Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
ENFIELD
Ronan lifts the page he’s coloring and puts it against the screen, trying to show me what he’d just done. I laugh.
“Back it up a little,” I say.
He pulls the sheet back and peeks over the paper. “You see now?”
“Yes. I like the pink. That’s a good addition to the monkey.”
Ronan grins and sets the page down.
“Can you sign your name at the bottom, like an artist?”
He shakes his head. “Dunno how to write.”
“Look,” I say, and open an app on my phone to draw a capital R. I turn it and then mirror the R so it’s correct for Ronan. I hold it up to the screen. “Use your finger. See?”
Ronan’s little finger moves along the screen. The view wiggles as he does.
“Can you draw it now?”
He shakes his head, shoulders rising a little. Ronan doesn’t like to try anything new. He hates failure. I don’t know whether he’s been made to feel bad when he doesn’t succeed right away or if it’s just who he is. What I do know is that he lacks praise if he’s with his mother.
In fact, he lacks human interaction most of the time, which is why his speech is less advanced than Lissander’s. Amelia has been having full-on conversations with Lissander since he was in the womb.
“I’ll get you enrolled in preschool soon, buddy,” I tell him.
“When back on trip?” he asks, big brown eyes looking up into the video screen.
“As soon as I’m back,” I promise.
“Have sleepover too?”
“Yes, we’ll build a fort and stay up watching movies and eating ice cream in bed.”
Ronan giggles. His smile warms my chest. “Okay, Daddy.”
“I see Sandra next day,” Ronan says. He hums. “Two days?”
Sandra is what he calls Lissander. I think he’s trying to say Sander, which is what Amelia calls him, so that’s how he introduces himself. The -er turned into an -ra somewhere in translation.
“Baby Thea, too?”
He beams, nodding. “Yep. Hims Mommy get me.”
“Sarah’s coming to get you, or is Amelia?” I ask.
Ronan shrugs. “Dunno.”
“Is it the nice lady we had lunch with? She’s coming to get you?”
“Yep.”
“That’s Sarah. You baby sister’s Mommy.”
“Oh.” He looks uninterested in semantics. I chuckle. I don’t think this particular incident has him uninterested because he doesn’t understand, and it’s frustrating. I think he truly doesn’t know that Lissander has a different mother.
All three of my kids are only children in their households. Lissander understands the concept of siblings. I don’t think Ronan does.
I’m going to need to get him into a good preschool. And a really good primary school until I can take him full-time. While I’d love to get him top-of-the-line tutors and have him homeschooled, he desperately needs socialization since Courtney can’t be bothered.
She has no siblings and no close cousins, so Ronan is never around other children. He’s simply fascinated every time he spots a child, especially one his age.
I know when Courtney walks into the room. Ronan looks up, and the happy little boy practically vanishes before my eyes.
“Say bye to your father. You’re going to Grandma’s.”
Ronan looks at the screen. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye, buddy. Love you.”
“Love you too,” he says.
The feed swings up violently, and the world dims, turns black, and then the feed dies. That’s a good metaphor of my relationship with Courtney.
I roll my eyes. Hang on a little longer, buddy, I think to myself. I’ve toyed with the idea of taking Ronan. I know for a fact that Courtney will not put up a fight. She’ll gladly hand him over, no questions asked. Even if that means losing all the monetary support I provide.
That’s the only reason she keeps him now. I hate the way Ronan is always looking for her approval in everything he does. That carries over to every adult. He’s always asking me, is that good, Daddy? I do a good job? Like this, Daddy?
“Just a little longer,” I mutter and close my tablet. I have a nap date with Theodora later, but for now, it’s just me and my silence.
Absently, I wonder if Xavi’s mother is still here. Are they having tea and discussing his misfortune? Has she convinced him she didn’t know I was straight?
I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to Ronan’s situation and wonder if I need to wait until this entire situation is over entirely before I take Ronan from his mother.
It’s probably not right to introduce him to Xavi months before Xavi will be out of his life for good. That’s not a responsible thing to do.
