by Amber Lin
“Come in if you want.” I opened the door wide.
He tilted his head, trying to glance around me. “Are you sure? I figured I’d have to fight him just to talk to you.”
“He’s not here,” I said. His eyes met mine as he caught the finality in my tone.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He glanced behind him before stepping inside. In the living room he gave Bailey a curt nod of introduction. She gave him the cryptic message, “bagel,” before turning back to her show.
I poured him a cup of coffee, and we sat down at the dining room table.
He contemplated the black liquid. “Was it because of…”
“Yes,” I said. Colin had left because of what had happened that night. I’d fucked up, or he just didn’t trust me anymore, but either way it was over. “You really like her, huh?”
He glanced up, his eyes hooded. “Who?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“What did she say about me?” he asked cautiously.
“She said—” She said you two had never had sex, paid or otherwise. It made me wonder why you’d never paid for it if you like her. But then, we all have our hang-ups. “She said you guys weren’t a couple.”
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “I guess that’s right.”
“Did she move there for you? In with Philip?”
He paused, then shrugged. “I never know why she does what she does.”
“But you think it’s your fault she got shot,” I mused.
The guilt that flashed in his eyes said I was right.
“If it’s any consolation, I think she likes you back.”
“Thanks.” He grimaced. “Could be worse, right?”
We sat there, both of us rejected, trying to imagine what could be worse. Aside from death or grievous injury, there didn’t seem to be much, but that was the kind of morning it was. The morning after a breakup.
“There was something else. We found this at the site. Shelly told me it was yours.” He pulled an envelope from his back pocket and slid it over to me. I didn’t even know how he’d sat down with that in his back pocket, it was so thick. I recognized it, of course. It was filled with money, unless someone had taken it.
“It should all be there,” he said. “But you should count it.”
I didn’t even know how much had been in there to begin with, how much money Colin had wanted to give me so that I could run away with Bailey after betraying him. Flicking open the flap, I saw the green, crisp bills.
Blood money, or was it? No, it wasn’t born of hate or violence but something nicer. Jacob had started the little fund when he’d given me the money he’d been going to use for the lawyer. Then Colin had taken it, only to return it at the warehouse with even more money. They’d both wanted me to be safe. I slapped it shut.
“I’m sorry about the way it happened,” he murmured. “And about my partner. He was a troubled person. Not that I’m making excuses for him.”
“What do you mean was? What is he now?”
He looked surprised. “You didn’t hear?”
Oh God, Colin, what did you do? “Tell me.”
“He got hit by a car. Dead on arrival.”
“When?”
“That night. He was running across a three-lane highway. Even at night he didn’t have a chance. I guess he was trying to get out of the area. He’d have been exposed after that.”
Cameron took his leave after that. I didn’t show him out, just sat dumbly at the table.
Explosions and gunshots and this guy ends up hit by a car. What were the odds?
Accidents happened.
But then, Colin had taken off after him. Had he caught him and fought with him? An image flashed through my mind of the man cornered, possibly injured, deliberately steered into a busy street he had no hope of crossing. Colin hadn’t struck the killing blow; that had been done by a ton of steel, but he might have played a part.
Did I even care if he had? I’d been so adamant that he shouldn’t be involved in anything criminal, anything violent, but I knew as well as anyone that being innocent couldn’t protect us. It just made us more vulnerable. And aside from Cameron, for whom I had a grudging respect, I had no love for cops.
That guy would have killed us. He’d certainly tried and almost succeeded. I couldn’t find anything inside me that minded that this guy was dead, or that Colin might have pursued him literally to death. Maybe that made me a monster, or maybe it just made me human.
I delayed packing by putting away the dishes and laundry. They had to be done, I reasoned, so I might as well do them first.
And then at noon, something happened.
The delivery arrived. Colin had the Oasis start delivering lunch for the three of us when I had first been injured. I shouldn’t have to cook, and he wanted to watch over me, so we ordered in. A definite benefit to owning a restaurant.
It wasn’t the delivery that surprised me. I had hardly expected Colin to run around town, letting everyone know we were through, publicly severing ties. He wouldn’t even have thought of something so small as a lunch delivery.
No, I accepted the large paper bag with thanks, not surprised in the least. Since Colin had always taken the deliveries, I introduced myself to the delivery boy.
Though he had to be at least sixteen, Kai seemed more a boy than a man. He was young and black and overly polite, as if making up for any rude, young black men I’d ever encountered. I drew the line at ma’am. He refused to call me Allie, so we settled on Ms. Winters.
The surprising part was that there were only two meals in the bag, one for me and a child-sized portion for Bailey, which meant he had changed the order. Perhaps he had even been at the restaurant and sent the food himself.
A little jolt raced through me.
It felt like a message of some sort, this deliberate delivery of food from a man who’d always tried to give me food or drink even that first night. What if it was a peace offering?
It could mean nothing, but it could also mean everything. I couldn’t ignore it. What if he was, at this moment, sitting in that tiny little office down the hallway of his restaurant, waiting for a response from me? I had to try.
