Fragile Bonds

by Sloan Johnson

  “Oh, baby,” she says so softly I can barely hear her. I can’t see what’s going on, but knowing what I do of Melanie, I have no doubt she’s cradling my son in her arms, giving him every ounce of love he deserves. “I love you so, so much. We’ve talked about how your mommy will always be yours, right?”

  “Yeah, but I want a mommy I can see and you told me I can’t see her anymore.” The sadness in his voice suffocates every bit of joy he possessed earlier. “And you stayed last night, so you’re my mommy that I can see.”

  “Well, we can talk more about that later, but I’m honored that you want me to be your bonus mom.” They both go quiet and I fill the sink so I can shave. I’m going to have to hurry because now I have to talk to Mel before she leaves. I can’t have this hanging between us. Even if Jacob is ready to welcome her into his life permanently, I’m not. I love her and can’t imagine not having her in my life, but I’m not ready for that level of commitment. Not until I know that I can be the man she deserves.

  Chapter 21

  I’ll never understand how Melanie can get Jacob ready and out the door in less than ten minutes. I wasn’t in the bathroom any longer than that, but by the time I walked out, wrapped in nothing but a towel, the apartment was empty. The only exception being Brody, who seemed none too pleased to have been left behind. Knowing her, she knew there was going to be a discussion coming and didn’t want to get into it when we’re both in a hurry to get somewhere. That’s one of the many ways she’s far more sensible than I am, but it does nothing for the fact that I can’t stop wondering what she thinks of Jacob’s little comment this morning.

  “Dude, you going to get your head in the game sometime?” Braydon asks, annoyed by my wandering mind. “Everything okay at home? You’re really distracted this morning. Please tell me you didn’t manage to piss her off last night after I left.”

  I can’t get too upset at his assumption seeing as most of the time, I am the one who screws up. It’s an affliction I’ve lived with for years, thanks to me being too much of a control freak to go along with whatever comes my way. Melanie and Alyssa are both prime examples of how I’ve fucked up the good things in my life. How I managed to come across not one, but two women in my life who are able to see past my sometimes pigheaded ways is beyond me.

  “No, I didn’t,” I grumble. I need to talk to Braydon about what Jacob said, but I’m not looking forward to it. He’s turned into this super cheerleader, pushing for Melanie and me to figure out our issues so we can live happily ever after, starting as soon as possible. He’s probably going to be ecstatic that Jacob is fighting on his side. “Jacob said something this morning and I’m worried it’s going to send Melanie running. I was hoping to talk to her about it, but she was gone by the time I got out of the shower and I had to come over here.”

  “Need me to grab little man from daycare this afternoon and take him somewhere for a while tonight? Maybe he’d like to go to the batting cage and then pizza and a movie with his favorite uncle.” Braydon kicks back in his chair, resting his bare feet on the oak desk top. Apparently, Monday is the casual day around here since Artemis isn’t open on Mondays and it’s a day to catch up on business.

  “I don’t know,” I say nervously. Before Alyssa died, I thought I would have jumped at any chance to have someone else take care of Jacob for a night because I was the epitome of a detached parent. But now, I can’t imagine not being able to look in on him in the middle of the night, just to remind myself that the past five and a half years weren’t a bizarre dream. I’m far from father of the year material, but I’ve come to live for every minute I can spend with Jacob.

  “He has school tomorrow morning and I should probably talk to him about what he said, too.” Braydon cocks his head to the side, confused about what a five-year-old could have said that has me this worked up.

  “Okay, I think we need to back up for a minute. Did he insult her or something? Tell her she’s not his mom?” Both would be logical reasons for me to be upset, but all I can do is laugh at how close he is while completely missing the mark.

  “Nope, he told her that she’s his birthday wish,” I say, not able to get his exact words to pass my lips. I know he’s too young to realize that plenty of kids wind up living with only one parent, and not all of those see their other parents. When it comes right down to it, him asking Melanie to be his new mommy cut me deeply and I’m freaking out inside because I don’t know if it’s because he misses Alyssa or because he feels like I’m not enough for him.