So… three months. That’s the goal. I’m what? Two days into my sentence? Oh my god, has it seriously only been two fucking days? I just got here—oh, wait. My math is even wishful. It’s not even twenty-four hours later!
Groaning, I close my eyes. Okay, okay. Three months will bring us right before Thanksgiving.
Maybe I can bring my kids for Christmas with the family this year.
I can see my babies all snuggled into their inflatable pools, wrapped in a new holiday blanket with a stocking in their hands, eagerly waiting to examine their spoils.
The vision makes me smile. Is that possible? Hmm. I wonder if my mother has managed to erase their existence from everyone in our family.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I reach for my phone again and call my cousin.
Rice is a couple of years younger than me, the oldest son of my dad’s younger sister. He’s the closest in age to me of all my cousins, though he and his brothers and sister have always felt more like siblings than my own do.
I’ve always said it’s because my siblings happily went along with their contracts without question, like good little sheep.
That’s not the real reason, though. Rice did too.
He’s married to Annie, a woman that his parents contracted for him.
She’s honestly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
She’s absolutely lovely, and they’re grossly in love.
They have two little girls. Marietta is three, and Candice just turned one.
They’re the perfect, happy family. Just like their parents.
Just like Rice’s younger brother, Royal, as he and his contracted bride, Beatrice, begin their future together.
They were married eight months ago, and every time I see them, they’re also sickly in love.
It’s not about the success or failure of these contracts. It never was. It’s about the choice of lifestyle. I don’t want to be married. I don’t want kids.
Well, I don’t want kids that are forced on me by a contract. I don’t want kids forced into this life that I’m fighting so hard to break free from.
Admittedly, one of the many, many reasons Ronan exists was a misguided attempt at releasing one of my trusts.
The one that’s released with the birth of my first child.
Yes, I went around some key details the contract details, namely the contract itself, but I still thought it was a loophole that would work.
Needless to say, it didn’t. With his birth and my parents’ dismissal of him being part of this family, it was the first actual wedge between us that came with resentment and the seedling of hatred.
By the time Lissander came and was treated with the same disregard, my resentment was well-rooted and growing all the time.
I’d long since lost respect for my parents. Every single day, it seems there’s something new. Just another tally that makes my disrespect and dislike grow. Being tricked into a marriage with a man shoved it all deep into the fiery pits of hatred. There’s no coming back from this.
“Hello?”
I forgot I’d made a call. “Rice?”
He laughs. “You called me, dude. What’s up?”
I sigh. “Nothing. You?”
“Nothing as exciting as you. I hear you gave in, huh?”
I glower at nothing.
“You there now, aren’t you? At your future wife’s house? Northern Cali, right?”
“Yes, future husband.”
Silence. Rice doesn’t respond for a minute that stretches on and on. “What?” he asks eventually.
“Yep. My parents fucking tricked me into marrying a man. If I cancel the contract without both sets of parents’ agreement, I’m forfeiting both trusts and my company shares.”
A beat passes. “What?”
I snort.
“It didn’t say he was a man in the contract?”
Sighing heavily, I say, “I didn’t read it, Rice.
I don’t give a fuck what’s in the contract or who the woman they’re sentencing to a lifetime of contempt and misery is.
That’s on them. They let me sign it anyway, even after I verbally said I don’t give a fuck what’s in the contract.
They took that to mean I was fine in a gay relationship. ”
“What the fuck?”
“Yep.”
“I—I don’t have words. What are you going to do?”
I roll my eyes. “The same thing I was going to do with a wife. Not a fucking thing. I’m going to pretend he doesn’t exist and wait until my shit is released to me.”
“And then what?”
“Then continue to pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“Enfield,” Rice says, sighing. “Is that really how you want to live your life?”
“No. I want to live my life how I want to live my life. Not how someone else demands I live my life. Apparently, that’s not an option.”
Rice doesn’t respond. I imagine he has a lot to say that isn’t in support of my decision. I appreciate it when he doesn’t.
“That’s not what I called about. I wanted to run an idea by you.”
“Okay.” I hear the hesitation in his tone.
“It has nothing to do with this at all.”
He sighs. “Good. What’s up?”
