Billionaire Neighbor

by Lulu Pratt

  “I didn’t really realize how much Alexis did around the house until…”

  I know what Ethan is saying even though he just lets the sentence die off.

  “Well, she was home, wasn’t she?” It occurs to me that I don’t even really know what my sister’s life was like before she died. I’d cut her and Ethan out of my own life so completely, so ruthlessly, that even Mom, who never quite gave up on the idea of one day seeing me and Alexis reconcile, knew better than to broach the topic of my sister beyond the most basic news.

  “Yeah, she was,” Ethan says. He looks exhausted, and I can’t blame him. It has to have been one of the worst weeks of his life, trying to keep the house at least clean enough to be safe for a toddler, trying to keep himself fed, and working his normal hours, on top of losing his wife.

  I feel a little stirring of sympathy for a man who I once swore I would hate for the rest of my life and I don’t even know whether I should let myself feel it or stifle it completely.

  “You should get a maid,” I tell him. I laughed at the idea when he mentioned it, because it just seemed so ridiculous, but if there’s no one but him and Riley at the house, and he’s having to work extra hours through the week to have a three-day weekend, then I can see the benefit.

  “I can get my parents at least to help out with getting groceries and stuff,” Ethan says absently. “I mean, they have to go to the grocery store anyway, I can just give them money and have them take my list.”

  “I could, too,” I point out. I don’t even know why I’m volunteering to get more involved than I’m meant to, but I reason to myself that making sure that Riley’s home is comfortable and well-stocked is just as much part of helping to raise her as actually spending time with her is.

  “I thought you didn’t want to be too involved,” Ethan counters.

  I shrug.

  “I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be seeing you outside of taking care of Riley,” I say. It sounds cold to my ears, but I have to say it anyway. You can’t let your guard down. He still betrayed you. He still hooked up with your sister. No amount of pity for his current situation is enough to reverse what he did to me, what my sister did to me.

  “Right,” Ethan says. I look at him, but there’s no hint of teasing in his voice, there’s no sign that he takes what I said anything other than completely seriously.

  “Anyway, we should probably figure out what to do about doctors’ appointments and stuff,” I say, switching back to the safest possible topic, the little girl we’re both responsible for raising.

  We talk more about the logistics of how two people living in separate towns and houses are going to raise a child together, and take turns eating our own food and helping Riley eat hers, and even as I’m leaving to go back to my apartment, to finish setting everything up to have my first day working from home on Tuesday, with my niece staying with me, I’m completely and totally confused about how to feel.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ETHAN

  I pull into the parking lot outside of Lara’s apartment building, barely awake, just alert enough to be able to drive safely. I drink a gulp of coffee and look around for a parking spot. The first full week of our new schedule is coming to a close, and I’m just happy that I’ll have three days with my little girl, and no work to worry about.

  I find a spot relatively close to the entrance of the building and pull into it, looking to make sure it’s actually a guest spot. I got yelled at by one of the security guys the first time I parked in Lara’s lot. I put the car in park and glance in the back seat to make sure it’s clear for Riley’s car seat.

  I finish my coffee, shut off the engine, and get out of the car. It’ll only take me about thirty minutes to get back to the house, and if I’m lucky, Lara is already feeding Riley. I’ll be able to get my daughter home, and she’ll get a nap, and then we can play for a while. It’ll be a nice, restful weekend after a damned stressful week.

  It isn’t until I’m knocking on Lara’s door that it occurs to me to think about how weird it is that I’m at her place at all, or that twice this week Lara’s been to the house Alexis and I bought together when we got married. We’re obviously going to have to tighten the schedule. Yesterday I nearly ended up late for work because I just hadn’t figured on how much the morning traffic, combined with dropping Riley off at Lara’s place, would throw off my drive. But so far it looks like things are going to go more or less smoothly, however weird the whole situation is.

