Daddy Next Door

by Tina Lee

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid? Why?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready to take care of Josh. He needs a mother, a real one.”

  “Ahh. I see. Before you go on any further, let me make us some tea and then you can tell me all about it.”

  Amy smiled. “Sounds good.”

  Mrs. Huckleberry returned with peppermint tea and biscuits. She took a sip of her tea like how Amy would take a sip of her wine. “Now,” she said, “where were we?”

  Amy told her how as a child she would watch her mother do amazing things. Her mother was her rock, her heroine, her light. “I can never be the mother my mother was. I barely know how to be an adult.”

  “Don’t worry about being someone else. Be the best you can be.”

  “What if my best isn’t good enough? What then? Josh’s life will be affected by how much of a bad mother I am.” Amy broke under the pressure she placed on herself. Her eyes watered before overflowing down her cheeks.

  Mrs. Huckleberry slid the saucer with the teacup towards Amy and told her to drink. She was starting to feel better after three sips.

  “I was younger than you when I had my first child. I was nineteen at the time, and like you, I was scared that I wasn’t ready. And truth be told, I wasn’t.”

  “What did you do?” Amy asked.

  “The only thing I could do; be there for my son. I learned how to be a mother by being a mother. It was hard. It is a lot of responsibility, but you know what? Nothing had ever brought me more happiness. My baby was my everything, my bundle of love.

  “So you see, the only way to become a better mother is to be one. You will make mistakes, we all do. You won’t be perfect. There will be times you will look back and wish you had done things differently, but all you can do in the present moment is to be the best you can be.”

  Mrs. Huckleberry reached across the coffee table and consoled Amy. “You will be alright. Josh loves being around you.”

  Amy wept the last of her doubt into the shoulders of Mrs. Huckleberry. She wanted to be Josh’s mother for as long as life would allow her, and she would try her utmost best to be a good mother, a rock, and a heroine.

  Amy stood by the window, watching the man pacing back and forth in the neighboring building. He looked unsettled, and Amy wondered what could be bothering the man. In a tank top, shorts and sock, the man then stopped, turned, and saw Amy looking at him. He shook his head before pulling down the window blades.

  Beside her on the window ledge was a freshly made cup of coffee. It was 8 pm, not her regular coffee hours, but tonight she felt having a cup. She went over the words in her head, wondering what she would say and how she would say it. She was doing the right thing, she believed, and yet the right thing wasn’t always easy.

  David was on his way over. Amy invited him to talk, the last time they will ever talk, she hoped. She sipped her coffee and waited. Minutes seemed like hours when waiting in anticipation.

  What was Luke doing? Amy wondered. She had informed him that David would be stopping by. Luke didn’t object to David coming over, and she didn’t expect him to. There was no reason for him to feel unease about David presense. She had made her choice, and nothing would ever change that.

  Then…

  There were knocks on her door. The moment she had been waiting for. She wiped her palms on her shirt. “Let’s get this over with,” she whispered to herself.

  Amy opened the door with a smile. “Come in.”

  David bit his lips and entered. He removed his jacket and threw it on Amy’s couch. “I’m not going lie, I was expecting some candles to be lit and some Thai food. Remember when we used to do that?” He smiled, the gorgeous smile she had grown to love, but one she can no longer love anymore. It was time for her to move one.

  “Have a seat.”

  David dropped on the couch and rested his boot on the coffee table. He told Amy about a handbag he saw in the Louise Vuitton store and he was thinking of purchasing it for her. David then told Amy about how much he had been thinking about her over the last few days.

  Amy waited for the right time to intervene but David kept on reliving sentimental memories. At another time in her life, Amy would have enjoyed frolicking through memory lane with David. “David.”

  Finally, he stopped talking. Their eyes lock, a clash of glassy blue.

  “What is it?” David became aware of the weight of the moment. He could already sense that he wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say.

  “What we were trying to do was never going to work,” Amy said.

