by Crowe, Liz
Tell her how you feel.
No. I have. She won’t admit how she does so what’s the damn point?
“Okay, but the whole ‘fucking me to take an edge off’ thing? No thanks. I won’t be what you need me to be, ever. We do nothing but frustrate each other to the point of homicide. You make me better and worse all at once. And I can’t take it anymore.” She looked out her window, not realizing how fully she had broken his heart. “You should find someone else. Move on. You can be part of Katie’s life but you are officially out of mine.”
Jack’s ears started ringing. “As long as you realize you only have to tell me that once.” He left before he said something colossally stupid. Something he couldn’t take back.
“Wait!” He heard her call out, and he stopped, closed his eyes a moment. Then opened them and kept walking.
No. No more. I’ve tried enough. She’s right. I gotta find something else, maybe even someone else. But, in the meantime….
He smiled at the thought of Kate’s face when he told her she got to decorate her room anyway she wanted. She was his daughter. He knew it. She’d be happy with him, would love him unconditionally. That’s all he needed.
Sara slammed the door shut behind him. God damn the man to hell and back. How did he do it? Bring her such exquisite ecstasy and bone-grinding frustration within minutes. His possessiveness had obviously translated over to her daughter now and while part of her wanted it – craved it even – a bigger part of her resisted it, hard. So hard, in fact, she feared she might have just alienated him forever with a simple turn of phrase.
She grabbed her phone and quickly dialed Julie.
“Hurry, tell me not to go after him,” she said as soon as her friend answered the phone.
“You know my stance on Jack. And it involves chasing him down, tackling and hog tying him before it’s too late.” Sara sighed and took a breath, reliving the near-miss physical connection, and the ugly words they’d thrown at each other.
“Katie isn’t feeling too hot Sara. You headed home soon?”
“Yeah, she got sunburned in Florida and has been sniffly and stuff since. I’m coming.”
“Congratulate me.”
Busy trying to pull her stuff together with one hand, Sara answered automatically. “Congratulations.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Holy shit Julie, really? I mean. Yay.” She sat. She’d just planned and implemented a sort of surprise wedding for Julie and Evan a few weeks prior. They’d seemed so happy there. Sara had seethed with jealousy during the whole thing—happy but at the same time not. She’d avoided Jack all night during the event. But this bit of news did not sound as great for her friend as it should.
“Yeah. He’s not too thrilled.”
“I’m sorry Julie. That sucks.”
“I made him leave, actually. Told him he could move out if he felt that strongly against having a family with me.”
“Honey!” Her own troubles suddenly seemed trivial. She had a healthy, beautiful daughter. A man she loved wanting to be the girl’s father. What was her fucking problem anyway? “I’ll be home in a few. And I’ll drink your share of wine for you.”
Unable to resist, needing to talk to him and reluctant to admit it, she dialed Jack next. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Your asshole friend, that’s who.”
“Ah, yes, you are Julie’s BFF these days aren’t you?”
“What is his problem?”
“Sara, the very last thing on the planet that you and I need to be doing is projecting their relationship. They have their issues. We have ours. Let’s keep them separate, shall we?”
“Whatever. Go talk some sense into him would you? She’s at my house right now.”
Jack heaved a teenager-worthy sigh. “Yes m’am,” he said before he hung up.
Chapter Fifteen
Jack’s head pounded. At that moment he’d give a million of his own dollars not to be manager of a successful real estate company. The stress was going to kill him. But he smiled, remembering today was the day he and Katie were going to pick out paint and all the furnishings for her room at his house.
He pulled into Sara’s short driveway, noting her car in the garage. After grabbing her mail from the box at the street, he pushed open her front door. His heart already felt lighter at the thought of an entire weekend with Katie. He’d even passed on a potentially hot date without much thought.