  The door opens, and Lara is right there in front of me, her dark hair messy and her face a little tired-looking, but her eyes are bright, and I can’t help but notice that the front of her tank top is damp, and she doesn’t seem to be wearing anything underneath it. She pulls the sweater she’s got on over that to cover herself, and I look away, feeling ashamed.

  “Riley’s just finishing breakfast,” Lara says quickly, letting me into her apartment. I follow her and see my daughter, seated in her high chair, banging on the tray in front of it. She has some yogurt smeared around her mouth, and I can’t help but smile.

  “Looks like a good breakfast,” I say, sitting down.

  “Can I get you something? A cup of coffee?” In spite of how awkward things are between us, there’s this weird kind of polite thing that both Lara and I seem to have decided to try without speaking of it. When she picked up Riley from my place I made sure she had coffee and something to eat, and the times I’ve come to pick up my daughter, whether it’s in the evening or in the morning, she’s offered me something.

  “I just finished a cup, actually,” I say, picking up the spoon on my daughter’s high chair tray to help her feed herself.

  “I’ve got some oatmeal if you’re hungry,” Lara says.

  I shrug. “I’ll eat some,” I tell her. Normally Riley eats a little more properly if other people are eating too.

  Lara fixes me a bowl of oatmeal and sits down at the table. Riley’s learning new words at a crazy rate, and she babbles at the two of us in between messy bites of food, throwing words out without really paying much attention to whether they make sense or not.

  “Any plans for the weekend?”

  I shrug again, taking a bite of my oatmeal. Lara sets down a glass of orange juice without asking if I want it or not, and I take a sip.

  “We might go to the park,” I say. I need to meet with some people about the headstone for Alexis’ grave today, and I’ve got a meeting at the bank tomorrow to finally formally take her name off the account. Our lawyer’s been organizing a lot of the details of what he calls “the estate,” which always chills me, thinking of my wife as an ‘estate,’ but there’s stuff that I actually have to do in person, and the weekend is the only time I’ve really got to do it.

  “Sounds like fun,” Lara says. She gets up again and grabs a towel off the ring next to the sink, and I watch her get a corner of it wet before bringing it to Riley’s high chair to mop at my daughter’s face. “Oh! I meant to tell you, if you need me to pick anything up for the week, I can drop it off on Tuesday when I pick her up.”

  “You deserve a few days to relax,” I point out. It’s obvious to me that the whole situation is taking a bit of a toll on Lara as much as it is on me, and I have to think that it can’t be that easy for her to work from home when she has to watch Riley. She’s probably working into the night.

  “I’ll have the actual weekend,” Lara says.

  “You have to go in today, right?” I look her up and down, she doesn’t look like someone who’s about to start the morning commute.

  “I’m going in at ten,” Lara explains.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to think of something to say to that. It’s been ages since we really talked on a normal basis, and I’ve seen her more in the past week than in at least six years. In the last year I’d only seen her at her mom’s funeral and then at Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, before Alexis died.

  “Anyway, like I said, if you need me to bring anything to the house, let me k
now,” she says.

  “Right, yeah. I will,” I tell her.

  “Ann-Lara! Ann-Lara!” It’s as close as Riley gets to “Aunt Lara”, which Alexis had wanted Riley to call her, and Lara ignores me in favor of my daughter at the call.

  “What is it, Riley-baby?”

  I take advantage of the moment to myself to eat a little more oatmeal and drink some orange juice.

  “Love you!” Riley giggles at the success of distracting her aunt, and I grin to myself.

  “I love you too, Riley-baby,” Lara says, and I can hear it in her voice. The way she sounds talking to my daughter is totally different from how she sounds talking to anyone else, even her own father. But I guess that makes sense, her father isn’t a baby. But there’s a kind of love in her voice, and on her face, that I just can’t imagine anyone else being on the receiving end of.

  “Up? Up?” Riley looks up at Lara hopefully and Lara shakes her head.

