Crazy Thing Called Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  Maddy glanced over Billy’s head and he turned to see Becky and Charlie sitting on the edge of the hot tub, corralling bubbles with their hands.

  “They can’t get split up,” Maddy sighed.

  “I’m doing the best I can.”

  In her eyes he could see his reflection, the scars and muscles, the tools he used to terrorize men on the ice. But he always looked like so much more in her eyes, too.

  Funny how he was finally starting to believe it.

  “If word got out about what a good guy you are, your reputation would be ruined,” she murmured.

  Ah, man, first the red swimsuit and then the “we” stuff and now she thought he was a good man. He sat back down in the cold water before he got ahead of himself.

  “Hey!” Charlie came running back across the tiles, water splashing and sloshing out of his cupped hands. “Look at the bubbles!” When the boy slid to a stop beside them, his hands were empty.

  Billy laughed at Charlie’s crestfallen expression. Two days these children had been in his life. Two days. And yet he could tell nothing would be the same again.

  Becky sat shivering in the hot tub. Uncle Billy had convinced Charlie to try to put his face in the water, so Charlie stood on the middle step in the shallow end, bending over at the waist, trying to lower his face into the water.

  Uncle Billy and Maddy were cheering him on, but at the last minute Charlie pulled back up, jumping and dancing, nervous and excited.

  The grown-ups both groaned.

  Becky bit her lip hard, and when the skin tore a bit, she yanked at it, pulling off a big sliver. She tasted blood but she kept on licking the spot even though it stung like crazy. She couldn’t stop. She just kept on licking, stinging, and bleeding, and watching Uncle Billy and Charlie and Maddy.

  A little family. That’s what they were.

  If Becky walked over, there wouldn’t be any more happy family. Uncle Billy would yell at Becky, or Becky would yell at him, and the whole scene would be ruined.

  And that, she told herself—mean as she could be, as awful as Janice and Mom dying—is why no one wants you. No one.

  Funny, she’d thought she left everything bad behind in Pittsburgh. But the bad was in her.

  Charlie was happy and that was the only thing that mattered. Uncle Billy seemed to like him. Way more than he liked her. What with all that hugging.

  Yeah, and whose fault was that? she wondered, a little embarrassed by the way she’d been acting all day.

  Why do I do that? she wondered. Maybe Janice was right about that, too—Becky just wanted to make life harder. It’s not like she woke up every morning thinking “How can I be a total bitch?” It just happened. Someone tried to be kind or give her a hand and it always seemed fake to her.

  Charlie hugged Uncle Billy, his arms around the guy’s big neck, and Uncle Billy patted her brother’s back. He didn’t force him to go underwater, or make fun of him for being scared.

  Uncle Billy took such good care of Charlie. Which was awesome. Strange and totally unexpected, but awesome.

  So awesome, in fact, that it gave her a new idea. Finally, days after Plan A fell to pieces, Plan B was ruined because she couldn’t hot wire a car, and Maddy shot down Plan C, Plan D came to her.

  She would just leave. By herself.

  Uncle Billy had money, he could pay for two nannies to take care of Charlie. And those women would teach Charlie to use the bathroom, because he never would for Becky, and they would walk him to school on the first day of kindergarten. And take him to soccer. Teach him to read.

  Her raw and bloody lips burned as tears ran into her mouth.

  And running away without him would be so much better for her. She wouldn’t have to worry about diapers, or where he would sleep, or if he was clean. Or scared. Or getting hurt.

  Away from her, with Uncle Billy, he’d be safe and happy and wearing new clothes and playing with toys and she could just worry about herself.

  Just herself. Alone.

  She glanced behind her at the big windows, the sunshine and the blue, blue sky.

  It would be easy to walk out of here. Really easy. Her clothes were in a locker in the changing room, and she had the key around her wrist. She could change and be gone before Uncle Billy and Maddy even realized she wasn’t in the pool.

