by Karr, Kim
* * *
To: Jace Bennett
From: Amanda Woodward
Re: I’m Here
In case it wasn’t clear at our meeting this afternoon, I’m Here isn’t for sale right now. If I gave the impression of otherwise, I must apologize.
Until we meet again,
Amanda
* * *
As I read each word one more time, I felt my body going live wire. My temperament had to be tamed. I took a deep breath and blew it out, but before I could do it again my cell phone started to ring.
“Jace,” I answered shortly without glancing at the screen.
“Mr. Bennett, this is Mrs. Sherman. Is this a good time?”
I took another slow breath. “Yes, yes, of course. How’s Scarlett?”
“That’s why I’m calling. When I picked her up from school today, she was crying.”
My heart stopped. “Why?”
“I’m not certain, sir, she won’t say.”
I sat up in my chair, my frown deepening. “Let me talk to her.”
“Just one moment.”
A few seconds later, Scarlett’s sweet voice came over the line. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, princess. Mrs. Sherman told me you were sad when she picked you up today. Why?”
“No reason.”
“Scarlett, you know you can tell me anything, right?”
“It’s not a big deal, Daddy.”
Like her mother, she also hated to cause trouble. “I’m sure it isn’t, but how about you tell me anyway?”
With a sigh, she said, “Well, there was this new boy at school today, and he made fun of my hair.”
The features on my face screwed out of place as I picked up the picture on my desk of Tricia and zeroed in on her auburn locks. The ones I loved to run my fingers through and the ones that always looked like she’d never brushed them. I think that hair is the first thing I ever noticed about her. And Scarlett had the identical hair, right down to the tangles and auburn color. “Made fun of your hair, how?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
She hiccupped a little, and I hated she had been crying. “He said it looked like I plugged my finger into a light socket.”
Anger splintered my mind. “He said what?”
“Daddy, it’s no big deal. I’m fine now,” she insisted.
I set the picture down on my desk. “I know you are, princess. And you know you have the hair of an angel, right?”
That made her giggle. “Daddy, I have my mommy’s hair, not the hair of an angel.”
I shifted a little in my chair and looked at the picture again. “Silly me. You’re right, princess.”
“What time are you coming home?” she asked.
“I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“Promise?” Her voice sounded doubtful.
“Promise,” I said.
“Okay, Daddy, then while we eat, I’ll tell you all about my day. My teacher is really nice, and today we got all of our supplies. I want to tell you all about them.”
“Sounds like a date.”
“Bye, Daddy,” she said.
My eyes were still on Tricia’s auburn locks. “Scarlett,” I stopped her.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“What was the boy’s name?”
She hymned and hawed.
“Please, princess.”
“I think it was Jonah. Yes, Jonah. Why Daddy?”
It’s not like I could tell her I was about to set this kid’s parents straight. “I was just curious.”
Hey, I was.
“I love you,” she said.
“Love you more,” I answered, and then hung up.
Leaning back in my chair, I steepled my fingers together and couldn’t stop the wheels from turning in my brain because they were already in motion.
The low growl that rumbled in my throat as I opened the school’s website was one I had to swallow back. I knew I had to calm the fuck down as I entered my password and clicked on the parent directory, but I couldn’t seem to regulate my breathing no matter how hard I tried.
Scanning the list, I saw there was only one Jonah in Scarlett’s class. Below it was the name of a single parent. H. Crestfall was listed along with a physical and email address.
The single name meant single parent. This was something I knew all too well.
Regardless, this boy’s parent, father or mother, or parents, if that was the case, needed to teach his or her or their kid some manners.
I was so up in my head that before I knew it, I was reaching for the phone, telling my secretary I was leaving early, and then I was rising out of my chair and storming down the hall.
Heading to Lincoln Park via a stop off in Lakeview wasn’t that far out of my way, and since I was leaving early, I’d be home for dinner as promised.
Stop the bullying and keep my promise . . .
Now that was priceless.
Present Day
Jace Bennett
WAITING AROUND WAS never my thing.
I was wired to address things head on. Sidestepping the issue was for pussies, or that was what I had always believed. Tricia had tried to tame me. She wasn’t the first one to try to help me deal with my misplaced anger and easily triggered temper.
There were things I’d learned before I met Tricia that served me well. Deep breathing techniques had always been most effective, as well as taking a minute to reconsider my actions. Tricia expanded on those tools and tried to stress the importance of not being able to undo what had been done.
You can’t go back.
None of my coping mechanisms were working at the moment, and by the time I made it to the parking garage, I was no longer thinking about calming down or the fallout of what I was about to do.
No one was going to upset my daughter, not if I had something to say about it.
The BMW 7 series was parked in my usual spot. After I unlocked the driver’s side door, I tossed my briefcase on the passenger seat and plugged the address from the directory into the navigation system. I wasn’t that familiar with the neighborhood the house was in, but I knew it well enough.