He paused, taking in Sara’s compact, tidy world around him. A hot date wasn’t what he wanted, he knew. He pressed his fists down on her granite counters and counted to ten, took a deep breath, refocused on why he was here. Besides, he’d had a few dates already, and had damn well enjoyed himself. He was fine. He was, as she’d insisted he do, moving on. He pushed himself away from the counter and turned.
“Sara! Katie! Where is everybody?” The house was quiet. He stuck his head in the miniscule downstairs room that passed for Sara’s office and came to a dead stop. The late afternoon light shone through the window and hit her hair, lighting it up with golds and ambers. She had earbuds in her ears, and he saw the budget spreadsheets on her computer.
His chest tightened as he watched her brow furrow in concentration. His palms itched to touch her as she stretched her arms up, arching her back. God help him, he still loved her and would likely never stop. He smiled when she turned and jumped at the sight of him, pulling the music out of her ears.
“How long have you been…?”
“Long enough.” He grinned and stood in front of her, ran a finger down her face. She moved away from him.
“Cut it out.”
He shrugged, letting himself fall back into familiar territory. “Where is she?”
Sara waved her hand. “Outside, in the tree house. We had a fight and she’s pouting.”
“Fight about what?”
“She wanted to make brownies the second she got the idea in her head. I needed to get some work done and told her to give me an hour. She didn’t care for the delay. It devolved from there. I don’t know.” Sara ran a hand over her face. “I’m a bad mommy I guess.”
“Nah.” He kissed her cheek, not committing to anything more lest he get himself in trouble. He was trying to swear off Sara. To see how he could manage without her in his life. So far, it sucked. But he was still trying.
He strolled outside and over to the elaborate tree house Sara’s brother had built last year, climbed up the ladder and stuck his head through the floor. “Hey lovely lady. Time to go shop…Katie?”
He looked around. The space was empty. Even her favorite toys and books were gone. A small finger of panic flicked his brain. He climbed down, determined to remain calm. He looked around both sides of the house, ran back in and up to her room, ignoring Sara’s wide-eyed stare.
“Katie! Answer me now!”
She wasn’t under the bed, or in any kitchen cabinets. He pushed Sara aside to stomp down to the basement. Katie didn’t like basements, but she might be just stubborn enough to hide there to make a point.
“God damn it Kate where are you?” He bounded up the steps.
“Are there any other hiding places? Any place you can think of she’d go? The park? Where?” His throat had closed up and red tinged the edges of his vision. Then, a calm descended even as he sensed Sara’s abject terror swirling around him. “Listen to me. You have to think. Be calm and focus.” He led her to the chair and made her sit.
Tears started pouring down her face. Jack bit back the renewed urge to shake her and sat on the ottoman, gripping her ice-cold hands.
“J-j-jack. Oh God. Where is she? I’m, we. Oh shit. I did this.”
“Stop it. Stop making this about you damn it.”
He stood, unable to sit for another minute, whipped out his phone and held back his own version of terror, fighting off the images of her lifted from the sidewalk by some predator. He had to keep it together. Obviously, no one else would.
He gazed out onto the
innocent looking front lawn, the beautiful day just a mere half hour before, now a nightmare. “Call your brother,” he said. “I’m going to check around the neighborhood.”
An hour later, he returned, sweaty under his dress shirt, finding it hard to breathe. Several cars now lined the street outside Sara’s house. He shoved the door open onto the tableau. Julie sat with her arm around Sara. Evan stood at the window. Blake and Rob had their phones to their ears, shoulder to shoulder. Jack took a breath and entered the fray.
They all looked up at him, the hope on Sara’s face nearly undid him. “Call the police. Now.”
“Already did,” Rob said. Jack stomped into the kitchen and slammed a glass of water when a sound from behind made him turn.
“Your best bet is to stay away from me right now,” he said before turning to look at Sara, a complex roil of emotions churning through him: Anger, frustration, need – none of it good. But then, he watched himself as he grabbed her, held on for dear life, tried to summon what he had left to give her. She clutched at his shirt. “Baby. Shh. It’s okay. She’s fine. You know she is.”
