Infinity.

by Layne Harper

  Next thing I know, Big Guy is hitting me on my arm, and asking me to talk to the security guard. Something incoherent spills out of my mouth, but it’s good enough to gain us entrance to my neighborhood. It does occur to my alcohol-infused brain I never told the bartender my address.

  I point to my house as I feel my eyes growing heavy again with sleep. Big Guy helps me stumble to the back gate, while Bartender opens it and my unlocked backdoor. Big Guy puts me on the couch with a thud. “You okay, man?” His voice is gruff.

  I must give a satisfactory enough answer, because they leave me there. Pancho jumps on the couch, licking my face, but I swat him away. Standing up, I play pinball between the walls and furniture as I make my way into the bedroom. The last thing that I remember is shutting the door on Pancho.

  ****

  I know that I’m sick, and I know why. I crawl back into bed and pass out.

  ****

  My next coherent thought is “Why is Jenny standing over me?” Then I remember my daughter calling Brad Daddy. My run comes back to me. The bar. The altercation. My stomach turns as I’m reminded of the Jack Daniels.

  When I open my eyes, Jenny says, “Caroline called. She’s beside her self.” Jenny’s hair is still a normal shade of charcoal black. What an appropriate color. My head throbs too badly to ponder if she dyed it in my honor.

  Fuck Charlie. Let her be worried. How’d she feel if Ainsley called Jenny Momma? I roll over, trying to get away from the wicked witch of the west with her Goth-black hair.

  “Shall I tell her that you reek of booze and vomit?” She’s using her “catch more flies with honey” voice.

  I pull the covers over my head, and beg the jackhammer between my ears to shut itself off.

  “Can I confirm for her that the news stories are true; that you got into a bar fight and were taken home by a blonde waitress?” Jenny says, pulling the covers off of me, tapping her foot with her hands planted on her hips.

  I reach down and am relieved to discover that I still have my running shorts on. The thought of Jenny seeing me naked makes me shiver.

  “Answer me, Colin. You have to be at practice in an hour. I suggest you do something with yourself, because you look and smell like a New Orleans Bourbon Street homeless person.”

  I mumble, “Go the fuck away,” as I pull a pillow over my head, trying to find the jackhammer’s off button.

  She shuts the bedroom door behind her. I gingerly roll to my back so as to not upset my stomach, but I know that before I go to practice, it’s going to have to be agitated. Fuck. All boozing it up did was add a sick stomach and pounding head to my shattered heart.

  I yell to Jenny that I’m getting up so she won’t come back in here. My voice sounds like I’ve eaten glass. I test out my sea legs. Fortunately, I don’t think that I’m still drunk. I start my shower water, and then make my way to the toilet. Fuck, I’m regretting my decision to get wasted.

  It doesn’t take much for me to get sick. When I’m sure that I’m done, I open a bottle of water and drink it, waiting patiently for it to come back up. I’m not disappointed.

  When I’m finally finished, I drag myself into the shower and let the water spill over me until it runs cold.

  Next, I brush my teeth, and then take inventory of myself. Physically, I’m much better. Stomach is settled. Headache is now a dull throb. Mentally, I’m a dark nightmare that resembles a Tim Burton film.

  I walk into the living room, dressed for practice. Jenny’s sitting at my kitchen table, talking to whom I can only presume is Charlie, because Jenny says quietly, “He’s here. I’ll call you back.”

  “E tu Brute?”

  “Fuck you,” Jenny replies. “She’s worried about you.”

  “She’s worried enough that she put my daughter in the car and drove to Dallas to check on me? No. No, she’s not that worried. She’s worried only enough to call my assistant. I see.” I know that I’m being a gigantic asshole, but I don’t care. I’m pissed and hurt. Fuck her. “God forbid that she should leave her dad’s practice for a day to check on her husband.” The word “husband” comes out of my mouth sounding like poison. I pull the egg whites out of the refrigerator and begin making an omelet.

  “She told me what happened.” Jenny pauses as if she’s waiting for me to respond. “Babies babble. I’m sure what you heard was Ainsley just babbling.”

  I expected more from Jenny.

