“I’m so sorry, Maddie. I didn’t mean to. It’s okay.” I pull one of her stuffed dogs off the wall and set it on the edge of her bed. “I didn’t mean to, honey.”
Then it’s over as quickly as it started. Maddie is quiet except for the sound of trying to breathe. I stay back and she eventually grabs her green blanket and the dog… and at last, she lays down.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
“Yeah. Night, Daddy.”
“Night Maddie, I love you.”
Amy
The first thing I do when I walk in the door of my apartment is strip.
It’s not as sexy as it sounds. I am just so ready to be rid of the heels, bra and the too tight dress Marcy insisted I wear, which I still think makes me look like a bratwurst no matter what she says. When I am finally free from my bondage I fall onto the couch. I take a moment to center myself before I open my laptop. When I don’t see what I’m looking for I slam it closed again.
“Geez!”
I must have sent my resume to a hundred places over the last month and still nothing. If anyone had told me getting a graduate degree would make it harder to find I job I wouldn’t have believed them. But here I was, too qualified for half the things I apply for, and not experienced enough for the other half.
Maybe I could use some time with a punching bag…
My mind falls back to Rob, and I begin to replay one of my favorite memories. I was seventeen and invited to Rob’s first amateur MMA fight. I remember the moment he pulled off his shirt and held out his hands for the glove inspection. It’s a wonder I didn’t pass out. I totally forgot breathing was a thing people needed to do.
The memory of the way his cut muscles moved under his smooth skin makes my hand slip between my legs. I slide my fingers over my wetness as I relive the masculine focus in his eyes, the warrior demeanor I never saw in the living room of Marcy’s house, but that made my knees weak in that moment. It was power and strength. It was all a woman could want.
I begin to shake as I remember meeting his eyes. Because I swear, he looked right at me before he bounded up the steps to the cage. The fear I felt on the way to the event that night was gone as I realized all at once he wouldn’t be getting hurt. I didn’t cheer or holler like everyone else in the crowd, just stood in stunned awe as his arms and back glistened and rippled with every punch and dodge.
And when he won, and I mean really won, I was worried the other kid wouldn’t wake up at all… he looked at me again. And didn’t look away until his corner men hoisted him on their shoulders.
Later I tried to tell myself he was looking at Marce, making sure his brat sister saw him being awesome. But in moments of weakness I almost convince myself…
Suddenly I pull my hand back and sit up.
“Oh, stop. Stupid.”
Rob
Against my better judgement, I asked Marce for Aim’s number. I almost talked myself out of it. Then I almost talked myself out of calling. Then I almost talked myself out of showing up at the gym. Then I DID talk myself out of assigning her to a different teacher. And then…
“How weird do I look?”
Weird? If it’s weird to look totally devour-able, then sure. Weird as hell. Amy’s skin-tight yoga pants hid nothing. Every soft spot she probably cursed at in the mirror was sitting right there for me take in. If I had seen her like this when I was a teenager I would have probably gotten wood in my gym shorts. Honestly, it was a struggle not to as a grown ass man.
I answered her in a way I’m sure eased her mind. “You look just fine.”
“Okay.”
I started to wrap up her hands, being so close to her was making me… well, not nervous…but… okay, fine I’m nervous. I start rambling.
“The first thing you need to know is, self-defense is a philosophy. A new way of looking at the world. It isn’t just knowing what to do in a bad situation, it is also being able to spot a bad situation before it happens. Where ever you are, whatever you’re doing, you always have to assume someone is going to try and hurt you.”
“Oh, well, is that, um… fair?”
“Fair?” I help her work the gloves onto her tiny hands.
“Well, yeah, I mean, that’s sort of judgmental. I mean, most people are nice.”
“Really? You think most people are nice?”
“Yeah…”
“Okay, we’ve a lot of work to do.”
Amy
POW! POW! POW!
Every time my fists connect to the bag it’s a total rush.
RIGHT HOOK – POW! LEFT HOOK – POW! UPPERCUT – POW!
“Remember the sound, it will keep you breathing.”
I make the little yell on each punch the way karate guys do on TV. How could I forget about that? Too much fun.
“Agh!” POW. “Agh!” POW! “Agh!” POW
“Keep moving your feet until your combination. Remember where a punch starts?”
“Mah feut”, my best effort at ‘my feet’ through the protective mouth guard.
After I batter the bag with another combination I look at Rob for approval, but his eyes aren’t on me anymore, they’re on his phone.
I spit the mouth guard into my gloved hand and clumsily try to hide the string of drool that stays connected to it.
He doesn’t look up from the phone when he announces, “I have to go.”
“Am I that bad?” I fake one of those fake laughs.
“I’m sorry, I just really have to go.” He doesn’t finish his apology before rushing out of the gym.
Leaving me standing there with boxing gloves on, gloves I was almost certain I couldn’t take off by myself.
Great.
Rob
I didn’t know I could move that quickly. If I could have pulled that kind of speed in the cage I might have reversed a few losses. But I guess the stakes weren’t as high.