“G-g-god Jack. I was such a bitch. I told her…” She sucked in a breath. “I told her if she thought you could do it better to go live with you.”
His heart nearly stopped. “You told her what?”
“I told her to…”
He took the four steps between the kitchen and the living room in two. “Get in your car,” he barked at Evan. “Go to my place via Stadium. I’m going via downtown. Meet at Cambridge.” He named his street, his head spinning, trying not to picture how many major roads the girl would have to cross to get where she was going.
“Jack, she wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t know how to get to your house from here.” Julie had one arm around Sara.
“If she gets it in her head, then she’ll try. She has her phone with GPS, right? I showed her how to use it a few days ago when we were at the park. Let’s go people. Blake you stay here. Sara, come with me.” Everyone scurried around and did as they were told.
Evan put a hand on his arm as he started to get in his SUV. “It’ll be okay. I know it.” Jack ignored him. Holding it together took every ounce of energy he had.
“Just help me find her, okay?” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice. Sara climbed in the passenger’s seat and they took off.
Sara’s world had narrowed to a pinprick, a brief millisecond of time between then and now. A tiny, shiny moment where she’d stared at her own daughter and had yelled at her. The girl had been so unbelievably unbearable since returning from Florida. It was “Uncle Jack” twenty-four seven.
She’d had a shit day, needed to decompress, needed space. But Katie had started in on the brownies, on how she wanted them, right then and there. She’d snapped, yelled, she couldn’t even remember what she had said until the second she recalled advising her to go live with Uncle Jack if he was so damn great. The girl’s eyes had filled with tears before she stomped out.
“I hate you Mommy! I only love Uncle Jack.”
Please, God, do not let those be the final words I ever hear from her. Please. Please. Please.
“Hold it together Sara. No falling apart. Not now.” Jack’s voice permeated her fog of agony. “I mean it.” His hand clutched her thigh. She stared at it, unable to speak. She nodded and strained her eyes left and right, begging every higher power she could conjure to catch a glimpse of the pink and purple-clad form, pulling the wagon Blake had discovered missing from the garage.
They drove slowly through downtown, leaning forward, not speaking. At South University they had to stop and make room for a couple of screaming Ann Arbor police cars. Sara clutched Jack’s leg. “Oh God.”
“Stop it,” he whispered. “Just don’t.”
The cars made their way onto Washtenaw Avenue, a busy four-lane street, and continued on, lights and sirens blaring. Jack followed them, his face grim. Sara couldn’t halt the constant flow of tears. The cops pulled into the Whole Foods parking lot and screeched to a halt by the front door. Jack followed them, parked and got out. Sara couldn’t move until he motioned for her, his blue eyes angry. She took a breath and climbed out.
The policemen were headed into the store. Jack stayed behind them, then, as Sara watched, he went down on his knees right in the Whole Foods foyer. Her mind couldn’t process it. Did he fall? The small pink and purple something that hurtled into his arms made her stumble, gasp, cry out.
“Katie!” she screeched, pushing past the gawping crowd. “Katie!” She dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around them both. The girl seemed no worse for wear. A young couple stood behind her, talking to the police.
A hand on her face made her look up into a pair of worried green eyes. “Mommy? Mommy, are you okay?”
“I am now,” Sara mumbled into her daughter’s hair. Fury surged through her then. She took Katie’s arms, shook her. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that again. Do you understand me? Do you hear me?” Katie started to cry in earnest.
Jack picked the sobbing girl up and without a glance in Sara’s direction walked outside with her leaving Sara on her knees, in the middle of the giant Whole Food foyer, surrounded by tsk-tsk’ing parents obviously better suited to the task then she. She flopped onto her butt and sat, not giving a shit who had to walk around her, until a young policeman with a kind face pulled her to her feet.
