Watch Over Me

by Christa Parrish

  “Don’t mention it,” he said, kissing her neck.

  “Mmm. That tickles.”

  “Tickles? I’m offended.” He kissed her again, behind the ear.

  “Ben, Matt’s in the kitchen.”

  “He can’t hear us.”

  She snickered. “You’re terrible.”

  “Two seconds ago you were telling me that I was good.”

  “Well, maybe you can change my mind again,” she said, pulling on her shirt, “but after dinner.”

  “Now you’re terrible.”

  “Did Matt tell you his cousins are eating here tonight?”

  “Yep. So much for a quick dinner.”

  “Or a good one.” Abbi sprinkled baking powder on her hands, dabbed her armpits. “Those kids have got to be the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met. I finally got them to agree to spaghetti, but without sauce. Only butter. And salt.”

  “Consider it a taste of what’s to come in, oh, about two more years.”

  “You’re resorting to puns now?”

  “Torturous, isn’t it? I promise I’ll stop, if you’ll just go over across the hall and take off that shirt of yours—”

  She opened the bathroom door, the cool air sucking the steam into the hall. “Don’t make me start quoting Galatians, Mr. Self-Control.”

  “Look,” he said, following Abbi into the kitchen, “Matt’s not even here.”

  “Why don’t you go out and play with him and the girls? Run off some of that energy,” she said, plucking Silvia from his arms and motioning toward the sliding door. And then she kissed him long and soft on the lips. “But not too much.”

  “Tease,” he said.

  Outside, the girls threw a playground ball over Matthew’s head as he made feeble attempts to intercept it, pretending to trip, or bouncing it off his head. Lacie and Sienna giggled and pointed, calling, “Matty’s a monkey, Matty’s a monkey.” Sienna slung the ball past her sister. It rolled toward Benjamin, and he popped it into the air with the toe of his boot, juggled it on his knees.

  “Cool,” Sienna said. “I didn’t know old guys could do that, too.”

  “Old guy? Well, this old guy challenges you three to a game of dodge ball.” Benjamin stretched the garden hose across the lawn.

  “You all stay on that side. I’ll be over here.”

  They lobbed the ball back and forth until Abbi called them in to eat. The girls bickered and gabbed enough for all of them. Benjamin enjoyed the sheer exasperation on his wife’s face as Lacie knocked over her milk and Sienna tried to convince her sister the noodles were honest-to-goodness dead worms while both of them kicked each other under the table when they thought no one was looking. Then Lacie asked for dessert, and Abbi offered some carob and cranberry bars.

  “These brownies taste funny,” Sienna complained.

  Matthew rapped the table, shook his head, but Abbi touched his arm. “It’s fine.” And then to Sienna, “I like to call them healthy brownies. They don’t have any yucky stuff in them.”

  “I think I like the yucky stuff,” Lacie said.

  Tell me they are not always like this, Abbi mouthed to Matthew while the girls wiggled into their jackets near the front door.

  Don’t you want a dozen?

  “Don’t worry. Ours will be an angel,” Benjamin said.

  She glared at him. “Just go.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll be back soon.” He winked. “Very soon.”

  “Take your time. I need a long, hot bath after this meal.”

  He gave the kids a ride home, letting them off in front of the apartment, the girls bouncing out of the Durango and inside. Matthew seemed reluctant to get out. The dome light stayed on because neither Lacie nor Sienna had closed the back door. Benjamin shifted in his seat, and Matthew turned toward him. “You okay?”

  He nodded and shrugged all at once, picked at the corner of his thumbnail.

  “You’re good with them. The girls.”

  What’s your father like?

  Benjamin blinked at the unexpected question. “He’s different than me. Brilliant. A scientist. You two would probably get along. He’s just who he is.”

  But he was good to you.

  “Oh yeah. Absolutely. The best. Even if I might have not thought it at the time.”

