Now that was not something I wasn’t used to hearing out of the young man. “Why not? I don’t think it would cause any issues.”
“No sir, it wouldn’t, however I just checked the system and it looks, Anabelle MacIntyre sent in her resignation letter early this morning. It seemed Marcella removed her from the employee databases after our little Saturday meeting we had for our coming morale project but didn’t have time to update the rest of the employee files. The only reason I’m still here is because my boyfriend doesn’t get out of work for another hour down the block and we’ve been carpooling. You know, saving the environment and expensive gas and all.”
I sat there shocked with a rock in my stomach. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that Belle quit. She quit today. Maybe I had been naive to think that we shared a connection. I thought … well, I had thought that maybe it had been something more to her too. That she had enjoyed me as much as I had enjoyed her.
“Uh, sir? Are you there?”
“Yes, Chadwicke. Uh, thank you. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“No problem. Just remember that HR will only be working a half day since we came in today!”
“Right. Of course. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”
“I will, sir.”
The line disconnected and I was left standing there, staring at the wall. Looking back on everything, I guessed it was just the whole situation with my father that made me put so much more importance on the moment than she did. Maybe she wasn’t even a virgin and that had been some weird thing she’d said to make me want her more. The intimacy, the passion of it… damn, it was probably all in my head and I felt foolish, played.
The stray thought that she planned to use me and our interaction to her benefit crossed my mind. It passed quickly as I realized her resignation was not the way to put herself in my good graces. No, clearly she was just a woman who deeply regretted the night we’d shared and never wanted to see me again.
I just couldn’t understand what happened. Why did it happen? She seemed so adamant the night before, so brave and bold and excited.
I tried to stave off the disappointment that rushed through me. Maybe it was just the adrenaline of the fight that got into her and I would always be the man she remembered as a mistake instead of a night of bliss. Something to be ashamed of, instead of celebrated and looked to with a nostalgic sort of fondness.
Too bad that felt like a kick right to my crotch.
7
Anabelle
Four Years Later
I stared at my house through my windshield with tired eyes. It wasn’t even fully my house in all honesty. It was a rental, but still, it was where I lived and eventually I would have it paid off. Sure, eventually seemed like an impossible time in the future, but I would make it. I always did.
Heaving a sigh, I shut my car off and shuffled up the front steps. I had to wiggle the doorknob as I opened the door and nearly tripped over something hard and sharp as I walked into the living room.
I let out a stream of curses, hopping on one foot as frustration completely swamped me for a minute. When the pain ebbed, I righted myself and scanned the floor to see that it was a toy truck that had been sitting out, it’s lights flashing and siren starting to sound from its disturbance.
Right, I’d been running late that morning and neither Griffin or I had time to clean up the mess from his playtime. I had completely forgotten that he’d had a nightmare that had both of us up at six am instead of our usual seven, so I had let him play with his things in the living room while I dozed on the couch. I had completely slept through my ensuing alarms and would have been very late if my little guy hadn’t gently shook me awake after the last one.
From there it’d been a mad dash to get ready and get food into both of us and there wasn’t any minutes left over to put things away before I dropped him off at daycare. It was just my luck. I wanted to sit and relax a bit before I had to pick up Griffin, but instead, I set down my purse and began to pick up the things scattered about.
I could have made him do it, but the boy was so good at cleaning up after himself and the only reasons things were scattered about was because of my lateness. Besides, he’d had reoccurring nightmares ever since I’d gotten walking pneumonia during the winter and I couldn’t help if I wanted to baby him a little after those happened.
Probably because I felt guilty. I knew why that time had scared him so much. For his entire life, I’d always been a force of nature. Always moving, always working. I had to be if I was going to survive as a single mother. But that walking pneumonia had knocked me right on my ass in a way nothing else had. I was lucky that my neighbor was willing to watch my little boy so he wouldn’t get sick too, as well as cook for him. I knew that seeing me like that had terrified him, maybe made him realize that mommy wasn’t infallible as mommies were supposed to be to a child, and the nightmares had started up soon after.
But hopefully they would fade soon as I proved to him a little more every day that he was stuck with me. We didn’t need a daddy, or a Nana or a Pop-pop. We were okay, just the two of us.
After the toys were taken care of, I made my way into the kitchen and figured I should empty the dishwasher while I was on a roll. A variety of bottles and non-spill cups were picked off the top shelf along with mix-matched containers. I didn’t know what it was about Tupperware and lids, but every time I tried to organize them, it just turned into another explosion of plastic any time I blinked.
Learning from that morning, I made sure to have an alarm on my phone to remind me to leave for the daycare. Luckily it wasn’t more than a fifteen-minute drive away from the house, although if the traffic was bad, it could end up being more of a half hour. I didn’t like the thought of Griffin waiting for me there anxiously, so more often than not I was one of the first parents to arrive for pick up.
And I couldn’t be more grateful for the place. The specific daycare I used accommodated for single parents with hectic work schedules and was open much later than others in the area. It was a blessing, in more ways than one, and even the interior of the place was warm and welcoming. Especially considering how low the cost was.