“You’re aware I have kids, yeah?”
“I’ve heard rumors and rumblings,” Rice says, amused. “Two?”
“Three. My daughter was born three months ago.”
He chuckles. “I see. Congrats?”
“All three were planned, so I’ll take it.”
Rice laughs quietly.
“If I wanted to bring them over for the holidays at the castle, what would Auntie Marjorie say? How would she treat them?”
“She’s going to be stupidly offended that you need to ask,” he muses.
“Just tell me what you think.”
“Mom will be ecstatic to have your kids there, Enfield. She’ll be psyched.”
“The rest of the family?”
“I think everyone outside of your parents will treat them as your children should be treated: Part of the family. I’m going to say this next thing, and I don’t mean it as a discouragement at all. I’d love to have your kids join us for holidays, too.”
“What is it, then?”
“Your parents are going to be there too, you know. You need to think about that before you make a decision to move around them and enfold your kids into the family. For the record, I want them to be. They deserve to be. This is their family, too. I’m trying to contain my offense at you not bringing them around for playdates with mine, but I figure we’ll deal with one thing at a time. ”
I laugh. “I will. Promise. As soon as this… I move back to Napa Valley.”
“That’s where you’ll be living?”
“I don’t give a fuck what the contract states. I won’t live outside of Napa Valley. That’s where my kids are.”
“What does your contract say?”
I snort. “You haven’t been listening.”
“You still haven’t read it.”
“What do I need to read it for? I already signed that bitch.”
“Enfield.” I can practically see him shaking his head.
“My lawyer has a copy. He knows I’m moving back after these thirty days are over. If it had said something otherwise, he’d have said something.”
“Did he say something about the gender of your future spouse?”
Scowling, I answer, “No, but he made several comments that should have, at the very least, made me ask about why he was making those comments. Hindsight and all that shit.”
“May I give you unsolicited advice?”
“That depends on what it is,” I hedge.
He laughs. “Read the contract, Enfield. Just read it.”
“Why? It’s only going to piss me off.”
“Because you’re in such a good mood now.”
Okay, he has a point.
There’s noise on the other side of the phone, and I hear one of his littles laughing. I smile. “I have to go, Enfield. Read the contract. I’ll call you in a couple days.”
“Yeah, fine. Later.”
“Bye.”
“BYE!” Marietta hollers in the background.
Rice’s following laughter is interrupted when the call ends. I sigh, tossing my phone onto my bed. Maybe I’ll read the contract, but I don’t need to. Nash has. I’m sure he’s picked it apart line by line.
What I actually need to think about is holidays and whether I’m willing to bring my children somewhere that my parents are.
Holidays, especially Christmas, are absolutely magical in my family.
My aunt and uncle live in a castle in Napa Valley, and everything about the holidays feels like a fairy tale.
It’s enchanting. Even though I’ve avoided my parents more and more over the years, Christmastime is the one time each year I put up with their existence.
Not happily and not pleasantly, but it’s the one time I choose to remain where they are for any length of time.
My kids deserve that. I can just imagine my boys’ faces as they stand at the base of the twelve-foot tree and try to see the top.
I can see them running in and out of rooms looking for stockings.
I can see their endless smiles, wonder, and laughter as they play with the other little cousins and are spoiled by the adults.
But Rice is right. My parents will be there. I don’t want them anywhere near my children. Ever. Even if they suddenly changed their minds and acknowledged my kids as legitimate, I would never allow them near my babies.
So my options are to either bring them to Christmas where my parents are and my parents ignore them and make my kids feel bad by doing so, or they embrace them, and I force them away, which also makes my kids feel bad because they don’t understand why I’m not allowing my parents near them.
Or I just don’t bring my kids, and they miss out on the joy that I grew up with.
I hate everything about these options. Though I haven’t felt angry much today since it began with a long video visit with my son, the familiar hot anger rises in my chest and once again, I think about how much I hate my parents because once again, they’re interfering even if doing so unwittingly.
I won’t ever let them make my kids feel bad. And if they ever make my kids feel unwanted, I will lose my fucking shit.