Chapter 16
16
[Ruthie]
I have no idea why I blew him a kiss. Perhaps I felt saucy. Maybe I’m just delirious.
I’m running a low-grade fever, and my throat is on fire. I just want to close my eyes and sleep for a week, but Tulane is as ill as I am.
She has a double ear-infection, and the ‘pink medicine’ was prescribed for her. I texted Bolan the details. When he finally responded with concern, he mentioned a mandatory team meeting he hadn’t known about, and he would try to skip out on. Because I’d designed his calendar, I knew about the meeting, and I also knew he couldn’t miss it.
Little things, like skipping team meetups, were the types of situations that snowballed Bolan’s bad rep and sent him to Japan in the first place.
The numerous bigger issues for him include ones like an incident with a Mini Cooper and an opposing team’s mascot .
As the afternoon turns to evening, the sky grows darker, and I feel guilty that I’ve missed two games in a row. However, with Tulane as my sidekick, she cannot keep up with this pace, and I’ve notified Jared that either a nanny needs to be hired, or Bolan needs to be trusted.
I’m rooting for option number two. He needs to be allowed to make good choices on his own, without me hovering over him. I believe he can do it. Plus, I’m enjoying my time a little too much with the little one sleeping on my chest. I should set her down but I’m afraid her ears are still bothering her despite giving her antibiotic and baby acetaminophen to manage the ache.
It also might be that I simply don’t want to put her to bed yet.
Because my father called. Of course, I ignored any message he left, but even the idea of him calling me adds to the weight of my illness and I just wanted to snuggle Tulane a little longer. My personal reminder that I’d never let anything happen to her. She will know love.
Sitting on the couch, my legs are stretched out with my back braced on the armrest, and Tulane on my lap. A blanket is draped over both of us. The hum of the television is just that—soft background noise. My eyes have fallen shut.
Earlier in the day, I had the Anchors’ game on the set. Bolan is an incredible catcher, but he also had some great hits today. I feel awful that Tulane and I have missed his game. It broke my heart when he said no one ever attends them for him. I like being that someone there for him, cheering him on, talking with him about the games afterward. He has someone rooting for him now, and that someone is me.
I’ve missed him today.
When the apartment door bursts open, like Bolan raced up two flights of stairs, the suddenness sends a woosh of air into the room, and my lids fling open .
Bolan startles when his gaze catches on me.
“Flower, what’s wrong?” His voice is filled with the same level of concern he expressed yesterday when he walked in and found me pacing the room with Tulane in my arms.
“I’m not feeling so great,” I admit. “But Tulip is doing better.”
Bolan’s eyes widen and then soften. His smile grows next. “You just called her by her nickname.”
My cheeks heat. “Should I not? I know that’s your special name for her.”
Bolan sets down his bag and rounds the couch. “It can be our special name for her.”
The thrill that rushes up my middle shouldn’t exist, especially as my throat burns when I swallow, but Bolan has made repeated comments with our in them.
Our last name. Our home.
He’s making it too easy to slip into a reality that doesn’t exist in this fantasy we’re building by playing family.
“You should really stop calling me flower, though.”
“Why? Because you don’t want me thinking about your delicate petals? Or the soft sigh you make, like a leaf in the wind, when you?—”
“Bolan,” I snap, jostling Tulane against my chest as I chuckle. “Don’t make me laugh.” Or turn me on . I’m too sick to think about him touching me intimately or making any sigh he says I make.
Bolan twists his lips. Fighting a smirk or feeling chastised, I can’t tell. There is so much about him I still cannot read.
Then again, I’d known Clifton most of my life and hadn’t been able to understand him either.
“You’re right, though,” Bolan interjects, erasing my thoughts of Cliff. “Flower is too generic, which is why I wanted to call you Rue. It’s more specific. ”
“How do you even know what rue is?” Bolan does not strike me as a man who propagates flowers.
“My granddad had a flower garden.” Bolan lowers to squat beside the couch. “He loved those flowers more than almost anything. Except me.”
The look in his eyes expresses both love and loss.
“He sounds like a special man.”
“He was. My number one fan.”
