Chapter 3 – Angie
“I can’t believethat piece of shit took the air conditioners out of the windows.” Madison shakes her arm like she’s got bugs on it. A piece of newspaper is stuck to her skin. Her sweat is making the ink bleed.
I peel the paper off for her and ball it up, tucking it in the corner of the box with the dishes. We don’t have enough of anything to waste. I’m using pillowcases to pack the girls’ clothes and laundry baskets for their toys.
“They’re in the garage,” I explain.
Tyler was being spiteful. Packing in a ninety-five-degree house with no fans might be miserable, but he was the one who had to take the units out, and he’s going to have to put them back in, and it’s going to be even hotter next week. If I were petty like him, I’d have thought of something easier on myself.
“I’m gonna cut the cords off ’em before we leave.” Madison hops up on the counter and starts grabbing canned goods and pasta from the top shelf.
“Don’t. I’m trying to keep things civil.” I pluck a plastic bag out of the butt of the stuffed bunny holder hanging from the pantry’s door knob and start bagging. It feels so much like when Madison and I played grocery store when we were kids. She was always the customer, and I was always the checker.
My eyes tear up a little. They’ve been doing that a lot the past few days.
“How are you gonna keep things civil?” Madison pants. “He’s kicking the girls and you out of the house.”
“It’s his house.” The mortgage is in his name, and his parents co-signed.
After the debacle at the Elks Lodge, Tyler decided to go hunting with his boys since he’d already taken time off for our honeymoon. He said he wanted me out by the time he came back. I canceled the hotel I’d booked for us at the ocean. Since it was last minute, I didn’t get a refund.
“They’re his kids,” Madison argues as she moves down to the next shelf. She’s a machine once she gets going.
“He said the girls could stay.”
“And he’s gonna dress ’em and feed ’em and schlep ’em around?” Madison snorts.
“I don’t want to take the girls away from their father.” I didn’t plan for any of this, and even though it’s been five days, the magnitude keeps hitting me out of nowhere like birds crashing into clean windows.
I left my fiancé at the altar. The father of my children. The only man I’ve ever been with.
I did that. Me. Angie Miller. It feels like another person did it, and now I’ve got to pick up her mess. And pack it. In ninety-five-degree heat with no air conditioning.
What am I doing?
Miss Dawn is letting the girls and me move into her basement for now, but I’ll need to rent an apartment eventually, and I’ve never rented a place in my name before. I don’t know my credit score, but it can’t be good. My limit is five thousand dollars, and it’s been maxed out since I bought the dress.
I’m on Tyler’s parents’ cell phone plan. What happens with that?
Ivy has a follow-up with the ENT, and Tyler said he’d take off work early to drive us since it’s downtown, and I suck at downtown driving. Is he still going to do that?
He’s leaving my texts on read, and I’m too much of a coward to call him.
“Hey, girl.” Madison squats on the counter and grabs my chin. “No freaking out now. The hard part is over.”
Tears are streaming down my sweaty cheeks. When did I start crying?
“Ivy has an ENT appointment next Thursday downtown,” I wail through the blubber.
“That sucks,” Madison says, wiping my face with the backs of her hands, smooshing my cheeks up so my lips curve upward. “I hate driving downtown.”
“And I’ve got a dentist appointment next Friday at four. Who’s going to watch the girls?”
“Mom will.” Miss Dawn’s not only Madison’s mom, she’s also the girls’ daycare mother, but I always get them by three thirty so she can get to pickleball.
“She’s already doing so much for me.”
“She loves you.”
“I love her, too.” I’m really bawling now. Snot drips down my upper lip. I fumble to rip a paper towel from the roll and wipe it up. “I’m a mess.”
“Yes, but your head is out of your ass now, and it’s such an improvement. I can see you again.” Madison flashes me her wide, crooked-toothed smile, and I want to hug her so hard that her seeds come out. Her freckled face is tomato red, her copper pigtails are limp and stringy, and she’s the most beautiful person on the planet.
We’ve been friends since the first day of kindergarten when we both sat in the seat right behind the driver on the first day. I sat there because I was terrified. She sat there so she wouldn’t hit any of the boys if they annoyed her.