  She’d taken sixty bucks out of Uncle Billy’s wallet. It wasn’t as much as what he owed her, but it was something. She could make it last.

  Charlie’s scream—a happy one—made her heart stop, and out of habit she turned to look for him. There’d been more of those happy screams in the last two days than she’d heard since Mom died. And that made Becky happy—it did, but it also made her heart hurt.

  She had kept him safe and clean, but she hadn’t managed to make him happy.

  I won’t be able to say good-bye.

  She tilted her head back, trying to get a breath, because suddenly there was no air.

  Charlie was little, a baby practically—he’d cry for a few days, but he’d probably forget her. In a few years he wouldn’t remember her at all, it’s not like there were any pictures of her. Or any of him that she could take with her.

  Another strip came off her lip.

  “Becky?” She whirled and found Maddy standing behind her. “You okay?”

  Becky lifted her wrists to wipe away her stupid tears with her sleeves, then remembered she was wearing a swimsuit.

  “Charlie needs a nap,” Becky said. She had the same trapped feeling that she’d had when she and Charlie packed their stuff to move into Janice’s house. There was nothing, nothing she could do to change things. It was like the whole world was sitting on her chest and her brain was crazy from trying to think of different ways they could get out of the situation. But in the end she was only thirteen, just a kid. “Charlie takes a nap every day. Every day at one. If he goes to sleep later than that he stays up all night.”

  “Oh …” Maddy looked over at the pool, where Charlie was holding on to Uncle Billy’s neck and Uncle Billy was carefully swimming so that Charlie’s head never went underwater. “We can take him down for a nap. Do you want lunch—”

  “He’s allergic to strawberries.” Becky couldn’t look at Maddy or she’d cry worse.

  “I didn’t buy any strawberries.”

  “He doesn’t like eggs. Or fish sticks. Fish sticks make him throw up.”

  “I have ham. Can he eat ham?”

  Becky nodded, swallowing back the puke in her throat. “But not in a sandwich. He likes it if you roll it up and put it in his hand.”

  “Becky, are you okay?” Maddy’s hand touched her shoulder and Becky jumped up and away, out of the water. She felt naked in her swimsuit. The bruises were gone from the last time Aunt Janice got mad at her, but she felt like they were still there. Like everyone could see them. Would always be able to see them—and no one, no one, would ever want her.

  “I’m fine. Totally fine.”

  * * *

  Becky was right, Charlie needed a nap, he was practically asleep in Billy’s arms as the four of them took the elevator back down to Maddy’s apartment.

  Today was an anomaly. A surreal departure, and so, because surreal departures didn’t matter, Maddy let herself look at Billy with that kid in his arms and she let herself be happy. Very, very happy.

  She forgave herself for being weak—what woman wouldn’t be at the sight of such tenderness from the scary hockey player, and the trust from the young boy whose life had been turned upside down.

  If she took his picture and created a poster out of it, she’d make a fortune. THIS IS BILLY WILKINS, she’d print in big bold letters on the bottom of the poster. The real Billy Wilkins.

  The one no one saw but her.

  The elevator doors binged open and Maddy led them out.

  “I forgot my towel,” Becky said, putting her hand against the doors, her feet still in the elevator.

  “Oh …” Maddy glanced at Billy. “We’ll come with you.”
/>   “I’ll go,” Becky said. “You don’t have to come. Put Charlie down. I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.” Maddy handed her the key card and Becky disappeared behind the elevator doors.

  “Come on,” Billy said. “This kid isn’t as light as he looks.”

  Inside the condo, Billy put Charlie to bed in her spare room and Maddy closed the shades, making the room dark. Maddy and Billy stared at each other over the bed and Charlie’s sleeping body.

  “She wouldn’t run away without Charlie, would she?” she asked.

  “I don’t trust her. I’m going up there.”

  “Okay I’ll … I’ll stay here.”

