Watching Ryan try not to stutter makes my own breath hitch.
“Mommy. Draw her on a dragon.”
Ryan focuses on me, his stare assessing, turning from cool to hot. “Hmm. Drawing your m-mom will be complicated. I’ll start on the dragon and take it home and finish the rest, okay?”
Diego is enraptured as he watches Ryan sketch. “Nice wing.”
I move closer to see. It is an excellent wing, the scales on it almost three-dimensional. Ryan’s a talented sketcher.
“He’s good, Mom. Not like you.”
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus, kid.”
“Be nice to your poor mother,” Ryan tells him.
“No, I really can’t draw. At all. If I had to draw a horse, it would be a circle with four sticks coming out of it.”
When Diego laughs, a whistle escapes from the gap left by his missing tooth.
“We’re done for t-today,” Ryan says, packing his things.
Diego jumps off his chair. “Can I get a juice?”
“Say thank you to Ryan first,” I tell him.
Diego turns his most sincere face on Ryan. “Thanks.”
Ryan high-fives him. “Good work today.”
Diego’s feet pound into the kitchen, followed by the sound of the refrigerator being rummaged through.
“Close the fridge all the way,” I call to him as he runs out the back door to play.
“Thanks for today,” I tell Ryan, interrupting him as he’s about to leave. “You did a great job with his tantrum.”
“He’s not that d-difficult.”
“He gets frustrated.”
Ryan sets his bag down like he’s going to stay for a minute. “Everyone does. I used to h-hate speech therapy, so I can relate. ‘Smooth out your s-speech, Ryan, speak on the exhale.’ Ugh.”
“Yeah, but I worry . . .” I let the sentence die because I want to bury the topic. Forever.
“About what?”
When I don’t say anything, he persists. “Maybe it’s s-something I should know.”
“I’m scared Diego might get Marco’s condition when he’s older.”
“Which is what?”
“Borderline personality disorder. In a nutshell, he has a hard time controlling his emotions and he hates himself for it, which makes it worse.”
That doesn’t even begin to cover it, but it will have to do.
“Eventually, his anger and suspicion took over everything in our lives. I was the only person he trusted, so he started clawing at me like a lifeline, and I was drowning.”
The panic is setting in—lungs seizing, mind lurching, heart pounding like I’m dying.
Ryan grabs my arms and steadies me. “You d-don’t have to talk about it.”
But that’s the terrible thing: I want to talk about it, with Ryan and no one else.
“He got so possessive that I could barely leave the house for work. His anger could be terrifying. I begged him to get help, but he wouldn’t.”
I tell myself to shut my mouth and stop talking, but my pain is a force now and there’s no reckoning with it. It’s going to sweep over me and carry me where it will.
“One night, he got his mom to babysit and took me out to dinner. To make up for how hard everything had been, he said. Turns out I went to high school with the waiter, so we started chatting. Marco got furious, irrational. He stood up and punched this guy. Kept punching him. Broke his nose, then his jaw, and he still didn’t stop. And all I could do was scream and scream for help.”
I cover my mouth to stop the sickness rising in my throat, brought on by the memories of the iron smell of blood and the dull thud of a fist pounding flesh.
Ryan puts his hands on my shoulders, his face twisting in empathy. I know he doesn’t expect me to go on, but I have to. For some inexplicable reason, I need him to know.
“I had warned Marco’s family he couldn’t control his anger anymore. He never hit me or Diego, but I had seen it building. They didn’t believe me. But the night he exploded—that was it. It was all over. Our marriage, everything.”
“Was he arrested?”
I nod. “It was the best thing that could have happened to him. He was evaluated and the judge sentenced him to treatment and probation.”
“And now?”
“He’s stable, and he works hard to stay that way. But I think he’s still on the edge. His family hates me. They’re in denial about how sick he is, and they want me to take him back, but I can’t.”
“Did you ever consider it?”
My desperation to make Ryan understand chokes my voice. “No. We made a mistake getting married. I was willing to live with that, but his anger . . . I won’t take that risk. Not with Diego. Nobody lived with Marco at his worst. They don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Of course you d-did the right thing.” He runs a hand down my shoulder to soothe me.
That stops me in my tracks because it sounds a whole lot like he’s brushing off how hard my decision was. “There’s no of course about it. I made a vow and I broke it.”
“You were super b-brave to know when to get out.”
How do I explain to someone who’s never been married what that promise means? “Don’t make me into some kind of hero. There were no winners. We’re all victims of this illness—especially Marco.”
“S-sorry.” His face twists into a frustrated frown. “I’m oversimplifying.”
“No, I’m sorry.” I pull back from him. “I can’t expect you to understand. I shouldn’t lay all this on you.” As if Ryan needs a deep dive into mental illness.
He frowns. “I wouldn’t ask if I d-didn’t want to know. And I do understand, or I’m t-trying to.”
“I made a lot of mistakes. I shouldn’t have enabled him for so long, and I disappointed a lot of people, so it’d be better if you didn’t romanticize me.”
Ryan puts his hands on his hips. “I have a tendency to do that. A lot.”
“With everyone?”
