“I’m sure she won’t miss me,” I say. “After all, she’s got her mom and dad there.”
“Noah, don’t do this…”
I sigh and adjust my pants leg, which has lifted enough to show off my metal ankle joint. “I’m going, okay? I’m not angry—I just… I don’t want to be here anymore.”
She looks skeptical. Rightfully so.
“Do you need me to pick you up at the end?” I ask. Because I may be angry, but I’m not about to abandon them.
“No, we’ll find our way home.”
Of course they will. Theo will give them a ride. The thought of it is enough to make me consider staying, but I’ve already made my grand announcement, and to be honest, the thought of sitting through another hour of watching small children try to dance makes me want to stab myself in the eyeball.
“I’ll see you at home,” I tell her.
“I wish you’d stay,” she says in a small voice.
I shut my eyes for a moment. I want to stay too, if nothing else for Lily’s sake. But even though I believe her when she says it meant nothing, the fact that she hid it from me feels like a betrayal. I need to be away from her right now. Because even if she didn’t mean it, she made me look like an idiot. She had dinner with another man—one who clearly wants to be with her. I’m not willing to blow that off.
Chapter 31: Bailey
Noah is pissed.
And I can’t blame him. I went to dinner with my ex-husband. Worse, I didn’t tell him about it. Still worse, Theo is trying to win me back. If Noah knew that last part, he’d be a lot angrier—although I’m sure he at least must suspect the truth.
Why didn’t I tell him about the dinner? Honestly, I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. I was picking up Lily, and we got some food during the exchange. That’s all there was to it. It certainly wasn’t a “family dinner.” And yes, I did think there was a chance it might upset Noah if I told him about it, and I figured why upset him over something that was so insignificant? If I told him about it, that would make it into a bigger deal than it was.
Of course, now I wish I had told him. Obviously.
I’m not going to let anything like this happen again. If Theo wants to get dinner after this, that’s too damn bad. I’m taking Lily straight home. And I’m not accepting a ride from him either. We’ll take the bus.
I have to make this right.
I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as I walk down the stairs to see Lily during the dwindling intermission. When I get over to Lily’s table, Theo is sitting with her while she chatters excitedly. He lifts his eyes when I approach, and there’s a flicker of amusement on his face when he notices that I’m alone. That jerk knew exactly what he was doing. But I’m not going to get into it now—not in front of Lily.
“You were fantastic!” I tell my daughter. “I’m so proud of you!”
Lily beams at me. She looks like she’s going to say something, but then her mouth snaps shut and she frowns. Looks around. “Where’s Noah?”
“Oh.” I force a smile. “Honey, Noah had to go. He had to… um, work.”
“But it’s my dance recital!”
“Right, and he saw you dance. He thought you were wonderful!”
“But…” Her lower lip trembles. “He’s going to miss the finale! The finale is the best part.”
“Lily,” Theo says, “your parents are both here. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
She swipes a tear from her right eye. “I want Noah.”
I don’t get it. The whole time before the show, when Noah was actually here, she couldn’t get enough of her father. And now that Noah is gone, he’s all she wants.
“We’re going to get the video of the performance,” I tell her. We absolutely were not planning to get the video. It’s thirty bucks for under five minutes of Lily dancing. But I suppose now we have no choice. “So Noah will see you when he watches it!”
But it’s too late—Lily is sobbing now. At least I didn’t put mascara on her like she’d wanted, because it would be streaked down her cheeks. I pull her into my lap and rub her back. It makes me sad that in a couple of years, she’ll be too big for me to do that anymore.
“You can’t expect Noah to stay here the whole time, Lily,” Theo says. “He’s not your father. He’s got other priorities.”
I shoot Theo my dirtiest look. I would reach out and strangle him if Lily were listening to anything he was saying or if I weren’t ninety-nine percent sure Lily doesn’t know what “priorities” means. She’s already worried about being cast aside if we have more children—why feed into that?
And it’s so untrue. Noah loves his work, but Lily is definitely one of his top priorities. No matter how tired he is, he always makes time to read with her. He takes her to her dance classes. He even drove around late last night to find her a new pair of tights when she got a rip in her original pair. He’s made her a priority in ways that her real father never has.
“That’s not true,” I say to Lily. “Noah had some really important work today, and he put it off just so he could see you perform. He thought you were so great. He’s really proud of you.”
Lily sniffles loudly. “Really?”
“Uh huh.” I hug her skinny body close to mine. “And he’s so excited to see your finale on video. So you better do a good job!”
She manages a tiny smile. “Okay, Mommy.”
A voice blasts on the overhead speakers that the intermission will be over in five minutes, so I kiss Lily on the cheek and turn to leave. I know Theo must be at my heels, but I don’t even want to look at him right now. I’m finding another place to sit when I get back to the auditorium.
“Bailey!” His hand reaches my arm as I scale the second flight of steps to get to the main level. “Are you angry at me?”
I wait until I’m at the top to whirl around and glare at him. “Are you kidding me?”
“What? What did I do wrong?”
My cheeks are burning. “Why did you tell Noah that we went out to dinner?”
