by Vi Keeland
“Come on. Let’s get back on the road.”
There wasn’t much traffic, so we relaxed as we drove and shot the shit. It didn’t take long to catch up on Rip’s life. All he had left was his one daughter who lived in Seattle.
“How’s your lawyer lady doing?” he asked. “You tie that one up yet?”
My last letter to Rip had been a few days before everything went down with Ella and Max. Obviously, I had a ton to catch him up on. I didn’t really feel like talking about it, but there was no hiding from it when it was just the two of us in the car.
“That’s a long story,” I warned him.
He leaned back in his seat. “Got a few more hours to kill. Start at the beginning.”
So I did. Poor Rip spent the next hour shaking his head. He mostly stayed quiet, with a few “you got to be shittin’ me” responses thrown in—until I got to the part where I’d broken it off with Layla.
“I never told you why my Laura doesn’t talk to me anymore.”
Laura was Rip’s daughter. My eyes flashed to him and back to the road. “No. You never mentioned it.”
I knew the story about why he’d gotten sent to prison—how he’d wanted to help with his granddaughter’s medical bills, so he’d used his old-school printing shop to make fake Social Security cards. For a hundred dollars apiece, he’d cranked out more than a thousand phonies, all the while sending his daughter the cash anonymously. When he’d gotten arrested, his daughter had figured it out and stopped speaking to him. He’d never mentioned why, and I didn’t push.
“Sweet Daniella, God rest her soul, was sixteen when her heart started to fail. Eighteen when she became too critical to get out of bed anymore. She’d had a dozen surgeries since she was born, and they just couldn’t fix it. She needed a transplant. Most people think there’s one big waiting list for organs. There is, but there isn’t. You register with your transplant center. But you can register with more than one transplant center to try to increase your odds of getting an organ—it’s called multiple listing. But the insurance company only pays for one set of tests, and then there’s travel and hotels and everything that comes along with transporting a sick kid to a different facility. You need money.”
“I had no idea.”
“Yeah. Me neither. I knew my daughter wouldn’t take the money if she knew how I’d gotten it. So I sent it to her anonymously. Rich people do that sometimes. Hospitals call them medical angels.”
“Did she use the money?”
Rip looked down and shook his head. “Daniella had started to get real involved with her church group the last year of her life. And she’d made a lot of friends at the children’s hospital, kids who were also on organ lists. She didn’t want her mother to take the money because she thought money shouldn’t give one person an advantage over another. She had friends on the same list as she was who couldn’t afford to be on multiple lists. So my daughter wound up donating the money to the hospital’s uninsured children’s fund.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Laura had to go through losing Daniella alone while I was in prison for a crime I didn’t need to commit. She’ll come around eventually, I hope. But she’s mad that I didn’t communicate with her—never even asked how Daniella felt about being added to other lists. She says I just made the decision for her, as if I knew what she’d want.” He paused. “Sound familiar?”
I sighed. “I get your point. But it’s different. I’m trying to do what’s best for Layla.”
“And I was trying to do what was best for Daniella and Laura. But we don’t get to decide what’s best for other adults, son. They get to decide for themselves.”
I understood what he was saying. I really did. But sometimes people you love won’t do what’s best for them if it means hurting someone they care about.
“Let me ask you something. Would you do it all over again?”
“What? Get myself in trouble to save my granddaughter? Of course. I’d spend the rest of my life in that shithole you just picked me up from if it meant she could’ve lived longer. But…I’d talk to her before I did it this time. Maybe not tell her my plan, but I’d at least find out her wishes. Had I done that, I’d have saved us all a lot of heartache.”
We were quiet for a while after that. Rip stared out the window, lost in thought and no doubt enjoying his new freedom. I did what I’d been doing for a solid week—ruminated over my decision to end things with Layla.