She’s always been there for me. When my dad bailed, when my mom passed, when I came up pregnant with Tamblyn—she’s always been there to grab my hand and drag me along until I could keep going under my own steam. I do the same for her, but she doesn’t need me much. Life doesn’t happen to her. She happens to it.
“I love you.” I tug a red pigtail.
“I love you back,” she says, holding up a can of chickpeas. “Did you know this is expired?”
I shrug a shoulder.
“I’m gonna leave it right here for Tyler in easy reach. So he can die of salmonella.”
“That man hasn’t knowingly eaten a chickpea in his life.” I take the can and toss it in the trash. I don’t want revenge, and I don’t want my baby girls to lose their father.
I pop my eyes real wide so I don’t break down crying again. There’s no time for it. Tyler has work on Monday, so he’ll be back tomorrow for sure. I spent too long feeling sorry for myself and eating chips on the sofa in the basement, cuddling with the girls, and now I’m under a time crunch. Good thing I do my best work under pressure.
Madison and I finish up in the kitchen, carrying boxes and bags out to the front lawn as we go so that we can see what we’ve accomplished, and what we have left to do. The girls’ stuff is already out there.
I summon up the courage to pack my things next. I’ve been sleeping in Tamblyn’s bed because I can’t bear being in the master bedroom. It smells like Tyler, and it’s not a stinky smell or anything, but it makes me feel nauseous and sad and panicky.
I had no idea that I was going to break up with him. I didn’t even realize that was what I was doing when I made my little speech at the altar. I might have been the one who broke us up, but it came out of nowhere. I blindsided myself.
I straighten my spine, open the door, and breathe through my mouth. I just need to work quickly.
I’d packed our bags for the honeymoon, so I dump Tyler’s things onto the bed and fill up the second suitcase with my winter clothes. I’m trying to take only things that belong to the girls and me, but after so long, I don’t remember who bought the luggage. Since it’s name brand, it was probably a gift from his mother.
It takes a few trips to bring everything down from upstairs, and with no air circulating, I’m a limp dishrag by the time I collapse on the front lawn under the young maple. I planted it myself when we moved in, and I started a tradition of taking pictures of the girls in front of it each season to track their growth. The tree is still pegged to the ground with strings.
Madison trudges out, somehow managing to carry the girls’ entire play kitchen on her back. She drops it and plops herself on top of the plastic stove.
“Girl, how are we going to get all of this to Mom’s in those two vehicles?” She hikes her thumb at our two subcompact beaters.
“Multiple trips, I guess. How are we going to get the girls’ furniture down from upstairs?” I’ve accepted that I’m going to have to buy something cheap off the internet for myself, but my daughters’ bedroom set was mine when I was a girl. It’s well-made, and it’s all I’ve got left of the house I grew up in. It would kill me to leave it, but it’s really heavy.
“Who do we know who isn’t at work on a Friday?” Madison asks.
No one.
I sigh, blowing out my cheeks, and slump back on my elbows under the patch of shade from the tree.
It’s my fault that it’s down to Madison and me in the ninety-degree heat. If I’d faced reality sooner, I might have been able to recruit some help, but I didn’t want to ask anyone for a favor after wasting their time last Saturday at the wedding that didn’t happen, so I stuck my head in the sand. Story of my life.
“Maybe Tyler will help me move it later,” I say.
Madison snorts.
I open my mouth, about to argue that he might—it’s such a habit, insisting that next time he might be different, like optimism, only sad—but I’m cut off by a familiar black truck pulling up in front of the house. It’s a beast, the kind with a full-size bed and a second row of real seats, not just a bench.
Brandon hops out. His tan work boots hit the asphalt with a solid thud. He’s a solid man.
My stomach gets weird.
I remember when he was a gangly beanpole, but he’s been full grown for years now. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. It’s like the kid I knew is wearing a permanent muscle suit. The pencil neck and huge puppy feet are gone, and now there’s this man who makes me fidgety and awkward.
I tug at my shorts and then at the hem of my shirt. I don’t know why. They’re not short or riding up or anything. I’m just nervous.
Brandon frankly intimidates me now. When we were kids, he was part of the scenery, eating his cereal on the sofa or bouncing his lacrosse ball against the side of Miss Dawn’s cinderblock garage, over and over for hours. Even in high school, he wasn’t the type to draw attention, not like Tyler. He never had much to say, and everyone was cool with him, but no one talked about him. I was never unaware of him, but he didn’t make me feel like he does now.