  “Two more bites of oatmeal and you can get up,” Lara says. She sounds so much like Alexis in that moment, firm, but caring, and warm, that it wakes up the dull ache deep down between my ribs and sharpens it into something like a knife. I close my eyes and wait for the pain to return to its regular dull throb.

  “Okay,” Riley says, pouting slightly.

  I help Riley finish her breakfast, and then Lara takes the tray away, bringing it to the sink while I unfasten the belt holding my daughter into her chair and lift her out of it. I give my little girl a kiss and a hug, and clean her up a bit. Obviously, Lara gave her a good bath the night before, judging by the sweet smell of her skin and hair, so I won’t have to worry about that.

  I gather the diaper bag, make sure Riley and I aren’t leaving anything behind that we’ll end up needing over the weekend, and even though I know I’ve got a ton of shit to do today, and obviously, Lara needs to get ready for work, I can’t help wanting to linger. I hadn’t counted on how different the house would be without Alexis in it. I keep expecting to turn a corner and see her playing with Riley, or hear her call for me to get the laundry out of the dryer, or to take the trash out.

  Even if things are incredibly awkward between Lara and me, at least her apartment isn’t haunted. At least she’s another adult I can talk to.

  “I’ll see you on Tuesday, I guess,” I say finally, making sure that Riley’s secure in the carrier that doubles as her car seat insert.

  “Yep, see you then,” Lara says. I try to think of an excuse to stay for a few more minutes, just to talk, maybe even about the weird haunted feeling I have in the house when alone with Riley, but there’s no point in it. I just have to go. I pick up the diaper bag, and my daughter, and Lara unlocks her apartment door and opens it for me to leave.

  Chapter Fourteen

  LARA

  I turn off the burner on the stove and step back, looking over everything. Riley is in her playpen in the living room, babbling to herself as she plays with some new toys we bought at the store during my break earlier in the day.

  “Okay, he should be here any time now,” I mutter to myself, looking around the kitchen. I’ve thrown together a quick meal. Once again Ethan has to work late, and it’ll be easier to keep Riley on the right schedule for him to eat at my place, along with his daughter, before going home.

  It’s weird to me how, in the span of four weeks, this has become normal. On Monday I go into the office and go to meetings, and set my schedule for the rest of the week, cramming as much work as I possibly can into the day. Tuesday, I pick Riley up from Ethan’s house and bring her back to my apartment, and the day flies by between playing and caring for her and getting as much of my work done as possible while she’s napping or occupied. Then, by mutual agreement, I drop her back off at home with Ethan that evening. Wednesday, this morning, Ethan drops Riley off with me on his way out to the work-site, and then picks her up at the end of the day on his way home. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Ethan’s place in the morning, pick Riley up, and keep her until Friday morning, when Ethan will pick her up and I’ll get ready for work.

  There’s a knock at the door and Riley calls out from her playpen. Even she knows that it’s her dad, even though we’ve only done this for two weeks. She’s ceased even asking about her mother. I’m sure either Ethan or I will have to deal with the subject eventually, but I’m sure it’s a relief for him not to have to answer her questions about when she’ll see Alexis again. It’s questions he can’t even really answer, because at nineteen months old there’s no way for Riley to understand her mother being dead, or even that she’s just not coming back.

  I open the door and Ethan comes in. It’s obviously been a tough day at work, and it’s seven-thirty at night, so he’s been working for the better part of almost twelve hours. He’s in a pair of jeans and a plaid work shirt with a denim jacket on over it, and his hair is plastered against his head from sweat. He still looks like a defeated man and I can’t blame him.

  “Hey,” I say, letting him into the apartment and closing the door behind him.

  “How’s my best girl?” He goes directly into the living room where Riley has abandoned her playing to hold up her arms and cry out that she wants “up” in her chirpiest voice.

  “She’s been very good today,” I say, locking the apartment door. I step over to the stove and check on dinner.

