by Jay McLean
“You want to do some crafting?”
He nods enthusiastically and I can’t say no. I get down on my knees and pick up the shoebox filled with pictures of Josh skating. Pictures Josh has never seen before. And then I lay out the glue and scissors and everything we’ll need, just like we’ve done so many times before.
Tommy’s attention span doesn’t last long and when he starts rolling around on the floor, licking the carpet, I know it’s time to find something else to do. “Let’s get you a snack,” I say, and he jumps to his feet and runs out the door before I can even stand up. I chase him out of the room and try to grab him before he hits the stairs. But I’m too late, and by the time he’s on the third to last step, he turns to me, smiles, and then he jumps.
And the rest is a blur.
The thud as he lands on his side.
The screams that leave him.
The cries as I try to soothe him.
All while he’s holding his arm to his chest.
I call Grams, my heart pounding.
She doesn’t answer.
I call Robby, but he doesn’t answer either.
So I call an ambulance because I don’t know what else to do.
Tommy’s cries are loud.
Mine are silent.
The nurses at the hospital ask a million questions, all while I hold Tommy in my arms. And if there’s one sound I hate more than anything in the world, it’s the sound of a constant dial tone and the standard voicemail that means no one’s going to answer. I call Josh thirty-four times as I pace the hospital waiting room, desperate, worried, and afraid.
I run between the waiting room and Tommy’s room while they put a cast on his arm, tears flowing, stomach in knots. At one stage, a nurse approaches, asks if I’m okay and offers me water. “I don’t need water!” I shout, but my voice cracks and nothing comes out. I continue to dial Josh’s number and after what feels like an eternity, he finally calls back.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he rushes out.
“Josh! I’ve been calling you!”
“What happened?” he asks again, louder this time, but I hear his voice twice and I swear I’m fucking losing it. I feel faint, like I’m about to pass out. “Becca!” he shouts, clearer, louder. So loud it seems to echo.
Then I feel a hand on my arm and I flinch, shaking it off. “Josh, I’m at the hospital!”
The hand grips my arm tighter and spins me around and all of a sudden Josh is standing there. His heavy exhale hits my face, his eyes wide in panic. Then he seems to stop breathing. So do I. He looks around, his gaze frantic. “Where’s Tommy?”
“I’m so sorry!” I cry out.
“Where is he?”
“Room 203. His arm—” He’s off before I can finish, ignoring the shouts from the nurses as he pushes past them and through the ER doors.
I feel arms around my shoulders and the fear of someone else’s touch is completely overshadowed by the fear of what’s happening to Tommy.
And what’s going to happen to Josh and I.
“He’s going to hate you,” the voice in my head says. And then she laughs—an evil, sinister laugh that turns everything around me black. I get led to a chair and guided to sit down. And then I break. “I didn’t mean it. I should have watched him closer. I didn’t mean it,” I keep saying, my voice a whisper. The words meant for her.
An older couple rushes through the doors and marches straight to the nurse’s desk. “Thomas Christian,” they say, and then they, too, go through the doors.
I sit and I wait for Josh to come out. To yell at me. And I gear myself up to take it all.
After way too long, he finally emerges—his jaw clenched and his chest out. I stand slowly, waiting for him to make his way to me—to tell me that he hates me and he never wants to see me again.
He’s two steps away when someone shouts his name.
Our eyes switch to the blonde girl running toward him, tears mixed with mascara streaking down her cheeks.
“Is he okay?” she asks, and I look over at Josh.
All color has drained from his face and he just stands there, mouth open, eyes wide.
Static fills my ears and everything inside me goes still—like a light switching off in my soul.
I know who she is.
Even before I see her eyes—the same eyes as Tommy’s.
Even before she cries out her son’s name and falls forward onto Josh’s chest.
And I know who she is, she wraps her arms around him, her fingers curled in the back of his T-shirt. “Shhh,” he comforts. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
And I know it now.
Where he’s been going late at night.
Where he’s been rushing off to.
All his secrets are revealed.
But worse? I know. I can feel it with every fiber of my being. Everything’s over.
Everything.
I know it even before he hugs her back, his eyes drifting shut.
Then he inhales deeply and lets out a breath with a single word: “Natalie.”
★★★
I catch a cab home, my mind in a daze. I don’t go into the house. Instead, I sit on the porch steps, phone in hand, and I wait. I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop shaking. And I can’t stop the puke that rises from my throat and ends up in Grams’s rose garden. Twice.
An hour later, he pulls into the house, his eyes catching my figure as I stand up and wait anxiously for news that Tommy’s okay. The interior light of his truck switches on and he steps out, eyeing Tommy who’s fallen asleep in the back seat. He seems to sigh, or let out a frustrated breath… I can’t tell.
“Is he okay?” I ask, my voice hoarse from all the crying and puking I’d done.
Josh shakes his head as he walks toward me. “What the hell happened, Becca? I left you with him for less than an hour and you broke his arm?”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head again, his eyes on mine. “Do you know how much that five minute ambulance ride is going to cost me?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I whisper.