  I clench my hands into fists, and lean forward onto the balls of my feet, slamming my whisk against the edge of the bowl. Jenny’s face morphs into a questioning look. She’s never seen me really pissed off. “Jenny,” I squeeze out through clenched teeth. “If you wish to keep your job then stay. The. Fuck. Out. Of. It.”

  For the first time in our working relationship, Jenny doesn’t have a snarky retort.

  ****

  I’m a lunatic at practice. I know that I’m trying to escape the pain. Maybe if I do ten extra pushups, I will not feel it anymore. If I can just run a little faster, I’ll leave the pain in my chest behind me.

  It’s no use. The ache never dulls, and I only get madder.

  When I’m home, I finally check my phone. My voicemail is full. I erase every message without listening to them, and ignore all the texts from Charlie. I only reply to Aiden and my parents, letting them know that I’m alive.

  I’m not fine. In fact, fine jumped on the last train headed west. I’m a goddamn heap of mess. I don’t bother eating dinner, because my appetite is also on the proverbial train. I take a shower while I plot out my next move.

  The water beating against my back adds a level of clarity that I desperately need. It’s obvious that something has to give. My schedule isn’t flexible. I don’t have the ability to hang out in Houston while Charlie fixes her dad’s shit, or decides to permanently remain there playing head doctor. Charlie’s life is flexible. I decide to give her a deadline. Thirty days. That seems more than fair. Then it will have almost been three months since her father passed away. She needs to figure out if she wants to run the medical practice and give me custody of Ainsley, or bring herself and my baby back to Dallas. Charlie’s choice. But in thirty days my daughter will be living with me again.

  I call her instead of Skype for our seven o’clock appointment. This is in no way, shape, or form a date.

  She answers as if she’s been sitting by the phone. Her melodic voice fills the line, and what’s left of my shattered heart clenches. My system floods with need and hurt and want. It’s a confusing mess that ultimately washes out in sadness.

  I cut off her pathetic explanation ramblings. I don’t care. No excuses. There’s nothing short of “I’m moving back in with you” that will soothe me at this point. “Listen, Caroline.” I rarely use her given name so when I do, she knows that I’m serious. “I have nothing to say to you, other than I expect you and MY daughter,” I emphasize the hell out of the word my, “to be here in two days for Christmas. But, your clock starts now. You’ve got thirty days to clean up the shit storm that Jack’s death dropped in your life, or I keep our daughter with me.”

  “Is that a threat, Colin?” she asks, in a voice so cold that it could freeze ice.

  “Not a threat, darlin’. It’s a motherfucking fact. Remember my ‘I don’t give a fuck’ list you like to tease me about? Well, my daughter isn’t on it, and you sadly miscalculated if you thought she was.” I’m sitting in my home office, staring out the window at the oak trees I had planted. They’re too immature to give me the feeling of stability that Doctor Benson’s old oak did. Then it hits me. What a fucking perfect metaphor for my relationship with Charlie. Even though I’ve known her since she was nineteen, we’ve only been back together for less than three years. I don’t fully trust that she’s not going to break my heart again. Would I be okay with her taking Ainsley if we’d been together ten years? Probably not, but at least maybe I’d feel like I knew the motivations of the person on the other end of the line.

  She begins to cry and plead with
me, but it does nothing to soften my heart. It can’t. It’s too broken. In the middle of some sort of begging, I interrupt with, “Goodbye Caroline. I’ll see my daughter in two days.”

  Clicking end on the phone call is brutal. I love that woman. She’s been my one true love since I was a kid in college. She’s been my obsession—my fucking oxygen, since I took my first breath and discovered what love felt like. All I’ve wanted since I was twenty-one was to be married to Charlie Collins. Hell, I asked her every single day to be my wife. I’ve dreamt of being a father to our baby. But, and I plan on making this crystal clear, Ainsley is my blood. She’s my daughter. She’s half of me. I will not lose any more time with her. I will not be relegated to a paycheck-earner role in her life. I am her daddy. When she cries, I comfort her. When she’s sad, I cheer her up. When she’s sick, I mop her forehead. She’s just as much mine as she is Charlie’s—that I have no doubt about.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charlie

  Colin and I are sleeping in the same bed, but we might as well be in separate countries. Our gap makes the Mississippi River look like a babbling brook. He’s hurt. When he’s awake, his face is pulled into a permanent grimace. Even as we pretended everything was perfect for our families on Christmas day, his forehead was drawn in a scowl. He laughed, but it was forced. His eyes are frosty when he does look at me, which isn’t often.