Like I need to squirm. And straighten up.
After graduation, he joined his uncle’s gang down at the port, and now he’s a longshoreman in the union. He makes a hundred thousand dollars a year after overtime with no college degree and only five years’ seniority. When Madison told me, I mentioned it to Tyler, but apparently, you have to know someone to get the job, and I guess Brandon didn’t feel like he knew Tyler like that.
Anyway, Brandon doesn’t blend in now, not with that truck and those wide shoulders. Girls who know that I’m friends with Madison ask about him. I tell them I don’t know if he’s with anyone. He keeps to himself.
He’s probably with someone. With the way he looks and all.
I smooth my hair, but it’s hopeless. This morning, it was a messy bun, but by now it must look like I’m coming off a bender.
Brandon starts toward us, and I rise on shaky legs. I need to eat something decent. I’ve been living off chips, dip, and cookie batter ice cream for days.
After a few steps in our direction, he must realize he’s still wearing his neon reflective vest, so he stops, peels it off, and tosses it into the bed of his truck. His biceps flex as he raises his arms over his head. His crisp white T-shirt rides up just enough to flash a strip of tan skin right above his belt and the muscle there. The obliques. My heart thumps.
Somehow, my mouth is watering, and I’m thirsty as hell.
He’s wearing polarized sunglasses and a ball cap. Brown curls sneak out the back of the hat, damp and sticking to his neck. He’s tan like a working man, as if it’s not just the sun that’s got him, but plenty of wind and dirt, too. Not that he’s dirty. Well, no more than he ever is after working a ship. It’s dirty work.
I see him sometimes at Miss Dawn’s when I pick the girls up late, and he’s coming over for dinner straight after a shift. He doesn’t make a habit of it, but when Miss Dawn makes her kielbasa and pierogies, she lets him know, and he’s sure to come over. She brags on it, how her home cooking brings him around.
He also mows her lawn and does whatever else she needs around the house. She brags on that, too, as well she should. He’s a good son to her. He’s a good brother, too, coming to help his little sister’s friend move.
He doesn’t say anything until he’s right in the middle of the mess of boxes, pillowcases, laundry baskets, shopping bags, and plastic tubs. He surveys it all, his square jaw tight like always, and says, “Is the furniture all that’s left inside?”
“Yeah,” Madison answers for me. For some reason, I can’t. My throat is stuck.
Tyler’s vows ring in my ears. I promise to give it to you hard and take your shit with a smile, and if I can’t, to take your shit out to the front lawn for you.
I don’t like how Brandon can see all my stuff spread out on the ground. As if I’ve been thrown out. I don’t like that he can see how little I’ve got when it’s all laid out, and how everything is scuffed or grubby or worn.
I would’ve thought all my pride had been stripped from me at the Elks Lodge, but I guess I’ve got some left.
I shouldn’t care. Brandon’s an old friend. At least we’ve known each other for most of our lives. I should be grateful Madison called him, not worried that he can see all my half-used, soap-scummy shampoo and conditioner bottles thrown on top of a hamper filled with clean towels and a dirty shower curtain.
“I-Is this your lunch hour?” I ask, walking toward the house, away from my stuff. He follows. He has to shorten his steps since his stride is easily twice as long as mine.
“The ship’s done,” he says. “I don’t have to go back.”
A little weight lifts from my shoulders. “Thank you,” I say softly, holding the screen door open for him.
He grunts, ducks inside, and surveys the first floor. He always looks serious, but right now, his face is downright mean. Scary. I glance around, trying to see what’s pissing him off.
We’ve already cleared out the living room. Half of the family pics are down from the walls. I left Tyler his share, as well as the old pics of his grandparents and him as a kid that I had framed for Christmas one year.
I took the curios that were mine from the cabinet, but I left the candles and potpourri bowl and whatnots. There’s not much room in Miss Dawn’s basement for decorations.
Is that why Brandon looks so pissed? Does he think he’s going to have to wait for me to pack?
“Everything I’m taking is already in boxes out front,” I tell him.
He scowls even more. “What about the TV and the couch and the rest of it?”
“That’s all staying.”