He shrugs, not looking the slightest bit guilty. “I didn’t know it was such a big secret. So what if we went out to dinner with Lily? Why didn’t you tell him?”
“You knew he would be upset!”
He levels his eyes to look right at me. “Bailey, you’re the one who agreed to go to dinner. You’re the one who kept it a secret from your wonderful fiancé. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
I hate that he is actually making some really good points. “Fine,” I say. “But we’re not going to dinner again. Ever.”
“Whatever you want.” He shrugs again, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. I had been annoyed with Noah for wanting us to dress nicely for the recital, but now that I see Theo in his beat up T-shirt and jeans with a hole in the left knee, I can’t help but think it’s disrespectful. “But I think it’s a shame Lily can’t have dinner with her parents together. It’s bad enough she has to go from home to home.”
“You know very well why it has to be this way,” I hiss at him. “You made it really clear when we got coffee the other day.”
“Because I want us to be a family again?” He purses his lips. “Yeah, I’m worse than Hitler for that one.”
I glance around. Almost everyone has gone back into the auditorium and we’re nearly all alone here in the lobby. I should get back inside.
“Listen,” Theo says, “I’m going to go outside and have a smoke. Can you text me when Lily’s going to come on?”
I want to make a comment about him starting up smoking again, but I bite my tongue. It’s none of my business what he does in his free time. “Fine.”
He nods and heads outside while I go back into the auditorium all alone.
Chapter 32: Noah
There are two things I do when I need to clear my head: go fishing and go to the gym.
Fishing is not something I can do spur of the moment on a Saturday afternoon, so I drive straight to the gym after leaving Lily’s recital
. I feel shitty that I left. I was pissed off at Bailey, but Lily has been talking about the finale for weeks, and now I’m missing it. Not that she’ll care—she’s so excited about her dad being there that she hardly noticed I showed up at all.
But even if she doesn’t notice, I’ll never forgive myself for bailing on Lily. I should have stayed. I’m worse than Theo.
I do my best to push that thought from my head as I grab the gym bag I’ve got stashed in the trunk of my 4Runner. I didn’t bring my wheelchair, which limits what I can do, and it means I’ll have to shower at home. But I can do weights and maybe the elliptical. Anything would help.
When I first started going to the gym after my injury, I always wore sweatpants. The stares I got when I wore shorts weren’t worth it. But I started getting overheated in the sweatpants and eventually decided I had to get over myself. I only wear shorts at the gym now. Let people stare.
I don’t like to think of myself as an exercise nut. I’m a good athlete, although I used to be better before. When I was in college, I ran a couple of half-marathons, but I preferred swimming—good thing, because it’s something I can still do now. I like the adrenaline rush of working out. I like the way my muscles ache the next day—it’s a healthy ache, completely unlike the pain I get in my right leg. I like the pain of a good workout.
I hit the rowing machine first. It’s a decent cardio workout that gets my heart pumping, and it builds muscle, although in all modesty, I’m already doing pretty good in that department. After half an hour, I’ve worked up a sweat, and although I still feel bad about what happened at the recital, it’s been pushed into the back of my mind. So what if Bailey got dragged along to a dinner with her ex? It wasn’t like it was an intimate candlelight dinner. I’m not going to overreact.
“Well, well, well, is this what the good doctor does on his day off?”
I complete my rep and look up. I blink a few times at the sight of Claire Morgan from the ER.
It’s bizarre seeing her here. I’ve never seen her out of the hospital. I’ve never seen her out of her scrubs. Well, that’s not entirely true since we did manage to get in a little naked time way back when, but I’ve never seen her in anything but her scrubs. Now she’s wearing a black tank top that stretches over her sports bra and leggings that cling to her slim thighs. Her blond hair is swept into a high ponytail.
“Hey, Claire.” I grab a towel to wipe sweat from my face. “What are you doing here?”
“Grocery shopping.”
I grin up at her. “I mean, I didn’t know you came to this gym.”
“Eh, it’s close to work.” She tugs at her tank top. “Also, there are lot of hot guys who work out here.”
“Yeah, that’s why I come here too.”
She laughs. “By the way, nice machines you got there.”
“Yeah. I always hit the rowing machine first.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I follow her gaze down to my legs. At my energy-storing feet stuffed into my Nike’s. At the metal pylons that make up my shins. At the computerized knee joints. “Yeah, I like them.”
“Kind of cool.”
I look back up at Claire. It’s so weird to see her here, out of the hospital environment. She looks great in that workout gear. It’s amazing she’s single. How are guys not tripping over themselves to go out with her?
“Anyway,” she says, “didn’t mean to disturb your workout, Doc. Just wanted to say hi.”
“Yeah…” I grab a towel to wipe away a bead of sweat that’s leaked from my hair. Suddenly, I feel embarrassed at the dampness of my hair and the vee of sweat on my T-shirt. “Hey, how come you never call me Noah?”
She blinks a few times. I’ve worked with her for four years and seen her naked, but I haven’t suggested she call me by my first name in a long time. I tried to get her to do it when we were hooking up, but she didn’t, and I finally gave up.
“I’m just trying to be professional,” she says.