When we got close to the city, Rip said, “I couldn’t get a space at the Y in Queens. They were filled up. So I got one at the Bronx Y. You can just drop me wherever you’re going. I’ll grab a train up to the Bronx.”
I’d almost forgotten that I hadn’t told Rip about the arrangements I’d made. “I got you a place.”
“Thanks. But I can’t stay with you. I need to get back on my feet. I have enough money to last me a month or two.”
“Wasn’t inviting you to stay with me,” I teased. “I got you your own place. In Queens. Bottom floor of a two-family house, not too far from where you used to live. First month is free. If you like the place, we can work it out so you do some work around the house and help the other tenant out here and there in exchange for rent.”
“That sounds too good to be true.”
“You haven’t met the other tenant yet…”
Chapter 34
* * *
Layla
“Law & Order is much more interesting,” Etta said. “No offense.”
I laughed. “None taken. Not much goes on in traffic court that’s too exciting.”
The cashier called next, and Etta and I went to the window to pay her fines. The ADA had agreed to drop the driving without a license tickets in exchange for Etta pleading guilty to an unsafe door opening and broken taillight ticket—both hefty fines but not moving violations.
Etta had laid her confused old lady act on so thick, the ADA actually apologized for having to hit her with something. The judge, on the other hand, saw through Etta’s charade and gave her a twenty-minute lecture. I was pretty sure Judge Peterson might be a year or two older than Etta. But it was taken care of, at least.
On our way out of the courthouse, we ran into Travis Burns, an attorney I hadn’t seen in a few years. We stopped to talk, and I introduced Etta.
“You look great,” he said.
“Thanks. So do you. What are you doing in traffic court?”
“Son of a VIP client got a DWI. You?”
I looked to Etta and smiled. “Etta’s a VIP, too.”
After a few minutes of chatting, Travis tilted his head. “Let’s get together soon. Catch up over drinks?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
Etta wasted no time commenting when we walked away. “He’s a real looker.”
“Travis is a nice guy. Good attorney, too.”
“Damn, Gray is an idiot.”
When I’d picked Etta up this morning, she’d told me Gray had visited the other day and told her about us. She’d said it was none of her business, but thought it was a shame. I’d thought maybe I’d evaded a longer conversation about what had transpired between Gray and me. But it seemed that thought had been premature.
Even though I thought his reason for breaking things off was bullshit, I tried to pretend I understood. “Our timing was just bad,” I said to Etta. “He’s got a lot going on.”
“Excuse my language, but that’s big bullshit. The man has his head up his ass. Life threw him a curveball. I get it. But you don’t stop swinging. You firm up your grip and smack it out of the park.”
We walked down the courthouse steps and headed over to the parking garage. I usually took the train to court in Queens, but I’d wanted to pick Etta up, so I drove.
“You have to want to be with someone enough to overcome any obstacles,” I said. “Gray didn’t.”
Etta stopped walking. “Is that what you think? That he didn’t love you enough?”
“I think it’s clear from his choice, Etta.”<
br />
She shook her head. “Dear, you know I’ve known that boy since he was in diapers. He’s loved three women in his life—his mother, God rest her soul, me, and you. He took three years in jail for a wife he cared about but never loved and married out of convenience. The man sacrifices for the people in his life like no other I’ve ever seen. That’s what breaking things off with you was, sweetheart. He has it in his head that keeping you is not fair to you, for some reason.”
We finished walking to the parking garage, found my car, and started on our way back to Etta’s. What she’d said kept running through my mind. I’d been so shocked and pissed over what Gray had pulled that I’d never really stopped to think that maybe he was doing it to set me free. A selfless act like that did seem like more of a Gray thing to do than a dump-and-run because he was “too busy.”
I drove the entire way to Etta’s house lost in thought. She must’ve known I needed to mull over what she’d said, because she gave me space. I pulled into her driveway just as a man walked out of her house. He seemed to be about her age and wore a pair of slippers to carry out a bag of garbage.