He glares at the entertainment center. It’s Tyler’s baby. He’s got different shelves for his various game systems, and there’s a really nice soundbar that I bought for his twenty-first birthday. The TV is ninety-eight inches.
Brandon sneers at it like it’s a pile of wet dog shit.
“I just really need help with the girls’ furniture.” I start to lead him upstairs, but he walks over to the TV and peers around the back to check out the wires. Why are all men so obsessed with electronics?
“That’s staying,” I repeat over my shoulder, my foot on the bottom step.
“Tyler paid for it?” Brandon doesn’t look at me when he asks; he’s too busy tracing the cords with his fingers.
Yes, Tyler did. He maxed out the Visa with it. He bought a TV, and I ended up having to work out a payment plan with the hospital for the bill from having Ivy. It was a huge fight at the time.
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the carpet under the toe of my sneaker. “Can we just get the girls’ stuff?”
He’s clearly reluctant, but he walks away from the electronics and follows me up the steps, treading close on my heels. He smells like oil and sweat and the cheap dryer sheets that come in an orange box. The higher I climb, the harder it gets to breathe. Upstairs, the air is as thick and warm as cream of crab soup.
“How come it’s so hot?” he asks. His voice rumbles next to my ear, and a shiver skates down my spine.
“No AC,” I say, picking up the pace down the narrow hall, praying he doesn’t ask why. I don’t want to say what Tyler did. I don’t want to see how easy it’ll be for Brandon to believe that Tyler would do such a thing. Or the pity and judgment in his eyes.
I don’t want to be the kind of woman who would stick with such a petty man for so many years.
But I am. I was.
Another wave of realization crashes over me, draining the blood from my head. I was a clinger. I clung.
It’s like I deferred all the shame from the shit I ate to be with Tyler, and payment came due at one time, in this moment, in this hundred-degree hallway, with Brandon Kaczmarek on my heels. I try to keep walking, but my knees buckle, and I reach out to touch the hallway wall to steady myself.
Brandon’s hand finds my lower back, firm and sure. My breath catches. I take another, more confident step, and his hand falls. The shock of the brief touch clears my mind.
I can’t drown in self-loathing, not right now. I have things to do. It’s moving day, for Christ’s sake.
At the girls’ room, I open the door for him to go through first. He ducks his head and enters. There’s no clutter in here to make him testy, if that’s what was bugging him downstairs. Except for a random doll shoe on the floor and some stickers on the wall, the only things left in here are the tall dresser, the desk with a hutch, and the bunk bed.
Brandon slaps a palm on the bunk bed as if he can gauge its heft that way, and his brow furrows. My heart sinks. I’ve been deluding myself again. There’s no way Brandon and I can carry it down the stairs ourselves, even if Madison and I both take an end together. It’s solid pine and bulky besides. Tyler’s boys helped him get it up, and as I recall, there was a lot of cussing and bitching.
My eyes well, but I’m not worried that Brandon will notice. Every inch of my skin is dripping with sweat. Beads trickle down my cheeks and spine and the backs of my knees. Tears won’t show.
“I guess it’ll have to stay for now.” I sigh.
“Why do you say that?” Brandon asks, his voice weirdly sharp.
I tense. I cross my arms, my skin so slick that they slip-slide together. “It’s too heavy for the two of us.”
He takes off his hat, runs his fingers through his damp hair, and jams the hat back on again. His entire body is tight with frustration—his jaw, his shoulders, his arms, straight as a soldier’s at his sides.
“You always give up too easy,” he mutters. He’s not even looking at me. He’s glaring at the light switch beside the girls’ desk.
The words crack against my raw feelings like a slap out of nowhere. Brandon doesn’t talk to me like this. He says pass the butter and don’t take Oakview home, there’s black ice at the bottom of the hill and looks like your front right tire’s low and things like that. He’s never sniped at me before.
He probably resents being here when he got off work early. I get that, but still, it’s not fair to say I give up easy.
“I don’t,” I say, loud, so he knows I’m not letting the comment go. I always let things go, but not this time. I don’t give up easy. I stick with things well past when I should let them go. I force it to work when a smarter, braver woman would walk away. “Are you saying that because of what I did at the wedding?”
Somehow, he draws himself up until he’s even more imposing and tense. “I’m not talking about that.”