  Don’t know much about mine. He played baseball. Minor league stuff. Wrecked his knee and sort of flickered out of our lives. At least that’s what my mom told me. I can’t remember him.

  “Abbi said your mother gave you his number.”

  Did she tell you the rest?

  “Yes.”

  What do you think?

  “You’re asking me? I don’t know. I guess you need to be realistic about it. There’s no guarantee he’s going to be, I don’t know . . .” He didn’t want to see Matthew hurt; the kid had been through so much already.

  I don’t have expectations, Ben.

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of it. It’s probably good, you know, to have some idea where you come from.”

  What about Silvia? Do you think she should know about everything?

  “Well, I mean, we’ll tell her, of course. One day. I don’t know when.” Benjamin squirted wiper fluid on the windshield, and the blades swished back and forth twice. “Matt, what’s wrong? Tell me so I can stop tripping over myself here. I don’t tiptoe well. I’m much better with direct.”

  I was just thinking of Silvia’s father.

  He waited for more, but Matthew only tapped his pen against his knee. “What about him?”

  What if he doesn’t know he has a daughter? What if he never knows?

  “Come on. Really. How could he not know? Eventually he’d be asking where the baby went to.”

  What if Silvia’s mother kept it from him?

  “I sincerely doubt that’s the case.”

  But it could happen?

  “Well, yeah.”

  And what if it did?

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Matthew turned his head. Nothing.

  He’s lying. Benjamin squeezed the steering wheel, ripples of nausea high in his chest, behind his ribs. “Hypothetically speaking, if we found the birth mother, and she told us the father didn’t know she was pregnant, we would have to find him and ask if he wanted to . . .

  parent Sil—the child.”

  Hypothetically speaking, what if he said yes?

  “He would take custody of the child. And that would be that.”

  No, it wouldn’t. They both knew it.

  And what if, hypothetically speaking, you never find out who left Silvia?

  “Then whoever did it gets away with attempted murder, and Silvia lives happily ever after with two parents who love her.”

  His words were daggers, and he almost thanked God the boy couldn’t hear his tone. Almost. He started praying and stopped.

  Matthew’s pen hovered above his pad, trembling. He touched the point to the paper, to his tongue, to his paper again. His fingers tensed, relaxed, and he stuck the pen in his mouth again, the opposite side now, clamping the cap between his teeth while he scribbled, Thanks, then closed the pen. He slipped off the seat, closing the passenger side door and the one behind it, and let himself into the apartment, head hung deep between his shoulders.

  Benjamin started home, and on the dark stretch of road between two fields his queasiness returned. He parked the Durango, scraped his hand along the door for the handle, and leaning out over the gravel, dry-heaved in the raw, slumbering air. Autumn air. Nothing came up, and he was glad. He didn’t deserve the relief of vomiting. What have I done? Not what he should have done—he should have told Matthew that whatever he knew or didn’t know, or thought he knew, he could say it aloud. No. Benjamin told him to stuff his secret deep, camouflaged beneath disquieting thoughts of poor Silvia growing up without the Patils. Not in so many words. But they both understood what Benjamin had meant. And he did mean it. He’d rather Matthew live with whatever information he may have—with the consequenc
es of carrying it around with him, everywhere and forever—than live without his daughter. Who was Matthew but the lawn boy and some drug addict’s son? Who was he that Benjamin would consider sacrificing Silvia for some kid he had only known a couple of months?

  No one. He was no one.

  What’s wrong with me? I should want only the truth.

  But he didn’t. He wanted Silvia.

  He was tempted not to go home, but his need to protect his baby compelled him back to the house. Abbi waited for him, dressed in a sheer, gauzy nightgown. “What took you so long?” She kissed him. “Mmm. Your nose is cold.”

  “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.” Her strap had fallen from her shoulder, and he repositioned it.

  “Ben?”

  “You’re right. Those kids are whirlwinds. I just need some sleep.”

  “Okay, sure. Okay. I’m going to go . . . take a shower.”

  “Another one?”

