Finally an iTunes window popped open, displaying a queue of all fifteen tracks on the CD. Above that, in a bold font, was the name of the disc, ‘For Des.’
The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’ started playing through the tinny speakers on my laptop, and I sank down onto the floor.
I pressed my eyes shut, and I tried to remember everything about that night at the park.
I remembered how I had seen him sitting all alone on the picnic table. I remembered how he had played this song for me on his Walkman. I remembered him popping out the CD and giving it to me. I remembered him giving me a cryptic smile when I asked what it meant. I remembered how badly I wanted him to kiss me.
I remembered the cigarette burn on his arm, and then the flashing police lights. I remembered him saying that he’d be right back; that he just wanted to make sure everything was ok.
I remember waiting and waiting… but he never came back.
That night was the last time I ever saw Rory McAlister.
It took a few days for me to piece together what had happened that night. I learned that his mother and stepfather had both been arrested, but nobody could tell me where Rory went.
A few weeks later, a realtor in a black Lincoln drove by and stuck a ‘FOR SALE’ sign in front of their house.
That’s when I realized that Rory wasn’t coming back.
I didn’t realize that I was crying until I blinked open my eyes and felt the hot sting of tears clouding my vision.
When Rory left Hartford, that CD was the only piece of him that I had left. I always treated it like a clue; like a puzzle piece that would help me unravel the mystery of his disappearance.
I had listened to those fifteen tracks constantly, until I had committed every lyric to memory. Then I had scribbled the lyrics down in my diary and dissected them. I thought that if I could uncover the subliminal message that Rory had planted in the playlist, then maybe it would lead me back to him.
It didn’t.
After playing Nancy Drew for a year, all I had was Rory’s red Sharpie heart and a diary full of melancholy love song lyrics.
There have been a lot of things that I’ve had to reconcile in my life. I had to reconcile how my mother could leave me with an abusive father, and I had to reconcile how my father could be so viciously cruel and full of hatred.
The only thing I could never reconcile was losing Rory...
We met the summer I turned eight years old. My father had left me home alone, and I was taking full advantage of my freedom by watching Nickelodeon and eating Jello for lunch.
My wild afternoon was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. It didn’t just ring once or twice… it chimed over and over again, until I finally pulled open the door. There was a woman standing on the front porch, and she was gripping the collar of a sullen little boy. She frantically explained that she needed a babysitter, and asked if I would watch her son.
Before I could object, she shoved the boy into the house and stomped off. After a few awkward moments of silence, Rory tried to leave, too. I blocked the door and told him that I was the babysitter, and he wasn’t allowed to leave until his mom came back.
Rory was a year older than me and easily twice my size, but he didn’t object. He dutifully shadowed me for the rest of the afternoon. Neither of us said a peep, but I liked having the company. I had never had a friend before…
When dinner time rolled around and Rory’s mom still hadn’t returned to claim him, I started to panic. I knew that my dad would be home at any minute, and I knew that he would kill me if he found out that I had a friend over.
I didn’t need to explain any of that to Rory. As soon as he saw my father’s car pull up the driveway, he slipped through the back door and vanished.
I assumed that he had just gone back to his house, but that wasn’t the case. As I was getting ready for bed that night, I happened to glance through my bedroom window at the neighborhood park.
It was dark, but I could see the shadowy figure of a little boy. He was curled up on the picnic table. That’s when I realized that his mother had never come home for him. He was sleeping in the park because he had nowhere else to go.
I waited until I heard my father snoring through the walls, then I stripped the covers off of my bed and slipped out of the house.
From that moment on, we were inseparable.
He was my rock, and I was his soft spot. When kids bullied me at school, Rory stood up for me. And when his mother threw him out of the house, I comforted him.
We were--
BANG!
I jolted upright, startled by the sound of a door slamming shut.
The childhood memories that had been playing in my head suddenly dissolved into dust, replaced with a shrill sense of panic. My heart hammered in my chest, and my blood felt ice-cold. I was tense from head to toe as I listened through my bedroom wall.
I heard footsteps enter the apartment, then thud softly towards the kitchen. A deep voice rumbled something, but I couldn’t make out the words through the wall.
The refrigerator door swung open, and I heard the clatter of glass condiment jars clinking together. I gulped.
That deep voice rumbled again. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it must have been something funny because it was followed by the squeal of a high-pitched giggle.
I blew out a sigh of relief and let my shoulder sink back against the side of my mattress. I recognized that nails-on-a-chalkboard giggle immediately; it was my roommate, Kasmine Curtis.
“Hey, is that a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc?” her muffled voice asked through the wall.
My wine!
I scrambled to pack everything back into my plastic vault of memories, then I snapped on the lid and shoved it under the bed.
I jumped up to my feet and pushed through my bedroom door, then wheeled around the corner to the kitchen--
POP.
I was too late. Kasmine slid the cork out of the bottle, then she glanced up at me.
“Oh, hey roomie!” she giggled drunkenly, then she lifted the wine bottle by its neck and waved it in front of me. “Look what I found hiding in the back of the fridge!”
“Yeah… I sorta bought that,” I said awkwardly.
