Part 24 (1/2)
I'd barely gotten a page completed when I heard Charlie's door open. His bare feet pattered down the hall.
”You need more sleep, baby,” I said, turning to look at him when he came through the kitchen's arched doorway.
”Nope!” he said cheerfully, though his cheeks were rosy and his eyes half-lidded. ”I'm hungry.”
”You just ate lunch. And you only rested half an hour. You need to get back in bed. Mama needs to get some work done.”
He clambered up into a chair and looked at me expectantly. ”I'll help you.”
I sighed, tapping my fingers on the top of my thigh. ”No, honey. You can't. This is grown-up work.”
He pounded on the table with his fists. ”I'll help you!”
”Charlie,” I said as gently as possible. ”You can play quietly in your room, but Mama needs to be by herself for a little while. We'll play later.” If he didn't get a nap, I wouldn't get anything accomplished and both of us would hate the rest of this day.
”No!” Charlie said, setting his jaw in a determined line. It was his father's expression, one I had seen on my ex-husband's face too many times to count.
Something in me snapped. I shoved my chair back from the table, then tucked my hands in my son's armpits and lifted him out of his chair. He gave a few rowdy kicks and managed to knock my laptop onto the floor with his foot. It landed on the checkered linoleum with a frightening clatter. All my work was on that computer-I wasn't a master of backing up my copy. If he just killed the machine, I was screwed.
”Dammit, Charlie!” I yelled. My heartbeat galloped in my throat. ”Knock it off.”
”Don't say 'dammit'!” he screamed, continuing to struggle as I carried him back down the hall to his room.
”You're fine,” I told him through gritted teeth. ”Mama's here. You're fine.”
”Daddy!” he wailed, wriggling and writhing to get away from me. ”I want my daddy!”
It made me crazy how often my son asked for Martin. Charlie and I spent most of our time alone even when his father lived with us. Yet something did s.h.i.+ft when my husband no longer came home at night. I was it. Responsible for absolutely everything. Sometimes I wasn't sure I was up for the job.
I lay Charlie in his bed. ”I love you, sweetie, but you need to take a rest.” I kept my voice calm, though aggravation skittered along its edges. I smoothed his hair and he kicked at the wall, still crying. I hoped he'd tire himself out and go back to sleep as he'd done a hundred times before. I closed the door behind me again and this time, I stood in the hall, waiting.
Over the next five minutes his screaming intensified. There was the loud thunk of something being thrown against his door. A toy, probably. It wouldn't be the first time. The tips of my nerves burned beneath my skin.
”You're a bad mama!” he yelled.
His words felt like a slap. He's only three. He doesn't mean it. Tantrums are normal for lots of kids. Still, tears rose in my eyes and I pressed a curled fist against my mouth at hearing my child accuse me of my deepest fear.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I returned to the kitchen and picked up my laptop, happy to see it wasn't destroyed. I would never get anything done with him screaming in the background; I needed someone to watch him. I thought about calling my younger sister, Jessica, but she was seven months pregnant with twins so I didn't want to bother her. My mother was more the type to visit her grandchild than to babysit him, so with this late notice, that left me with only one option.
I grabbed my cell phone and punched in Martin's number, taking a few deep breaths as I always needed to before talking with him.
”I'm really sorry to bug you,” I began, hoping he'd give me a different answer than the one I expected. ”But can you take Charlie for a few hours this afternoon? I'm on deadline.”
”Why's he screaming?” Martin asked.
I gave him the short version of why his child was pitching a fit. ”I know it's my weekend, but if you can help me out, I'd really owe you one.”
”Sorry, I would, but I've already got plans,” he said.
You always have plans, I wanted to say, but managed to bite my tongue. The role of bitter divorcee was one I worked hard to avoid.
”I can take him an extra night this week, though,” he went on to offer.
”The article's due tomorrow,” I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. The editor had already cut me some slack; it was unlikely he would do it again.
Martin sighed. ”I don't know what to tell you, Cadee. I can't do it. But I'll pick him up Wednesday at five.”
After he hung up, I slammed down the phone on the table, adrenaline pumping through my veins. G.o.dd.a.m.n him. So much for the concept of coparenting. I shouldn't have bothered to call. Charlie's cries escalated into punctuated, high-pitched shrieking. I didn't know what to do. I started to weep, the internal barricade I usually kept high and strong crumpling beneath the weight of my frustration.