And it wasn’t just an ‘Oh, we have this shiny façade to show people when they tour here’. The few times I actually went inside, Griffin would grab my hand and drag me over to his little chunk of the daycare world.
Each child got a cubby assigned to them to keep any extra snacks their parents would give them and any other of their belongings. It was expected to be kept somewhat neat and if anyone took something that didn’t belong to them, there were serious consequences. I liked that it clearly gave the kids a sense of responsibility as well as understanding rules and what happened when they broke them. And if that weren’t reason enough to like the place, Griffin would then show me different art projects he made with his friends, ranging from funny shaped lumps of clay, to paintings, to bright and happy crayola drawings. In the three and a half years that he’d been there, our refrigerator had basically become plastered in his artisty.
I had actually been contemplating to make a scrapbook, or a photo album filled with his pictures so he could look back on them when he was older. A quirk of his that amused me was how he would have a large sheet of construction paper and only use a fraction, so it most of them could be trimmed down to fit in a binder just fine. It was frustrating, sometimes, just because it was wasteful, but it amused me to no end when image he’d drawn would be smack dab in the middle of the sheet but wouldn’t be bigger than my palm.
My alarm went off, interrupting my thoughts, and I headed out to my car. Despite my fluster with his toys, I still wanted to see my baby boy. He was the best thing in my life, and sometimes the only reason I had to get out of bed in the morning.
* * *
“Mama!” I heard the familiar call as soon as I rounded the corner to the front of the day care. Sure enough, Griffin was there, his backpack already on and his light jacket tied around his waist. Goodness, when di
d he get so tall? His fourth birthday was coming up but he already looked like he could be in kindergarten. I vaguely remembered my mom complaining about the same thing with me, but I never really understood what she meant until just that moment. Huh. I wish I’d…
I shook my head. No use doing that to myself. She was gone and the past was the past. It was best to leave it there. Thankfully, I didn’t have much time to stew in my thoughts because my little boy raced forward on stumpy legs and wrapped his arms around my legs.
“Hi baby, how was today?”
“Good,” He had a large smile on his face, and I could see another piece of art sticking just out of the top of the backpack.
“Oh, what’s this?” I asked, pulling it out.
“It’s me!” he said, standing on tiptoe to point things out to me. “See, I’m a superhero and I’m flying you around the world.”
I couldn’t help but smile, my heart squeezing in my chest. I certainly hadn’t been so good, so sweet as a kid. Where did he get it from? “I see that. You’d become a superhero and you’d still take the time to spend with your lame ol’ Mom?”
“You’re not lame. You’re the coolest person I know!”
“Is that so?” I bent down and picked him up, even though he was too old for that. But he cuddled into my side and let me do what I pleased. I was so lucky that my guy liked cuddling and depending on each other as much as I did. Sometimes, I worried that he would slip away into the ether and then I would truly be alone. Good things didn’t happen to me, and yet there was the most perfect thing in my arms. “I hope you remember that when you’re a teenager.”
“Ugh!” he said with conviction. “I don’t ever wanna be a teenager.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Sometimes my boy got the craziest ideas in his head and I was dying to know his reasoning. “And why is that?”
“I know a few teenagers and they’re all gross.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Ya’huh. They’re mean and they smell bad and they almost always have red marks on their face, and they make fun of us. I only know, like, mebbe one nice teenager and that’s Megan. She volunteers here in the summer.”
“Oh, does she now?”
“Yeah, she reads stories in fun voices and tells funny jokes. I like her lots. But, like, she’s the only one.”
“I see. Well, with any luck, you’ll skip the whole teenage thing and go right to being an adult.”
“I don’t wanna be that either! I just wanna be a kid forever with you.”
Oh goodness. I didn’t know how much my heart could take. “Alright, buddy. We’ll do that.”
We got to the car and I put him down so he could climb into the back seat. Technically he could have still fit into a car seat, but he was already so long and big, he didn’t really fit even if he was technically still within the weight limit. I rounded to the driver’s side once he was secure and put on one of our favorite artists while we drove off.
When we made it back home, he practically vaulted out of the car as he always did, and I followed after him. Like usual, I handed him my keys so he could unlock the door, and he beamed as he held it open for me. I certainly hadn’t taught him that, but I supposed we did watch a lot of heroic movies like with mythical figures full of chivalry and honor.
“Thank you, my kind sir.”
“Of course, m’lady!” he said through his missing front teeth.
My boy. He really was one of a kind. I kissed the top of his head then we both went about taking off our shoes and going about our mutual tasks.
Griffin put his favorite evening cartoons on and pulled out a piece of construction paper along with his large crayon box while I prepared to make dinner for the two of us. My body ached as I made my way into the kitchen. I felt as if I was fifty with how much my body hurt. It was hard to believe that I was only twenty-six. Life seemed to move at odd rates. Sometimes it felt like it was racing by and I could barely get a grip, others it moved at such a snail’s pace that I feared I would crumble into dust before I ever made it to thirty.