I flew through my front door and almost trip over… what is all this?!? Then I realize it’s everything in the living room that was breakable – broken.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
I raced down the hall to Maddie’s room and literally run into Lindsay as she’s backing out of it. A picture frame flies by our heads and breaks against the hallway wall.
“AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Lindsay is in tears too, “I’m sorry, I washed her blanket. It was so dirty and I just thought- I’m so sorry!”
“AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Maddison is grabbing and smashing everything she can reach in her bedroom.
I slowly make my way inside, “It’s okay, Maddie! It’s really just the same!”
I pick her freshly washed blanket off the floor and try to hold it out to her, but her screaming just intensifies. I pull it back and churn my brain, trying to think of a way to calm her down.
Lindsay is still sobbing. “I’m so sorry Mr. Walsh.” I whip out my wallet, pay her and usher her down the hall, insisting all the way she didn’t do anything wrong. It’s true, it wasn’t her fault, but I needed her gone.
Before I go back inside, I have a lightning bolt of inspiration.
I’m sure I look like a madman on my hands and knees in the flower garden rubbing dirt all over a little green blanket. But I have to try. With the speed that had surprised me so much before, I shot back into the house and down the hallway.
“Look! It’s all better now!”
I kneel across from Maddie and hold out the dirty blanket with an overextended arm, staying back from her as far as possible. The lamp in her hand slowly lowers as she takes a long look at the offering. Then the lamp drops, it still breaks, but at least she didn’t throw it.
A step towards the blanket. Then another. Finally, she reaches out to take it. I wait for her approval, or for the storm to start again.
At last, she calmly speaks to me as she heads into the living room to watch TV.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
I go fully to the flo
or and look around at the chaos a tiny little girl managed to create.
And on a pile of pink porcelain and plastic shards, I cry.
Amy
After recruiting someone to unlace my gloves for me, I slug my sweaty, smelly and sexually frustrated self back to my apartment.
What made him leave like that? He probably got a text from some girl who… right then I catch myself in the full-length mirror in my bedroom. I stopped and stared at the makeup-less, disheveled and horrifying sight until I fall down a deep well of self-loathing.
There I was, squarely in the position I had avoided all my life, Rob seeing me at my worst. No wonder he got out of there so quickly. Suddenly I have a terrifying thought and take a long whiff under my armpit.
“Oh no!”
I bet the text was from a girl. It had to be. Why else would he just run out in the middle of a lesson? I remember the mightaswellbeasupermodel he was dating when I graduated high school. He was with her for a long time. I thought Marcy said they broke up, but maybe he met someone else or…
Sadness transforms to full on grief when I notice how the workout clothes hid none of my physical flaws. My thighs and hips stare back at me unrelentingly. Finally, I can’t bear to look in the mirror anymore, actually, I can’t bear the fact the mirror even exists. So… I defend myself against the wicked mirror.
“Agh!” POW! CRASH!
I crumple to the floor and on a pile of shiny glass shards and I cry.
Rob
All the blood leaves my face and I have no choice but to sit down. I almost drop my cell phone.
“Lindsay, please, I know it isn’t easy, but Maddie is used to you and you know how important consistency is- “
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Walsh. I just can’t, my parents don’t think it’s healthy for me to- “
“Okay, okay, Linds I understand. Thanks for everything.”
I hang up before a proper goodbye. I shouldn’t have done that, but I was… I was lost. How am I going to tell Maddie Lindsay wasn’t coming back? Who am I going to get to look after her?
A knock on the door pulls me out of my self-pity, and when it opens before I get there, I know it’s Marcy. The only person who just lets themselves into the house. The moment she sees my face she knows something’s up.
“What happened?”
She immediately looks in the direction of Maddie’s room.
“No, it’s fine. She’s fine. Come outside.”
When we reach her car, I lean against it and rub my face, “Lindsay quit.”
“What! Why?!”
“Why do you think, Marce?” I don’t mean to sound annoyed, but she’s my sister and if I can unload on anyone it’s her.
“Okay, okay. What’re you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.”
Marce leans against the car next to me. “I wish I could, but you know how GM is always sending me- “
“Yeah, I know, it’s okay. I’ll find somebody.”
Then she leaps off the side of the car and starts doing the bouncy thing she does when she’s proud of something she just thought of.
“Oh! Aim really needs something right now, so bad. She was even worried about paying her bills and I bet she’ll help out. “
“Aim couldn’t handle this.”
“Yes, she could!”
“Please. You know her, she’s like a- a- puff ball. You gotta have thick skin.”
Marcy stops bouncing and is almost too quiet. Finally, I look up at her. As cool as a cucumber she crosses her arms. “You have no idea what kind of skin she has. Do you?”
I swallow hard. And try not to think about Amy’s skin.
Amy
“There is something about Rob I haven’t told you.”
I wish Marce had picked a better moment to say that, like when I wasn’t eating shrimp cocktail, preferably. Horseradish doesn’t feel good in your sinuses.
“Ack!”
“You okay?!”
“Yeah, I just choked a little. What did you say?”
“Um, about Rob, um...”
I sat still and waited. I was the queen of “Ums” but Marcy never uttered that sound unless she was about to say something heavy. Two “ums”? This was going to be a doozy.
