She smiles, stroking his hair.
I ease into the chair opposite the sofa and rest my arms on my legs, dropping my head for a few seconds to rake my fingers through my hair. “Dorothy …” I whisper, shaking my head. “What were you thinking taking him to the farmer’s market?”
When I glance up at her, I expect guilt and remorse. Nope. Instead, she twists her lips to the side and releases a slow breath as she eases Roman’s head off her lap. Without looking at me, she shuffles her socked feet to the kitchen, so I follow her.
Dorothy turns toward me and leans against the counter. “You talked with Dr. Hathaway.” She scrapes her teeth along her upper lip while nodding slowly, contemplatively. “Yeah, that was really awkward. She wanted to take him home with her. I figured that would be fine, I mean … she’s his mom. But he didn’t want to go, and it just escalated. And I kinda felt bad that I couldn’t remember where you said you were going. Sometimes I space off certain details. Anyway … she just kept asking over and over. I’m not used to seeing her so on edge. Boss Bitch usually shows such authority and control. Like … I felt really sorry for her.” She shrugs. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Um …” I cough sarcastically. “Maybe not take him to the farmer’s market. Get him to bed on time in his pajamas and with his face washed. Basically follow the instructions I left for you to follow.”
“I glean on Thursdays.”
“I understand that. But I asked you to watch Roman instead tonight.”
“You begged me to watch him. And so I did. You never told me I couldn’t take him with me.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t know I needed to ask.”
“I don’t buy it. That’s why you wanted the car seat.”
“I wanted the car seat for emergencies too. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“Just about going to the farmer’s market.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t lie.”
“Have you ever heard that omission of the truth is the same as a lie?”
“Nope. Never heard that. And it makes no sense.”
“Dorothy …” Resting my hands on my hips, I drop my head and ease it side to side.
“I have photos of him in my little red wagon, riding with all the sacks of leftover food. Wanna see? He told everyone we passed that we were cleaning. Oh my god … it was so cute.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket.
“No. I don’t want to see pictures of you doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing with my son. And … I don’t want to think about you driving a vehicle with my son in it. You drive way too fast, run red lights, and completely get distracted when you’re driving. I’m not just upset that you took him to the farmer’s market. I’m upset that you took him anywhere. And I’m upset that you put me in a really uncomfortable position with Julie.”
“Daddy?” Roman stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. “I pee peed.”
Sure enough, his pants are soaked, and I suspect my sofa cushions are too.
“I’ll clean everything up.” Dorothy pushes off the counter and heads toward Roman.
“Just go, please. I’ll get him cleaned up. Thank you for …” I shake my head again, feeling a headache coming on. “Watching him.”
“I will. I … I’ll clean him up. Like uh … like it didn’t happen. I’ll just clean it up.” She takes Roman’s hand.
“Dorothy, are you listening to me? Please just go home.”
“I think you’re mad. So I’ll clean him up. Problem solved.”
“Dorothy!”
She jumps. Wide eyes unblinking at me.
Roman’s lower lip pushes out and tears fill his eyes. “Daddy … why are you mad at Dorfee?”
Fuck …
“Okay. S-so …” Dorothy stutters and surveys the room like she’s looking for something. “I’ll just … go. Bye, Romeo.”
“Bye, Dorfee,” he murmurs, blinking several times without releasing any actual tears yet.
As she passes me, I grab her hand to stop her and blow out a long breath. “I shouldn’t have asked you to watch him tonight. You had plans, and I didn’t respect that. So all of this is on me, not you.”
She keeps her gaze at the door and says nothing, so I release her hand because I don’t have time to deal with her and get Roman cleaned up and in bed.
No time for patience.
No time for reflection.
No time to plan how I will handle Julie in the morning.
So I act on impulse and do the things that need to be done first, starting with my soaked child.
The door clicks behind Dorothy.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, buddy.” I remove his clothes over the tile floor in the kitchen.
“Daddy, I rode in red wagon.”
“Oh yeah?” I force a little daddy enthusiasm even though I feel none.
“I did. I did … and Dorfee pull the wagon and I go wee! And … and we gots food. Lots of food. We were cleaning!”
“That’s great, Roman.” I pick him up and carry him upstairs. “Are you going to shower with me?”
“And Dorfee and me gave all the lots of food to people, Daddy.”
“Uh huh …” I set him down and turn on the shower to warm up while I undress. “Let’s see if you have any more pee pee.” I set him on the toilet, and sure enough, more pee.
He giggles. “It’s lemon … ade. Me and Dorfee had lemon … ade. Purple lemon … ade.”
“Lavender lemonade?”
“Yes. Labender lemon … ade. It was yummy.”
I usher him into the walk-in shower.
As I shampoo his hair, he glances up at me. “Daddy, some … some people have no food.”
I pause my motions for a few seconds before returning a slow nod and resuming the sudsing. “That’s true.”
“Is sad, Daddy. Dorfee say is sad. But me and Dorfee gave … gave people food. All the lots of food. Dat … dat make people happy.”
I’m an asshole.