I don’t have grandparents, but I appreciate that relationship. I’d longed for it as a kid. Longed for any semblance of family, which is why falling into Clifton’s had been both easy and dangerous for me.
I also fight the admission that I could be Bolan’s number one fan. Instead, I swallow against the fire at the back of my throat and shift Tulane. “I should probably get up.”
Twisting my body, I intend to stand when Bolan catches my knee. “What do you need?” He stands and toe-kicks out of his shoes while he asks.
“I should put Tulane to bed.” Her nap was short again today. She needs more rest.
When Bolan reaches downward, I assume he’s going to take her from me. Instead, he scoops both of us up.
“Bolan,” I whisper-scold. “What are you doing?”
He steps over to the recliner and takes a seat, setting me on his lap before tipping the seat back. I fall against his chest, Tulane still tucked against mine.
“I’m taking care of my girls.”
“I weigh too much,” I say as I wiggle to settle better on his thighs.
“Never say that.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head which rests just beneath his chin on his shoulder. “And you’re burning up, baby.”
“I’m freezing.” The last half-hour I might have been using the heat of Tulane on me to try and warm up .
“Did you take anything?”
“Tylenol. About thirty minutes ago.”
“Tell Dr. Adler what else aches, flower?”
“Now you’re a doctor?” I tease, my voice scratchy.
“Let me heal you.”
I hum, closing my eyes. He has no idea the ways he could heal me. On the flip side, some wounds might go too deep.
“Is this about petals again?” I flirt when I have no business, as a sick woman, flirting.
“Do you want it to be?”
I hum again, not certain if I do or don’t but leaning toward yes . I don’t know why I’m resisting my husband. Bolan Adler seems like a good man, trying to do the right thing for his daughter. We could have fun together although I’m not known for fun.
Responsible Ruthie versus reckless, spontaneous, adventurous Ruthie. Then again, I did marry him on a whim.
“How long have you been holding her?” he mutters to my hair, and I realize his lips linger on my forehead.
“A while.”
“I think she likes you better than me,” Bolan states quietly.
“Never say that,” I chide, parroting his words when I made my weight comment.
His relationship with Tulane is solid for now, and as long as Bolan never does anything to crack that bond, she’ll always love him more.
“But I’m definitely falling in love with her,” I admit. Dangerous. So dangerous to love someone else’s child. “How could I not? She’s so sweet.”
At sixteen months, life is an adventure. So many discoveries. So many developments.
Bolan hums next, his lips still at my hairline. “Tell me again why you aren’t a mother.” He pauses a second. “The real reason, this time. ”
“I didn’t get pregnant,” I state again. My eyes close as I relax into the rhythm of Bolan’s chest lightly lifting and lowering with each breath he takes. The thud of his heart through the thin material of his shirt is soothing.
Keeping my eyes closed, I breathe deeply. “Clifton and I didn’t work.” I shouldn’t feel comfortable talking about my late husband while I snuggle into my new one, but Bolan asked.
And when he doesn’t speak, I fill the silence. “I thought it was me.” My body. My fault .
I swallow thickly, fighting the burn in my sore throat, a combination of illness and melancholy memory. “But it was him.”
In the eight years of our marriage, discussions about having a baby came and went. Eventually, per a doctor’s suggestion, we committed to six solid months of trying to get pregnant. If I hadn’t been pregnant naturally by the end of those six months, then we’d talk about alternatives.
Six months came and went. At the nine-month marker, I demanded Clifton and I each be tested for infertility issues.
The results showed Clifton’s sperm count was low. The idea sent him into a ridiculous rage. His sexual drive was a badge of honor, although stamina and sperm numbers are not the same thing. Eventually, he joked about being impotent. Called himself a dud. The humor was a coverup for deeper emotions. For what he considered another failure.
He hadn’t been the football star he thought his father wanted him to be.
He hadn’t been a faithful husband.
He wouldn’t be a father.
For me, the final blow came when I went to the doctor thinking I might be pregnant, despite this new development, to learn I had chlamydia.
Clifton’s third strike .
“It wasn’t meant to be, I guess,” I say, realizing I’d been lost in painful memories.
“What about adoption?”
“It wasn’t an option.” I’d asked Clifton for a divorce. My final secret from Nylah and Jared. “Then, he . . . passed.”