“Because that wasn’t giving up. That was speaking up for myself.”
“I know,” he says through clenched teeth. “I wasn’t talking about that.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
He exhales, very long and very slow. He’s playing for time, but it’s hellishly hot up here, and I’m bone-tired, and I want him to explain himself since he felt the need to make a remark.
“Forget I said anything.”
Tyler would do that—say something mean and then refuse to clarify so I’d have to live with it rolling around in my brain with no recourse except to argue against him, silently, to myself, in the shower and on the drive to work.
“I don’t need you criticizing me, Brandon Kaczmarek.” I don’t need any of this. I need to get this furniture down the stairs. I need to get everything over to Miss Dawn’s and take over with the girls so she can get to pickleball. I need to take a cold shower and cry some more and figure out what I’m going to do now with the rest of my entire freaking life.
Oh, hell, this sweat fucking tickles. I dash it from my face with my hands and wipe my hands on my shirt. There’s no help for it. It’s either that or flick the drops off my fingers.
I firm my wobbling chin and glare at the thin gold chain that dangles from Brandon’s tan throat and disappears under his collar. It’s a cross. It’s always swinging loose, and he’s forever tucking it back into his shirt.
He’s silent for a long moment. I refuse to meet his eyes. He can think whatever he wants about me. I can’t stop him. I can’t even get my feet to move from this spot.
The quiet in the room is crushing. The heat is brutal, the air is unbreathable, and I’m furious, but for some reason, for the first time in so long I can’t remember, I don’t feel totally, hopelessly alone.
Long past when I expect him to say anything, he coughs, catches my eye, and mutters, “I’m sorry.”
I wait for the next bit—the but—but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he busies himself, fetching his phone from his pocket and dialing while he experiments with his free hand, trying to lift the upper bunk from the pins that attach it to the bottom. His bicep bulges, the veins popping, but he can’t lift it more than a half inch.
Someone answers his call. A muffled man’s voice barks, “Yeah?”
Brandon says, “What’s up? Can you and Shane come help me with something?”
The guy must say yes because Brandon rattles off my address. The conversation lasts no more than twenty seconds total.
He puts his phone away, and after a long, unreadable glance, he says, “Don’t worry. It’s handled.”
“I’m not worried,” I shoot back for some reason.
I don’t know why I’m trying to fight him. He’s here. He’s trying to help. I brace myself for him to sass me back. I’ve got it coming.
He steps toward me, digging in his back pocket. He stops when the steel toes of his boots are almost touching the rubber toes of my sneakers. He’s got a blue paisley bandana in his hand. It’s folded in a neat square.
“I didn’t mean that you give up easy. That came out wrong. I meant that you accept bad shit too easy.” As he speaks, gruff and short, he shoves the bandana into my hand.
I stare down at it numbly. “You carry a handkerchief in your pocket?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you’re fancy like that?” I don’t know why I’m teasing. Maybe to cover up the fact that a wild mess is erupting low in my belly. He’s really close. My nose is inches away from the pulse fluttering at the base of his neck.
“Because I’ve got manners.” He grabs my wrist and raises my hand to my forehead, guiding me to blot the sweat away. I let him. The bandana smells like the dryer sheets he uses, too.
He stares down at me, and I stare up. His bottomless dark brown eyes give me vertigo. They turn my legs to jelly.
I shake my head. “If you did, you wouldn’t have said that about me taking crap too easy.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He rests his hand lightly over mine and draws it from my forehead to my cheek, along my jaw, down my neck. His hands are so much bigger than mine. They seem like a giant’s in comparison.
“It’s not your business—what I accept or don’t or how easy.” I don’t know why I’m still arguing. I’m not mad anymore. I’m not sure what I’m feeling. It’s like standing at the edge of the high dive. Like the slow climb to the very top of the roller coaster. It’s fear, but the kind that makes your belly twist and fizzle.
Brandon lets my hand go, and it falls limp to my side. He keeps his hand raised, though. He traces the trail his bandana patted along my jaw. His thumb pad is rough, and like magic, the roughness stokes shivers that skate across my skin.
I want to nuzzle my cheek into his palm. I want to accept what he’s offering. I want to care for someone and know they care for me. I don’t want to be alone.