  “Either I need to grab another cup of coffee or you need to quit talking in riddles,” Braydon says, dropping his feet to the floor so he can lean in closer to me. “Because right now, you’re not making any fucking sense to me.”

  “He caught her sleeping in my bed this morning and that has him thinking she’s now going to be his mom,” I say in a rush before I can chicken out of telling him everything he needs to know to have some clarity.

  Braydon shakes his head in disbelief, staring at me with his mouth hanging open. He reaches across his body, rubbing a knot out of his shoulder while assessing me the entire time. “Could you warn me before you lob that much shit at me in one sentence?” he asks, scratching his head.

  “We’ll loop back to that whole Mel was in your bed thing later,” he says sarcastically. “What do you think about her being a mother-figure to Jacob? Are you really worried that it’s going to send her running or do you already have your shoes laced up, ready to head for the hills?”

  There’s no easy answer to this question. There’s no right answer, either, I’m afraid. Am I scared? Shitless. For the past two hours, I’ve been replaying their conversation, trying to convince myself that he didn’t mean anything by his words. In many ways, Melanie is a mother to him; she helps take care of him every day, she’s there for most meals, she’s at my place for bedtime, and more than once, I’ve had to call her in the middle of the night to come and calm him down when he’s having a nightmare. In his young mind, that is a parent. Maybe it’s the adults who are putting too much weight into his words.

  “A little bit of both, I suppose,” I admit with a shrug. “I can’t expect her to want to stick around for this instant family situation. It would be weird for any woman, but how can I expect her to want to raise the child I shared with the woman who came after her? And what type of asshole am I that I’m even considering this less than six months after Al died. It’s too soon.”

  “Normally, I think I would agree with you. But there is nothing normal about this situation,” my older brother reassures me. “First, Alyssa knew about your history with Mel and gave you her blessing.”

  “But did she? I mean, she said she wanted us to stay in touch and she wanted me to not push Mel away, but that doesn’t mean Alyssa expected me to invite her into my bed. She was an understanding woman when she wasn’t ready to kill someone, but even she wasn’t that understanding.”

  The deeper I feel myself falling for Mel, the more I think about the words Alyssa said before she passed away. Not once did she give us the green light to fall back into what we had years ago. Knowing how she felt about Melanie before she got to know her, I have a hard time believing she could have ever gotten to the point where she didn’t harbor at least a bit of anger toward the woman I spent so much time comparing her to.

  Hell, making comparisons would have been an improvement. When Jacob was about three months old and it became apparent to both of us that we were going to find a way to be good co-parents to him, even if it meant living as roommates, I flipped shit when she suggested buying new dishes. Melanie and I had picked out the square black stoneware set when we moved in and I wasn’t ready to get rid of it. Eventually, I caved on some of the smaller things, but anything I selected specifically for Melanie had to stay and Alyssa had to live with that knowledge.

  By the time I started to feel anything for Alyssa, she had given up the fight. If I’m being honest, it was one of the few acts of submission her stubborn spirit e
ver showed and I think that’s what opened my eyes to what I had in her. She was willing to do whatever she needed to at that point to make me happy, even if it meant living in another woman’s home. And then she got sick.

  “Dude, I’m pretty sure that knowing you’re going to die changes a lot of things. It’s not like the two of you were getting a divorce.” Acid rises in my throat with his words. This is apparently going to be one of those brutally honest moments between the two of us. “With a few exceptions, Alyssa was one of the most observant women I knew. And even if she was dumb as a post, it’s pretty much impossible to not feel the chemistry that radiates between you and Mel. Telling you two to be together was her way of making sure that someone she knew and trusted would be the one stepping in once she was gone.”