Oh wow. Etta has a boyfriend.
I smiled. “Looks like you have better luck with men than I do.”
Etta furrowed her brows and then realized what I’d thought. “That’s Rip,” she said with a laugh. “He’s renting the apartment downstairs.”
“Rip? As in Gray’s old bunkmate?”
“The one and only.”
Rip waved and walked to the passenger side of my car, opening the door for Etta.
He extended a hand to help her out, and I exited the car to say goodbye.
“Rip, this is….” Etta said.
He walked around the car and captured me in a bear hug. “I know who you are. Had to hear about you every day for long enough.”
I smiled. Gray had shared Rip’s story with me. The two men had a lot in common—both punished for things they did for other people. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too. Gray had said you were getting released soon. I didn’t realize it had happened.”
“Yep. Pretty Boy picked me up a few days ago. Set me up with a nice apartment to stay in, too.”
“Oh. Wow. Well, welcome home.”
Rip told Etta he was going to weed her garden and gave me another hug. “It was nice to finally meet you, Layla. I guess I’ll be seeing you around soon.”
I nodded, not wanting to explain that he probably wouldn’t be. Once he was out of earshot, I said to Etta, “I guess he doesn’t know.”
She smiled. “Oh, he knows. We had dinner with Gray the other night.”
I shook my head, confused.
Etta took my hand. “Let me tell you a little story. I think I already told you how me and my husband met—walked right into each other in the lobby of The Plaza Hotel—and how I once gave him the boot for a lie I’d caught him in. Well, he’s a man, so of course that wasn’t the only time he screwed up.
“In 1967, Henry was drafted into the Vietnam War. A few weeks before he was set to leave, he broke it off with me—told me he’d fallen for another woman and didn’t love me anymore. I was heartbroken. It took me about a year before I started to move on. Back then, women were old maids if they were single at twenty-five, and my mother had started to pressure me to get back out into the dating world. Eventually, I met Fred.” Etta looked down and smiled like she remembered him fondly. “Fred was a wonderful man. He treated me like a queen and made me smile at a time when I didn’t want to. I adored him. But…I never really loved him like I had Henry.”
“You married Henry, though, not Fred, right?”
Etta nodded. “Two years after I started dating Fred, he asked me to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner on my birthday. I had a feeling he might propose. I really cared for him. I knew he would make a wonderful husband. But it didn’t feel right, because I didn’t love Fred like I’d loved Henry.”
“Did Fred ask you to marry him?”
“He didn’t get the chance to. The night before my birthday, I went to The Plaza Hotel. It’s where I’d met Henry the very first time. His father was a doorman there, and I’d gone for lunch when my grandmother was in town. I’d always thought the place was magical. Just being in the lobby gave me goosebumps; it was so beautiful. So, I got all dressed up like I was going on a date, and I went and sat in the lobby for a few hours, thinking about what I’d do if Fred proposed the next night. I decided in that lobby that I couldn’t marry him, no matter how good of a catch he was. I would’ve been settling for Fred, and neither of us deserved that. After a few hours, I figured I’d go home. But you know what happened?”
“What?”
“I walked out the door at the exact same minute a certain man in uniform was walking in.”
My eyes widened. “Henry was walking in when you were walking out?”
“He most certainly was. He’d gotten discharged, and just that day he’d arrived back home. His dad didn’t work the door anymore. His knees had gone bad. Turned out, he’d become the hotel’s elevator operator. He spent his evenings sitting on a chair, so I hadn’t seen him, but Henry was coming to see his dad.”
“Wow. That’s so crazy.”
“It is, isn’t it? Eight million people in the city, and we were both at the same place right at that moment. Henry asked what I was doing there. And I explained I came to do some serious thinking about a man I’d been seeing for a while. I’ll skip the part where I made him grovel and just tell you Henry had broken things off with me because he was going to war and didn’t want me to waste years waiting for him when he didn’t know what he could offer me if and when he came home. Men were coming back not right back then—or worse, not coming back at all.”
