by Katy Kaylee
Then I’d remembered the Ambien, and I’d raided the medicine cabinet. The pills were thankfully still there ... and still potent. One was enough to knock me out for a solid eight hours. Eight hours of pure, deep, blissful, dreamless sleep.
Still, eight hours out of every twenty-four wasn’t enough to help me feel better. The only time I felt good was when I was on the verge of falling asleep, like Dante slipping into the abyss at the end of Canto V. When I woke up and realized that Paris’s auburn head wasn’t nestled onto the pillow beside mine, my heart broke all over again.
I was less of a man than ever before. I’d lost my heart to her, and my brain was consumed with her. I forgot to eat – Hollie had to actually cook food and then sit and watch while I picked at it, always telling me to eat more. Whenever she asked what was wrong, I made up some lame excuse.
I’m getting sick.
Oh, work is more stressful than usual.
Etc.
None of them were enough to convince her, but she didn’t ask the truth. And if she had, I wasn’t sure what I would have told her.
That night, Hollie and I were in her childhood bedroom, packing her things away. She put some of her summer clothes in large plastic storage boxes for the coming year, and sat down on the bed with a giant pile of laundry to fold.
“I’m going to miss this,” she said, wistfully looking down at the rumpled clothes. “Doing laundry at school sucks. The machines are always broken or filled with someone else’s clothing. One time, someone took my stuff out of the washer and threw it on the floor when it was still soapy.”
“You’ll be back here soon enough,” I said. “Assuming that you’re still planning to stay here for med school?”
Hollie nodded. “Probably,” she said. A frown came over her freckled face. “I don’t know, to be honest. Things are kind of up in the air right now.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Being with my daughter was one of the only things that distracted me from Paris, and news that things weren’t going well for Hollie was genuinely painful to me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked her.
“Nothing,” Hollie replied. Her face colored and she looked away. Like me, she was a terrible liar.
“Hollie,” I said sternly. “Just because you’re twenty-one doesn’t exactly mean that you’re an adult. I’m still responsible for you.”
My daughter sighed. She set down the shirt she was folding and sat down on the bed. “Nothing,” she repeated. “It’s just, well, school is really going to suck now that Paris isn’t coming back with me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you certain about that? She could just show up, you know.”
It was true that I’d been hoping Paris would spontaneously reappear. Just show up with her bags and a tan and an apologetic smile, saying that she’d gone to visit her foster family or a friend in another state.
Maybe I was an idiot, but the hope was all that I had left.
Hollie shook her head. “No, Dad,” she said seriously. “Trust me on this. She won’t be showing up.”
I looked up from the pile of towels that I was folding into neat, compact squares and locked eyes with my daughter.
“Have you talked to her?” I asked, unable to keep the strain out of my voice. “What does that mean?”
Hollie took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I talked to her. Or rather, I tracked her down. I kept calling and texting and she never got back to me, and then I remembered that Find My iPhone app. Back when we were freshmen and thought that we’d be going to all these parties, we installed it on our phones and listed each other as emergency contacts. You know, so we wouldn’t lose each other or get date-raped or something.”
I stared at her. “And?”
“You’re being kind of weird about this,” Hollie said. She scrunched up her nose. “Are you pissed? That like, she ran off?”
“Kind of,” I lied.
I wasn’t pissed.
I was furious.
And knowing that Paris had talked to Hollie and not me just made me feel sick to my stomach.
“Well, anyway, I found her. She’s living up in Milwaukee,” Hollie said. Her voice dropped and she blushed. “In like, a really shitty apartment. Dad, it’s terrible.”
I swallowed hard. The idea of Paris, impoverished and alone and scared, was enough to turn my anger into fear for her well-being.
Why hadn’t she come to me?
She was obviously in trouble, again.
“Um, well, what’s she doing up there?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light and uninterested. “Visiting friends or something?”
“No,” Hollie said. She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together, dropping her gaze to her hands. I waited in agony as Hollie picked at her chipped nail polish. “Um, so, I guess she lost her scholarship. She said that she had a really tough professor who didn’t give her the chance to make some assignment, and like, her GPA dropped and then she had to get a job to pay for classes.”
“Oh,” I said as I wondered what else Paris had told Hollie.
“And um, she apparently started stripping,” Hollie said quickly. She blushed furiously and kept picking at her nails until flakes of green polish fell to the carpet. “And she said that she saw you, she said that you were working some undercover case and that you made her quit her job so then she didn’t have any more money.”
I swallowed hard and clenched my jaw.
“Maybe we could find a way to help her,” I said. “I mean, you know that I don’t have a lot. But she’s a friend of the family, and I don’t mind dipping into my savings to pay for her classes. She only has one year, right?”
Hollie looked up at me with big, innocent eyes.
“That’s really sweet, Dad,” Hollie said. “But she’s not going back to college even if we offer to pay for her.”
“Why not?” I narrowed my eyes. “Doesn’t she still want to be a counselor?”