  “I’m not sure about that, but I really can’t fight about it. It’s too fucking much today, on top of everything else. So, let’s pretend for a minute that I agree with you on that point. That doesn’t change the fact that Melanie didn’t ask for this.” It’s not even noon, but I’m seriously considering jogging down the stairs to grab a bottle of whiskey from behind the bar.

  “Man, for being the smart one, you really are fucking dumb, aren’t you?” Braydon laughs. “You think she didn’t know what hooking up with you meant? I’m pretty sure you didn’t hide the fact that you had a son from her.”

  I slump back in my chair, defenseless. Every issue I’ve created in my mind, my brother has effectively shut down. It’s looking more and more like this is a bigger problem in my head than it is in reality.

  “And now that I can see I’ve gotten through to you, what’s this about Melanie spending the night? That’s a big step for you.” The mischievous glint in his eye hints at a much more eventful evening than we had.

  “She slept in my bed, Braydon, that’s it. I asked her to stay because I was having a rough night and thought Jacob might have a bad night because of some things he said before he fell asleep. That’s it.”

  “Maybe you need to screw her, see if that improves how testy you’ve been lately.”

  And that, right there, is another huge problem. I want to take that step more than I should. If I could stop worrying about how it’s going to seem to everyone else that I’m with someone so soon after my wife died, we probably would have had sex a while ago. It’s not that we’re more of a couple if we have sex or less if we don’t, but I’m stuck in this odd state of limbo right now. My need for Melanie is at war with my devotion to my dead wife and consummating our relationship while I’m this conflicted feels wrong.

  “Take the rest of the day off. I’ll pick up Jacob so you two can talk this shit out. I’ll swing by while you take her out for a nice dinner and grab clothes for my buddy. And don’t worry, I’ll get him to daycare in the morning. It would suck if he was labeled a delinquent before he even starts public school,” Braydon laughs as he stands to come around to the front of the desk. “And seriously, think about what I said. You and Mel are good together. I think it’s time for you to rip off the band aid and show her that she’s the one you’re thinking about.”

  “Thanks,” I say sincerely. There’s no point arguing with him because we both know he’s right. And we both know that if he doesn’t push me, I’ll keep being this person I barely recognize, refusing to go after what I want in life because I’m allowing a dead woman to dictate my every move.

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is,” Tyler says as we sit at the edge of the pool. Lucky for me, he had a light work day and decided to take the afternoon to spend some much needed time playing amateur shrink to me. We’ve been trying to spend a bit more time together in the past few months and it’s made me realize I hung onto the wrong friend from our little trio for too many years. “Now that I see how much different Xavier is compared to how he used to be, I think he’s almost as good for you as you are for him. And everyone already thinks you’re Jacob’s mom.”

  “And that’s the problem,” I screech, turning on my side so I’m facing him. “I can’t be his mom. Even if she’s dead, he has a mother. I don’t want all of our neighbors talking about our strange arrangement and the poor boy whose mom and dad live in two different buildings.”

  “So move in with him. Problem solved!” Tyler grabs my cup, refilling it with half-melted margarita slush. I’m not normally a drinker, especially not during the day, but this seemed to be a good reason to make an exception.

  “Not problem solved, you freak,” I respond, rolling my eyes. “How is that going to make anything better?”

  “No one would talk about poor Jacob and how the only woman he can look up to as a mother lives in a different building,” he points out and I think he truly believes everything he’s saying. If only life was so simple in the real world. I miss the uncomplicated days when I didn’t get involved with anyone, especially my first love who is now a widower with a son. “Plus, you’d save money. Maybe you could be a stay-at-home mom, waiting for him to get off the bus every day and you could have dinner on the table when Xavier comes home.”

  “You’re delusional,” I sigh. “The problem isn’t the living arrangements. I don’t even know if Xavier wants things to get any more serious than they already are. Hell, we slept in the same bed last night and he didn’t even try copping a feel.”

