by R. S. Elliot
“If I say ‘I didn’t,’ will you sleep easier?”
“They took the kid out in handcuffs.”
The corner of my lip twitches upward. Any amusement I get out of this is justified, I convince myself. The kid had it coming. I don’t intend to press charges for long, but at some point, he’ll have to learn that every dirty deed has a price. I learned that the hard way.
“He’ll be fine.” I wave off the concern in Derek’s face. The man worries too much. After all, Jackson was the one blackmailing me. Don’t I deserve any sort of retribution? “Most he’ll do is community service. I just want him to sweat a little. Get back my fifty grand.”
“So this is your revenge?”
“I call it justice.”
“And the news website?” Derek asks. This self-righteous act is really starting to get to me. Am I to sit back and do nothing while these people get away with their misprints and destruction of people’s lives?
“What website?”
“The one that posted the pictures of you and Aly, then printed a retraction the next morning.”
“It was awfully kind of them.” Though, as always, too little too late. The damage had already been done. I’d been receiving phone calls from my father ever since the incident, all of which I swiftly ignored.
Aly still isn’t talking to me. That’s the only reason I’ve kept my phone on at all. Just in case she changes her mind and finally decides to answer any of my messages.
I learned from Derek that the story is all the people on campus are talking about. Staff, students. They are all curious to know what mythical powers Aly must possess to have thawed the heart of the most feared and desired teacher on campus. Derek swears the second title should belong to him, but he’s married, so that is likely what puts me ahead of him in the market. Or so he claims. Plus he doesn’t have a few billion to his name to sweeten the pot.
All Derek’s words, of course.
I still haven’t told him about my father or the lack of funds padding my bank account. I haven’t told him I might not be able to pay for supplies the same way I always have. How do I open that conversation?
“Does Aly even know about the hospital bills yet?”
“No.”
I did my best to ensure she didn’t know. She’ll simply go to make her first payment and the entire thing with be paid off. I even worked out some sort of credit system with the ladies at the desk, so she’d have some money left over to get her mother the services she needs. I overstepped, perhaps. I just couldn’t stand to see her overworked and feeling helpless anymore. She can get mad all she wants, but there was no way I was going to let her keep suffering like that. Not when I could do something to help. “If she does, I’m sure I’ll hear about it.”
I pour myself into the designs Derek’s given me. Some of them consist of minor repairs: drywall orders, paint, carpeting. Others are a full-scale renovation that requires opening up walls, removing black mold or replacing roofs. He even has a few prints for houses, with plans to build them from the ground up. This will take months to complete, and I don’t know how much money in supplies.
They’ve already got some backing. Marianne says it’s enough, but they always seem to run a little short. Something goes wrong. Labor takes an additional day. There’s always a little extra cost somewhere. Before they were small projects, so the price jump was a drop in the bucket compared to this grand overtaking of households. Before I had an almost never-ending supply to cushion them with, now that’s all gone.
I compile my list of supplies. We’re already into six figures with only half of the housing projects in this set accounted for, at least in terms of what it will cost to fix or build them. I can handle this project. All the projects in this series, with no trouble at all. But whatever project he and Marianne have lined up next is still up in the air. Will Derek still want my help if I can’t pay for things like I used to?
“Is this what rich people do all day?” Derek asks out of nowhere. “I mean when they don’t have jobs? Just sit around throwing money at problems?”
Was I that obvious? Or are we still talking about me paying Aly’s medical bills? What was the problem with wanting to help in any of these situations? “I think the rich person not having a job is the bigger question. We have to talk about these stereotypes you have, Derek. It’s unsettling.”
“You can make jokes all you want, but I know what’s up.” Derek tosses his pen down on the table and crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re trying to make everything better, rather than just confronting your feelings. Have you even told Aly you love her, yet?”
“Can we just go back to talking about barbecues and football like normal men?”
Why can’t we be like those men who only communicate in grunts and remark on how great the beer tastes? No, Derek has to ask me about my feelings and what I plan on doing with my life. Marianne has put him up to this somehow. This is not a natural response.
“We’re psychologists, Zach,” he says. “Feelings is what we do.”
“I haven’t told Aly anything.” I groan and rake a hand through my hair. “About the bills, about how I feel. It’s all just been so much to handle at once. And she’s not even talking to me at the moment.”
“Because you don’t know where she lives. Didn’t you drive her home?”
“I went to her apartment, Derek. She’s staying with her mom for a while.” And then there was that whole situation. Aly needed time to heal, to focus on what was happening with her mother, what she planned to do as far as treatment options. I would only get in the way of that. What had Lyndsey called it? I am chaos and self-serving. That isn’t what Aly needs right now.
“It’s better this way,” I say softly, to myself.
“Man, you’re crazy. There’s no way that girl doesn’t need someone there for her right now.” Derek nudges me with the back of his hand. “It doesn’t have to be some grand gesture, either. You don’t have to fix the problem. You don’t have to offer life-altering words of wisdom. You’ve just got to be there. You need to listen to her, let her vent.”
