Crazy Thing Called Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  Part of him wanted to charge right back out into that living room and tell Becky that she was never going back to Janice’s house, that she was safe. But he was working hard on doing the right thing. And the right thing was almost always more complicated than he thought.

  So he called his lawyer.

  “Jesus Christ, Billy,” Ted said when he answered. “It’s Sunday morning.”

  “What? I don’t pay you enough? It’s an emergency.”

  Ted sighed. “It always is with you. What’s up?”

  “I need to get custody of these kids.”

  “Wow. You don’t fool around.”

  “My sister hits her, Ted. I can’t … I can’t just leave her there.” Again, he thought. He yanked open the shades, blinded by sunlight. “Janice said she’d give up custody.”

  “What about the father? Fathers.”

  “They’re not in the picture.”

  “I bet they will be once they hear you want the kids.”

  “Fine. I got money.”

  “It’s not that easy, Billy. Getting your sister to give up custody is only part of it. You have to be approved as a foster parent before you can take them.”

  “Well, how hard can that be? Janice did it.”

  “Not that hard if you haven’t been all over the news hitting reporters, breaking chairs, being accused of fathering children you’ve abandoned—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” He closed the shades again. “What do I do?”

  “We’ll start the paperwork tomorrow. Try to keep your nose clean, if you can. And Billy, you gotta fix this nightmare you’re in. Set some facts straight.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “Do you think I am?” He slammed the heel of his hand against the wall.

  “Okay. I’ll get started on the paperwork, and send it to you tomorrow to sign.”

  “Can I tell them?” he asked, closing his eyes, resting his head against the fist on the wall, and knowing the answer even as the question left his mouth.

  “You might not get approved, and if she decides to still give up custody anyway, those kids … they might end up in separate foster homes.”

  He thought of Becky losing Charlie. Thought of her face, the scream. The way she’d fight everyone trying to hold her back from her brother.

  That couldn’t happen. Couldn’t.

  “When will I know if I’m approved?”

  “We’ll push as hard as we can. Your money will help, but you still …”

  Still have to get approved.

  “Okay, thanks Ted.”

  Kids. Kids were coming to her condo. Madelyn might have gone overboard with the juice boxes. The value pack of twenty-five, which took up one whole shelf in her fridge, was probably overkill.

  Calm down, she told herself as she threw cheese sticks and apples onto the other shelves. They’re just kids.

  And Billy.

  Maybe she’d have a better chance of convincing him to do the show while they were on her turf.

  Maybe you’ll have a better chance of convincing him to do the show if you grow bunny ears and hop around the place.

  But God, kids. And cupcakes. In her house.

  It made her feel … unsafe. Unbalanced. Like the house might come down around her if someone else was in here.

  Having Billy here that morning had been one thing, he’d barely even seen the place. But this, juice boxes and cheese sticks and swimming parties—this was something else entirely.

  Her buzzer rang and she jumped, her heart pounding.

  She leaned over and pushed the button to the doorman.

  “You have a very excited boy down here, wearing goggles, Miss Cornish. He says he’s going to go swimming.”

  She laughed, imagining the scene. “Send them up, Lou.”

  In the minutes before their knock she turned and did a last check of her condo. It matched so perfectly the idea she’d had of a self-made woman’s house. A woman with taste and refinement, who could handle anything. Who’d pulled herself up out of the mud.

  It will be okay, she told herself. They’re just kids. It’s just Billy. But it felt like so much more. It felt like danger right around the corner.

  There was a furious pounding at the door, like cops on a raid.

  “Maddy!” Charlie yelled. “Let’s go swimming!”

  She opened the door and there was Charlie, with goggles and water wings and a giant grin on his face.

  Irresistible. The boy was literally irresistible. She would have reached down to hug him if Becky hadn’t ushered him in.

  “I told him he had to be quiet,” Becky said, wearing a pink hoodie, her hair pulled back in a super-tight ponytail. It looked like it was giving her a headache.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “There are lots of kids who live here. Everyone is used to a little noise.”

  “When can we go swimming?” Charlie asked, doing a dance in her front hallway that involved a lot of butt shaking.

  “Yeah.” Billy, wearing a pair of board shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, stepped into the condo, mimicking Charlie’s dance. Billy’s moves delighted the boy to no end so he started dancing more and the butt shaking got super-sonic.

  “Becky?” Billy asked, clearly inviting her into the dance routine. He bumped Becky with his hips and the girl rolled her eyes, stepping sideways to lean against Maddy’s pink table.

  “You guys are stupid,” Becky sighed and Billy stopped dancing.

  “You are a killjoy,” he said and stuck out his tongue at her.

  Maddy laughed before she could help it. Becky glared at her and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  Of course Billy would be good at this. He was a giant kid. He’d probably been just waiting for two kids to arrive on his doorstep so he could go swimming. So he would have an excuse to shake his butt.

  “Well,” Maddy said, “you can go swimming right now. The pool is on the top of the building.”

  “The top of the building?” Charlie asked, his eyes round as quarters under his little steamed-up goggles.

  “Can you believe it?” she asked, opening her eyes as wide as she could.

