by Tom Soule
He didn’t argue as I went around the other side of the car and slipped into the passenger’s seat.
We didn’t speak for almost the entire drive. I was still reeling from both his confession of feelings for me and the fact that Randy was here. That Randy had come into my shop. The very same bakery I had created in order to get over him.
“When did you and Randy divorce?” Jeremy asked quietly, keeping his eyes trained on the road and his GPS.
“A year after Derek was born.” I refused to look at him too, not quite comfortable with telling him about something that had nearly torn me apart “He had been an accident: the condom broke. Randy tried to stay with me, but he didn’t want a son. Said it tied him down. So, he got up and left. Just like that. The morning of Derek’s first birthday he packed a bag, got on a bus, and only contacted me with divorce papers.”
I had loved him, I really had. And he had said he loved me. Yet as soon as things got hard, he couldn’t handle it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy finally said, sneaking a glance at me. “He sounds like an awful man.”
“He isn’t,” I replied softly, watching concrete buildings and titanium cars pass by my window. “He was just scared.”
We were on the bad side of town. A junkie shot up heroin in the alley next to the tall, rickety apartment building, and Jeremy scared her away with the prospect of being arrested. I looked around, absolutely horrified.
“What the hell happened to him?” I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Jeremy looked at me questioningly. “Randy was a businessman, and a ruthless one at that. He had a fair amount of money: that’s how I was able to start ‘Sugar Sweet,’ with healthy child support checks. They stopped coming about a year ago, but I just thought that he was refusing to pay them. I didn’t think he had fallen so low…”
“Bad things happen to bad people,” Jeremy grimaced.
I didn’t comment on that. Let him think of Randy what he wants.
He went up to the door and I gingerly followed suit, doing my best not to step on the cigarette butts that littered the ground. On the wall were four doorbells, each with a name written on tape next to them:
100 Lyla Anderson
200 Anna Hartman
300 Randy Peters
400 Quentin Kelly
Jeremy pressed the grimy button next to my ex-husband’s name, and a speaker came on. I bit my tongue to avoid gasping when I heard his gravelly voice echo through the grill: “Who is it?”
God, even his voice had changed. Gone was the silky-smooth, musical lilt. Gone were the warmth and the ever-present trace of laughter. Randy sounded like he smoked two packs a day.
Rubbing his jaw, Jeremy looked over at me, and when I nodded, he turned back to the grill and barked:
“Police, open up.”
The speaker clicked off and the door buzzed open. I followed the detective through, and he pulled open the gate on an old-fashioned elevator. I regarded it nervously: it looked like it was going to collapse at any moment. Even the cable seemed to be rotting away.
He pressed the “up” arrow, and the old machine’s doors scraped open. Stepping inside, he held out his hand to me, smiling reassuringly.
“Come on now, these things were made to last.”
I resisted the urge to swat him and took his hand. He closed the gate behind me and squeezed my fingers, before pressing a button with the number 3 nearly rubbed off it.
I closed my eyes against the groans of the cable as we began our ascent.
Chapter Six
The doorknob was rusted through. The paint was all but completely peeled off of the wooden door, and despite the three locks, it looked all but sturdy. I could hear Jeremy's breathing accelerate beside me as we stepped out of the open elevator door, still holding hands. Apartment 300. The home of my ex, just another owner of a failed business.
I was suddenly aware of Jeremy staring at me. He smiled that same, encouraging smile, his eyes glinting with both fear and excitement. Suddenly, he leaned in and pressed his lips against my forehead. I breathed out in surprise, then closed my eyes and leaned against him. For one precious moment, everything almost seemed okay.
And then his lips lifted and it all came crashing back: my bakery, Derek, Randy... Everything was not okay. Not at all. But we were going to fix it.
"Promise me you'll stay close to me in there, okay?" he said quietly, cupping my face in his hands.
I nodded silently. With a deep breath and two long strides across the musty carpet, he was in front of the rotting door. Biting my lip nervously, I slowly inched up beside him just as he knocked on it.
"Po-" he began, then stopped short when the door slowly swung in with his touch.
Gingerly, he pushed it open. I shivered at the squeaking of the rusted hinges, and then I froze.
Sitting there on the floor, scared and wailing, was my Derek.
"Maisie, no!"
I didn't think; I just ran forward, reaching for my son. All I wanted was to hold him in my arms, to have him near me. Something flashed in the corner of my eye, and then everything went black.
My head hurt like high hell; even the darkness behind my eyelids seemed too bright. Groaning, I tried to shift my body, but something was stopping me. All I could do was wiggle my toes. I gritted my teeth. Jesus Christ, my head was exploding, and what on earth was that noise? And then everything came back. The shortbread, the apartment. Derek. My eyes shot open, and I nearly threw up, nauseated by the sight of all the lights. I recognized the sound now: it was my son. He was crying. I had to help him, I had to get to him, I had to-
"Time to get up, sunshine."
I breathed in sharply as I felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my neck. I tried to twist sharply to see who it was, but I was tied down, and all I could see was Jeremy tied to a cheap wooden chair next to me, silently begging me to stay still.
"You remember me, don't you?"