Because I’m a clinger. And a coward. And I can’t afford to be anymore.
I step back, ducking my face away.
He lowers his hand and inhales, his nostrils flaring. He jerks his gaze away, over my shoulder, and scowls into the middle distance. His jaw tics. He’s not happy, but for some reason, I don’t have that immediate urge to placate him like I have with Tyler.
A young, gleeful part of myself that hasn’t reared its head in a long, long time—the part that delights in splashing in puddles and stomping mushrooms and cracking eggs—that part loves that I got a reaction from him. That part wants to see what’s inside of him. What he’s really made of.
But there’s no time for that. I made my bed. Now I have to lie in it. It’s moving day. I’m moving on.
“You sure you don’t want that TV?” he asks, breaking the silence and changing the subject.
“It’s not mine.”
“But do you want it?”
“I don’t want to start any more trouble.”
I steel myself and wait for him to push it, to come at me like his sister does. You can’t let people walk all over you. You’ve got to stand up for yourself. If you don’t value yourself, no one else will.
“Okay,” he says. There’s no hint of disapproval in his voice or his expression. “All you want is the furniture in here?”
“Yeah. That’s all I want.”
“Nothing else you’ll miss?” he asks. He stares down at me, and his eyes are piercing, alive with something I’ve never seen before. I’m not stupid; I know he’s saying more than he’s saying, but I don’t know what he wants me to say.
Will I miss this house? This life?
I don’t know. None of this feels real. I’m not brave enough for this thing I’ve done.
I want to go back in time. I want another shot at growing up, a chance to figure life out before it happens to me. I want to be strong and sure and good at life like him. I want so many things, but no, there’s nothing I’ll miss here.
I flash him a weak smile and drag myself out of the sucking whirlpool of my self-pity. “Nothing but the maple tree in the front yard, but that’s got to stay.”
His harsh mouth softens at the corners. “Don’t worry about this. It’s handled,” he says again, low and quiet and certain. And then, after the slightest beat, he adds, “Angie.”
My name.
I don’t know if he was going to start a new sentence, or if the word is supposed to mean something on its own, but it steals the breath from my lungs.
How is this different?
He must have said my name a thousand times.
But not like this.
For a long second, all I can do is drown in his solemn, calm, deep brown eyes. How is it that I’ve known him forever, but I’ve never seen him before?
Why now when I’m about as low as a person can get?
A thud sounds from downstairs, and Madison yelps. Brandon and I both blink and bristle as if we’re coming out of a trance.
He coughs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “You can start putting shit in your car,” he says to me. “I’ve got this.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I scurry away like a scared little mouse and focus on what needs doing.
His boys show up before Madison and I make our first trip, piling out of a truck even bigger than Brandon’s, smelling like Coors Banquet Beer, Marlboros, and bay water. They must’ve been fishing. It takes them two trips and fifteen minutes to get the girls’ furniture down, and then they dip their chins at me, slap Brandon’s shoulder, and drive off, I suppose to meet him at Miss Dawn’s house.
I don’t meet his eye, but when he starts piling the rest of my stuff into the leftover space in his truck bed, I help. I hand baskets and boxes and bags up to him, and he arranges it like Tetris and straps it all down when we’re done.
“See you at the house,” he says to me, staring at the lawn a few feet in front of my shoes.
“Yeah,” I say. “Thank you again.”
He grunts at me, and then he’s gone. I stand there, stupid from the heat, trying to remember what I need to do next, when Madison comes to stand beside me.
She lays her sweaty face on my shoulder. I rest my head on hers. Brandon turns left at the four-way stop at the bottom of the street, and we sigh in unison.
“It’s been a long day,” I say.
“We’re ordering pizza from Squire’s when we’re done, and you’re paying.” She nudges my arm with her elbow.
“I will,” I promise. “And thank you for calling Brandon to help. I would’ve had to leave the bunk beds and probably the rest, too.”
Madison takes a step forward, puts her hands on her hips, and arches her back to stretch. “I didn’t call him,” she says, smirking at me as she bends over to pick up a little girl’s ballet slipper that must’ve fallen out of a basket. “I thought he had work today. He just showed up.”
And because Madison Kaczmarek is the best friend a person could have, she strolls off to the car so I have time to digest that information and wipe the dumbfounded expression off my face.