“Only p-people I admire.”
He can’t know how hard that hits me. After years of being made to feel like a quitter—a failure—I didn’t know how good admiration would feel.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Ryan says. “So, those people judging you—they can g-go to hell.”
He has boiled a load of guilt down to one simple truth.
“Thanks,” I tell him, able to breathe again now that my story is over.
“You’re welcome. Now about this d-drawing . . .”
He points down to his dragon, and I’m relieved by the change of subject.
“You m-may have to model for me so I can get this right. I’ll n-need you in a Viking costume for authenticity.”
Oh, he doesn’t get to be funny, too. As if thoughtful and kind weren’t bad enough. What other sides are there to him? I want to dig right to the core of him until I find out.
I shake my head. “Don’t flirt. It only makes it more difficult to keep my distance.”
He puts a hand on my chin. My face automatically tilts up toward his, like a flower seeking sunlight.
“You c-call this keeping your distance? You’re lying to yourself, Eva.”
He’s right; I just told this man one of the most personal things about me. What good is staying away from Ryan physically if I can’t detach from him emotionally?
He strokes my chin. “The way you’re l-looking at me . . .”
“Don’t.” I wish my stupid heart weren’t racing.
“Diego and I g-get along great. Maybe he won’t mind if we’re d-dating.”
He means well, but he has no idea how complicated children are. “I wish it were that simple.”
“We c-can find a way.”
I want to believe him. More than anything.
He grabs the drawing. “I’m n-not giving up until we do.”
Chapter 11: Ryan
I don’t stand a chance of getting my mind off of Eva if I continue to sit here doing paperwork. The front of the café is
hopping with customers, so I take over on the register. Unfortunately, I could do this part of the job in my sleep and thoughts of Eva sneak back in like the Grinch on Christmas Eve.
Eva, who totally called me on my annoying tendency to idealize the women I’m interested in.
She wants me to see her flaws? Fine. She’s defensive and suspicious sometimes. She’s also a bit of a martyr, the way she drags around her guilt from the divorce.
Still, I love her honesty and the way she lets me root around inside her head. She wants me to understand her, not just desire her. That’s sexy as hell.
The bell on the door rings as two teenage boys come in. One of them is wearing jeans so tight I doubt he can bend over, and the other is in blue loafers. They pay for their coffee with spare change—mostly dimes. I give them a chocolate chip cookie on the house.
“Thanks, dude,” blue loafers says, making me feel super old.
I put the money in the cash register, while I try to find a solution to my problem with Eva.
If she doesn’t want to sneak around, and she doesn’t want Diego to get hurt, isn’t the answer simple? We need to be in a committed relationship. No half-assing it.
But what kind of idiot tries to jump from one-night stand to boyfriend in one straight shot?
Me. Totally.
I think about those summer days hanging out at the beach with Jude. He’d lay in the sun checking out girls while I looked for seashells. He used to tease me that I’d walk over jagged rocks barefoot to get the perfect shell.
But that’s because when you’ve lost as much as I have, you don’t shy away from opportunity because of a little pain.
“Two vanilla lattes,” the next guy in line says. “And a chocolate croissant warmed up, please.”
I enter that in the register and then look up. “Would you like . . .”
My words flop and die like a fish out of water. My arms start to tingle and my lips feel numb. There’s an older man standing in front of me, and his eyes are blue—like the Mediterranean, like sapphires. Like Jude’s.
I’ve seen my father only once, from a distance. That was the day Jude drove to our dad’s house to spy on him, and I followed without Jude knowing. Both of us sat there in separate cars, like idiots, watching this man go in and out of his house, oblivious to us. Not giving a shit that we existed.
Now, my father’s wife is standing next to him, looking at me. She’s not prettier than Mom was. She’s short, normal looking.
I glance back at him, into those goddamn eyes, my hands sweating.
When I finally look down, he’s extending his hand toward me with his card clutched in it. How long has he been holding it out like that?
“I’m sorry. Do you not take credit cards?” he asks in a deep voice, similar to mine.
I grab his card and swipe it.
“This is a cute place,” his wife says, looking around like she’s a tourist.
“Why don’t you get a table, honey.” He gives her a kiss on the cheek. I notice every detail: the pucker of his lips, the way her mouth turns up at the corner when he makes contact.
I stand there, waiting for the credit card to process, having nothing and everything to say to him.
His fingers tap out an indistinct beat on the counter, as I avoid his eyes and the credit card machine takes its sweet time.
“You worked here long?” he finally asks.
Not for anything do I want to make small talk. “Off and on f-for a couple years. I go to school at State.” Why I volunteered that information, I have no idea.
There’s a silvery quality to the air, like I’m not actually here—like this is a dream and my father isn’t standing in front of me asking about my life, as though he’s interested.
“Oh yeah? What are you studying?”
“I’m getting my t-teaching credential.”
“Good for you. I taught for twenty years. I’m a vice principal now.”
My hands start shaking so badly that I reach over to get his croissant as a distraction.
The credit card receipt is finally printing, so I hand it to him along with his card. “I’ll b-bring y-your order out t-t-to you.”
