kitchen and pour myself a glass before heading out to the balcony. The view of traffic sailing down the hill sucks now that I’ve grown accustomed to watching the moon rise over the ocean every night.

  Everything is so confusing when it comes to Xavier. I don’t want to have feelings for him, but I’m not foolish enough to say they aren’t there. What I don’t know is whether it’s because of him, his son, or their situation that fuels the ache in my chest. With every passing day, I find myself wishing for something that can never be. There are quiet moments, much like this one, when I wonder what life would have been like had we never broken up. Would we have our own shaggy-haired little boy running around the house? Would we have a little girl who Xavier would treat like a princess? What would that life look like?

  I need to get out of here before I drive myself crazy. I left town hoping to find myself, but now that I’m back home, I feel more lost than I have in a long time. I’m wishing for things I told myself weren’t important to me. I’m back to pining over the only man I ever loved. And I really wish I had more wine.

  Maybe sitting on the balcony was a bad idea. I need to do something that won’t remind me of Xavier, the Outer Banks, Jacob, or anything else that’s going to do no good to think about. I flop onto the couch, pulling a throw blanket over my legs to ward off the chill from the night air. In a nearly catatonic state, I flip through the cable channels, not even stopping long enough to see what’s on. Brody burrows himself into the blankets between my legs, looking up at me with his sad puppy eyes.

  “I know buddy, I miss them too,” I whisper, reaching down to scratch the dog’s head. There are things I could be doing, like trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life now that I’ve thrown away a good career and have no desire to put my six years of college to good use any time in the near future, but instead, I sit and mope on the couch with Brody. Jesus, how pathetic are we?

  I’ve been sitting in the dark since Melanie left. I turned out the lights so I could watch her walk home without her seeing me if looked toward my window. After the third time her head turned to look behind her, I thought about going to make sure she made it home safely. And so I could say goodnight to her without running the risk of Jacob coming out of his bedroom.

  Swirling the whiskey around in my glass before taking another sip, I wish for a time when life made sense. Now that I’m alone, the anger is returning to me. I’m pissed off at Alyssa for leaving me. She fought me tooth and nail when I didn’t want her in my life, screaming at me that her son deserved to be raised by two parents. And me, being the asshole that I was, told her she didn’t give a shit about me, she just wanted my money and a nice place to live. God, I was such a prick to her, but she never gave up on me. Why couldn’t she put that same fight into her own life?

  Now, I’m sitting in a dark room of what is supposed to be my new home, wondering how in the hell I’m supposed to raise Jacob on my own. Now that he doesn’t have the distractions of the beach and Melanie is back at her place, he’s going to start asking questions. He has to, doesn’t he? And what does it say about me, as his father, if he doesn’t? Am I supposed to push the issue, force him to tell me that he misses his mother? This is why I always said I didn’t want to be a parent. I’m not equipped to handle messes like this, especially not alone.

  Someone thumping on my front door crashes my pity party. I get up, wondering who would be stopping by to see me after eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Cracking the door open, expecting it to be someone who didn’t get the memo that the previous tenant moved out, I see my older brother’s imposing frame leaning against the door jamb.

  “You going to let me in?” he asks, sounding a bit irritated with me. I suppose that’s understandable seeing as I’ve been going out of my way to avoid answering his calls. I open the door and detour to the kitchen as he looks around my new place. “Not bad, little brother. Gotta hand it to that girl of yours, she did a good job setting this up.”

  “She’s not my girl,” I respond a little too quickly. I refill my glass and pour another for Braydon.

  “Keep telling yourself that, Xavier,” he laughs. He downs the whiskey in one swallow, reaching for the bottle. Apparently, it’s going to be one of those nights. “I’d be willing to bet you two are back together by Christmas.”

  “Fuck, man! Alyssa hasn’t even been gone for two months and you’ve already got me back with Melanie in your mind. What is wrong with you?” I growl, annoyed by how close to the truth he is. But I can’t act on whatever I’m feeling because she’s not rebound material.

  “There’s not a damned thing wrong with me. Look, I’m not saying you should jump into bed with her, but you’d have to be blind to not see how much she cares about the two of you.” Braydon gets comfortable in one of my living room chairs as I settle into the couch. “And I know you well enough to know that she’s the one that got away. As much as it sucks that Alyssa died, maybe this is how things were meant to be. You two were fucking idiots when you were together before, bu
t you have something special.”

  My brother has apparently been spending too much time with the girls that work for him. I’m not used to all of this touchy feely shit from him.

  “It sucks that Alyssa is gone?” I crack my knuckles, barely holding onto my anger with how casually he made such a stupid comment. “That might just be the understatement of the fucking year. And how can you fucking say that this is how things are supposed to be?” I take a few deep breaths, worried that, if I don’t calm down, we’re going to wake Jacob. “Do you seriously mean to tell me that my son was supposed to get robbed of a lifetime with his mother? That’s fucking low, even for you!”

  I storm into the kitchen, needing to put space between us before I knock Braydon flat on his ass. I’m pretty sure a domestic disturbance call wouldn’t be the best way to introduce myself to the neighbors.

  “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it,” Braydon seethes. He follows me, standing on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. He leans against the high counter, hanging his head. “Look, we all miss Al. Once she got her attitude in check, she was a pretty cool chick. It sucks that she’s gone. But maybe there is a reason that Melanie was the person assigned to take care of her for those last months. Do you think anyone else would have stuck around after the job was done, making sure that your rank ass didn’t do anything stupid? Would another nurse have followed you to North Carolina or called your son every night to read him bedtime stories?”

  Fuck. I hate it when he’s right. Maybe I’m the one making things worse by repeatedly emphasizing the fact that she is my friend when I know we both feel something more there. But I can’t get over the feeling that I’m somehow betraying Alyssa by allowing myself to feel. Damn, apparently I’m the one who is a little fucking sissy now.

  Before either of us can say another word, a shrill screech cuts through the air. I hit my side on the counter as I rush to my son’s room. Tears are streaming down his face as he cries for his mom. I fucking knew this was going to happen. I look around for his ‘magic bear’, the one Alyssa gave him right before she died. It’s nowhere to be found. I pull Jacob onto my lap, rubbing slow circles over his back as I rock him. Braydon’s standing in the doorway watching the two of us.