“Right, well…” I tap a finger against my new thigh socket. “I think we can agree we failed at that so…”
A tiny smile plays on her lips. “I’ll tell you what, Doc. I’ll consider it.”
She turns around then and goes off to one of the ellipticals at the other end of the room. Claire is great, but I’m really glad she turned me down all those years ago. If she hadn’t, I almost certainly would have still been with her when I met Bailey again, and I wouldn’t be marrying the girl of my dreams in a couple of months.
Chapter 33: Bailey
Noah isn’t home when I get back with Lily.
I’m already feeling frazzled from the second half of the recital. It went on forever—group after group of little kids awkwardly dancing around the stage. But of course, I couldn’t leave because then I might miss the finale.
When the last number before the finale came onstage, I text Theo to come back inside. I’m not even sure why I bothered because he didn’t show up on time to see Lily march across the stage with her tap/ballet group, take a quick bow, then leave the stage (all totaling fifteen seconds). Instead, he materialized later in a cloud of cigarette smoke to tell Lily how great she was. In other words, he lied through his teeth.
And then he invited us both for ice cream.
If you are not a parent, you might not realize you cannot ever say the words “ice cream” without making ice cream happen. Kids won’t stand for it. So as soon as he says the words, Lily’s ears perk up and she is chanting, “Ice cream! Ice cream!”
But of course, I can’t do that to Noah. Not when he’s still pissed off over the Burgers and Cupcakes. And I’m sure Theo knew exactly what he was doing, which absolutely infuriated me.
We ended up getting a popsicle at one of the local deli-marts. Lily doesn’t stop crying until she’s unwrapped it and taken three bites.
So I’m at the end of my rope when we get back home. And the fact that Noah isn’t here, even though it’s well into the evening, makes me feel a lot worse. Where is he? Is he still mad at me?
Theo used to stay out all night when he was angry. No calls, no texts.
Actually, that happened a lot even when he wasn’t angry.
I pick up my phone, wanting to text Noah, but not sure if I should. We hardly ever fight, so I’m not entirely certain of the protocol. Should I let him have his space? Should I apologize?
But before I can debate it further, the lock turns in the door. And there he is—Noah. Dressed in his gym shorts and T-shirt, his face slightly flushed. When he sees me standing in the living room, one corner of his lips lifts.
“Oh, hey,” he says.
I can’t help myself. I drop my phone, race across the living room, and throw myself into his arms. He laughs and grabs onto the wall to keep from falling over.
“Hey,” he says. “Don’t hug me—I’m sweaty from the gym. I need to have a shower.”
“I just…” I pull away from him, swallowing a lump in my throat. “I missed you a lot after you left.”
If situations were reversed, Theo might have made some snarky comment about having my ex to keep me company, but Noah isn’t like that. Thank God. Instead, he just pulls me closer. “I missed you too. I shouldn’t have left. I overreacted.”
“No. I get it. But I still missed you.”
He lowers his lips onto mine. God, I wish Lily weren’t awake and in the next room. The hardest thing about having kids is that your boyfriend can’t ravish you whenever he feels like it.
“So how about dinner?” he asks me. “I’ll take you guys anywhere you want.”
“Well, Lily just filled up on ice cream,” I say.
“You bought her ice cream right before dinnertime?” Noah gives me an incredulous look as he pulls away from me. It’s obvious he’s going to be one of those parents who is not cool with the kids doing whatever they want. He thinks I let Lily watch far too much television, and he gets pissed off when I let dessert precede dinner. Which happens more than I’d like to admit.
“She was upset,” I explain. “It was the only way I could calm her down.”
“Great.”
“Well, Theo wanted to take us for ice cream,” I say weakly. “And I had to say no because… well, obviously. But of course, she really wanted to go, so…”
Noah is just shaking his head.
“Look,” I mutter, “it’s not the end of the world if she has dinner and dessert in the reverse order. If I want my daughter to have ice cream before dinner, then why not?”
“Yep.” His jaw tightens. “She’s your daughter, so… it’s entirely up to you.”
Damn it. I thought we had made up, but it seems like everything still isn’t quite back to normal. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
He stares at me for a moment, and then his shoulders sag. “I’m just going to order some pizza. Okay?”
“Okay. And for Lily—”
“Half plain. I know.”
He goes to call up Mike’s to get our pizza delivered. I know we’ve made up, but it doesn’t entirely feel that way. There will be a point where we settle into a family dynamic, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
Chapter 34: Noah
It’s a straight shot to get from our apartment to Theo’s studio using the subway. That’s what Bailey always does when she picks Lily up from his place.
For me, it’s not so easy. When I was in my twenties, I used to brave the subway, but now that I’m older and more cautious, I don’t attempt it anymore. Truth be told, it’s been two years since I’ve taken the subway.
The problem with the subway is there are stairs. Many, many stairs. Sometimes you get lucky and there’s an escalator, but usually it’s just lots and lots of stairs. I’m very slow at stairs, especially now. I used to map out the stations that had elevators, but you can’t count on that. Elevators break unexpectedly, and then you’re stuck at the bottom of five trillion stairs with no choice but to make the climb.
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