“Remember Sonya?”
That was it! Mightaswellbeasupermodel’s name was Sonya! I guess I had blocked it from my memory.
“Yeah, I think so. The girl Rob was with for a while?”
“Um, yeah…”
Another “um”. I wanted to shake her and make her spit it out, but we were in public and I assumed the other patrons of this café wouldn’t appreciate witnessing a minor assault.
“Well, um, I never said anything to you about it because I know how you feel about Rob.”
“How I feel?”
“Don’t play dumb, it’s me remember? I know you Aim, and I know how you feel about Rob.”
I don’t bother arguing, she was right, Marce might even know me better than I know myself. It’s silly that I thought I was ever fooling her at all. “Yeah, okay.”
“Okay, well, um, I never said anything, but he and Sonya had a baby girl five years ago. “
Thank God I’m horseradish free this time. “W- What?!”
“Yeah. And well, the hard thing is we haven’t heard from her in a few years, since Maddison was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum… and, um, so it’s been pretty hard on Rob since he has full custody and running the club… that’s why he had to quit fighting and…um, yeah…”
“Oh my gosh, Marce.”
“Yeah, it’s hard. But the reason I’m telling you all this right now is, um, since you guys have been getting to know each other again, um, I mentioned you needed a job. Just till something else comes through, and you are a really patient person, I mean no one is sweeter than you, Aim.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think Rob has a job for you. And I think you’re gonna be great at it.”
I shove another shrimp into my face.
Holy. Shit.
Rob
“Hello Maddison!”
Amy smiles her huge smile and gives my lady a little wave. I’m extremely grateful Aim seems to know to keep a wide berth between herself and Maddison. Marce obviously gave her a crash course on the spectrum.
Maddie’s lack of a response doesn’t fade her smile, “I’m so glad to meet you! My name is Amy.”
“I know.”
“I like your blanket.”
“Don’t wash it.”
“Oh, I won’t. It would lose its charm.” Amy laughs at her own response. Maddie doesn’t join, she just holds her icy stare.
I wait for Aim to give me that “what the fuck?” look most people do, but instead she almost seems excited when she glanced over at me. I feel bad for silently wondering how long it would take for the positivity to fade. I mean, it had to at some point, right? I clear my throat and make one last attempt at praying for a good day.
“All right…well, Maddie, I have to go, but please remember to do whatever Amy asks and…uh, try to have fun, okay?”
“Bye.”
Maddison doesn’t look at me during her farewell, and I know it’s because she’s still trying to figure out whether she approves of the new face in our kitchen.
“Bye-bye.” As I turn to go, I give Aim a look that means to please follow me to the door. Before heading out I whisper one last apologetic reminder. “Call me if you have any trouble at all. The first day will probably be hard. “
“Oh, we’ll be fine! Don’t worry.”
And the way she says it almost convinces me it’s true.
Almost.
Every call I get that day sends a cold lightning bolt to my guts. But time after time, it’s just a club vendor, or solicitor, or friend. Marce even checks in once. But all was quiet from the home front.
I last most of the day, but a few hours after lunch I break down and tell my secretary to please take messages for me and I make the tense drive
back home. A deep inhale steadies my nerves, but I still hold my breath as I turned the knob. I prepare myself for broken glass, tears,yelling…
I’m prepared for pretty much anything.
Amy
When I look into her eyes it’s almost as if a tiny Rob is looking back at me. But that insecure and unstable feeling I get when I look at him is absent in me now. Replaced by a different sort of intense eagerness to connect. It may not be in the same way as with your typical five-year-old, but I knew I could do it.
“How do you feel about blanket forts?”
The little eyes don’t blink, but I can see them pondering, so I continue, “I love them. I used to make them all the time when I was your age. My favorite thing about them is they aren’t just fun to play in, they can be a quiet place to go when you want time to think.”
I opened the linen closet and pull out everything I can reach as I kept talking, “Because adults can’t really climb so great, so if you make the very back room of the fort tiny, then it’s all yours. Like…a nest!”
“Like a bird nest?”
“Exactly! A little bird nest that is just yours.”
Without a word, she takes off to her bedroom. I curbed my instinct to follow. I tell myself if she doesn’t want to interact that’s okay. But by the time I haul all the blankets and sheets into the living room Maddie’s there, the comforter from her bed hanging out of her little arms.
“So, what shall we call our fort Maddie?”
“It’s not a fort, forts are for boys. This will be our blanket palace.”
“Well, Princess Maddison, what shall we call our palace?”
“Bird’s Nest Palace, I think.”
“Bird’s Nest Palace, the home of the grand Princess Maddie – lady of the land!” I make myself laugh again, and although she doesn’t join in, her response is better than any typical reaction a “regular” kid could offer.
Very calmly and matter-of-factly she corrects me, “And her friend, Princess Amy.”
Rob
With my breath held firmly in my lungs, I open the front door. I exhale in a woosh. It isn’t relief as much as confusion. At some point my living room had transformed into a… laundromat? Everywhere I look there were hanging linens, clothes and blankets.
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