“Oh...” Kasmine glanced at the bottle, then she shrugged, “Oops! So umm… do you want a glass?”
I rolled my eyes. Kasmine Curtis was living, breathing proof that you should never find a roommate on CraigsList.
We were only six months into our twelve-month lease, but Kasmine had already proven herself to be selfish, inconsiderate, and downright annoying.
Oh, and she went through men faster than I went through my annual stipend of Dry Erase markers from the school supply closet. Every other night I found a new strange man in my apartment.
Tonight’s specimen was digging through our fridge with his back to me. I gave him a dismissive once-over and was about to turn my attention back to Kasmine, then I noticed the white letters on the back of his black t-shirt,
HARTFORD FIRE DEPARTMENT, FIREHOUSE 56
I froze. My mind immediately flashed back to the firefighter that I had spotted on the side of the road.
What are the odds...
Before I could weave my far-fetched fantasy any further, the fireman straightened up and slammed the fridge door.
His arms were bare, his hair was too light… and then he turned around, and I saw his face.
“Hey,” he grinned flirtatiously at me as he cracked open a can of Hog River beer -- also mine.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t the same fireman that I had seen earlier on the side of the road… and it definitely wasn’t Rory.
CHAPTER SEVEN | RORY
“Alright, little lady,” I dropped a skillet onto the stovetop and cranked on the heat. “What are we making today?”
“I haven’t decided yet, Daddy,” Charlotte mumbled, blinking thoughtfully down at her iPad.
The way her face wrinkled up with
concentration, you’d think she was trying to pick the next President of the United States. Actually, the stakes weren’t that high… she just had to pick a breakfast recipe.
Charlie and I had this running tradition, every Wednesday morning we’d wake up early and clamber into the kitchen. I’d pull out all the pots and pans while Charlie scrolled through recipes on her iPad, then she’d make her selection -- usually something ridiculously challenging -- and I’d try my best to execute it.
It was a tradition that was born around the same time that Charlotte’s mother left. Those were dark days, and I would have done just about anything to make my daughter smile… even if it meant playing Top Chef at 6 A.M.
Of course it helped that Charlie was easily impressed. Back in those days, mixing a few drops of green food coloring into the scrambled eggs was enough to blow my daughter’s mind. I thought I had some pretty good tricks up my sleeve, I’d add fruit smiley faces to her French toast, or Mickey Mouse ears to her pancakes.
Then one Wednesday morning I made the mistake of suggesting that Charlie find a recipe on her iPad. One Google search later, and suddenly Daddy’s special pancakes didn’t seem so impressive…
“I found it!" Charlie declared triumphantly. She hopped down from the kitchen table and brought me her iPad. I glanced down at her selection, and my eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“You sure that’s what you want, kiddo?”
“Yep!” Charlie nodded.
“Alright,” I shrugged. On the inside, I was sighing in relief.
Charlie had picked a recipe for chocolate chip pancakes. After last week’s crepe catastrophe, I was grateful to work with something simple.
I turned the heat down on the skillet, then I started hunting for a mixing bowl in the cardboard moving boxes that were stacked in the corner of the kitchen.
“So how are you liking your new school?” I asked, trying my best to sound casual.
“It’s ok,” Charlie shrugged her shoulders. She had brought her iPad back to the table, and she was hunched over the screen.
“Just ok?”
“Mmhmm.”
I found a whisk in the box of utensils, and I tucked it in the front pocket of my jeans as I continued to search for a mixing bowl.
“What do you think about your teacher?” I asked. “Mrs. Root?”
“She’s nice,” Charlie shrugged again. Then she added, “There are a lot of helpers in our class.”
“Helpers?” I glanced up from the box.
“Yeah,” Charlie said, keeping her eyes locked on the iPad. “That’s when someone’s mom comes to help out with the class.”
“That sounds fun,” I said. “Maybe I could be a helper--”
“No, Daddy!” Charlie wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Dads can’t be helpers. Just moms.”
“Oh,” I said, swallowing heavily. I had a bad feeling about where this might be headed. “I don’t see why I--”
Charlie’s eyes flicked up from the iPad and she glared across the kitchen at me.
“Just moms!” she repeated firmly.
I found a mixing bowl at the bottom of the cardboard box, and I sighed as I lifted it out.
Maybe I had gotten this whole Wednesday morning breakfast thing all wrong. Maybe instead of elaborate breakfast recipes, I should be scouring Google for tips on being a single dad…
If it were up to me, Charlotte would never want for anything. Unfortunately, the one thing that she does want is outside of my control…
“I want Mommy to be a helper,” Charlie said. “Can you ask her for me?”
Her voice was so innocent; so hopeful… it fucking killed me.
Haley’s mugshot immediately filled my head, and I turned away from my daughter so she couldn’t see the look of disgust on my face.
Growing up with my mother and stepfather, I believed that the worst feeling you could have towards somebody was hatred. Haley Scott proved that theory wrong.
It would have been so much easier to hate Haley -- and believe me, she had given me plenty of reasons to. But… I couldn’t hate her.