  “I never did take that bath, and like you said, those kids . . .” She closed herself in the bathroom, and the water came on. Benjamin pressed his ear to the door. He thought he heard sniffling, and then Abbi switched on the vent fan, drowning out any evidence of her tears.

  Silvia slept in the basket on the floor of their bedroom. He nudged it close to his side of the bed, lying down on his stomach with his arm hanging over the edge of the mattress, his hand resting on the baby’s chest. Up, down. Up, down. Each breath carried her a littler further from him. You can’t take her. You hear me? You can’t take her. He didn’t consider it a prayer, more of a threat. And if he lost her, he wouldn’t pray again.

  Chapter THIRTY-THREE

  The phone rang, and Abbi pounced on it so it wouldn’t wake the baby.

  “Abbi, it’s Janet. Listen, is everything all right?”

  Say no. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

  “Al said . . . Well, he said Ben seems, um, down again. And after church Sunday, you both . . . Look, I’m not trying to be nosy, but you . . . I mean, after . . .”

  “You’re right. But I don’t know what’s wrong. He won’t tell me. It’s like time’s rewound three months, and here we are again.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “No.” Abbi banged her fist on the wall. “Nothing between us, I don’t think. Things have been really good. I mean, he was the old Ben. Not totally, but he was trying. We both were.”

  “I wish I could do more than pray.”

  “Praying is more than enough.”

  “Well, then, I can do that.”

  “Thanks. I mean it.” And then Abbi started to cry. “I don’t think I can do this again, Janet.”

  “You can. If you need anything . . . Really, anything . . .”

  “I do. Could you maybe watch Silvia for a couple hours? I’ll bring her there.”

  “No, no. I’ll come over. Do you need me now?”

  “If you can.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  When Janet arrived, Abbi showed her where to find the bottles and formula, gave her an all-in-one diaper so she didn’t have to fuss with pins and folding, and after kissing Silvia good-bye, she drove straight to the Rigney farm.

  “Abbi, hey,” Lauren said, nudging open the warped screen door. “Are you okay?”

  “No. It’s Ben.”

  “Well, get in here.” She held Stevie on her hip, his hands gooey with something orange, mucus bubbling from his nose as he screamed. He crammed his face against Lauren’s shoulder, snot smearing over his cheek, on her sweater. She pinned his arms and swept a wet washcloth around his face. Then she cleaned his hands. “He hates having his face wiped.”

  As soon as she put the toddler down, he stopped wailing and walked over to the dog dish, flopped on his diapered bottom and raked a handful of small, round nuggets toward his mouth. Lauren sighed, scooped him up, and pried open his fingers. “Look at what you have to look forward to,” she said. “Let’s go in the family room. It’s baby-proofed.”

  Abbi fell into the recliner, and Lauren drew the gate across the doorway. Stevie crawled to a pile of board books and picked one up, chewed the corner. “Where’s Katie?”

  “Napping. I was just about to put this little man down before you came.”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead. I can wait. Or I can just call later. . . .”

  “No, tell me what’s going on.”

  “That’s the problem. I have no idea. It’s Ben. He really was doing better . . . and then last Thursday he comes home and, poof, he won’t talk to me. Won’t even look at me.”

  “Where’d he come home from? Work?”

  “Dropping Matt and his cousins at home.”

  Stevie abandoned the books and crawled over to Abbi, pulled himself up on her leg. Lauren grabbed him around the belly, tickled him, and then settled him into her lap to nurse. The little boy closed his eyes, twirled a strand of his mother’s hair. “He’ll be out in two seconds,” Lauren said. “And you’re sure nothing happened after he dropped Matt at his house?”

  “I’m not sure of anything. I can’t get any answers out of him.”

  “Maybe you’re not asking the right question.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Lauren unlatched Stevie, and Abbi pushed away a stab of envy at the bond between her friend and the child. She’d never have that. “He’d been talking to you before this?” Lauren asked.