  The only time I’ve witnessed any happiness is when he plays with Ainsley. He’s barely let her sleep in her bed since we arrived back in Dallas just in time to celebrate Christmas. He bathes, feeds, gets her up in the morning, and tucks her in at night. Colin is trying to clinch the Daddy of the Year award, making up for lost time, and trying to prove a point to me that he can meet all of her needs. Trust me when I say that I’ve gotten the message, loud and clear.

  We managed to get through Christmas faking it, but it didn’t hold a candle to last Christmas day. Then I was pregnant, and we were both so happy. He couldn’t go five minutes without caressing my swollen abdomen. We celebrated Pancho’s first birthday—well, first year with us—with a little doggy party. Both sides of our family just indulged our nonsense. Our laughs were not forced, and after everyone went to bed, Colin unwrapped me like a present and made love to me under the Christmas tree. He said that the best gifts he’d ever been given were lying under him. His wife and his baby.

  What a difference a year makes.

  I’ve tried to reason with Colin that my dad’s medical practice needs me. Yes, I’ve hired another doctor, but no one has the knowledge about the medical practices that I have. Sure, Carmen can keep the books going, and the doors open, but she doesn’t know the medical protocols that my father had established. She doesn’t know how to manage the young doctors working for us because frankly, she isn’t a doctor.

  My father’s medical practice thriving is my way of ensuring his immortality. Yes, Doctor Collins is no longer with us, but what he spent his whole life creating is still making people’s lives better. When Ainsley is old enough, I want to be able to bring her to his practice, and show her what her grandfather built. I want her to feel the same pride that I felt as a kid in what my dad did for a living.

  I can’t make Colin understand this. To him, the world is black and white as it’s always been; there are no greys. He doesn’t understand that I’m not playing doctor in Houston, having a gay old time. Okay, I am having a bit of fun, but I’m not leaving him. Brad isn’t trying to take his daughter away from him.

  Brad and I are a well-oiled machine. We can interpret each other’s body language. He knows how I like things done, and is also a huge help with Ainsley. Without him, I wouldn’t get to go for my morning runs, which are my lifeline to sanity. Brad pitches in with her when I’m too tired to move, which, lately, has been most days.

  I’m miserable. This whole situation is miserable. Colin’s playing for a wildcard spot in the playoffs tomorrow, so I lie very still trying not to wake him when all I want to do is cross the great divide and snuggle into his side.

  It’s pathetic to admit, but I want, no, I need my husband to want me again. This Siberian prison that he’s put me in is the worst form of torture. When I try to lay my hands on him he jerks back as if my touch burns. That hurts the most. We’ve spent the last twelve nights together after being a part for almost a month, and the only kiss that I’ve received was a chaste one at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And I’m sure that I only got it because Aiden and Amy were celebrating with us.

  Part of me feels like I should be the angry one. He’s the one who got drunk and had a bar fight. He’s the one who was helped home by a beautiful, busty, blonde who’s about ten years my junior. He’s the one who fanned the media’s flames surrounding our relationship. We made the cover of every entertainment magazine at the grocery-store checkout line. Nothing makes them happier than proof of the fabricated stories.

  But I’m not angry with him. I know why he poisoned himself. I know why he did what he did. The hurt was so deep that he didn’t know how else to deal with it.

  That breaks my heart.

  Our bedroom is cast in a green glow from Ainsley’s baby monitor. I roll onto my side and watch Colin’s naked chest rise and fall, ensuring that he’s asleep. Only then do I slide against him, pressing my clothed chest against his ribcage. His forehead is relaxed, and I’m pretty certain that my bold move didn’t awaken him. I carefully pick up my hand and place it over his heart, longing to feel his pulse under my palm.