  Then Billy was gone and Maddy worried maybe they were being ridiculous, but the girl’s behavior in the hot tub had been really strange. And if she balked at having Billy follow her every move, then maybe she shouldn’t act so strangely.

  Maddy heard the front door shut and leaned over the bed to carefully tug the goggles off Charlie’s damp head and the water wings from his little arms.

  The plastic squeaked and pulled and she winced, hoping she wouldn’t wake the boy. In the end, she had to lift his arm all the way off the bed to get the wing off.

  Holding her breath, she waited for him to scream, but he just sighed, rolling over in his sleep, leaving a wet spot on the quilt from his trunks. She went back into the living room, where Billy had left his duffel bag, and she found Charlie a pull-up and a pair of thin sweatpants that looked comfortable to sleep in.

  Back in the shadowed room she weighed her options and decided quicker was better. Just strip him as fast as she could, get him redressed, and hope he was tired enough to sleep through it.

  Luckily, he was—until the very end, when she pulled the quilt over his thin, pale, baby bird chest.

  “Becky?” He sighed, his eyes opening halfway.

  “She’ll be right back,” Maddy said and really really hoped that the cold knot of worry in her stomach was wrong.

  “Cuddles,” he said and scooched over until his head was at her knee and his arm was thrown over her waist.

  Cuddles, she thought. Cuddles sounded very good. She slipped down in the bed and pulled his cool body to her side, waiting for Billy to come back.

  The bathrooms near the pool were empty. The pool was empty.

  She’d run away.

  Billy hurried back into the elevator and jabbed the button for the main floor—and when the doors took too long to close, he jabbed that button, too.

  He couldn’t think, he couldn’t formulate a plan past the swearing in his head. It was one long line of very freaked-out and scared fucks, ricocheting around his brain.

  The doors binged open and he sprang out across the lobby, his flip-flops squeaking against the polished floor.

  Lou at the front desk looked up.

  “The girl I came in with,” Billy said. “The girl in the pink hoodie, did she come back through here?”

  Lou nodded and pointed toward the door, the wide world outside. “About five minutes ago.”

  “Which way did she go?” he asked, pushing open the doors, letting in the heat, the sunlight, the sounds of cars and a thousand other things that could hurt a girl on her own.

  “North,” Lou said. “Toward the street lights.”

  Billy checked both ways anyway but headed north, sprinting past women pushing baby strollers, couples walking hand in hand—all of them so blissfully unaware of the fear in his heart. Billy’s stomach was spewing acid. He was never going to be the same after this.

  He checked every face he could, glanced across the street, looked behind him, but he couldn’t find her and the freak-out in his chest escalated.

  “Have you seen a girl in a pink hoodie?” he started asking strangers. Most of them just shook their heads. No help. No help at all. Should he call the cops? Should he call Maddy?

  “Christ!” he muttered, and then, at the corner, stymied by a red light, he yelled it. Scaring away birds and people in equal measure. He fisted his hands in his hair and looked both ways down the side street.

  And there, a half block ahead, was a young girl in a pink hoodie.

  Relief flooded him so furiously that for a minute he saw spots. He didn’t wait for the light to turn before running across the street, dodging cars slamming on their breaks.

  “Holy shit, buddy!” someone yelled and Billy ignored him, jumping over the curb, running down the city block in his flip-flops.

  “Becky!” he yelled. “Becky!”

  When she finally heard him, she turned, took one look at his face, and jabbed her thumb out at the traffic driving by.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he yelled and pulled her hand down. Hitchhiking? Didn’t she watch movies? Didn’t she know what happened to thirteen-year-old girls who hitchhike?

  “Don’t touch me!” she yelled. Her lips were bleeding and raw and it was obvious she’d been crying. And he didn’t know what to do about that. What to do about any of this except fight his way through. Bully and push until he got her back to the house, where he would then lock every door and pay her a million dollars a year to never scare him like this again.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, and as far as stupid questions went, it was about the best he’d ever asked.