Within minutes Julie, Blake, Rob and Evan were there. Jack stayed apart, Katie’s small form cradled against him. Evan walked over to him then back to the group. “C’mon.” He tugged Sara towards his car. “I’m taking you home.”
She jerked out of his grip and marched over to her daughter and put a hand on the girl’s back. Jack stared at her. Katie wouldn’t raise her face from his shoulder. The evening had settled in on them, purple, cool and pleasant.
“Talk to your mommy, sweetie,” he muttered at her. Katie raised a tear-stained face, reached out and pulled Sara close, forcing her to hold onto Jack as well. They stood there for a while before Jack spoke.
“Katie. What did you think you were doing? Why did you leave your house?”
“I wanted to live with you. So I packed my stuff and left. I was almost there too.” Sara felt Jack shaking. She tightened her grip. “Then those people found me and made me come inside the grocery store. I was afraid of them. They’re strangers. Then some police cars came. Then you got here.”
Jack pulled away from Sara then, leaving her alone on the sidewalk. He deposited the girl in the now permanent child seat in his SUV, shut the door and turned to her. “So help me, Sara. If you ever pull this shit again…”
“Me?” She was shocked.
“Yes. You. A fucking kitten has a better mother than Katie does.” Sara took a step back. He closed the gap she’d created.
Blake started to say something but Rob put a hand on his arm. Evan cleared his throat and Julie put an arm around her. Jack ducked into his car without another word to anyone and left her standing there, surrounded by her friends, his friends and her family.
* * *
Sara cried herself to sleep, her dreams a muddle of images between Jack yelling at her and Katie crying and a weird alarm that wouldn’t stop clanging. She fought to be awake, and saw her phone screen. Jack. Calling her at two a.m.
“What do you want?”
“Katie’s sick.”
“So, you’re perfect. You heal her.” But she was already up, looking for her clothes so she could go to her.
“She’s burning up and crying about her ears.”
“Ear infection. Give her some Tylenol and I’ll take her to the pediatrician tomorrow.”
“I’m going to the ER now. Meet me there if you want.” The phone went dead.
Great. Yet one more example of her as shit mom of the year. Maybe she should let Jack raise the kid. Her face heated up.
Fuck that. I carried her. I had her. I nursed and raised her. Fuck him and his self-righteousness.
She grabbed her key
s and purse and ran to her car.
Once there, she could hear the girl’s wails of agony emanating from a curtained-off area. They were interspersed with a familiar sound. One Sara knew full well as Katie’s drama queen voice.
She shoved past the angry-looking nurses and yanked open a curtain revealing her daughter, in her Disney princess pj’s, crying her eyes out while the attending doctor tried to look in her ears. Jack stood to one side looking pale and helpless.
Sara scooped the girl into her arms.
“Mommy!” She wailed. Sara ignored everyone around her and held her daughter close.
Later, after a healthy dose of antibiotics and pain killers the girl slept against Sara’s shoulder. They were still stuck in the ER since the doctors didn’t want to release her until her fever came down.
“I’m sorry,” Jack muttered from his position in the chair next to her.
“It’s fine.” She spoke into the girl’s sweaty hair so she didn’t have to look at him. “It’s not as easy as you think. Okay? Stop making me the bad guy. You have no idea what I’ve gone through with her for the last almost five years.
Jack slid onto the hard uncomfortable bed alongside her. Sara tried to stay mad but his strong arms went around her. His lips touched her ear. “I know. I’m so sorry Sara. You are a great mom. I’m such a shit. But I…” He stopped and sucked in a breath. “I just pictured her, you know…. Never mind.”
Sara took a deep breath. “I love you.”
Jack sighed. “Good to know. But it’s too little too late. You can only push me away so many times until I get the message. And I got it. Loud and clear.” He kissed her hair and got up.
She closed her eyes and felt a tear slip down her cheek.
Too little. Too late. The story of her life.
“You should take her home. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He leaned down to kiss Katie’s cheek, then walked out of the room. And her life, she supposed, but for the co-parenting thing.