“What happened?”
“He ran down the stairs and I couldn’t keep up and—”
“He’s three, Becca, you can’t leave him…” he trails off when headlights shine on both of us. The engine of the car switches off and all of my worst fears hit me at once. Natalie steps out; one perfect leg after the other. She stands to full height, eyeing her surroundings and flicks her hair over her shoulder. Then she walks to the trunk of her car, pulls out a suitcase, releases the handle and drags it behind her as she starts walking toward us. “Is he okay?” she asks.
Josh nods. “He fell asleep.”
Natalie’s eyes moves from Josh to me—bright blue, just like her son’s. “You’re the one who was meant to be watching him?”
“Yes,” I whisper, looking between them. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” she says, arching her eyebrows.
“Natalie,” Josh says, shaking his head at her. I wait for him to say something else and when enough time has passed and I know that he’s not going to defend me, I run into the house and up to my room, trying to silence my cries into the pillow so he—she—they can’t hear me.
Grams comes home and up to my room.
I can’t hide my cries from her.
“What happened, baby girl?” she asks, her hand soothing against my hair.
I tell her everything. The broken arm. The hospital. Josh. I struggle, so badly, to tell her about Natalie. But I do. And before she can respond, I get a text from Josh.
Joshua: I’m at your door. Can you come out?
“Maybe say no this time, Becca. Give it some time for things to cool off. You’re both not thinking straight and someone’s going to say something they’ll regret.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather hear it now.”
Josh leans against the porch railings, his phone in his hand. He doesn’t look up when I step
outside, not until he’s tapped a few buttons and puts the phone back in his pocket. I shut the door behind me and lean against it, eying Natalie’s car in the driveway. “So that’s where you’ve been?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?”
“All the late night skating to clear your head…” I choke on a sob and do my best to speak through it. “You’ve been seeing Natalie?”
“What?” his gaze follows mine. “No. Shit, Becca. What the fuck kind of person do you think I am?”
I shrug. “It makes sense. She’s there…” I point to his apartment. “I’m here. And you’re… I don’t even know where you are lately.”
He sighs dramatically and tilts his head back. “What the hell are we doing, Becca?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, apart from what I know about you since you’ve moved here, I don’t know anything else. You’re a complete stranger to me. And you’ve taken Tommy and I on some kind of joy ride where you plan to get off and we’re supposed to just… You should’ve told me about St. Louis.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, unable to look at him. “You should’ve told me about Natalie.”
“I didn’t know about Natalie! There was no Natalie! Fuck, Becca. I saw her at the same time you did. She just showed up. And it’s completely irrelevant when it comes to what you’ve done to us.”
“What I’ve done to you?”
“Yes, Becca. You screwed us over. You used me to help you stop feeling whatever you were feeling and you made me fall in love with you!”
Tears stream down my cheeks, the pain of my heartbreak greater than any pain I’ve ever felt before.
Physical.
Emotional.
All of it.
He adds, “When do you plan on leaving?”
“It’s not up to me,” I say quietly.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know what you want from me!”
“How about we cut the secretive bullshit and start with the truth?” he shouts.
“Why are you yelling right now?”
“Because I’m pissed, Becs. How can I not be? You know how I feel. You can’t just keep going on acting like what you’re doing isn’t wrong.”
“You knew I was leaving!”
His entire body tenses. “So you’re still going?”
“Josh…”
“I just don’t see the point of this. Of any of it. You go and you leave Tommy and I behind, lost in the wake of your destruction and you think that’s okay?”
“So you’re breaking up with me?”
“Are we even really together?”
“You know I love you, Josh.”
“And yet you’re still leaving, Becca.”
I turn and face the door, my tears falling fast and free while I close my eyes—submerged in the pain of heartbreak. “I’m gonna go.”
“Fine! Go. What difference does it make? You do it now or you do it whenever the fuck you want to. What do I care?”
His apartment door opens and we both turn to the sound. Natalie stands in the doorway. “Josh, where are your towels?”
Josh faces me and ignores her. “If you have something to say, say it now.”
I look over at Natalie, and back at him, and I think about Tommy. My best friend. The boy with the smile just like his father’s. But as I look at Josh now, I realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen it on him. And I know that I’m the reason for it. I think about his confession—about wanting Tommy to have both his parents. And I remember his words—that he’ll always love her.
So.
I stay silent.
And I go into the house and back up to my room, where silence becomes my new best friend.
-Joshua-
Natalie enters the bedroom after her shower and sits down next to me on the bed. “What a crazy homecoming.”
I stay quiet, not knowing what to say.
“I know this is weird for you, Josh, and I get it. Obviously we need to talk. That’s why I came home. But when I called my parents to tell them I was here and they said that Thomas—”
“Tommy,” I cut in.