And if he was at his restaurant, then I had the perfect excuse to go and see him. Unfortunately, since Colin had insisted on doing the grocery shopping after the injury, we had no ingredients.
Leaving the food from the restaurant to cool on the counters, I rushed to the grocery store with Bailey and threw just enough ingredients to make a double chocolate cake into a basket. The checkout lines weren’t all that long, but I still tapped my foot. Bailey puttered about in the section with little toys they always used to entice small, bored children. I decided it was their own fault if she knocked them all over.
I didn’t have much hope that this would solve my problems with Colin, but at least I could do something. Baking had always served that purpose for me. Put in the right ingredients and it turned out right, not like life. And when it was done, I’d get to see Colin.
“Got a party or something?” the man behind me asked.
I turned back to see a man with his own basket, his smile kind.
“Something like that,” I said. “Making a cake for a friend.”
“Oh, what kind?” He peered into my basket, with special emphasis on my left ringless hand holding it.
“Nothing too fancy,” I said. “A double chocolate cake.”
“Sounds great. I like a woman who can bake.”
I laughed at the blunt caveman statement. It was clearly a sort of pickup line, but it wasn’t accompanied with a lascivious sneer or anything. Bake wasn’t a euphemism. He just liked a woman who could bake.
“Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee sometime?” he asked.
He looked to be maybe in his midthirties, with the kind of body that had once been thick with muscle but was now thick with padding. His age didn’t bother me, even though he’d be substantially older. His ch
ubby body didn’t bother me in the slightest. It was maybe what Colin would look like, several years down the road.
He just wasn’t Colin.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m…attached.”
Disappointment tinged his good-natured smile. “No problem. Gave it a shot.”
I returned home with Bailey, bemused. I’d never been hit on before when I’d been out with her. What man would want to take on a young woman with a young child, except a self-destructive guy with a hero complex like Colin? This guy had, though. I wondered now if maybe I hadn’t been giving off a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe all along. Thinking the worst of men and only seeing what fit into my ugly little expectations.
It probably also helped that the grocery store near Colin’s house was quite a bit nicer than the one near my old apartment. It was clean and stocked, and I’d never yet found dirty diapers in the carts.
Over the hour it took to make the cake, let it cool, and apply the frosting, Bailey nodded off. I tucked her into bed and asked Linda to watch her for me.
I marched into the restaurant and straight back to the office. I was a woman on a mission, the cake my Trojan horse. Colin opened the door. His face was pale and drawn, older than I’d ever seen it. His appearance shocked me into forgetting my purpose.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
His tired eyes looked me over. He was ancient today. “What do you need?”
I’d made a mistake. It hadn’t been a message, or if it had, the message had been to stay away. A good-bye enchilada with a side of “it’s not you, it’s me” rice.
I shrugged the cake box, a bulky movement. “I just brought this for the restaurant. Like we agreed, that’s all. Unless you didn’t want it. Then I could—”
“I’ll take it,” he said, taking the box from me. He didn’t sound happy about it, but then he didn’t sound mad. More flat, more distant, like he had a cold. Though I knew he didn’t, or at least he hadn’t last night.
I stood in front of him with no further reason to be there but unable to walk away. “Are you coming home?”
“No.” Not anytime soon, I understood.
Why, why, why, played in my head, but this wasn’t the place. He’d removed himself from the place just to avoid that discussion. Still, I was confused.
“Do you want me to move out?” I asked.
“No,” he said sharply.
I waited for him to say unless I wanted to. If I wanted to leave, then I should, and that would be my cue. The way a nice guy, a guy who’s unable to properly break up with me, would do it, but he didn’t say it.
“Okay.” Tiring, despairing, I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “I want you to stay there. And you…you could keep sending these. Maybe…maybe send them back with Kai.”
I stopped and glanced back. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “Nothing fancy. Don’t work too hard.”
I firmly resisted the urge to mimic don’t work too hard back to him. He was the one who looked about ready to fall over from exhaustion. Had he even slept? That wasn’t my concern. He didn’t want it to be.
We resolved nothing, really.
* * * *
I dragged myself home. The one high point was that Colin hadn’t wanted me to leave, which had to mean there was some hope for us. Or maybe he just pitied me. Either way, I wasn’t really up to tackling a new apartment so close on the heels of the encounter with Philip, and this was a reprieve.
Linda was reading a book to a sleepy-eyed Bailey when I got home.
“She woke up just after you left,” she said apologetically.
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
She looked up at my dull tone. “That man of yours at work?”
A blush heated my face. “Yes.” At least it was true. I left out the part about him not planning on coming home.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you go on upstairs? Take a little nap or read a book or something. I’ve got her covered.”
Grateful, I trudged up the stairs. I soaked in a hot bath, letting the sweat and steam bead on my face before I pulled myself back out. After throwing on some clothes, I looked inside his closet. Beside the space he’d emptied, there was a row of shirts. Collared things that I almost never saw him wear. And underneath, slacks and jeans. In the drawers I found undershirts and socks and underwear.
I knew all this was here, of course. He’d gratefully relinquished laundry duty to me since my first days here. I only ever looked at these sections, of course, not what was on the top shelf.