  David nodded, not in agreement with what Amy had just said, but to himself, because he was right, and indeed he didn’t like what she had to say. “And how would you know that? We didn’t give it a proper try.”

  “I know because I’ve made my choice, and it isn’t you, David.”

  A brief silence.

  David removed his boot from the coffee table and crossed his legs. His eyebrows narrowed. His lips tighten. His eye pierced in Amy’s. “What does he have that I don’t?” His voice cold and precise.

  “You’re looking at it wrong.”

  “Then tell me, Amy. How should I look at it?”

  “It’s not about what one has over the other. It’s about how he makes me feel.”

  “How does he make you feel?”

  “Safe.” Amy walked over to the window where she saw the pacing man only half an hour ago. She had to distance herself from David’s powerful gaze; watching her movement and judging her every decision. Amy knew that he knew she was nervous. “I can let my guard down around him.”

  “And how do I make you feel?” David squeezed his fist tight. He was fuming, burning at the core.

  “Like a shooting star.” Amy leaned on the window ledge and folded her arms. “A quick burst of raging love that eventually burns out. The thrill you gave me was amazing and my life was more exciting because of it, but I kept wondering if it would be anything more than just thrills.”

  “We were happy before, weren’t we? We were in love and happy.” David rose from the couch and walked over to the window. He wanted to face her, closer, where she couldn’t hide the truth. He wanted her to say it to his face.

  “I kept thinking our break up was a mistake, and we could make it work if we try again. That was the loneliness speaking. I remember exactly why we broke up. It was because we couldn’t stand each other when the high of the thrill had worn off.”

  David shook his head, blond strands of hair dancing side to side. “You don’t fucking mean that!”

  “I do.”

  “I fucking love you!” David shouted. His chest heaved as his heart broke. The man, who had never been rejected, got rejected. An error; a glitch in his matrix. He didn’t know how to comprehend it.

  David held Amy’s face to kiss her but she pulled away at the last second. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, “I love you, and I appreciate all that we’ve been through, the good and the bad, but this is where our journey ends.”

  David stepped back and looked at Amy as if he didn’t recognize her. Who was this Amy? Around her, he was resistible and powerless, none of which he was used to. From his shock came a grimacing laugh. A deep ghoulish laugh that sent chills through Amy.

  “You fucking bitch,” David said. “You made me waste my time.” He continued laughing. David had called her a bitch many times in the past.

  “If we can’t speak like adults then I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  “You’re going to regret this you fucking bitch. You hear me?!” David was loud and lost in his rage. A man’s ego is a fragile thing, and David was guarding his with his life. “I can’t believe you! After everything we have been through.”

  Amy walked past David and opened the door, showing David the way out. “I would like you to leave. Now.”

  “Fuck you. He’s going break your heart and you’re gonna come running back to me.”

  “Get out of my apartment!�
�

  “Make me!” David grabbed Brenda’s glass vase that held her fake roses and smashed it against the wall!

  Amy screamed as glass shards went flying in every direction.

  “Are you crazy?!” Amy looked at David with utter terror. David stood in the middle of her living room, blood dripping from his hand onto Brenda’s carpet. Brenda would be livid if she were home to see the blood drops soaking in the carpet that her mother bought her.

  Something in David had ticked. He looked no more like a beautiful man, he was a monster now, and it scared Amy to the bones.

  “Look what you made me do?” David beady blue eyes lost all essence of human. It looked beastly. “This is all your fault.” He stepped slowly towards Amy.

  Amy stepped out of her own apartment. She didn’t want to be in the same room as him. She had no idea of what he was capable of doing, and by the looks of it, he had the potential to do very bad things.

  “Look at yourself,” Amy said.

  David laughed deeply. “Are you scared of me, babe?”