I let the silence answer for me. I’m in no mood for this lecture. No matter which way I play it, I’m doing wrong by Aly somehow. To my surprise, Derek doesn’t press me further. He simply goes back to his work.
Maybe I should find Aly. I’m sure Lyndsey could be persuaded to give me her mother’s address once I plead my case. Derek’s right. I’ve been so used to just throwing money at a situation rather than finding a way to resolve it some other way. Isn’t that what normal people do? What I’m going to have to learn to do in whatever life I have with Aly? I’m going to have to confront my feelings, what I’ve done to her, and all the things I didn’t do right from the beginning.
We’re supposed to be doing this as a team.
I can’t heal these wounds with a tennis bracelet and a trip to France. That may have worked with the women I dated in the past, but they don't work with Aly. Those kinds of things never did. All she cared about was me and how I made her feel.
That’s all I ever needed from her.
I stare down at the plans in front of me. I’m starting to get all this marriage nonsense people keep talking about. I look at Derek and all the time and love he puts into a project that isn’t even his. How he’s loved it and taken it as a part of his life despite it being someone else’s dream. He doesn’t try to fix everything for Marianne, he doesn’t try to handle it all himself just so she doesn’t have to worry. He helps, but Marianne is the one who holds the reins. She’s the guiding force behind all of this, while he follows along with whatever support she needs.
They’re a team.
“Look.” Derek sets down his pen and runs a hand beneath his nose. “There’s actually something I’ve wanted to talk to you about.”
The tension eases in my chest.
We aren’t talking about me. That much is certain. Is this the mysterious issue Derek has been dealing with for some time? Is he finally ready t
o confide in me? “What is it?”
Derek twists at the hip, removing a few sheets of paper from one of the file folders on his desk and handing it to me. A birth certificate with Miles’s name. A copy of his social security card. And an adoption form.
I flip back to the first two documents. Both list Miles as a Beaucoudray, an official member of Marianne and Derek’s household.
“You adopted Miles?”
“Yea.” Derek’s hand covers part of his mouth. He’s holding back a smile and what looks like the glisten of tears. Hell, I’m damn near crying at this recent revelation. “It’s finally official. We’re going to have a party to celebrate next week with family and friends. You’re welcome to come, of course. Aly, too.”
I stare at the papers in my hand, still slightly in shock.
Miles. A permanent fixture in the family.
I’ve grown so attached to the kid myself. They’ve taken kids in for years, but no one has ever stuck out to them like this. They deserve this happiness. They deserve a child like Miles who loves them unreservedly. As if he always knew he belonged with them.
“I’m really happy for you guys,” I say, handing back the papers. “Miles has really grown into this family. He’s become a part of you both.”
“Ah.” Derek takes one last loving look at the papers before filing them away again. “He was always one of us. Now we just have a few pieces of paper to prove it. I don’t have to worry about them taking him away from us and placing him somewhere else. I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen to that kid when he turns eighteen and exits out of the system. He’s all ours. Our responsibility. It’s all up to us now.”
“If anyone deserves this happiness, it’s you guys.”
Derek’s hand cups my shoulder. “We all deserve that kind of happiness.”
Fine. I give in. I want what Derek has. I want the small cottage house with one guest bedroom and a loving wife who both terrifies and amazes me. I want a family, something to call my own, that no one can ever truly take away from me.
I want that life.
With Aly.
I spent a day preparing everything I needed to meet Aly. Lyndsey finally agreed to give me Aly’s address and even gave me the best time to reach them at home. Apparently, her mother had a few consultations with psychiatrists this week to assess what the next steps should be in improving her current health, so they would be in and out of the doctor’s offices all afternoon. Meanwhile, it gave me plenty of time to pick up my special items and rehearse my apology a thousand times.
My phone rings.
Thankfully, my father hasn’t called me at all today. This time, it’s my mother. A ploy to get me to answer perhaps, but I could never deny her phone call. I answer.
“Hi, sweetheart. Where are you?” my mother asks.
“I’m out. What’s going on?”
“Nothing too outlandish,” she says, part of me not believing her. “I just left your father and wanted to get the information about that apartment you offered. I took Paolo with me on a mini-vacation to Napa for a few days to ease the tension, but we will be back on Monday.”
I couldn’t have heard her right. There had to have been some static in the phone cutting out. Did she say she just left my father?
“Mom, what are you saying?”
“Honey, really, you’re too young to be losing your hearing. I left your father. He told me what he did to you, cutting you out of the family like that and leaving you high and dry.”
If you can call several million high and dry. I groan. My family has no concept of money. “Mom, I’m fine really. I’m more worried about you. What are you going to do?”
A laugh crackles in through the phone. “Sweetie, you forget our marriage was a business arrangement. My father ensured that half of the company would always belong to me. So I’m taking my half and moving on. You’re entitled to your share of it, as well.”