It took me a minute to find a stool downstairs and then lug it back up. Shoe boxes filled with receipts and bills. They looked like they had to do with the restaurant, which fit, since any Philip-related papers were probably in his tinderbox of a mansion.
I set that back on the high shelf and rummaged through some folded blankets and sheets. At the very end, in the corner and under some winter clothes, was a file folder marked “Marge” in Colin’s square lettering.
I slid it open and found a Registered Claim and Deed granted to Colin James Murphy. Was this where he was staying? It didn’t seem likely. Based on the zip code, I guessed it to be out by Wolf Lake, about an hour’s drive from here.
I was going to find out. Maybe because I deserved answers, and Colin was too damned reserved to ever give them to me. Or maybe because I cared about him enough to push, in the same way he’d pushed me at the beginning. And plus, I was incredibly curious about the man I loved.
Even more thankful that Linda had stayed on for Bailey’s dinner, I got in my car. I passed through the neighborhood streets of Oak Park, out across Chicago’s urban jungle to the remote plains near the lake.
A faded sign marked my arrival. HUNTER’S GLEN TRAILER PARK. Rows of metallic and off-white trailers suffocated among the debris around them. Plots that were little more than dirt and a few stray weeds were marked by white, jagged rocks. If this was a glen, then I was a debutante, but I could believe people hunted in the swamps around the lake.
I hadn’t known Chicago had anything like this, so country. But then, it was barely there at all. As my car jostled over the gravel path, I noticed several trailers had their windows smashed in to darkened rooms. Only a man slumped against the side of one told me that this place hadn’t been entirely abandoned. His eyes were yellow. And his teeth, when he bared them to me. In a smile or a threat, I wasn’t sure.
At the end of the path there was a smaller sign staked into the ground. EUROPEAN FORTUNE TELLING $10.
Though a few of them seemed like they might be lived in, I was hesitant to go knocking on doors. Neither did I want to check back with the man I’d seen on the way. The fortune-teller seemed like the safest bet.
I got out of the car and wove through the path of junk. The furniture and car parts made me think the plot was used as storage. The pink metal flamingos and numerous gnomes made the area seem more deliberate, more decorous, like a poor person’s sculpture garden.
I knocked and was rewarded with a raspy, “Come in.”
When I opened the door, I was met with a beaded curtain. Not wooden beads or jewel tones like I might have expected, but hot pink plastic beads, like the kind that go on Mardi Gras necklaces. I parted the strings to walk into the smokiest room I’d ever smelled. Piles of newspapers and dishes crowded in on me.
“You want your fortune told, missy?” came from the corner, in a voice that grated like the gravel I’d just come from.
I blinked through the mist of smoke and dust, trying to see. “No, I was looking for…well, I wasn’t exactly sure, but—”
“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, sounds like you do need your fortune told, eh?” She cackled. I was pretty sure it was a she.
“I found out this place was owned by someone. Someone I know—”
“You know Colin?” she interrupted.
“Yes, he’s—”
“What you want with the boy?”
He hadn’t been a boy in some time, b
ut the fact that she seemed to know him and thought of him that way said a lot. “Well, he’s my boyfriend. Or he was. And I guess I—”
“Girl, you’s barking up the wrong tree with that one.”
I didn’t know who this lady was, but that really wasn’t the message I wanted to hear. Thank goodness I didn’t believe in psychics, especially not her.
“I wonder if you could just tell me how you know him,” I said quickly to ward off another interruption.
She huffed. “I know everything about him. I practically raised the boy.”
Holy shit. I thought back to the papers I’d found in Philip’s study. He’d been orphaned, they’d said, so she couldn’t be his mother. Maybe a foster parent? If they’d been placing kids in this dump, they must have been in a bad way.
She leaned forward from the shadows. Her face was a map of neglect with its many wrinkled tributaries and sunken eyes. “I’m his aunt.”
I looked around the tiny trailer. I saw two doors leading off, though one might have led to a bathroom. There definitely didn’t seem to be enough room for the three siblings.
“Where did all of you stay?” I asked.
“All of us?” she barked. “I only had that one. Oh, they tried pushing the other two brats on me, but I told them, them two’s too messed up in the head after what they’d been through. Ain’t gonna spend my time on that, have them stealing from me. Colin, though, he was young enough, and they didn’t much touch him. So I took him in, like family does.”
I just stared at her, trying to find some hint of recognition, that she knew how heinous what she’d just said was, but found nothing. She’d taken Colin in, like family does, but had rejected the other two because they’d been abused? With family like that, who needed enemies?
And then I applied that story to Colin, and even Philip and Rose, and my heart broke. I couldn’t even think of Philip and Rose, whatever they had been through with their parents, and then having their aunt turn them away. And Colin, trapped here in this pit of a home, without his siblings. How lonely he must have been. How miserable.
I could understand better now why a bachelor like him had such an airy, open house even when he hadn’t needed it. And maybe I also understood what Bailey and I had offered him. Something he hadn’t really had before—a family.