  Charlie charged back out to the hallway and Billy just barely caught him by the edge of a wing.

  “You guys coming?” Billy asked. “I can’t hold him back much longer.”

  “I need to change,” Becky said, staring down at her feet. She nudged Maddy’s pink and white running shoes with the toe of her beat-up Keds knockoff.

  “Go on up.” Maddy handed him the pass card to get into the pool. “Becky and I will be there in a little bit.”

  The boys cleared out, the door shutting behind them with a heavy click.

  “You, ah, you have your suit?”

  Becky lifted a Target bag, but made no move to find a place to change.

  “You want to get ready?” Maddy asked, but Becky was looking around the apartment like she was sightseeing.

  “I like your house,” she said. “I’ve never seen white carpets before.”

  She’d gotten white because it seemed so modern. So clean. So unlike her past. She’d made the decision as the thirteen-year-old girl she’d been. Funny, she’d never really seen that before.

  “Nice view,” Becky said, standing in front of the windows.

  “It’s why I got this unit,” Maddy said. “It’s pretty at night.”

  Becky humphed a little laugh. “Your job must pay pretty good.”

  “I guess.” Maddy suppressed a smile. She knew when her place was getting cased. “You want a juice box or something? While you go through my stuff?”

  “Juice box? You think I’m ten?”

  “I think you might be thirsty.”

  “I’m not going to steal anything.”

  “I know, Becky. It was a joke.” Maddy ducked into the kitchen and grabbed a juice box and cheese stick just to be sure. When she came back out Becky was looking at her bookshelves.


  “You like to read?” she asked.

  Becky shrugged.

  “I remember what it’s like, you know? But pretending to be stupid doesn’t get you very far.”

  Becky smiled, really fast, and that smile was beautiful. It made Maddy wonder what the girl would look like with some color in her cheeks. The dark circles out from under her eyes. A good haircut.

  “Did you have Mrs. Jordal in school?” Becky asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “That’s something she said to me once. I like to read. A lot.”

  “You can borrow any of the books. If you want.” She pointed to the top corner where she kept some of her favorites from high school: Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, Flowers for Algernon. “Those are good.”

  “I’ve read those.”

  “Well,” she laughed, “look at you.”

  “Just because I don’t go to school doesn’t mean I can’t read.”

  “You don’t go to school?”

  Becky shook her head, backing away from the bookshelf. Turning to look at the photographs of different guests that had been on AM Dallas. Most people had pictures of family, she had pictures of acquaintances. It had never seemed ridiculous before now.

  “Why?”

  “Someone’s got to take care of Charlie.”

  “Denise couldn’t do that?” It wasn’t an accusation. Wasn’t even really a question.

  Becky shook her head.

  “Your mom wasn’t always like that.”

  Becky got still, like a mouse startled by a sound waiting for something to swoop out of the shadows and snatch it.

  “I don’t remember,” Becky whispered.

  “She was fun,” Maddy said, pulling up dim memories, trying to make them bright for the girl. “Loved playing practical jokes. Especially on Billy. She’d hide his stuff. Fill his shoes with shaving cream.”

  Becky smiled.

  “She loved to read, too.”

  And just like that the smile was gone. “I’m nothing like her.”

  “It wasn’t all bad, honey.”

  “It was for me.”

  Side by side and silent, they both looked out the window and Maddy felt like she often did with Billy when they were younger, like there was nothing she could say, not one thing. But by not leaving she had already been better than most people in the girl’s life.

  “Can we stay with you?” Becky asked.

  If all the glass shattered at once she couldn’t have been more alarmed. “Here?”

  “It’s where you live.”

  “What about Billy?”

  “He … he doesn’t want us.”

  “Becky …” She sighed. She didn’t know what to say. There were no words.

  The girl’s blue eyes bored right into her. “We’ll be good. I promise. I mean, Charlie’s pretty easy. He’s almost potty-trained. And he’s … he’s sweet, you know. Quiet. Sometimes he has nightmares, but if I sleep with him he’s okay. And I can stay home with him so you don’t have to pay for a nanny—”

  “No. No, please, honey, stop.”

  Becky closed her mouth so hard her teeth clicked and Maddy didn’t know what to do. What to say. How to manage this girl’s pain.

  It was a mistake to have them here.

  She had to suppress that part of her, the small, bitter part who liked her house clean and her life devoid of anything as uncomfortable as love, as painful as this girl’s hope. She’d spent years creating this place where emotion didn’t touch her, and in five minutes Becky had smashed it to pieces.

  She swallowed those terrible petty instincts. She swept that small woman aside and let herself do the right thing. As right as she was able—it was meager and pitiable, but it was all she had.

  “Becky, don’t you want more?”

  “More than having Charlie safe? More than a nice, clean house with a pool on the roof?” It was like she couldn’t imagine anything else, anything better for herself. And it devastated Maddy.

  “You deserve more. You deserve to go to school. College, even. You deserve to have a chance at your own nice, clean house.”

  Becky shrugged, but it wasn’t as fluent as her other ones. It was broken. She was broken. The girl knew “no” when she heard it. “I would like to go to school.”