All this time, my mother could have left whenever she wanted? All this time, I’d been worried she’d be left destitute without any money to her name if she left my father. But she could have left at any time.
“Why now? Why after all these years of dealing with him are you just now leaving him?”
Silence.
Then, “So many things, Zach. I’ll admit I should have left him a long time ago. You and I missed out on a lot of good years there, collecting terrible memories we both would rather forget. But at the time, I thought it was the right thing to keep the family together. I didn’t know what it would do to you. And part of me was scared to be alone.”
Alone. Yes, what a terrifying concept.
“But now, after what he’s done to you, it’s unforgivable. He even had the nerve to tell me I was banned from seeing you.” Another haughty laugh leaps through the phone’s receiver. “Well, I wasn’t about to let that happen. Plus Paolo has been my one true friend throughout all of this. He’s always been there for me, never expecting anything in return. I owe it to him to finally give our relationship a chance.”
I clamp down on my jaw.
Paolo the groundskeeper. I should have seen this coming years ago. There could not have been a kinder soul for my mother to fall for, however.
“I owe it to myself to be happy,” my mother adds. “And so do you. So whoever that girl is you’re protecting, you need to hold onto her. But don’t forget to send me the information for getting into the apartment, either.”
I laugh.
This is why I have mixed responses to emotions. “Fine. I’ll let the staff in the lobby know you’re coming. Just give them your name, and they’ll let you in.”
I finish the conversation with my mother. So she did stand up to my father. I completely underestimated her. Maybe I have to stop trying to control every aspect of my life and everyone in it. Things seemed to have worked out better by letting go than they did when I was trying to hold it all together. I was doing the same thing I’d accused Aly of doing, wanting to micromanage every detail of my life until it was perfect, pristine. Pain-free.
Unrealistic.
Life isn’t like that. Love certainly isn’t.
And I’m ready to prove I can handle life without the need to control every little thing that goes wrong.
I’m ready for a messy, roller-coaster kind of love story with the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aly
“What do you mean it’s all been paid for?”
I ask the receptionist behind the counter. I check her name tag. Dolores.
Dolores is making about as much sense as a woman speaking Greek, and I’m pretty sure she has the wrong account open if she says we don’t owe anything. These were thousands upon thousands of back-bills to pay. My parents both had insurance, but there were simply some things their health care plans didn’t cover. We had years of my dad’s medical payments to pay down still and whatever additional this recent trip to the hospital cost us.
How could all that simply be gone?
“It’s what I’ve said,” Dolores explains. “Your bills were paid off a few days ago.”
A few days ago? I look at Lyndsey, who only shrugs as if she had nothing to do with it. She may not have had anything to do with it, but I’m pretty sure I know who did. I inhale one, long steadying breath. He was just trying to do the right thing. He wasn’t trying to pay me off or buy my affections. He didn’t know how things were going to turn out. There was no way he could have known I’d be this angry with him when he made this payment.
Still, it was just one more piece of evidence that he rarely consulted me when it came to what was best in my life. He didn’t ask if this gesture was too much. He just paid for it without telling me.
Because you would have said “no”. You would have said you can handle it.
The truth is that I can’t. With all the doctor’s visits and my anxiety about leaving my mother alone, I’ve had to take off a couple of weeks from work. She can’t work. How
are we supposed to pay for anything, let alone medical bills we’ve been struggling with for years?
A rush of relief washes over me. He was trying to help. I can’t even say that the result didn’t have a tremendous effect.
“Does it say who paid for it?” I ask the woman in front of me.
Her eyes scan the computer screen. “Nope. It says it was an anonymous donation. Though with a payment that large, it usually comes from an organization. Maybe you applied for some kind of assistance?”
Right. We never applied for assistance. This has Zach’s handiwork written all over it.
“That’s good,” Lyndsey whispers beside me. “Now, you can just focus on taking care of what your mom needs right now.”
I dragged Lyndsey along today for emotional support. I’m not sure what I’d be doing now if she hadn’t come with us. They have thrown so much information at me within the last few hours, I couldn’t keep one doctor straight from another. My emotional state completely fried any use I might have gotten out of my brain this week. Lyndsey was my backup, playing back anything I might have missed and helping me work through the available options.
“Have you decided on what kind of treatment you’re going to go with for your mom?” Dolores asks.
I shake my head. “I think the doctor recommended two weeks in a psychiatric hospital.”
This was her second suicide attempt in three years. Most people didn’t get this many chances to spring back from like a cat with nine lives. The doctors were adamant about this decision. In most of these types of cases, they said, the court mandates ninety days in a psychiatric facility. It could still come to that. If the doctors deemed it necessary to keep her. Then where would that land us?
She tried traditional therapy in the past. She even tried medicine to regulate her emotional state, but nothing seems to be working. A stay in a psychiatric hospital is vital for my mom to get better, no matter how badly I want to deny it. I’ll agree to whatever they ask, but I’d be lying if a small part of me doesn’t worry about how I’m going to pay this off later.