The truth was, I wished that Haley could be the kind of mom that volunteered in our daughter’s second grade classroom. I wished she could be the kind of mom that baked cupcakes for PTA bake sales, or made burnt meatloaf for dinner, or nagged our daughter about wearing a coat, even when it was perfectly sunny and warm outside…
As much as I wanted to hate Haley, I wanted our daughter to love her more.
For Charlotte’s sake, I wished that we could be one big happy family.
I wished that we could have a house in the nice part of town, with a white picket fence and pictures on the walls. I wished that we could send out bullshit family Christmas cards every winter, and plan stupid family vacations to Disney every summer…
I wished for a lot of things, but I knew that wishing wasn’t going to do us any good. Wishing wasn’t going to make us a family, and it sure as hell wasn’t going fill the empty void in my daughter’s heart.
I crossed the kitchen and crouched beside my daughter’s chair at the table. Her eyes were glued to the iPad screen, and she didn’t glance up until I brushed away a strand of her dark brown hair.
She dropped the iPad onto the table, and her giant brown eyes flicked up to me.
“Listen, Charlie… ” I sighed as I brushed away another loose ringlet. “You know that Mommy loves you, right?”
Charlotte blinked her glassy eyes, and her face remained completely blank as she stared up at me intently.
“She does,” I whispered. “Very much.”
“Then why isn’t she visiting me?” Charlotte asked.
I sighed again. I must have spent hours trying to write the script for this conversation in my head, but the words never quite came out right. Now I had no choice but to improvise,
“Sometimes grownups need to take care of themselves, before they can take care of other people.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows wrinkled into a frown.
Try again. I glanced down at my hands, trying to figure out how I could make Charlotte understand what I was trying to say. Then I had an idea.
“Do you remember when you got the chicken pox in kindergarten?” I asked.
Charlotte immediately cringed at the memory, and she buried her face in her hands.
“Ugh, don’t remind me!” she groaned dramatically, her voice muffled by her palms.
I couldn’t help but smile. Charlotte had inherited most of my physical traits -- dark hair, brown eyes, a pale complexion -- but that spitfire personality was one-hundred percent her own. She was one of a kind.
“Do you remember when you got ‘em?” I asked.
She nodded her head, but she kept her hands over her face as she mumbled, “Spring break.”
“That’s right,” I ruffled her hair. “What else do you remember about that spring break?”
She slid her hands down and blinked up at me over her fingertips.
“Anything special?” I prompted her.
Her hands fell to her lap and her face lit up with an enthusiastic smile.
“Yeah!” she bobbed up in her seat. “It was special because Squeaky was going to come stay with us!”
Squeaky was a guinea pig that lived in an elaborate plastic castle in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom.
Charlotte had been infatuated with the rodent from the moment she first laid eyes on him. When the kindergarten teacher asked for a volunteer to take Squeaky home and look after him for the duration of the week-long spring break, my daughter had naturally jumped at the chance.
I had reluctantly agreed to the plan, and we were all set to bring Squeaky home…
“But then I got sick,” Charlotte grumbled. She scowled darkly and crossed her arms over her chest.
Two days before the start of spring break, Charlotte woke up with a patch of itchy red blisters on her arm. Within hours, the patch had grown into a full-blown rash, and the scho
ol nurse made an official diagnosis, chicken pox.
The kindergarten teacher didn’t want to send Squeaky home with a sick kid, so the rodent got reassigned to another student.
Charlotte had been devastated. And judging by the look on her face now, she still hadn’t given up on holding a grudge…
“That wasn’t fair!” she grumbled. “Squeaky was supposed to come home with us!”
“You couldn’t take care of him, Charlie…”
“I could have!”
“You were really sick,” I reminded her. “You spent all of spring break in bed with a fever.”
She scowled up at me, then mumbled, “But I loved Squeaky…”
“I know you loved Squeaky,” I told her. “But you couldn’t take care of him. You had to take care of yourself, first.”
Her frown loosened, and I could tell that she finally understood what I was trying to say. Then her eyes widened with concern,
“Does Mommy have chicken pox? Is that why she can’t take care of me?”
“No, Mommy doesn’t have chicken pox…”
“But she’s sick?” Charlie asked.
I hesitated, then I nodded slowly.
“Kind of,” I said.
“But… she’s going to get better, right?”
“I hope so,” I said. “But I want you to know that she loves you, no matter what.”
I wasn’t sure that I believed those words myself, I sure as hell hoped that Charlie could.
I planted a kiss on her forehead, then I grinned,
“Come on, kiddo. We better get to work on these chocolate chip pancakes, otherwise you’ll be late for school!”
***
One cup of mini chocolate chips, two sticky breakfast plates, and forty-five minutes later, we were pulling into the parking lot of Hartford Elementary.
We were definitely late for school.
The parking lot was empty and calm, which meant we had just missed the morning shitshow known as the ‘carpool lane.’
If we had rolled up fifteen minutes earlier, the parking lot would have been gridlocked with minivans and SUVs, all waiting impatiently for their turn to pull up to the curbside drop-off zone and unleash their spawn.
The Complete Firehouse 56 Series Page 63