  I’d figured that it would be a long day for Ethan, and it was a pretty long day for me too, even though Riley was on her best behavior. She went down for her nap like a good girl in the morning and the afternoon, so I’d made a casserole, and some green beans, and a salad. I don’t even know what kind of food Ethan eats, but I figure there has to be something he’ll manage in the whole deal.

  “Whatever you’re cooking smells amazing,” Ethan tells me from the living room.

  “It should be pretty good,” I say, bringing the pot from the stove to a trivet on the table.

  “What’s she had to eat so far today?”

  I look at the notepad on the refrigerator door where I keep track of all the stuff that Ethan will need to know from the times I take care of his daughter.

  “We had eggs and toast for breakfast, a morning snack of apples and peanut butter. For lunch, she had tuna salad, and some pretzels about two hours ago,” I reply.

  “Thanks, you seem to be getting the hang of this co-parent thing quickly,” Ethan tells me as he settles Riley in her high chair.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m obsessive about doing it right,” I counter.

  “This looks good,” Ethan says, sitting down at the table next to my niece. I open the fridge and get the half-empty bottle of white wine out, along with some milk for Riley.

  “What do you want to drink?” It feels weird to have Ethan sitting at my table, to be serving him dinner, but we agreed that in addition to the fact that it would be better to keep Riley on a schedule for meals, it would be good to try to keep things as normal for her as possible, and that meant sitting for meals together when we can.

  “Water, please,” Ethan says.

  “Watah, peas,” Riley copies.

  I chuckle. “You’re going to have milk, my little turtle-dove,” I tell her. “The yummy strawberry milk you like.”

  I mix her strawberry milk and put it in her sippy cup, and get Ethan a glass of water and pour myself a glass of wine. I won’t be minding her, and I managed to get most of my work done, so I feel like I’ve earned it.

  “Thanks,” Ethan says as I finally sit down at the table. He serves Riley little portions of everything.

  “I don’t know if she’ll like the salad,” I say.

  “It’s good for her to try it, though,” Ethan points out, and I nod.

  I’ve found — to my surprise, since Alexis was always kind of a picky eater — that Riley’s willing to eat just about anything I put in front of her.

  We settle in to eat and while Ethan chatters with Riley and I occasionally fill in the details he needs to know, I think about how bizarre my life has become. I’m taking care of my s
ister’s daughter three days a week, talking to a man who I swore I would never ever even say more than “hello” to in my life. I still haven’t forgiven him for what he and Alexis did, but it’s as obvious now as it was the week of my sister’s death how tough this has been on him. I can’t help but feel a little bad for him, even if there’s a part of me that I’m pretty sure will always hate him a little bit.

  By the time Ethan has Riley in her car seat, and they’re heading out to go home, she’s almost ready to go to sleep for the night, and I’m not all that far behind her. I never realized when I was entertaining my niece during my two visits back home, and then the week around Easter, what it would be like to constantly be responsible for a child for hours at a time, especially while I’m trying to work.

  “Thank you, Lara,” Ethan says at the door. I shrug.

  “I’m just doing what I need to do,” I say, giving him a tired smile. I think better of smiling at him, but I’m too exhausted to stop myself.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Ethan suggests.

  “You will indeed,” I tell him.

  He looks for a second like he’s going to say something else, but then he shakes his head and tells a drowsy Riley that they’re going for a ride.

  They leave, and I put away the leftovers. Ethan actually ate more of the salad than I thought he would, and I have just enough of dinner left to have on Friday night, when I definitely won’t want to cook anything from scratch. I clean the kitchen a bit and make sure to spray down the tray from Riley’s high chair, leaving it to dry on the dish rack. It’s weird, it really is, how normal this has become, and I still don’t know how to feel about how much I now have to interact with the last man on the planet I want to even speak to.

  After I have cleaned and had a second glass of wine I decide to take a shower as I need to relax. Looking after a child is no easy task and a shower is the perfect way to chill.

  The apartment is quiet without Riley and Ethan and although I like the silence, I miss the company.