I always stumble on the word, as if passing implies Clifton hadn’t had a choice. Like cancer or a heart attack claimed him.
“Tell me again how he died.”
I’m thankful my eyes are already closed, and I swallow once more, the pain in my throat from more than my current ailment.
“He killed himself,” I whisper. “Walked right into the sea and?—”
I hate the ocean now, though it isn’t the natural wonder’s fault my husband took his life. I’ll never know what thoughts were running through his mind; how he could choose to walk himself into the roiling waves of the sea, rather than fight for our marriage. He chose to step out on me. He chose to break us. To break me, over and over again. Yet, when I finally decided to fight back for myself, Cliff decided to end it all, breaking me for the final, most excruciating time.
I’d begged him for marriage counseling. Even suggested he get therapy on his own. The stigma around mental health was not the same as it was ten years ago. Not for athletes. Not for veterans. But Clifton refused. He saw therapy as an admission to failure. Me. His parents. Himself.
When I told him I thought we should divorce, he walked himself into the ocean.
Bolan squeezes me tighter. His lips press more firmly against my forehead. He doesn’t tell me he’s sorry. Doesn’t offer condolences, and I’m grateful. I’ve heard the words so often in the last eighteen months, and anger brewed within me with each new set offered.
People wanted to hail Cliff as a hero. He wasn’t. Not a saint of a man nor husband either. He was simply a sad, disturbed human who refused to get help.
Through my own counseling, I’ve learned not to blame myself. Some days were harder than others. Most days, being around Nylah and Jared were difficult.
The secrets I kept, preserving their memories of him, slowly chip away at me, and I don’t want to be whittled down any more than I am.
“Is that what you want, Ruthie?” Bolan’s tone is the most serious I’ve ever heard it, breaking into my memories and the silence that has lasted minutes. “Do you want a baby?”
Yes . “I don’t foresee that happening,” I whisper, the thickness in my throat once more a combination of soreness and sadness.
And for now, I had Tulane.
Bolan doesn’t speak again, tightening his arms around me once more. Securing both Tulane and I to him in this boat of a chair, where we drift for a little while.
Safe. Secure . Words I wouldn’t ever have used with Cliff. Concepts I’m afraid to accept from someone else.
With the low murmur of the television and the warmth of Bolan’s embrace, I’m lulled to sleep in his lap, where my fever-induced dreams include Tulane being mine forever.
And Bolan, too.
In the morning, Bolan tiptoes around the bedroom. At some point, he carried me, with Tulane on my lap, to the main bedroom and set us on the bed. He took his spot on the couch for the rest of the evening.
He stumbles against one foot of the bed, jostling the entire thing, and my eyes spring open.
“Shit. Sorry,” he whispers, standing beside the bed, towering over me. “I didn’t want to wake you but wanted to know how you were feeling before I head out.”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.” Another day of fever reducers and lots of tea, and I should be on the mend. I’d love to stay in bed, but the option isn’t present. I need to take care of Tulane.
Bolan lowers his head, slipping his hands into the pockets of black joggers. He’s wearing a generic Chicago Anchors tee.
“I’m sorry, again, that I don’t have a job where I can call out sick.” Sincerity fills his voice along with a lingering concern on his cheeks.
“I’d never ask that of you.” My voice is groggy, and I’m not certain if it’s sleep-laden, or dishonesty, choking me. I once asked Cliff to leave professional football. After I caught him cheating during our marriage. He agreed to quit, then held it against me, when the truth was he’d been unable to handle the pressure of the sport.
“I’ll be fine,” I add, shuffling to sit upright. “Today might be a lot of couch and television time, though.”
Bolan hasn’t set limits on screen time for Tulane, giving me full reign to monitor her how I see fit. Watching children’s programs is rare, but I still want Bolan to know my plan.
“Of course. Whatever you need.” Despite my greasy hair and need for a shower, he brushes his hand gently over my head and I close my eyes, relishing the tender touch. “And if you need something, and it can wait, text me. I’ll pick it up on my way home.”
What I need is my husband to climb into this bed and hold me, but I don’t mention that desire.
Instead, I smile timidly at him and tell him, “Catch all the catches.”