by Susan Ward
It hits me like a two-by-four between the eyes.
She is pregnant, and this woman is the mother of my child, for better or worse. And I can’t shut down my feelings for my own kid. It’s mine, and since the day she told me I’ve felt a growing connection to it. Then seeing it on the ultrasound and finding out it’s a girl locked me in.
It stuns me, but in this one way I’m exactly like my dad. This child owns me unlike anyone else. I’d walk through a minefield for her, and she’s not even born yet.
“Then you stay here. I’ll take another bedroom.”
Her mouth pouts but her eyes are gloating.
I hustle into the hallway.
My gut knots.
I’m married to a girl I despise because of a little girl I already love, and I’m not sure how I’m going to explain that to Willow. But I have to when I come clean about everything. She owns me, too, and it’d be wrong to keep us going without telling her the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Willow
“ARE YOU DONE, DAD?”
He nods without looking up and I reach for the tray. My hands shake and the bowl and cup rattle. It sounds loud in my ears, but I glance quickly to see if they’re aware, and neither of them notices.
Maybe I don’t look as panicky as my insides feel. The prickles run from my cheeks down my neck. Over and over again. The anxious churning of my stomach. I expected to have heard from Eric by this late in the day. I expected it to have been fixed by now.
At the bedroom door, I pause without looking back over my shoulder. “You need anything else, Dad?”
“Nothing, cabbage.” He sounds preoccupied.
Cabbage. I swallow down the lump in my throat. Even preoccupied going through the accounts with my sister before she heads for the airport, there’s always the endearment.
I feel someone staring at me and turn my head.
Jade’s studying me over the screen of her laptop.
She frowns. What’s wrong, Willow?
I hurry out the door to the kitchen. Letting go of the tray too quickly, the plates tumble off and crash into the sink.
My fingers curl as I try to bring to heel my rapid breathing and the pounding of my heart. It’s wrong to feel worried, guilty, afraid. Dad will understand everything when I explain. I know he will. It’s just that I’ve never done anything like this before and he’s going to be so disappointed in me.
I remind myself it’s going to be all right. I’m positive of that, even if my body refuses to believe that right now.
Carefully, I begin to pick the broken glass from the sink and set it on the counter. Anything not to hear them in my dad’s room discussing this. Or the inevitable moment when they discover what I did.
It’s not that bad. Temporary!
Dad wanted a full accounting on the bar before Jade and Gary head for the airport. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen today, but it was foolish to think that it wouldn’t. It’s the last thing my dad does with my sister before she hands the reins of the business back to him and returns to school.
Maybe I should call Eric. I’ve been texting him all day. After scooping the shattered plate into the trash, I turn, leaning against the counter, and take my cell from my pocket.
I almost hit call then stop myself. No, he’s with his family. He told me that’s where he’d be today. I tap into Messenger hoping there’s a reply from him. Nothing. I look at the last text I sent him. Maybe it’s too vague. Maybe he doesn’t know I’m freaking out and it’s an emergency.
I quickly type out another.
Willow: Hey, I know you’re tied up with family stuff, but I need to hear from you as soon as you can. Sorry!
I can’t stand how dramatic that is, but I quickly press send before I change my mind.
The sound of Jade and Dad talking can be heard above the running water as I wash the dishes I didn’t break. Why didn’t I close Dad’s door? Then I wouldn’t hear each word bringing me closer to kaboom.
I almost jump out of my skin when my phone beeps. Quickly wiping my sudsy hands off on my clothes, I swipe on my phone and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s from Eric.
Wait. What?
I rub my eyes then read it again.
Eric: Stop texting this number. Who is this?
My body goes cold. This has got to be a mistake. Yet it doesn’t feel that way. My body is cold and the prickles across my flesh are icy sharp, running from the top of my head to my toes.
Brushing my hair back from my face, I stare at my phone. Stupid, Willow. What you did is making you paranoid and jumpy over nothing.
Why am I wasting time on a few words I’m pretty sure were mis-texted to me?
Willow: I don’t think you meant that last text for me, but can you talk? Can I call? It’s important.
“Hey, Willow?”
The sound of Gary’s voice startles me and I nearly drop my phone. His eyes rapidly scan me, then he laughs.
“Tell Jade I’m just popping out to the store for smokes before we leave for the airport.” He leans against the doorframe, his brows crinkling. “You OK? What’s wrong? You’ve been quiet all day. Is it Jade and me getting married?”
I shake my head, anxious to get back to Eric. “No. I’m glad you and Jade are so happy.”
Gary’s mouth scrunches up. “You don’t sound happy for us. Nothing’s going to change, Willow. You can still live with us while you’re in school.”
“I know.” I force myself to smile so he’ll stop pressing me.
“Then why the long face?”
“I broke Dad’s dish, and you know how Jade can be.”
Gary chuckles. “She’s not that bad. And a dish is nothing. You’re wound too tight, soon-to-be sis. Lighten up. Tell her I’ll be back in five.”
I nod, and he smiles before he leaves. I hear the apartment door close and it’s followed by a beep that makes me jump.
Eric: Give me ten. I’ll call you.