The area was nice. A lot of homes that needed fixing up just like Lincoln Park. The difference, the houses weren’t as big, so they didn’t cost as much. The upside, most of the lots were larger, providing a lot more privacy.
Not that it was that far from The Preston School, it was probably closer than my house, but I didn’t know many people who came from Lakeview to Lincoln Park for schooling, since the Emblem Academy was located there.
Then again, you had to shell out a pretty penny for that school, and maybe this family didn’t have that or find it worth the investment or care for the politics.
Who the fuck knew, and who the fuck cared. All that mattered was that my little girl did not come home crying ever again.
Blaring the Sex Pistols, I hopped on I-90 just as if I were headed to my house in Lincoln Park. As I started north, I wondered if I should call Fiona and ask her for advice on how to handle the situation, but in the end I decided against it. She’d probably tell me to go through proper channels. To start by emailing the teacher or the parent. That was too much bureaucracy for me. It would take too long. I wanted the situation addressed now.
This was something I needed to handle myself.
In my own way.
And besides, my friendship with Fiona was still on unstable ground, even after all the time that had passed. She pretended it wasn’t, but we both knew it was, and there was nothing I could do to undo what had been done.
You can’t go back.
Our relationship had grown during the weeks and months following the death of my wife, and somehow I had allowed it to grow further than I should have. Relying on her more than I should have. Telling her things I probably should have kept to myself. Using her as a shoulder to cry on.
The three-month period that happened as a result of that connection wasn’t anything I had expected and nothing I planned to re-live.
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Ever again.
Six Months Earlier
Jace Bennett
TO THE UNTRAINED ear, every Ramones song sounded exactly the same.
They were all fast, short, wickedly funny and deceptively simple. But the hardcores like me knew the truth: no two songs are the same. “Wart Hog” sounded nothing like “Judy Is a Punk,” and “I Remember You” was about as far away from “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” as one could imagine.
“Pet Cemetery” was playing as I stared at the picture of Tricia and me with Scarlett in our front yard the day we brought Scarlett home from the hospital. It was exactly one hundred and thirty-three days after the one-year anniversary of Tricia’s death. I counted the days that way. I wasn’t sure why.
I was feeling restless, unable to concentrate. My eyes bounced from the striped wallpaper, distressed wooden floors, fabric chairs, and finally down at the large onyx desk where my laptop was perched. Everything mixed and matched in such a way it was undeniable that they were selected with coordination in mind.
The entire house was the exact same way. Every room decorated with care and understanding. Comfort and logic. Luxury and frills.
No expense was spared.
I was glad I could give her that.
Tricia and I had purchased the brownstone right before we married. The place was old and needed a shit ton of work. I wanted to pass on the house, but Tricia saw potential she couldn’t pass up. I imagined it was how she felt about me when we first met. A little broken, but with some tender-loving care she knew she could put it back together, just as she had me.
At first we were both too busy with our careers to bother with redoing it. Flirt was just making great strides, and her interior design job brought her so much satisfaction, she couldn’t let it go.
But as soon as we found out she was pregnant, she decided it was time to quit. During those nine months before Scarlett was born, she coordinated the complete renovation of our home and was certain to include every modern convenience. She knew what I liked and never cut corners.
I focused on working, or wanted to be. I started to tap on my keyboard, but stroke after stroke no coherent words would form. My mind was trapped in the days of the construction and the nuance of coming home to her every night.
The knock on the door was light.
A quick glance out the window from my office told me it was Ethan. His car was parked in the drive. The visit was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
I looked at the clock. It was ten. I was up. I was always up—working. He knew that.
As soon as he walked in, I could tell he was twitchy and nervous. It wasn’t so much unlike him, and I honestly paid little attention. Scarlett was fast asleep, so I turned the speakers in the living room on, allowing the Ramones to play quietly through them, and then grabbed us both a beer before taking a seat.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
With a beer in his hand, Ethan stood. “I have something I want to discuss with you.”
I raised a brow. “Sounds serious. What is it?”
Ethan took a few steps toward the window, and then turned back to me. “Remember that girl from MSU?”
I tensed. By saying that girl, I knew exactly whom he was referring to. She was my first love, but she belonged to Ethan first. Although technically I had met her before him, I had lost her, literally. “Yeah, of course I do.”
He was pacing now. “She was smoking hot, right?”
I nodded. She was so much more than that, but Ethan wasn’t aware of just how much, and the past was better left in the past.
He stopped pacing and looked right at me. “And Fiona is smoking hot too, don’t you think?”
Setting my beer down, I let out a forced laugh. “Yeah, of course I do, but she’s your wife, man. I really don’t think about her that way.”
A shaky palm ran through his blonde hair. “What if I told you I wanted to do with Fiona what we did with her?”
“You want me to fuck your wife?”