I looked around, far too aware of how close I was to hyperventilating. The room was practically bare, just a mini-fridge and the two chairs that we were tied to. The rest was just rotting walls and moth-infested carpets.
“Of course, I looked a bit different then, didn’t I? Just starting my career, thinking I had everything all sorted out.”
He came around in front of me, and suddenly the last thing I wanted was to see my ex-husband. If I saw him, everything would be all too real. Trying not to gag, I closed my eyes, but I could still smell the stench of cigarette smoke on his breath as he leaned in and whispered, “Don’t you want to see what you turned me into, Maisie Jones?”
Whimpering, I opened my eyes and saw Randy Peters for the first time in two years.
His eyes were harder than I remembered, and so sharp they could cut steel. His face, once cleanly shaven, was completely covered in knotted and mangled brown hair, not quite long enough to be a beard. He looked insane.
Randy grinned, and a terrifying chuckle erupted from his throat. This only made Derek shriek louder.
Scowling, Randy went to pick him up, but, terrified, the toddler tried to crawl away. Randy caught him, lifted him on his hip in triumph, and then yelped. Derek fell, and blood trickled from Randy’s hand.
“Damn kid,” he spat, sucking on his hand. “Don’t you know who your father is?”
I shook my head, crying.
“You’re not his father, Randy. You left us. You just got up and left!”
He gnashed his teeth, stomped up to me and smacked me across the face with his gun. My entire head ricocheted with pain as the metal hit my skull, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I desperately tried not to pass out.
“Watch how you talk to me, woman,” he growled, pointing his gun at my throat. “You ruined my life, and you are going to pay for it.”
“What the hell is your problem, man?” Jeremy shouted, straining against the duct tape that held him to the chair. “This was all your fault. You can’t blame your abandonment on her!”
Randy turned to him, his face twisting into a contorted version of a smile.
“Is that what she told you?” Randy seethed, slowly approaching Jeremy. “That I abandoned them? Well, let me tell you something about your little girlfriend, pal. As soon as things get rough, she will send you packing. If your job begins to fail, if you’re having a rough time, if you fail to meet her standards of being perfect, she will leave you in the trash.”
I looked away, my cheeks burning as Jeremy’s gaze burned a hole in my skull.
“Maisie?” He didn’t sound angry, just defeated.
Somehow that was even worse.
“He came home drunk every night,” I whispered, my head ringing in pain. “He would yell at me and snap at Derek for the smallest things. He was only one year old, but when Derek spilled his glass of milk, it was as if he had killed a man. I… I was scared, Jeremy. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear to raise my son in a house like that.”
“And so the truth comes to light.” Randy laughed grimly. “She doesn’t seem so perfect now, does she, Detective?”
I tried to catch Jeremy’s eye, but he refused to look at me. I closed my eyes, sobbing, and dropped my head.
“But this time, you don’t get to choose, Maisie,” Randy continued, seemingly delighted with himself. “This time it's Derek’s choice.”
He turned toward the little boy, whose brown eyes were soaked in tears. Randy waved the gun between me and Jeremy, grinning wickedly.
“Who’s going first, son?” he laughed, “Is it Mommy or Mommy’s little friend?”
Suddenly the door burst open, and Randy had one moment to look shocked before a dark red bullet hole appeared in the middle of his forehead. The gun fell from his hand and his body slumped forward.
Soft hands unwrapped the duct tape and I scrambled forward as soon as I was free, scooping my son into my arms. I rocked back and forth, both of us crying, until we were escorted out of the apartment by Detective Jordan.
Chapter Seven
I sat on the front step of Randy’s apartment building holding my sleeping son, a shock blanket wrapped around both of our shoulders. It was getting dark out, and a few stars had made their appearance. It seemed impossible that it had been just this morning when Jeremy had made me breakfast. I kissed Derek’s forehead, smiling down at his innocent face. The medics assured me he wouldn’t remember what happened, not at three years old. He was going to be just fine.
I heard a scuffle on the pavement, and I turned to see Jeremy sitting next to me. He stared straight ahead, his arms wrapped around his knees, and for a while neither of us spoke.
“Detective Jordan found out about my call to our tech expert and tailed us just in case,” he said finally, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. “He called for backup and came inside because we'd been in there so long. We would probably be dead right now, if it weren’t for him.”
I nodded. There was nothing to say. He wanted nothing to do with me, not after what he'd heard in the apartment. Not after I'd lied to him.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, desperate for forgiveness, “I’m sorry I lied. I just didn’t know how to tell you. It seemed like such a massive thing to let you know, and I-”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he interrupted, before I could burst into tears again. Rubbing my back, he continued, “I get it. That’s not something you can just tell anyone. You were right to throw Randy out: he wasn’t good for you. I mean, look at what he did. He wasn’t good for anyone.”
I smiled slightly, sighed, and leaned my head on his shoulder.
“Long day?” he asked, grinning as if he were proud of himself for coming up with that stupid joke. I hit him, grinning in spite of myself.
“ Maisie Jordan,” Jeremy said quietly, pushing my hair behind my ear.
I smiled and put my hand on his cheek, then leaned over and whispered in his ear,
“Thank you for everything.”
And there, on the concrete steps underneath the midnight sky, He kissed me.
A quick note from the author
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Tom Soule