“She’s pregnant,” Hollie admitted. “With a baby on the way, she said that she doesn’t think it’s right for her to go back to school. At least, not right now. She said that she might try later in the future, like when her kid is starting school or something.”
The shock was almost enough to make me faint. Hollie kept talking but I only heard every fifth word as the blood began to pound in my ears. My heart raced and I gripped the bedspread so hard that my knuckles turned white.
“Did she tell you anything about the father?” I asked hoarsely.
“Paris just told me that it was a short-term thing and he’s not in the picture. She said that he doesn’t even know about the baby,” Hollie said, shaking her head. “God, I feel so bad for her. I can’t imagine how scary it must be to be dealing with all of that on her own, you know?”
I got to my feet. “Sweetie, I’m sorry, but I have a headache. I need to go lie down for a while. We can pack more tomorrow.”
Hollie said something but I didn’t even hear her as I excused myself from her room and made my way down the hall. Alone in my room, I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes. My head was spinning.
Paris was pregnant, with my child.
And she was out there, in some shitty apartment in Milwaukee, all alone.
There was no doubt in my mind that I had to go find her and bring her back.
There was no way that I was going to let her raise our child alone, without me.
I loved her, and it was time to rescue her for a third time.
26
Paris – Friday
“And like, my mom sent me a hundred bucks, so we can get table service at Riche!”
“Oh my god, that’s so cool, your mom is like, so generous!”
“She totally is!”
I tried not to smile as I drove the two college-aged girls to a trendy club, Riche, in downtown Milwaukee. I hadn’t been doing so well with tips tonight, but their talk filled me with confidence. Hopefully, they’ll be generous, I thought as I slowed for a stop
sign.
“Hey,” one of the girls said. She reached up from the back seat and tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you pregnant?”
I flushed and nodded.
“Is it your first?”
I flushed harder. “Yes,” I said awkwardly. Now that I was starting to show, I’d had the occasional passenger ask me about the baby. Some people even saw me carrying their groceries up to their front door and would rush out to help, while others looked at my belly with pity ... and my empty left ring-finger with disdain.
“That’s cool,” she said, tossing her hair. It struck me how young the two of them looked, younger than Hollie and I had looked in years.
This summer had aged me tremendously.
“I can’t imagine having a baby right now,” the other girl chimed in. “I’m like, way too young for that.”
I swallowed. “I’m not that old,” I admitted. “I’m only twenty.”
To my surprise – and unhappiness – the two girls burst into laughter, then immediately clapped their hands over their mouths.
“Oh my god, I’m like, so sorry I said that,” one of them said. “That was like, super rude. I didn’t mean to criticize, it’s just like, wow, I feel so young.”
I met her eyes in the rearview mirror. I used to feel so young, too, I thought. And then this summer happened to me.
“It’s okay,” I said, as charitably as I could muster.
When I pulled up to Riche and idled at the curb, the girls hopped out of my backseat without tipping me. I groaned and put my head down on the steering wheel. I was exhausted. I’d worked nine hours that day and then immediately come home to drive for the ride-sharing service. Now, it was time to go home for a quick meal and a nap before going out again after all the bars and clubs closed. I’d only made about twenty dollars in tips, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
But I had a lot of hard work in front of me. Eighteen years, minimum. I knew that some women looked at having a baby as a prison sentence, but I was looking forward to it. I hadn’t been a great student, and as much as I wanted to help people, I didn’t think that I’d have made a great counselor.
But maybe, just maybe, I’d be a good mother. As long as my child knew that he or she was always loved, I had a feeling that it couldn’t be that difficult.
“And you are loved, baby,” I said softly, looking down and putting my hand on my little bump. “So, don’t ever forget that.”
Someone honked at me and I yelled ‘sorry!’ before pulling away from the curb and heading in the direction of my apartment. Despite being two hours away from Chicago, the streets of Milwaukee had the same names, and painful nostalgia always flashed through me when I drove them. There was a lot of traffic – it being a Friday, a lot of people were headed out to party. I eyed them with a mixture of envy and sadness. These people didn’t have eat instant food for every meal because they were so worried about money. They hadn’t been dumb enough to lose a scholarship and ruin their future.
I swallowed hard as tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t keep doing this, thinking this way. It was totally counterproductive, and while it sounded silly, I had a feeling that my baby could sense my emotions.
I put my hand on my little bump. “I love you, you know,” I said, rubbing my stomach. I was only at the end of my first trimester, but it felt like I’d been pregnant forever. I couldn’t wait until my baby had grown more, until I could feel them kicking inside of me and moving.
When I got home, I parked on the street and got out of my car to stretch. The late-summer air was still warm, but there was a definite chill that hadn’t been there a month ago, and I wondered if the winters would be anything like the winters in Chicago: cold and punishing and unrelenting.
As I approached my apartment, I saw someone standing on the front stoop and my heart sank. Great, another vagrant, I thought, making a mental note to call my landlord in the morning. This apartment was cheap, and my neighborhood was full of homeless people.