Ethan hesitated and seemed to ponder this. “Well, maybe not exactly the same thing as we did back then. No intercourse, but other things.”
Lost for words, I got to my feet and strode past him to look out the window. The threesome had gotten out of control. She and I were spending more and more time together, and Ethan less. It was fucked up and messy, but I knew he had never seen it that way. The guilt had stayed with me, though.
I looked over my shoulder. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
His response was immediate. There was no hesitation that time. “Fiona wants to know what it is like, and I want to give her that. I want to make her happy. Make us both happy.”
Christ. Was he for real? Here I thought he had changed so much since college, but it didn’t look like he had. I shot him a glance. “No fucking way.”
Ethan strode over and stood beside me, arms crossed. “Why not?”
I turned toward him. “Because Fiona is your wife.”
Those eyes of his narrowed. “And she was my girlfriend. That didn’t stop you back then.”
Chaos swarmed me. I gulped for air. We hadn’t talked about her since everything ended. “Ethan, come on, man, you know this is different.”
“Yeah, I do. This time it’s all on me. And this time there won’t be any going behind my back.”
I stared at him. The son of bitch knew. He actually knew. That same old guilt hit me hard. And yet I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I shook my head, no.
His gaze narrowed. “You owe me this, man,” he said quietly.
I stopped shaking my head.
“And besides,” he went on, “it’s not like you won’t be getting something out of it, your wrist must be getting tired.” That last part he said with a snicker.
“Fuck you,” I spat back.
That was the same as saying yes about Fiona.
Present Day
Jace Bennett
FUCKING CHICAGO TRAFFIC.
I really hated it.
Finally, I moved past the jam, and when I did, I floored the gas.
Joining Ethan and Fiona for those three months had satisfied a basic sexual need, but at the same time, the situation made me feel even emptier.
I knew it was wrong.
I would never have allowed another man to touch my wife. Shit, I really had changed. Don’t get me wrong, I got why Ethan had done it, still it had to be hard.
And I hated that.
Even though Fiona and I never fucked, we did everything else, and this time I made certain Ethan was always with us. We shared her, gave her everything she wanted, made her feel like a queen.
Eventually I couldn’t do it anymore. Things had to end. And then the perfect out came along. I let Fiona think she was setting me up with a teacher from The Preston School, and the threesome ended.
The truth was, I wanted it to end. The whole thing made me feel more alone than I actually was when I was alone. And as for the teacher, I took her out once and brought her back to her house, where I explained to her that I was not ready to move on. I never called her again.
Fiona and I acted like everything was the way it had been before, and I think in her mind it was. For me though, I felt like the more I leaned on her, the more I shouldn’t.
False vibes.
Guilt.
I still had no idea why.
Then again my psyche had been fucked up since I was ten.
I passed the exit for Washington Boulevard, the one I would have taken if I were going home, and continued north to confront the parent or maybe parents of the child who had made my daughter cry.
The closer I got, the more I started to second-guess my decision. Maybe I should take it up with the school, or the teacher first? Maybe I should go through the email process like Fiona would tell me to do?
Fuck that.
What if Scarlett came home tomorrow crying again, then I’d want to punch myself in the face for not addressing the issue head on. She’d already lost
so much in her life, I couldn’t bear for her to hurt over anything, especially when it was something I could control.
That was when I turned up the music and turned off my thoughts.
Ten minutes later I was pulling up in front of a rather large yellow two-story house with a front porch and stone pillars. It had a charm about it I couldn’t shake. It was also in desperate need of some yard maintenance. The grass was about four inches too high and the bushes completely overgrown. The driveway led to a standalone garage in the back, and it too had weeds growing from the cracks of the concrete.
The SOLD sign told the story.
I didn’t know or care what that story was.
On the front porch were a number of kids’ toys. A bicycle, a Nerf football, and a pair of roller skates that looked well used. Jonah’s I assumed. The kid suddenly became real, and I considered driving right past the house.
He was only a kid.
Yeah, a kid who made my daughter cry.
I didn’t leave.
Instead, I parked my BMW on the street and opened the car door. With each step I took toward the newly painted porch stairs, I inhaled a deep breath. I could be reasonable and respectful. I wouldn’t accuse, I’d simply inform. The parent or parents could then address the issue with the child.
That sounded like the most mature approach. I felt a little proud of myself that I had calmed down and wasn’t gunning for the jugular.
The bottom line was, I’d want to know if my daughter had made someone cry on his or her first day of school.
When I reached the front door, it was open, and the only barrier was the flimsy screen door that if I had to guess, wasn’t locked. I could hear the Clash playing from inside, and I had to force myself not to smile. Another punk rock enthusiast. Interesting. I didn’t come across them very often.
Standing there, I glanced inside. There were boxes everywhere. Moving in or out, I hadn’t a clue. Didn’t really care.
Ringing the doorbell, I waited patiently and didn’t pound on door the way I had envisioned myself doing.