That sounds cold, not at all like him. My anxiety amplifies. A thousand fears dart through my head. And all of a sudden he’s part of what I’m panicking over.
Ten minutes. I check the clock. It’s like my legs are going to buckle and I can feel myself close to tears. How the heck am I going to survive another ten minutes of this?
The wait is excruciating.
I struggle to breathe and not lose it.
Please, Eric, call before Dad finds out what I did.
I drop down on a chair at the kitchen table and cradle my head in my hands. My stomach turns repeatedly. My leg starts jiggling.
“Willow!”
The sound of Jade’s voice makes my entire body contract. I hear footsteps in the hall. She’s coming toward me.
This is it.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
Damn it, Eric. Call me!
“What have you done, Willow?” she hisses and drops the laptop on the table in front of me. “You’ve been taking the deposits to the bank after I give them to you, right?”
I tightly close my eyes.
I can’t look at her.
“Not exactly,” I manage through the lump in my throat.
“What the hell do you mean not exactly?”
“I may not have gone every day.” I force myself to lift my lids and see her. “For the last week or so I’ve been putting them inside my pillow instead of running to the drop box at night. I meant to take them, I just…”
I can’t finish. Not with how she’s staring at me.
Her eyes flash, widen, then narrow. “What aren’t you telling me, Willow? You do have the deposits, don’t you? Why are you like this if all you did was forget to take them to the bank?”
I can’t bring myself to answer her.
She looks utterly panicked now.
“You saw me go to the loan company today. Why didn’t you tell me? I paid the payment on the building this morning,” she exclaims. “Without those deposits there’s
not enough money to cover it. Where is the bank bag?”
“In my pillow,” I say in a whisper that’s almost soundless.
“Get it! Now! I need to run it to the bank today before it closes. Damn it. Gary and I might miss our plane.”
“There’s no point, Jade. I took six thousand from the bag to get Eric’s watch back from Mr. Tomlin’s shop.”
I see her barely contained fury stirred by that comment. She closes her eyes, running a hand through her hair.
“Damn it, Willow. What have you done?” barks the voice I never wanted to know this.
We both whirl around to see my dad standing just inside the kitchen. Scalding tears spill from my eyes, down my cheeks and chin.
“Please, Dad. Let me handle this. You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Jade says, rushing toward him.
My dad’s expression tightens. “I want to know what you girls have done.”
Jade flinches as hurt flashes in her eyes. I rush toward them. “Please, Dad. It wasn’t Jade. She didn’t do anything. It was me. I didn’t take the bag to the bank this morning. I couldn’t. Not yet.”
Now he looks angry and confused. “Why not yet, Willow?”
I take in a deep breath. “I borrowed six thousand out of it to help my boyfriend.”
The room turns painfully quiet. I avoid eye contact. Embarrassment and shame wash over me.
“Borrowed?” He says that like he doesn’t comprehend the word.
“How could you do that, Willow?” Jade moans in despair. “Risk the family business over some guy you don’t even know?”
“No,” I reply fiercely. “I used it for him, but he doesn’t know it. It’s a loan, Jade. I promise. He’ll send it to me the second I tell him what I did.”
Desperately I try to keep my emotions banked and my certainty up. It’s impossible with how they’re looking at me.
“Willow, how could you do that?” my dad bemoans. “We barely hang on as it is. This could ruin us.”
He’s sitting in a chair, looking broken, defeated.
“It won’t, Daddy. I promise. Eric will pay me back.”
“He’ll pay you back?” His face snaps up, his eyes flooded with emotion unlike any I’ve ever seen before. “Oh God, I should never have trusted either of you girls with our security.” His eyes lock on me and my heart stops. “You’re exactly like your mother. You think only of yourself and the guy you’ve got an itch for in the moment. She used to do the same thing. Take money from the till for the losers she ran off with, and when they left her, turn up on our front door again. I forgave her over and over. But not this time—”
My heart drops to the floor. “Daddy, what are you saying?” Misery twirls in my body, making me light-headed and dizzy. “He’ll pay us back. I promise.”
His jaw clenches as he shakes his head. “Go into the bedroom. Pack your bags. I want you out of here. Leave with Jade and Gary. And don’t ever show up at my door again.”
My mouth opens, but it’s my sister who says, “You can’t mean that.”
His hand slapping against the table makes us both spring back. “Don’t argue with me, Jade. Out. Both of you. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
The apartment feels achingly uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I’ve lived nowhere else. This is home. Only it doesn’t feel like home, not now.
I lean against my closed door limply, reeling from what Dad said while Jade hurries to pack a suitcase for me.
“You’ll leave for Virginia now, tonight, with Gary and me,” she mutters. “It’ll blow over, Willow. You know how he can get. He’s been ill. He’s not thinking right. It’s all that strain and worry bottled up. It just needed a release. That’s all that was, sweetie.”
I nod, but Dad’s never gotten like that before. I know he means it.
“When Eric calls, have him send the money,” she adds, brisk and efficient. “We’ll transfer it to the tavern account and it will all be OK. You’ll see. It doesn’t matter if the loan payment bounces. We’ll fix it. You’ve done nothing that can’t be fixed.”