  Tyler swings his lean legs over the side of the chair, bending at the waist so his face is inches from mine. “You two got hot and heavy the first time around. If I’m not mistaken, you slept with him less than a week after you met. And look where that got him. Can you really blame him for going slower this time? Especially seeing as he’s probably pretty messed up in the head over his wife’s death.”

  I dig in my tote bag for my cell phone as it starts chirping incessantly. Looking at the display, I smile when I see a text message from Xavier.

  Bray has Jacob for the night. Know of any beautiful women who might like to go to dinner and a walk along the lakeshore?

  “Oh, my God, you’re so in love with him I think I’m going to be sick,” Tyler mocks me as I tap out my reply. “Seriously, girl, stop worrying about the future and enjoy the giddy schoolgirl look you’re rocking right now. Whether you have a title or not, you’re already acting like Jacob’s mom and doing a damn good job at it. It’s psyching yourself out that’s going to steal your happiness.”

  I wrap my arms around Tyler’s neck, needing to get home to find something to wear and wash the sweat and sunscreen off my skin. “Thanks, Ty. For everything.”

  “Anytime, girly. It’s good to have you back.” He plants a wet kiss on my cheek before releasing me, causing a few curious glances from the bored housewives working on their tans. “Now, go get glammed up and show that man what he’s been missing for so long!”

  Tyler sends me off in a fit of giggles after delivering a sharp swat to my backside. I run across the parking lot, wanting to take my time to get ready.

  Over an hour later, I barely recognize myself. My hair is pulled back in a neat French braid, the stray hairs have been plucked from my eyebrows, giving them a shape that creates the illusion that my eyes are huge. Deciding to heed Tyler’s advice, I even dug under the bathroom sink for my makeup bag. I’m sure most of it is expired, but it’ll have to do for now. Between working and then everything that’s been going on this summer, personal grooming has taken a bit of a back seat. My only saving grace is that it’s hot and humid during the summer, otherwise my legs would likely resemble those of Sasquatch.

  I step out of my bedroom, wearing a cute dress that I picked up on a whim last year without knowing if I would ever take off the tags. The simple cream, spaghetti strap top and floral print, flouncy skirt are more whimsical than most items in my closet, but now that I’m wearing it, this was probably one of my best purchases ever. When I look up and see Xavier almost salivating as his eyes travel the length of my long legs, I know I’ve made the right decision.

  “Wow,” he says breathlessly as he crosses the room. His arms circle aroun
d my waist, pulling me close to his body. We stand in the center of my living room, neither of us saying a word, but saying so much with only our eyes. When it’s just the two of us and I’m not thinking about everything that could go wrong, I have faith that he is my soul mate and there’s a reason we were brought back together the way we were. “You look amazing! Almost too good for me to take out in public.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I laugh, playfully drawing my lip between my teeth. His sapphire irises darken as he watches my mouth and there’s no denying that I’m affecting him, based on the growing erection I feel pressing against my body. Xavier’s hands trace the lines of the thin cotton top of the dress, heightening my need for him. “We need to get going. You promised me a night out and I fully intend to see if you can deliver on everything I’m looking forward to.”

  I purse my lips, dangerously close to telling him exactly how I’d like to see tonight end. He may have awakened a part of me I thought was nearly dead long ago, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to beg him to make love to me. That decision has to be his.

  Chapter 22

  It’s been so long since I’ve planned a date with anyone, I’m nervous that Melanie won’t like what I have planned for the evening. I want tonight to be a time for us to block out everything we’ve allowed to become a priority in our lives so we can work on us. Braydon was right this morning, I need to make Mel understand that she’s the woman consuming my mind. And more importantly, she deserves to be the woman I go out of my way to make happy every single day.

  There’s a gentle breeze blowing off the lake as we sit outside one of my favorite grills on the Square. I’m hoping she’ll appreciate the combination of casual simplicity and elegance provided by the setting. Brightly colored tables line the sidewalk and the Capitol sits directly across the street from us. I reach for Melanie’s hand as she stares into the distance, unable to make eye contact with me.