When you meet someone who is essentially a better human than ninety-nine percent of the population, it’s hard to not occasionally show your asshole side. By default, their selflessness will be misread as selfishness. Tonight, I thought Dorothy was being selfish with her insistence on going to the farmer’s market.
I was wrong.
She was being completely selfless in her actions. And at the same time, teaching my young child a very valuable lesson and me as well.
Chapter Eighteen
She’s Mine
Dorothy
“Good morning.” Mom smiles, cinching the tie to her white bathrobe.
“Thanks for this,” I mumble over a mouthful of leftover fried rice.
“You mean my lunch that you’re eating for breakfast?”
“Oops.” I grin.
“How was the market?”
“Good. I took Romeo with me. Put him in my little red wagon. Look.” I pull up the pictures on my phone. “He’s so stinkin’ cute. He also kept eating the food we were gathering. The vendors went crazy over him. And I got us lavender lemonade, and he tried to eat the sprig of lavender, but spit it out onto the leg of a lady passing us. That was a little embarrassing.”
She laughs. “I’m sure. Did Eli enjoy the market?”
“Oh.” I shake my head, shoveling in more food. “He didn’t go. He had an appointment. I was babysitting Roman for him. I also ran into Dr. Hathaway. She seemed a little confused or worried about me being there alone with Roman. When she tried to get him to go home with her, he was all, ‘No! I stay with Dorfee!’ Oh my god, it was just … crazy. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So did he finally go with her?”
“No. Because this police officer came over and basically asked me if ‘my son and I’ knew her. Like … can you imagine how horrified she must have been? I felt really bad for her. But I didn’t know what to do.”
“What did Eli say when you told him?”
I cringe. “I don’t thin
k he was happy. He didn’t exactly know I was taking Romeo to the market with me. He kinda freaked out when he got home.”
“Dorothy Emmaline Mayhem, you took his child without asking?”
“No. I didn’t take his child. He begged me to watch Roman. No big deal. Like, his son was fine. Yes, he wasn’t in his jammies and his face was a little dirty, but he was safe and sleeping on the sofa. I mean … isn’t that what should be important to parents? That at the end of the day, their child is alive and safe at home? Like … he sees this bad shit all day. He sees kids die and parents grieve. But he freaks out about a trip to the farmer’s market that ended just fine. I didn’t know what to say or do. This morning while I was showering, I thought thank god he didn’t know about the car seat.”
“You didn’t use a car seat?”
“No. Of course I did.” I rinse off the fork and put it in the dishwasher. “I just couldn’t figure out the stupid harness system. It’s like it was too loose, and then I tried to tighten it and Romeo said it was too tight. And just when I thought I had shit figured out, I realized there was like … a strap with a metal part at the end that needed to go somewhere, but hell if I knew where. So I tried again, and all metal parts were stuck in some sort of latch place which is good, right? But things were too loose, so I found some duct tape in Eli’s garage, and I taped together the loose straps until I felt confident that everything was secure and tight.”
“Oh my god …” Mom covers her mouth. She laughs so hard she snorts. “Dorothy … oh my god. You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t duct tape that man’s son to his seat.”
“Not Roman. I taped the straps. And it was a bitch to get that tape off there when we arrived at the market.”
She wipes tears from her eyes. “What about going back home? The tape couldn’t have been as sticky.”
I roll my eyes. “Duh, I took the whole roll with me.” I glance at my watch. “I need to brush my teeth and go.”
“I love you. I just really love you.” She continues to laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. Love you too.”
Elijah
“We need to talk.” Julie stands at the doorway to my office, dressed in a knee-length skirt, a white blouse revealing a bit of her new cleavage, black heels that make her legs look ten miles long, and a white lab coat. She’s also wearing that same look she wore the day she asked for a divorce.
I close my laptop and lean back in my desk chair. “So talk.”
She steps inside my office and shuts the door behind her before taking a seat on the other side of my desk. “I live with this guilt from leaving you. And when we got divorced, I swore to myself that I’d never be petty over little issues with Roman. So I don’t want to come across like I’m trying to cause trouble. I’m not. I just had a bad feeling in my stomach yesterday when I saw your friend, Dorothy, with Roman at the market. I wasn’t trying to be confrontational at all. I simply asked about your whereabouts. I honestly assumed you were there. It was just really disturbing that she seemed so ignorant on the subject. My mind went into this mama bear protective mode, and I could imagine her turning her back on him for two seconds and having no clue where he was either.”
“Jules …”
“Just …” She holds up her hand. “Please hear me out.” Taking a deep breath, she meets my scrutinizing gaze. “It could happen to you. It could happen to me. Responsible people have bad things happen to their children. But we navigate this world with a fierce, protective love for him. And I know your family and my family share that love too. You know I hate that you send him to daycare where the people taking care of him do so because they are getting paid, not because they love him with their whole being. But at least he’s in one spot. And there are rules and security. But some girl that you’ve known for two seconds should not be allowed to gallivant around the city with our child. And I don’t care if it makes me sound like a cold, untrusting bitch. What you think or anyone else thinks doesn’t matter to me. Roman is my only concern here.”
“Are you done?”