“So you married Henry.”
“Eventually. I forgave him because he did have my best interests at heart—even though he acted like a jackass making that decision for both of us like he did. Next week would have been forty-five years. We couldn’t afford to get married at The Plaza, of course. But we went for drinks every year on our anniversary.”
I smiled. “Thank you for sharing that, Etta. But the situation with Gray isn’t quite the same, even though I know what you’re getting at.”
“I really hope it works out for you two, because once you’ve had true love, anything else feels like settling, and no one should ever settle when it comes to love.” She squeezed my hand. “Thank you for today, sweetheart.”
“Take care of yourself, Etta. You have my number if you need anything at all.”
Chapter 35
* * *
Gray
Everything was finally starting to smooth out, yet the calm only made me more miserable. Max came home from the hospital today, Ella and I had developed a routine, and two of my company’s first investments were doing great.
Of course it was a temporary step forward into smooth waters, because when Max was gone, the rocky waves would be back. I’d had a trial run at being a father, yet one that didn’t involve the death of the only parent my daughter had ever known. At some point I’d be the replacement twenty-four seven, no matter what.
But for now, the lull of smooth sailing had me second-guessing what I’d done with Layla. Or nine hundred and ninety-seventh-guessing might be more accurate. I’d looked at Ella like a burden to Layla—but the truth was, as I got to know my daughter and got the hang of things, I had started to wonder if maybe, over time, Layla would come not to see Ella as a burden either.
Ella was a blessing. Sure, there were plenty of tough times ahead. But yesterday we’d spent the entire day together, and somehow my little angel kept the miserableness inside of me at bay. Today I was alone, and I wanted to fucking kill someone. I hadn’t considered that she could make my life better—make mine and Layla’s lives better.
I was in no mood for company tonight, but Etta had invited me for dinner with her and Rip three times in the last week. I didn’t want to insult them both.
I let myself in with my key and stoppe
d on the stairs, overhearing the two of them talking.
“She’s a real looker,” Rip said. “Probably has a line around the block of men wanting to take her out now that she’s back on the market.”
“Smart, too. I didn’t see any other women in the courthouse looking like her. The man was very handsome. Had good posture. There’s nothing like a man who can carry himself well.”
I took the stairs two at a time. “I have a pretty good idea who the two of you are talking about from smart, a real looker, and courthouse, but I’d like to know who the asshole with good posture is.”
Etta and Rip looked at each other like they’d been caught in the middle of a robbery. Wide-eyed, Etta tried to sweep what I’d heard under the table.
“Zippy.” She walked over and kissed my cheek as I stood rigid, waiting for an answer. “I’m so happy the three of us were finally able to find time for another dinner.”
I shook Rip’s hand, looking him in the eye. “What’s the story here, Rip?”
He looked at Etta and shrugged apologetically before turning back to me. “Etta went to court with your girl last week. Some suit was trying to make time with her in the hall of the courthouse, asked her to go out for drinks.”
I clenched my teeth so hard, a headache immediately came on. “Who?”
Etta shook her head. “I don’t remember his name. But he was handsome. Sounded like they were friendly. He was a lawyer.”
“And she made plans to go out with him?”
“She was noncommittal at the courthouse.”
The muscles in my shoulders loosened marginally. But then some sort of a strange, silent communication took place between Etta and Rip.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.” Etta pointed to the kitchen. “I think I smell the bread burning.”
After she rushed to the kitchen, I looked at Rip again. “What else is there that the two of you aren’t telling me?”
He blew out a deep breath. “Etta got a statement in the mail from your girl’s firm yesterday. The fees were zeroed out. Layla had taken care of her stuff pro bono. Etta called the office to argue about getting a real bill, and when Layla wouldn’t agree to give her one, Etta told her she wanted to at least make her a nice dinner to say thank you.”