  “Leaving. I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Happy? Are you crazy?” He knew in the dark corners of his mind that he wasn’t doing this very well.

  “Yes!” she said. “I’m crazy and stupid. And poor white trash. And nothing but trouble for everyone. So why don’t you let me go?”

  “What about Charlie?” he asked. “You were just going to leave him?”

  Her face got that terrible broken look that women’s faces got when they were trying not to cry. But the tears leaked out the sides of her eyes anyway. He was stupid in the face of that look. Useless.

  “You like him. You won’t send him back.” She had to yell over the sound of traffic. “You’ll take care of him, right?”

  The clouds of his fury parted for just a second and he got a glimpse of what was really happening.

  “I know you paid to come down here, Becky.”

  “So?”

  “I know you want to be here.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Oh, she was trying so hard to be grown-up, and the words, so ugly and raw, just proved how young she was.

  “Will you please come back?” he asked, feeling himself break and crack, splinter apart.

  She shook her head.

  “Becky, I can’t talk about this on a busy street.”

  “And I can’t go back to Aunt Janice.” Her voice was lost in the wind and the dust, but her heartache filled the landscape, pushing him onto his heels.

  “I know,” he said, he reached for her, forgetting for a moment the scars she carried, and she flinched back so hard, so fast, she tripped over a rock, falling on her butt in the dirt. “Don’t. Oh God, Becky.” He stood there, helpless, and watched her pick herself up, get back on her feet. His entire body ached to touch her, to pick her up and carry her out of danger.

  But she wasn’t going to let him.

  No one took care of Becky.

  Tears ached behind his eyes.

  “Trust me, Becky.” He held out his hand, knowing she wouldn’t take it, but he had nothing else to offer her. “I will do everything I can so that you don’t have to go back to Janice.”

  Her eyes were wet, her lips cracked and red, and he’d never seen a person more lost. “Trust me,” he whispered.

  After a long moment, shoulders hunched against the wind, she walked by him and started back toward Maddy’s condo.

  He followed a few feet behind her, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say. How he was supposed to make this right.

  A semi went by and he felt himself blown apart by the wind, pieces of him lost into the sky, to the horizon.

  Over the last fourteen years, so much of his life had slipped by without a fight. If it wasn’t hockey, he did
n’t try all that hard, the effort not worth the pain of failure.

  Losing Maddy had taught him that.

  And now he stood on the precipice of a fight he’d never once contemplated. And he had no idea how to win.

  Once they got in the foyer of the condo, Lou scrambled to his feet. “You found her,” he said, obviously relieved.

  “I found her,” Billy said, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal. He even managed to smile, but once they got in the elevator he slumped against the walls.

  “You took about a million years off my life, Becky.”

  She didn’t say anything, just watched the illuminated numbers as they climbed. The doors binged open and Maddy was standing at the end of the hallway, half inside her condo, half out.

  “Oh, thank God. I was beginning to get nervous,” she said.

  “She was halfway down the street,” he told her, once they were closer.

  “Are you okay, Becky?” Maddy asked, but Becky walked right on by without answering.

  “Is she okay?” Maddy whispered to him.

  “I have no clue,” Billy answered, feeling about as shitty and out of his depth as he ever had. It was like the end of their marriage all over again, not the end end, but the stuff before, when everything he said was wrong and everything he did only made it worse.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her hand curling around his arm, firm and warm and competent.

  Her touch brought him back to himself. She gathered him, collected him. Centered him.

  I need you, he thought, fighting the instinct to grab her, to cling to her. I need you to do this with me. I can’t do it alone, and don’t want to think of doing it without you.

  But he knew that was her great fear. That she’d get sucked into his life and lose herself in the process. If she was going to help him, she needed to be there by choice.

  “I’m okay,” he lied.

  “What a liar,” she whispered, knowing him so well. “Just tell her, Billy. Your lawyer be damned, she needs to know she’s not alone.”

  “Yeah?” That’s what his gut was saying, too. But his gut could get things wrong.