“Right.” She exhales loudly. “When they said Tommy was in the hospital, I drove straight there and I just… I mean, I was going to ease into things, you know? I was going to come back and talk to you and hopefully maybe earn a little of your trust back and see how you felt about me seeing Thomas—I mean Tommy—again. I just want to be part of his life, and yours, and…”
She keeps talking but I can’t hear her, not over the blood rushing through my eardrums. “We can talk about it tomorrow.” I stand up and grab a pillow off the bed. “You can sleep in here. I’ll be on the couch.” I turn to leave and out of habit, I glance out the window. And I regret it the instant I see her emerald eyes staring back at me. They’re not the same though. They’re lifeless, dull and dark.
23
-Becca-
Days pass.
Natalie stays.
I dedicate my life to staring at my wallpaper.
I can’t even look at Tommy.
Not after what I did.
I don’t look for Josh.
And I definitely don’t look for her.
-Joshua-
Days turn into weeks and nothing changes. The seconds tick by and the world exists without me ever really taking part in it. Natalie stays with us, sleeping in my bed while I take the couch. At first I was afraid to tell Hunter that she was back—that she was here with us. I was afraid of his reaction… of his judgment. I expected him to ask what the hell I was doing or why I let her in so easily. But what I didn’t expect was for him to understand. And when I told him that he simply said, “It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? I mean you always said that if she came back you wouldn’t turn her away. Is Tommy happy?”
“Yeah,” I’d told him, because he really was. He seemed happy to have two people in his life that genuinely loved him. And Natalie—she did. It may have taken her three years to realize that, but it was clear by the way she looked at him. By the hundreds of questions she’d ask about him—about his past and my plans for his future. Even the little things like how he likes his sandwiches cut. The questions only went one way. I never asked her about what she’d done in the three years she was away. I didn’t care. And to be honest, I didn’t really care about her at all. The feelings I’d had for her three years ago were no longer there. Natalie—she never really loved me. I don’t think I ever really loved her. And I know that because while I lay on my uncomfortable couch every night, my son in one room and his mother in the other, all my thoughts are filled with Becca.
★★★
I find a letter in the mailbox. Hand written with my name on it—no stamp. No address. I open it quickly and pull out the check for a thousand dollars.
I knock on her door. “Becca!”
She answers, her eyes lowered.
“What is this?” I ask, waving the check in her face.
Without responding, she attempts to close the door in my face. I block it with my hand.
So she just stands there—one hand on the door, the other at her side.
“Becca.”
Then she looks up and my heart breaks and nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing. Her eyes, filled with tears, are surrounded by darkness. Her nose is red. Her hair’s a mess. And she’s looking at me like she’s not seeing me.
As if I’m a stranger.
I didn’t want any of this, Becca, I want to tell her.
But I can’t.
So I don’t.
I ask, “What’s the money for?”
She points to the back of the check and I flip it over.
Ambulance.
I look back up at her. “I see you’ve gone back to not talking… even to me?”
She shrugs.
I sigh. “Becca, I didn’t mean what I said. I was just upset… how did you even get this much money?”
Her gaze drops again, and jus
t when I think I’m not going to get an answer, I see her hand move, almost like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. Her thumb spins against the ring on her index finger—the ring I gave her.
Both my hands grip my hair when realization sets in. “Holy shit, Becca. Please don’t tell me you sold your camera?”
She looks up now, her tear soaked eyes pinning me to my spot. She blinks twice, the tears fall, and I reach out to wipe them away.
But she flinches.
She flinches away from my touch.
Then she sniffs, the only sound I’ve heard from her in days, and closes the door in my face.
And I hate everyone and everything and most of all, I hate myself.
★★★
Thanksgiving comes. I drop by my parent’s house. Dad doesn’t acknowledge me when I enter and the rest of the time is spent with him staring at the wall and me staring out the window.
We don’t talk.
We never do.
Natalie has made herself nice and comfortable, decorating and rearranging furniture exactly the way she likes it. She likes owls, apparently. I didn’t realize how much I hated them until my house was filled with them. But she cooks and cleans and she does everything a mother’s supposed to do and Tommy—he loves having her around.
I kick the dust off my work shoes and slip them off at the front door before I enter my house—or at least what used to be my house. The aroma of whatever Natalie’s cooking floods my senses the second I walk in. “Hey Momma!” Tommy says, running toward her. I hate that he calls her Momma—that it took me almost a year to get him to say Daddy and she just gets to be called that. Apart from the seven hours in labor, she hasn’t earned the name. Not even a little bit.
From the kitchen, Natalie looks at me and smiles; her blonde hair up in a bun, wearing her stupid owl-patterned apron.
“What are you making?” I ask.
She answers with something I’ve never heard of and I tell her I’m taking a shower.
She cooks a lot—something different every night.
She can’t cook for shit.
I don’t tell her that though. I sit at the table and eat the damn food because I don’t care about it enough to start something.
I don’t care about her stupid food or her stupid owls and right now I’m pretty sure I don’t care about much of anything.