How supportive she’s being brings into sharp focus how not right things are for my family because of me. She can pretend, but I know. I can feel it. Jade doesn’t think this will blow over. She’s afraid that Dad won’t ever forgive me.
As she puts her weight on my suitcase to get it shut, she asks, “He was going to call in ten minutes, right? How long has it been?”
My face scrunches up. “An hour.”
We lock eyes.
“It’s OK,” she assures me. “A few minutes late is nothing for a guy. Eric will call. I’m sure of it.”
If I had the will, I’d laugh at that. Jade being generous about Eric. We both know she doesn’t like him.
My phone rings.
We both freeze.
I check the screen.
Thank God.
FaceTime.
Eric.
By the time the image comes on the screen it’s like my heart’s punching out of my body. “Eric—”
“Who are you? You need to stop calling and texting. Please!” a voice pleads anxiously over my words.
I stare at her.
She stares at me.
Everything careening through my body feels like it’s crashed through my skin. I can’t feel the earth beneath me or the cell in my hand. I’m consumed by what stares back at me from the screen.
“Who are you?” I mumble as the room begins to spin.
She arches a perfectly shaped brown brow. “It’s you who should tell me who you are. Why are you on Eric’s phone? Why are you always calling and texting him?”
She brushes at the streaks of wetness on her cheeks, but her tearstained face is stunning. Even reeling in shock, I can see she’s everything I will never be. Perfect hair and body. Stylish clothes. The only thing we have in common is we’re both crying because of Eric.
“My name is Willow,” I mumble through numb lips.
“Oh. You’re Willow.” She says it like she knows who I am. “I’m Tara. By your expression, I don’t think you knew about me. I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have done that to you.”
I shake my head.
She sniffs. “I’m not angry with you. But this does need to stop. You can’t keep calling my husband. I’m trying the best I can to keep my marriage together. We’re having a baby in January. Can you please break it off with him? He’s my husband.”
She’s uncontrollably sobbing before the last word fades and I can’t rally a response through the shock.
His wife?
Eric has a wife?
And that other part—bile rises into my throat, gagging me—they’re having a child. Oh God.
I almost hang up the phone when Jade rips it from my hand. “Listen,” she says. “I’m sorry for your problems, but we have our own problems here. Your husband owes us six thousand dollars. We need to speak to him.”
Her red-lipped mouth makes a wide O. Jade looks at me and dread moves through my body.
“Put him on the phone,” Jade orders harshly.
Tara bursts out in revived tears. “Oh, how could he do this to you? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Jade shudders. “Don’t be sorry. Put him on the phone.”
“I’m sorry,” Tara moans. “He can’t pay you back that money. We can barely make ends meet for us. If I could, I’d send it to you. But I can’t. I’m sorry. Just leave us alone, please! I can’t take this stress. I’m pregnant.”
The screen goes black.
I collapse to sit on the bed. The pain is indescribable. Physical. Mental. In my soul. It is everywhere and everything. Like gears stripped raw inside me.
Oh—what have I done?
My gaze wanders to Jade. I don’t need to ask. I can see it on her face. But there is nothing that can compare to the devastation I feel. I curl up, my phone in my hand, and surrender myself to my anguish and grief.
Chapter Thirty-Ei
ght
Willow
Charlottesville
Ding.
I LOOK DOWN AT MY phone and see yet another message from Eric. Willow. Please talk to me, baby.
I’m shaking and my heart churns before I tap delete. Jade would be pissed if she knew about the nonstop texts each day for two weeks now. She would make me answer, get the money I need from him, then tell him off.
But I can’t. I don’t doubt I’ll shatter into a hundred pieces if I hear his voice again.
I need to stay strong, weather the ruin he’s brought to me and my life, and not fall back into the trap of him. It’s a trap going nowhere. He’s married. They’re having a baby.
Tears burn my eyes.
I shouldn’t still be crying.
I should hate him.
A minute later my phone rings. Hearing it kicks up my inner distress. I forgot to silence it. I push the button to red.
After the ringing stops, I wait, counting slowly to a hundred before I go to my voice mail. A new lit-up message from him.
I delete it unheard.
Setting the phone across my heart, I stare up at the ceiling. I hate my new room in Jade’s apartment. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish Dad would talk to me and I could drop out of school and go home. I wished Dad still loved me…
Fresh tears.
They burn as they roll down my cheeks.
Another ding. Inhaling deeply, I turn the screen and read. I love you. Please call.
There’s a knock on my door.
Probably Jade.
I ignore it, but it opens anyway.
“Willow, I’m running to the food court for pizza. Why don’t you join me? It’ll do you good to get out of this apartment.”
The air leaves my chest in rattling spurts. Dean. My new shadow, and I’m not dealing any better with him than I am with Eric.
Nothing’s changed for me. It’s not right that I let Dean hang around and continue to believe he’s got a shot with me. And it’s not right that I let another girl’s husband continue to chase me by call and text.
This miserable holding pattern must stop.
I sniffle. “Give me one second. I’ll go with you. I’ve got to do something first.”
Dean smiles. “I knew I could get you outta this room eventually.”