  Amy came to a sudden stop when she bumped into someone in the hallway. She spun around to see Luke looking dead straight at David. “Are you okay?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Luke then walked into the apartment with David. Both men eyed each other, calculating their chances of beating the other to a pulp. “I think it’s time you leave,” Luke said, low, calm and stoic.

  “Who the fuck are you?” David asked.

  Amy stood outside the apartment and watched both men circle each other like wolves preparing to attack.

  “Ahh. So you’re the other guy.” David laughed hysterically. He used his bloody hand to wipe the tears from his eye. He turned to Amy, who was spectating from a distance. “You picked this scum over me?”

  “Out. Now.” Luke wasn’t going to repeat himself, and both Amy and David knew it.

  David took a step in front of Luke, who was taller and bigger built, and yet it didn’t matter to David. He was heartbroken and fearless. “What the fuck are you going to do about—“

  Before David could finish asking, Luke swung his fist and hit David square in the jaw, sending him to the ground.

  “No! Please don’t fight!” Amy’s hand clasped over her mouth, fearing for the wellbeing of David despite him being a massive jerk.

  David sprung to his feet and charged at Luke with swinging fists. Luke was faster, dodging David’s attacks. Luke grabbed David and placed him in a headlock, respecting Amy wishes of not hurting him and eliminating him as a threat.

  “Please don’t stop fighting! Please! Plea… Pl…” Amy felt woozy. The earth had fallen off its axis and was rolling through space. What was up? What was down? She couldn’t tell. There was a small moth charging into the light bulb on the hallway ceiling, again and again, the moth hit the bulb. That was Amy’s last thought before she passed out on the hallway floor.

  Brenda tagged along with Jack as he made deliveries to small shops around town. Jack was the one, she believed. Brenda wasn’t the type to throw around such a title carelessly. Brenda was very selective of whom she wished to have a relationship with. Her previous boyfriends were all carefully picked, and she regretted none. They were all good boyfriends, she believed, but sometimes being good alone isn’t enough.

  Their first stop was by Ramesh Patel groceries. The owner, Ramesh Patel, a long-limbed Indian man, gave Brenda half a dozen ripe bananas for the journey after they had brief chat about the programming language Java.

  The next stop was thirty minutes away. “What made you chose me?” Jack asked. His eyes focused on the red Subaru in the next lane. He would like a car like that one day. “I bet it was my killer looks,” he joked.

  “I just flipped a coin—I’m just kidding.” She laughed. “You make me happy.”

  Jack stole a kiss whie the light was on red. “You make me happy too.”

  The frame of a wrestler and the heart of a boy, that was how Brenda would describe Jack to her father in six months’ time when she was ready to break the news. Such a description intrigued her father, and he was happy to meet Jack. Her mother shook her head in disapproval when she heard about Brenda’s boyfriend, just as Brenda knew she would.

  In time, however, she would grow to love him. Big man, she would call him. Jack wasn’t college educated but he was industrious. There are virtue and nobility in working hard, she believed. He would earn her approval and respect.

  After delivering the boxes of ginger biscuits on schedule, Jack stopped by McDonald before returning the truck to the factory. Burgers, especially McDonald's, disgusted Brenda. There was no sense of appreciation or value in how McDonald prepared their burger. There were better tasting and more appealing food for $1 on the street side in Mexico City. She and Jack shared a bag of fries, sat in the parking lot, and listened to music on 106.5fm.

  “You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re too good for me,” Jack said. There were French fries in his hand, grease on his lips and sigh in his eyes.

  Brenda turned off the radio. “Don’t say that.”

  “Sometimes I think I’m in way over my head.” His next words were barely louder than a whisper, “smart girls like you don’t usually date guys like me.”

  “I don’t care what smart girls usually do, or what anyone has to say.” She held his big, heavy hand and kissed it. “I want you, and only you, my teddy bear.”

  Jack smiled. He would up every morning thinking it was too good to be true, so each new sunrise came with a gift; an appreciation of what he had, and a moment of awe.