  “You will.” There couldn’t be any other way—and frankly, just saying the words, just committing to another person, washed Maddy with light. With sudden purpose, the warmth of feeling that comes from trying to help someone else. “Whatever happens, I’ll … I’ll make sure you go to school.”

  “We can stay?” Becky’s eyes lit up, and she looked so much like her mother in that moment that Maddy gasped.

  “I can’t …”—and the hope died—“… I can’t take you away from Billy.”

  “You’re not taking us away. You’re not. He doesn’t want us.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Becky shot her a look that spoke volumes. This girl had never felt wanted in her life. She wouldn’t know the feeling if it took her out at the knees.

  “It’s complicated,” Maddy whispered, the words so lame.

  “Whatever.” And just like that, all the sweetness and kindness, those thin fragile bonds, were gone. “We better go. Charlie doesn’t know how to swim.”

  “You want to go to the bathroom, put on your suit?”

  “I’m wearing it,” Becky said and walked right past her with the Target bag, which must be empty.

  She’d been planning this thing all along.

  Maddy followed, wondering how she and Billy were going to handle this new development.

  And she wanted to resist the idea of her and Billy handling anything together. She wanted to reject it as fast and as hard as she could, but her conscience wouldn’t let her. The dejected slope of Becky’s shoulders as she marched down the hall ahead of her, the tender pale skin at the nape of her neck, all that vulnerability she worked so hard to hide—none of those things would let Maddy walk away from these kids.

  Somehow the past had resurfaced and tied her and Billy together again.

  Billy and Charlie were in the shallow end of the pool. Charlie stood on the first of the wide steps, the water lapping his ankles. Billy sat on the third step, his lower body in the water. Overhead there was nothing but glass and blue skies. White fluffy clouds.

  “Char,” Billy said, “it’s not really swimming, what you’re doing. It’s wading.”

  “I’m scared.”

  Billy put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, felt the small bones, the twitching muscles. The shivering skin. “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Charlie, so serious beneath the goggles and yellow water wings, took a deep breath and jumped down to the second step.

  “Hey!” Billy cheered and Charlie clapped, but then lost his balance and grabbed on to Billy’s shoulders, climbing into his lap like the water was rising fast.

  It was strange having a little kid in his lap, especially since the little kid’s knee seemed to have unerring aim for Billy’s testicles. But it was nice—great, actually. Having a kid wrap his trusting little arms around Billy’s neck had been a sensation his life had been missing up until now.

  “Billy?” Maddy crouched down beside them. She wore a red swimsuit. Conservative by most standards. He couldn’t see her boobs or her belly button or any of her butt—but the color itself was x-rated.

  When he was fifteen, she’d had a red suit and he’d gone to the pool every day to watch the fabric of that bikini cling to her boobs and hips.

  She’d been a dream in that red one-piece.

  This one wasn’t any different.

  “Hey,” he said. “You didn’t ring the bell to be let in.”

  “I have another pass card.”

  “We’re swimming!” Charlie yelled, waving over Billy’s shoulder, toward the hot tub. “Becky. Look.”

  “Why don’t you go sit with your sister for a second,” Maddy asked Charlie and the boy didn�
�t have to be asked twice. He was up, dripping and running across the tiles toward his sister, who sat hunched and small among the bubbles of the hot tub.

  “Are kids supposed to sit in hot tubs?” Billy asked.

  “The temperature’s super low, it’s like a bath.”

  “Well, that’s good. The kid could probably use one.” Billy pushed off the steps, drifting out into the pool. Like it was twenty years ago, he grinned at the woman in the red swimsuit who made him crazy and happy in equal parts.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “If it’s about the show—”

  She glanced over at the kids. “It’s about Becky.”

  He swam back to the step. “What happened?”

  “She asked if she could stay. With me.”

  “Oh Christ.” He had this sudden memory of Denise getting her period for the first time. Janice had been gone. Mom had been passed-out drunk. It had just been him and the mysteries of womanhood and a crying twelve-year-old girl.

  He’d felt utterly inadequate to the task.

  This moment felt that way.

  “What are you going to do about the kids?”

  “I talked to Janice this morning and she said she’ll give up custody.”

  “You’re trying for custody?” She didn’t look horrified, or like she thought he might be joking. She seemed proud. And he didn’t want to need her approval quite like he did, but he couldn’t lie—it felt good.

  “It’s not that easy, but I can’t send them back to Janice. She … she hits Becky.”

  He saw the anger brew on Maddy’s face. She wasn’t a fan of bullies and Janice was nothing but a chain-smoking bully. She always had been.

  “So what do we do?”

  We? he thought, the word like a neon sign in the dark. “We?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Billy. I just want to help. What can I do?”

  “Well, I’d probably have a better chance at being approved as a foster parent if I wasn’t a single man …”

  She couldn’t quite fight the smile. “I was thinking more along the lines of a letter of reference.”

  “I suppose that would be good, too.”

  “So have you told Becky you’re not sending her back?”

  “My lawyer advised me against it. Said if Janice gave up custody and I didn’t get approved as a foster parent, the kids could be split up, sent to separate foster homes.”