In many ways, it reminded me of Rogers Park, the shitty Chicago neighborhood where I’d lived before Harrison had rescued me.
I held my keys tightly in my fist as I approached, fully prepared to defend myself against a mentally unstable homeless person, but the man turned and the lurid yellow porch light caught his face.
It wasn’t a homeless man.
It was Harrison, and he looked drawn and tired.
I froze in my tracks. How had he managed to track me down? Had Hollie given him my address? I wondered exactly what he knew. Although I was wearing a loose sweater over leggings, those college girls had seen my baby bump.
Would Harrison see it, too? Or had Hollie already told him the truth? I was going to have to be careful if I wanted to keep it concealed.
Harrison cleared his throat. “We need to talk,” he said, stepping closer. I didn’t want him in my apartment – besides the fact that I was ashamed of how seedy it was, there were baby books and things scattered all over.
“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “There’s a café a couple of blocks over.”
Harrison gave me a strange look, but he followed me down the street and over two blocks to a place that functioned as a coffee shop during the day and a hipster hangout at night. I ordered decaf tea and Harrison ordered black coffee – he paid for both of our orders before I could stop him. He led me to a back booth and I sat down opposite from him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked softly, blowing on the surface of my tea.
Harrison stared at me with a serious expression on his face. I thought that I saw a flash of hurt in his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure. My heart began to thud faster and I swallowed, frustrated that even after all this time, Harrison still had the same intoxicating effect on me.
It wasn’t fair. Would I ever be free of him and the spell he had put me under ten years ago? Would I ever be able to move on and have a normal life?
I knew that I wouldn’t. Not now, and not ever. I was carrying his child, and that would link the two of us together for the rest of my life.
“I came to see the mother of my child,” Harrison said. “It seems that we have a lot to talk about.”
I froze with my cup of tea halfway to my mouth. For a horrible moment, I felt like the world around me was melting.
“How did you find out?” I asked softly.
“Hollie told me,” Harrison said gruffly. He cleared his throat. “She doesn’t know who the father is, but I sure as hell do. You were a virgin when I took you, and I doubt you’ve been with anyone since. The baby is mine.”
I swallowed hard, then gave a single nod of my head.
“And I’m not going to let you raise it alone,” Harrison said.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the booth, suddenly feeling exhausted. I’d worked all day, and had had plans to work even more that night, but I didn’t think I had it in me any longer. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep forever, safe and snug on the rummage-sale futon I’d bought when I’d first arrived in Milwaukee.
Harrison hadn’t come for me – he’d come for the baby in my belly. He knew that I loved him. He knew just how much I loved him, and he didn’t return those feelings.
I got to my feet, setting my unfinished cup of tea down on the table.
“I’m not into being bossed around anymore,” I said. “I made my choice, and it’s final.”
Harrison didn’t reply, and I turned on my heel and left the café, striding into the dark summer air all alone.
But I didn’t get far. After only a couple of footsteps, I felt a hand at my elbow. I turned around and saw Harrison standing behind me.
“And what about my choice?” Harrison asked. “Don’t I get one?”
I looked around us. There were throngs of drunk people moving from one bar to the other, throwing their heads back and laughing and taking group selfies and acting as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
I hadn’t wanted him to see my apartment, but if we were going to have a
serious conversation, it wasn’t going to be here. With Harrison walking behind me, I led him the three blocks to my apartment so that we could finish our conversation in peace.
27
Harrison – Friday
When I saw the shithole studio where Paris had been living, it broke my heart. The entire thing would have fit in my garage, and the place was a mess. The bed was a small futon with a ripped mattress and she had been using a wooden crate as a coffee table. There was no TV, and her laptop lay on top of the bedclothes, occupying the space where another person would have slept.
There was a used crib in one corner, partially assembled, and a dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Seeing those things felt like a punch to the gut. I hated that she’d run away, hated that she seemed to want nothing to do with me.
But most of all, I hated that I’d already missed so much of her pregnancy. If I’d known, I would have wanted to be there for all of it: doctors’ appointments or swollen feet or craving for insane food combinations. I resolved to myself that I wouldn’t miss any more of those moments. I had to convince Paris of the truth, that we belonged together, and I wasn’t going to leave until she’d heard me out.
Paris blushed sheepishly as she moved her laptop off the bed, folded the covers, and moved the bed into a futon. She perched on one end of it, curling her long legs under her frame. She was still slender, but there was a fullness to her face that hadn’t been there before and I saw the faintest hint of a bulge under the loose sweater that she wore.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Leave without a word, refuse to speak to me or Hollie?”
Paris didn’t answer. She pressed her pouty lips into a firm line and looked down at her hands. I saw that the skin around her nails was red and chapped, and I wanted to take her hands in mine and massage them until she relaxed. Everything about the apartment screamed misery: the patched ceiling, the loud barks of dogs that could be heard from outside, the obviously second-hand furniture that Paris had filled it with. She had a small kitchenette with an open trash can and I saw several empty packages of ramen noodles and instant soup and macaroni in cheese.