  They were kissing, sloppy and passionately, when Brenda phone rang. She answered the phone and was surprised to hear Luke on the other end. He informed Brenda that Amy had fainted. The frightened look in Brenda’s eyes prompted Jack to say, “what’s wrong?”

  “Amy fainted,” Brenda said.

  Jack brushed the McDonald bag off the dashboard and started the truck. Next stop: Amy’s

  Amy opened her eyes to a blurry world. The soft light floating above unfolded into a beautiful kaleidoscope. She blinked again and it was gone. It was the light from the ceiling fan. Little by little things started to make sense, and when it came into focused, she realized that the blob beside her was Brenda sitting by her bedside.

  “How are you feeling?” Brenda asked.

  Amy was in her room with no idea how she got there. “I feel fine. What happened?”

  “You fainted.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Luke walked into Amy’s bedroom, happy to see her awake and talking. He kissed her on the forehead and knelt at her bedside. “You scared me for a moment.”

  “So you do get afraid.” Amy smiled.

  “When it comes to the people I care about, yes I do.” He rubbed her head gently and held her hand.

  “Where’s David?”

  “He ran away when you hit the ground.”

  The man she had given her love left her unconscious on the floor. It hurt her to hear that. She understood that their journey had come to an end, yet, she was sad that their final moment was unceremonious. In a perfect world, maybe, David would smile and be happy for her. They would hug each other and exchange a wave goodbye.

  In this unfair world, however, David’s bloody face was her last memory of him, and Amy falling to the floor was his last memory of her.

  Amy refused to be sad and decided to focus on the present. Two of the people she deeply cared about was by her side, tired and deeply concerned. “Go get some sleep,” she told Brenda.

  “See you in the morning.” Brenda went to her room and dropped on her bed, exhausted from driving around with Jack the whole day. She texted Jack to let him know everything was okay then threw her phone on the bed stand. She closed her eyes.

  Tonight, one journey ended and another began. Luke kissed Amy’s lips and everything was alright again. It was the start of something new. She was nervous and excited for where life was going to take her. Luke was everything she want
ed and more. Her spirit felt like a baby wrapped in a soft blanket whenever he was around. It was his presence of love and security, fuming off him like steam. His prickly beard tickled her cheek. She would get used to that.

  “You’re mine,” Luke said into Amy’s neck.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Chapter 18

  J osh went down the slides,

  going round and round until before falling into the ball pit. His friends quickly followed behind, one by one, they slid into the ball pit, then climbed up the small ladder to wait their turn again.

  It was Josh’s birthday party. The parents of the other kids watched from the seats at the back, admiring their youthfulness and energy. How good it must feel to possess the energy of a child, beaming with life and curiosity, to think everything is good-willed and fair. The parents wouldn’t mind borrowing some for one day.

  Josh jumped out of the ball pit and ran over the gaming machines. He wanted to do a little bit of everything. His birthday party was going great. Chuck ‘E Cheese was a cool spot for all eight-year-olds, it had games and awesome finger food, and with a simple phone call by Luke, Josh had the place all for himself and friends.

  Amy and Luke sat around the table with Luke’s parents, having a fun time as one would at a children’s party. It had been a couple weeks since they had officially become a couple. Amy had already fallen in love.

  It was the first time that Amy had met Luke’s parents. A small town family woman who held family values in the highest regards. Amy spoke with her for a short moment when Luke left both women alone for them to bond. That couple minutes felt like an eternity for Amy. She was self-conscious of her age, something she could not possibly change. And to reinforce her insecurity, the first words from Luke’s mother’s mouth were, “you’re so young.”

  Luke’s mother was a skeptic, Amy could tell. It was the movement of her eyes that made it obvious to Amy; scanning her from head to toe, judging her youthfulness, and possibly associating it with naivety.

  Questions after questions, Luke’s mother tried to understand Amy’s intentions, which was relatively simple: to love and be loved.