Maybe it was because I was a mother? I had more than just myself to care of and it certainly wasn’t easy to be a single mom. Especially one who was in her early twenties. But even with all the struggle, all the worry, all the rough patches and tight scrapes, I couldn’t be happier with my baby boy by my side.
Griffin truly was my light in the dark. I had no idea what was in store for me when I had quit my job all that time ago. I never would have guessed that just a couple of months later would have me puking in a toilet of the diner I was working night shifts while I waited for my new office job to start. Or that I’d have to shame-walk into the local dollar store to buy a pregnancy test then take it at home. But that was exactly what had happened.
I knew that maybe, just maybe, that things would have been easier if I told Michael about the baby growing in me, or if I had aborted him before he had fingernails or a brain or any of that stuff. But I hadn’t done either of that. I couldn’t say exactly why. Maybe it was a fear of what Michael would do, that he might pressure me to get rid of ‘it’. But the truth was, once I had looked at that positive result, I realized that I was going to have a family again.
I wasn’t going to be alone.
And I couldn’t risk that. Besides, Michael was a thirty-two-year-old billionaire. If he wanted to have a kid, he could at any time. He obviously enjoyed his maybe bachelor, maybe engaged to some Hollywood lady life and I had no desire to tramp on it. So, I had moved as soon as my lease was up a month later to the other side of the city and never looked back.
“Griffin, Honey, what vegetables do you want with dinner?” I heard a groan from the living room. I peeked in and smiled at the pout on Griffin’s face. Goodness, he really was cute. I was lucky that I had spent so much of my childhood fawning over adorable animals, otherwise I would have no defense against his completely darling expressions. “I’m giving you a choice. Otherwise, it’s my pick. I know we have some spinach in the fridge.”
“Corn” He muttered before returning to his drawing.
Well, it wasn’t actually nutritious, but I had given him a choice, so I needed to honor that.
I grabbed a can of sweet corn from the kitchen, dumping it into a pot and adding some seasoning. It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but at least it wasn’t fast food. For all of people’s bloviating that it was easy to have consistently healthy meals on a small budget, it certainly wasn’t easy for me. I was a coupon hound and I constantly went to the farmer’s market, but I still had to relied on canned veggies and carbs way more than I liked to.
But thankfully, my little guy always had good results at the doctors and was growing like a weed, so at least I was doing something right. In fact, of all the choices I made in my life, I knew that having Griffin was the most right out of all of them.
“Dinner’s ready!” I called once the timer dinged and the little potpies I had cooked were done. I knew that by the time we both washed our hands and grabbed our silverware then said our prayers, that the once-frozen meals would be cool enough for both of us to eat.
Not too much later, the two of us were settled and digging in at the kitchen counter. It was our special time, where we talked about Griffin’s day and I would ask if there was anything special that happened or if he wanted to do over the weekend. I tried my best to get the weekends off for my son, but sometimes I had to work overtime. We both hated when that happened, but I was lucky that he always seemed to understand.
But even when he did assure -as well as a three-year-old could- that he knew sometimes Mommy just had to work, I still felt guilty, like I didn’t spend enough time with my son. I knew I needed money to take care of him, but it didn’t shake the dark, insidious whispers that nagged me when I was restless and unable to sleep.
“You’re a bad mother. He’s gonna grow up to hate you for his upbringing. You're neglecting him.”
Logically, I knew that those little tendrils of self-doubt were bullshit. But
all the logic in the world couldn’t change how their twisted and weighted words made me feel. I wanted to be a good mother. I needed to be one. I loved my son more than anything in the world and anything that would ever come to be in the world ever. I would do anything for his health and happiness, and I did mean anything.
The rest of our meal went smoothly, and we were both saved from having to worry much about dishes since the little tins our potpies came in were disposable. Not so great for the environment, but pretty nice for my feet and back. From there, it was unwinding together for a couple of hours before it was time for Griffin to start his nightly bedtime routine.
I was so used to helping him through all of it, but we’d reached the point where he started asking to do things on his own. It both broke my heart and filled me with joy to stand back and watch him brush his teeth and wash his face and then I would step out so he could use the bathroom and change.
When he came out, it was then time to read to him from one of my mythology books and single him a lullaby. Once upon a time, I had tried to read to him from children books, but he just wanted to hear what was in the big white and blue book that I always had. Of course I changed certain details and toned it down for him, but ever since, he’d wanted to know about all the mythology from all over the world.
We had just finished up the Odyssey and were moving onto Medusa, one of my favorites. I always was a bit sad that she was killed by Perseus, so I idly wondered in the back of my mind if I could monkey around with the details a little to give her a happier ending.
But we were a long way off from ol’ Percy, so I had time. I finished up the chunk of the myth we were on, then slipped into our lullaby.
Every little nail, asleep in the wall
Baby Daddy (Forever Daddies Book 1) Page 7