  “I just said that.”

  “About what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” Lauren laid Stevie on the area rug and covered him with a blanket. “Has he told you about Afghanistan?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “What about what’s been bothering him all this time?”

  “No, but that’s not the point. I—”

  “What have you been talking about?”

  Abbi scratched the back of her neck. There had been plenty of words filling the spaces between them. Always regarding Silvia; they could find things to say all day about her—from her expressions, to giggles, to the color of her dirty diapers. About who would unload the dishwasher or change the toilet paper roll. And flirting, lots of silliness and innuendo. But nothing deeply personal. “Stuff,” she said.

  “He doesn’t trust you, Abbi.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “I don’t think so. Not with the parts that are truly him.”

  “We can’t all have what you and Stephen had.”

  “You could be a lot closer to it than you are. Don’t you get it? How can he open up to you when you’re against everything he is?”

  “I am not.”

  “He goes to the other side of the world to fight for you to have the freedom to stand on that stupid street corner with your stupid signs. He does it because he thinks it’s right. But he knows you think he’s no better than an ignorant, bloodthirsty redneck. How can he confide in you about anything?”

  “This isn’t about Ben and me. It’s about you and me. You’re still ticked about the protesting.”

  “Yeah, I am. But don’t you see? If it bothers me so much, how much do you think it bothers Ben? How can he tell you anything about what happened to him over there when he knows you think he’s reaping what he’s sown?”

  “I’m not going to lie and tell him I think he’s some great hero for slaughtering people. He knew who I was when he married me.”

  “And you knew who he was.”

  Silence. They both watched Stevie drool in his sleep, his silky hair curling from the perspiration at the back of his neck. Abbi moved to the floor, next to him. Ran her finger over the dimples in the back of his hand. “He looks like Stephen,” she said.

  “Not as much as Kate. That girl is her father. Personality, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Lauren. That you’re alone.”

  “If you think someone can be alone living with her parents and two kids, you’ve never tried it.”

  “You know what I mean.”


  “I’m not alone. I have God. I have my church. I have all those things people tell you that you have after you lose someone, and you just roll your eyes and think They don’t get it, because it just hurts too much to believe them. You’re alone. Not me. And you’re going to be more alone if you don’t get your head on straight and deal with this. Your marriage isn’t going to stand up under it for long.”

  “This is what drives me insane. You sit here and say all this. But you and Stephen . . . You were perfect together. Ben and I, we screwed it all up. Everything we tried to convince ourselves wasn’t going to matter—it all exploded in our faces.”

  Lauren smacked her lips. “You want out, then?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.” Abbi lay back on the floor, turned her head away from Lauren. She saw under the chair, puffs of dust and hair clinging to the leg. She blew, watching one ball slide across the wood floor, colliding with another, both of them scampering into the corner. “I shouldn’t have married him.”

  “Once you’re married, there aren’t any shouldn’ts. There’s just what is. How you move on from here, that’s up to you.”

  Abbi closed her eyes. “I love him.”

  “Then let it go, Abbi. Go home and ask Ben to forgive you.”

  “For what?” Defensiveness rose up in her again.

  “Everything up to this point.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to apologize for what I did, or what I believe, or—”

  “I, I, I. That’s your biggest problem. Not Ben. Not the war. All you see is what you do, and what he does. You’re two individuals floating around out there, acting like, well, two individuals. Not like a pair. Not like one flesh.”

  “We’re not you and Stephen.”

  “Oh, will you stop it with that? I don’t care if you’re oil and water. Keep shaking. Keep trying. It takes effort. But that’s just the way it is.”

  They both looked up at the ceiling, watching the hanging lamp jounce as something bounced over the floor upstairs. “Katie’s up,” Lauren said, and then the four-year-old danced down the stairs into her mother’s arms, pigtails matted to her cheeks.

  “I’m hungry,” she complained.

  “Shh. Not so loud, honey. Stevie’s sleeping.”