  It only rests there for two beats before he removes my hand and places it on my hip. He doesn’t say anything as he turns onto his side, breaking our contact and presenting me with his back. He doesn’t have to. His rejection speaks volumes, making our bedroom air thick with unsaid angst.

  I scoot away from him and cling to the edge of the mattress. Tears slide down my cheeks and collect on my pillow, dampening the area around my face. That’s how I eventually fall asleep the second to last night in Camp McKinney Penitentiary.

  ****

  I attend Colin’s game and pretend that everything is perfect between us. Seriously, I deserve an Oscar for my performance. Last night’s rejection was the nail in the coffin. Something has got to change.

  Dallas easily clenches the wildcard spot and advances to round one of the playoffs. It was hard watching him on the sidelines. I saw his face full of joy. Colin was laughing and smiling. It was so genuine unlike our fakeness around our family. I even allowed myself to pretend that it was me who made him that happy. That I was the one that he was laughing with instead of Ty.

  I dread going home because I know that the happiness will not extend inside the walls of the McMansion. No. Our home is filled with tension, hurt, anger, and sadness.

  As we’re filing out of the stadium in a large crowd mixed with all the fans, the smell hits me. And it hits me strong. Someone very near me has on Colin’s cologne. My stomach takes note, and becomes desperately queasy. Pushing through the densely-packed people, I try to escape the smell while still holding my breath.

  Jenny is the only one who notices and follows me to the outer edge of the ramp. “You okay?” she asks as she grabs my arm. She’s clearly concerned, which is rather novel.

  I carefully let out the breath that I’m holding and open my mouth to inhale. I’m terrified of smelling the cologne again. How humiliating to vomit in a crowd of people. Once I’ve sampled the air and realized that the offending odor is gone, I reply, “That was so weird. Someone had on Colin’s brand of cologne, and it made me sick.”

  “You’re pregnant,” is all she says. There’s no excitement or apprehension in her voice. She might as well have said, “There’s pasta in the refrigerator.”

  People are pushing around us, but I remain nailed to the cement on the ramps of the Cowboy’s stadium. All the crowd noise fades to silence. I can’t be pregnant. My husband isn’t even speaking to me. Our marriage is hanging on by a thin string as it is. The last thing we need right now is another baby.

&
nbsp; I feel my eyes well up with tears, and I beg them to stay at bay. No point crying about this until I know for sure.

  On the way home, I stop by a drugstore and am perfectly humiliated to be buying pregnancy tests while I’m flanked by Miguel. He’s so professional, and pretends to ignore my purchases.

  Julie, my other sister, is staying with us, and watched Ainsley while we went to the game. Aiden had asked if Amy could be his date to Colin’s game, and it seemed nice that he’d want her there. I love Aiden and Amy together. He’s the wild to her calm. She’s the support that he needs. They have the same life goals. I’d never have set them up, but those two dating is definitely one of the positives that came out of my father’s death.

  Julie and Pancho greet me when I walk into the kitchen. I look at Julie and ask her a gigantic favor, using my pleading eyes. “Can you watch Ainsley this evening, and keep both of you upstairs? Colin and I need to have a talk, and it might get pretty loud. If it does, take Ainsley in the movie room and put on something for y’all to watch. I don’t want her to hear us fighting.”

  Julie, of course, agrees. I have the best sisters.

  Next, I go into our bedroom and shut the door behind me. I pick up my phone and dial Carmen. I’ve never been particularly close to my stepmom. Us girls began calling her Aunt Carmen when she was Daddy’s nurse ages ago. Then, when Daddy left Mom for Aunt Carmen we realized that one, she wasn’t really our aunt and two, she was becoming Stepmom Carmen. In the end, I have two beautiful half-sisters out of their marriage that I adore, and all has been forgiven.

  Carmen answers on the third ring, and we spend the next five minutes making small talk. I know her first Christmas without my father was difficult. It was hard on us girls, but then again, he hadn’t spent Christmas with us since my half-sister, Sarah, was born, which was more than half my life ago.