No matter how hard I try, my mouth mangles the words. Every speech lesson, every technique, has deserted me.
He’s kind enough to pretend not to notice.
“Thanks. What was your name again?”
“R-Ryan.”
He puts his card back in his wallet and throws a dollar in the tip jar.
I stare at the jar.
He heads back to his wife, so I fumble through making their lattes. I deliver everything to their table, furious that the cups shake as I set them down.
“Thanks,” he says, like he means it.
I try not to watch them as they eat and drink. Not even when she cackles at his joke, or when he leans over and takes a bite of her croissant.
Finally, after what feels like an hour, they get up to leave. On the way out, he turns back around and hands me something. His business card.
“Give me a call when you’re done with your credential. I know a lot of people at the district.”
I stare down at the name on the card: Dave McCallister. My father has done more for me in the last five minutes than he has in my lifetime.
I didn’t really lose my dad; I just never had him. His relationship with Mom was on-and-off from the start and he was gone before I came into the world. Jude has some vague memories of him; I have none. He didn’t pay child support, didn’t come visit, didn’t acknowledge our birthdays. Makes sense, because he probably doesn’t know when our birthdays are.
Jude and I pretended we didn’t care. We had each other, after all. Our father became a mythical figure, his name never spoken but the idea of him always menacing—like Voldemort or the boogeyman.
But this stranger in front of me isn’t a monster. He’s flesh and blood and he’s kind to his wife. He tips and makes polite conversation with strangers. How do I align this version of my father with the man I’ve resented all of my life?
He walks out the door and my eyes follow him until he’s out of sight.
I remember later that I never heated up the croissant.
* * *
“You totally fucking cheated,” Jude says as he lies panting on the ground, the basketball propped up next to him.
I beat his ass on the court tonight, which isn’t typical. But today wasn’t a typical day.
Lizzie opens the sliding glass door. “You guys need some water?”
“Your b-boyfriend needs a stretcher.” Gloating is so petty and yet so satisfying.
Lizzie shakes her head and closes the door.
Jude grabs the ball and sits up. “So how’s it going with the girl? The one that fried your brain cells.”
This is our way. A sweaty game, followed by a crushing defeat for one of us, ending with a discussion that can last a few minutes or well into the night. Depends on whatever crap we’re dealing with at the time.
“Confusing. She decided she wanted it to b-be a one-time thing.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No. She has her reasons, but we b-both still want each other.”
“Well, then I’m guessing she’ll come around.”
It’s getting dark enough that the porch light should come on in a few minutes.
“Maybe. She’s complicated.”
“All women are complicated,” Jude says, running a hand through his damp hair.
“You ever wonder what it would have been like if our d-dad had stayed around?”
Jude throws the ball up in the air. Catches it. “No.”
“Come on, I know you h-have.” Jude still has no idea that I followed him the day he tracked Dad down.
“Who cares? He wasn’t.”
“You think he would have b-been a good father? Taught us about girls? That kind of s-stuff?”
He tosses the ball up again—harder this time. Catches it. “If he’d been interested in doing that, he
wouldn’t have left, would he?”
“Maybe it was about Mom and n-not us.”
Jude’s laugh is brief and bitter. “I don’t remember getting a Christmas card. Do you?”
No, because our father went and got a new life.
“All I know is that Mom had to do his share.” Jude throws the basketball across the yard. It hits the fence with a thud and lands in a bush. “Maybe that stress gave her cancer. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, that fucker doesn’t deserve the time it took us to have this conversation.”
Sometimes the waters Jude swims in are so dark, I’m not sure how he ever finds his way to shore. Thank God for Lizzie. Strange to say that about the girl that broke my heart, but it mended just fine. Jude, on the other hand, was the Tin Man and Lizzie was his Dorothy. Without her, he might have turned to rust.
* * *
Eva’s out there tonight. I can feel it. But this time, I know she’s not waiting on the porch with two beers.
Writing about constructivist didactics isn’t the riveting distraction I need, but I force myself to type another sentence.
I saw my father two days ago and I haven’t told anyone, which makes it feel like it never happened. I couldn’t talk to Jude about it, because I knew it would only hurt him. For some reason, I don’t want to call Brett or Jim. I only want to tell Eva.
Instead, I pull out my dragon drawing and work on her likeness. It’s difficult to draw Eva from memory, but I focus on her eyes—how they tilt up at the corners, transforming them from perfectly round to just the slightest bit almond. I use shading to draw the crease in her lids she gets when she smiles.
She didn’t say I couldn’t talk to her.
The short walk across her garden is enough to tell me fall is coming. It’s cool tonight and there’s a smoky smell in the air. October is right around the corner, eager to arrive. People who aren’t from the Bay Area barely notice, because fall is quiet here. No dramatic changes to the weather. But it’s my favorite time.
“Hey,” she says when I approach.
She’s wearing her yoga pants again tonight and her hair is loose and messy. She still looks amazing.
“How did Diego’s field t-trip go?”
“You remembered.”
I tap my head. “Steel trap.”
“It went great. He’s fast asleep. Running around at the museum wore him out.”
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