After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself and wondering how my child didn't sprain his vocal cords screeching like he was, I plunked back down at the table, wiping my eyes with my sleeve and thinking I might just polish off that pot of pasta after all. As my gaze traveled toward the stove, the sunlight streaming in through the window glinted off a bottle of merlot on the counter and caught my eye.
I checked the clock. It was almost 2:00. People who worked outside the home had drinks with a late lunch, didn't they? I could have half a gla.s.s now, just to take the edge off, and maybe another before bed. Not even two full gla.s.ses for the day. Some people drank more than that with their dinner alone. And it wasn't like I did it all the time. I needed to relax. Just this once, I thought as my son sobbed himself to sleep in his room. Just today.
I swore to myself I'd never do it again.
Pulling up in front of Alice's house to pick up Charlie, the shame is strong enough in me that I must fight the urge to drive away. I'd go anywhere to not feel this. Canada is only a couple of hours north. I could run off and not have to deal with any of it. I could start again, build a new life with our maple syrup-friendly neighbors. I could learn to say ”eh?” at the end of every sentence. I could blend right in. I wouldn't have to go to treatment. I wouldn't have to write all those silly a.s.signments or attend AA meetings. I wouldn't need to find some ridiculous notion of a higher power. I could leave. I could ...
There he is. All thoughts of escape disappear. Charlie comes bounding out of my ex-mother-in-law's front door, his dark brown curls bouncing around his perfect, elfin face. He needs a haircut, I note. Something for us to do today, something to fill the hours we are alone. He is wearing blue jeans and a polo s.h.i.+rt I didn't buy for him, one I would have left on the rack at the store. His smile is wide. His hands flutter in excitement as he races down the stairs toward me.
”Mommy!” he exclaims, and my heart melts into liquid. I throw the gears.h.i.+ft into park, turn off the engine, and jump out to meet him. He leaps into my open arms and clings to me like a spider monkey, his skinny arms and legs wrap around my neck and waist in a viselike grip. I bury my nose in his neck and breathe him in-his nutty, warm, slightly funky little-boy scent. This is the first time in two months that we'll be alone overnight. Two months and four days since Martin came to my house and took him away.
”Where were you?” he demands. ”I missed you!”
”I've missed you, too, b.u.t.ternut,” I say, choking on my tears. I nibble on the thin skin of his neck, growling playfully. It is our game.
”Ahhhh! Stop it!” he squeals.
I nibble again. My lips cover my teeth so I don't accidentally hurt him. He squeals again and wriggles like an eel in my arms. ”Let me go!”
”No, I won't let you go! No way!” I say, holding his precious body to mine.
”Mama! Ahhh!! It tickles!!” His st.u.r.dy legs wrap themselves even tighter around me and he continues to squirm.
G.o.d, oh G.o.d, how could I ever have done anything to lose him? How could I have been drunk around this gorgeous little boy? I am sick-undeniably ill.
”h.e.l.lo, Cadence.” My ex-mother-in-law's words land like a gauntlet at my feet. They cause me to peek up from the warmth of my son's neck. Alice stands atop her front steps, arms folded tightly across her chest. Her eyes are stone. Her silver-streaked black hair is pulled back from her face in a tight bun at the base of her neck, not a loose strand in sight. She has applied just enough makeup to avoid being mistaken for dead. She wears her standard khaki slacks and practical, scoop-neck, long-sleeved navy knit top. No frills for this woman. No fussy, floral prints. She is all business, the bare necessities.
”Kill her with kindness,” Andi said when I expressed my anxiety about having to see Alice in this first official exchange. ”That'll p.i.s.s her off.”
”Really?” I asked, skeptical. ”I want to p.i.s.s her off?”
”No, you want to be kind.” She gave me a beatific smile. ”The p.i.s.sing her off part is just a bonus.”
Purely out of respect for Andi's advice, I manage to smile at Alice when she greets me. It is a tenuous, struggling movement-my cheeks literally tremble with the effort. ”Hi, Alice. How are you?”
”Fine.” She gives me a tight-lipped look, one I recognize as her version of a smile under duress. From the moment I met her, it was clear that Alice had envisioned a much more suitable partner for her only child. A lithe, Nordic blond perhaps, pet.i.te and demure. Instead, she got me-all wild brown curls and fleshy curves. Big b.r.e.a.s.t.s, big opinions.