“No. I want a legal agreement that lists the people who are allowed to be unsupervised with Roman. And the list has to be mutually agreeable for every name on it.”
I grunt a laugh. “And you don’t want Dorothy on that list.”
“Are you marrying her?”
“For god’s sake, Jules. Marrying someone doesn’t magically make them more trustworthy.”
“Uh …” she laughs. “I disagree. I’d like to believe that neither one of us would marry someone unless we completely trusted them with Roman.”
“Well, I completely trust Dorothy.” I hate the lie. I mostly trust her. I feel pretty fucking guilty for not being able to completely trust her, but I sure as hell won’t let Julie see an ounce of my doubt. It doesn’t mean I’m planning on leaving Roman with Dorothy again anytime soon. But I want the decision to be mine, not something mutually agreed upon between Julie, me, and our lawyers.
“So you know everything about her? What’s her favorite color? What hospital was she born in? What’s her mother’s maiden name? What school did she attend? Childhood pets? Does she have any cavities? What medications does she take?”
“Enough …” I rub my forehead. “If I hired a professional nanny, I wouldn’t know or give a shit about her favorite color.”
“True. But she’d come with references. And you could do a background check. Drug testing. All the things a responsible parent would do before hiring a nanny. So if you don’t know her well enough to marry her, and you haven’t conducted a thorough background check on her, then you better always be with her when she’s with Roman.”
“Julie—”
“This is nonnegotiable, Eli. I’ll be the bitch if that’s what it takes to keep my son as safe as possible. I’m a little disappointed that you’re not showing the same level of responsibility. And if you can’t do this on your own, I’ll make sure a judge makes you do it.”
My phone vibrates with a message from my nurse. I stand and slip on my lab coat. “I have to go. Have a fucking fabulous day, Jules. You sure have made mine.”
“Why do you make me the bad guy?” She follows me out of my office.
“Because every day I can manage to find something seriously wrong with you is one less day that I have to wonder if something is seriously wrong with me.” I keep walking toward the elevator without looking back.
After checking in on a patient who was readmitted earlier this morning, I make my way to the lab to check on Warren and review some test results.
“How’s it going?” I ask, walking into the lab.
Warren pushes his chair away from the counter to let me look at the computer. “I think it’s going really well.”
It is. We’re seeing massive destruction of cancer cells without major side effects. We still have a lot of testing to do. But small victories matter.
“Willow said she saw Dorothy Mayhem with your son at the farmer’s market last night. Is she babysitting for you now too? Man, that girl can juggle a lot. Has she by any chance said anything about me? She’s taking the whole hard-to-get game to a ridiculous level.”
Great. There were witnesses. I hope that doesn’t get around to Julie. I know she’ll start pulling people into her office to interrogate them.
“I had an appointment. She watched him for me. It’s not an actual job for her.”
“Don’t you have like a million family members always fighting over who gets to watch him?”
Yes. I do. But I didn’t need a babysitter, I needed Dorothy naked in my bed. But that all went to shit. I question if I’ll ever see her naked again.
“Mmm …” is my only answer as I inspect a few slides.
He leans against the counter a few feet from me. “I wonder if she’s a flowers kind of girl. I mean, at first I thought she might be a fun time, you know? But the more she dismisses me, the more I want her. And I think she’s hell-bent on busting my balls until I treat her the way she thinks she deserves to be treate
d. Ya know?”
“Like an intelligent woman with morals and high standards?”
Warren laughs. “Sure. Something like that. So what do you think? Flowers? Chocolates? Cookie bouquet? Singing telegram?”
I tell myself there’s no reason to not tell Warren the truth. But the real truth is that there’s a million reasons to not tell Warren about me and Dorothy. I don’t need rumors going around because rumors always escalate to the most ridiculous stuff. And the last thing I need is Julie catching wind of something that isn’t true about Dorothy.
“Maybe she’s legitimately not interested. I realize that’s not what your ego wants to hear. But you can’t be a god to every woman.”
“If you’re a Christian who believes in one god, then it’s possible I can be a god—the god—to every woman.”
“In that case, send her a cookie bouquet from Bloomin Bakery.”
“Oh yeah. Those are the best.”
“They really are.”
“I wonder if it’s too late to get one ordered for today? I’d love to get her thinking about me today. That leaves two more days to seal the deal.”
“And by deal, you mean politely ask her out on a date, not make her an on-call room conquest, right?”
“Sure.” He smirks.
I want to punch him. Why does my instinct to protect Dorothy make me rabidly violent?
Around four o’clock Dorothy knocks on the door to the lab. Warren lets her in. A large cookie bouquet hides her face.
“I can’t accept these. I mean, I ate one but only as payment for my time to deliver them to you.”
He takes the bouquet from her. “Why not?”
She shoots me a nervous glance before tipping her chin up and addressing Warren again. “I get the sexual innuendo. These cookies in exchange for my cookie. Well, I don’t want to share my cookie with you. So, nice try.”
While they work out their cookie issues, I sneak one out of the cellophane wrapped bouquet and take a bite.
Mmm …
Keep This Promise Page 183