Chapter 22 Piper
PIPER
“Mommy, can we order pizza now?” Gavin asked.
“Give me five more minutes, sweet boy. Okay?” I asked. “Mommy’s gotta make one more phone call.”
“But you’ve been on the phone all night.”
“I know. Just one more time, okay?”
“Fine. But then pizza.”
“I promise,” I said.
I slipped off to the bathroom and called Rock for the fourth time.
I had no idea what he was doing, but I was growing worried.
He said he would meet us at seven o’clock, and it was now half past that.
No calls. No text messages. No nothing. I held the phone to my ear while it rang and rang.
I begged silently for him to pick up the phone.
I didn’t care that he was late. I didn’t care if we had to wait another hour.
Hell, I didn’t even care if he couldn't make it to dinner.
I simply wanted to know he was okay.
It finally shot me to his voicemail and I hung up. Panic filled my veins as tears rushed my eyes. I was petrified something had happened to him. Scared that he had gotten himself into trouble, or hurt, or arrested yet again.
Yet again.
I snickered at the thought.
“What would you like on your pizza, honey?”
“Yeah! Pepperoni and pineapple,” Gavin said.
“Pineapple doesn’t go on pizza,” I said teasingly.
“It goes on my pizza. Please, Mom?”
“You can have whatever pizza you want. I’m just giving you a hard time.”
I pulled up the application on my phone and ordered us some dinner.
Then, I shot Rock another text message. I didn’t even need an explanation at that point.
Just some sort of sign that the man was still breathing.
Even with as torn as I had been about letting him into our lives again, it didn’t keep me from worrying about him.
It didn’t keep me from wishing and hoping and silently praying with all my might that he was okay.
“Do you think if we call Rock he would come eat with us?” Gavin asked.
I was so glad I didn’t tell my son about inviting him to dinner.
But the fact that he asked about Rock unprompted only served to heighten my worry.
If something happened to him at this point, what would I tell my son?
It was blatantly obvious how attached Gavin already was to the man.
How he considered Rock his friend. What was I supposed to tell my son if he went off to jail again? If he got hurt?
God forbid, if he got killed?
The thought shot shivers down my spine.
“Why don’t we make it an evening where it’s just us?” I asked.
“Awww, that’s dumb,” Gavin said.
“Dumb!? I’m hurt,” I said. “Why is an evening with just Mom dumb?”
“Because you won’t be happy.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“When it’s only you and me, sometimes you just look at a wall or something.”
“Maybe I’m just thinking,” I said.
“About stuff that makes you frown. But when Rock’s here, you smile more. I like that.”
I blinked several times at my son as he leaned back into his chair.
“Like now. You’re frowning.”
“I’m thinking. This is my thinking face,” I said.
“Well it needs to be fixed. It’s broken.”
I threw my head back and laughed before I reached over for my son.
I pulled him from his chair and gathered him into my arms, but his comments weighed heavily on my mind.
Was I actually happier when Rock was around?
So visibly happy my five-year old son picked up on it?
I guess I enjoyed having him around. The help with Gavin this past weekend was really nice.
And our lovely encounters were definitely something I wanted to keep experiencing.
But did that justify opening our lives up to the worry I was already facing?
Because that would be our life. Rock would leave these walls to roll with his club and I would never know if he was coming home.
Coming back to us. I didn’t know whether I’d get a call from Brewer saying Rock had been arrested or a call from Diesel saying Rock had been killed.
Could I really expose my son to something like that?
I sat there with my son in my arms until the doorbell rang.
He scrambled from my lap and started pulling plates and things out of the dishwasher.
I thanked the delivery boy and tipped him well, then the two of us sat down at the dinner table to eat.
I opened up his small pizza and he dug in, pulling slices pouring with cheese onto his plate.
I stood up and got us some drinks, him a glass of milk and me a beer.
Normally, I didn’t drink in front of Gavin.
But with my nerves as shot as they already were, I needed the relaxation help.
And against my better judgment, I pulled my phone from my pocket to see if Rock had contacted me at all.
My worry was beginning to overflow in ways I’d never experienced before.
In some ways, I was upset with him. In other ways, I was so worried I could make myself sick.
Gavin devoured his pizza, humming and chewing loudly as the small slices quickly disappeared.
But I hardly got through my first piece.
The beer went down easily. A little too easily for sitting in front of my child.
I watched the clock on the microwave tick all the way to nine o’clock, and with each passing minute worry took the place of hunger.
“Wanna watch a movie?”
I pulled my eyes away from the microwave and looked down at my son.
“I’d love to,” I said with a smile. “What movie do you want to watch?”
“Die Hard.”
“Die Hard?” I asked. “You want to watch Die Hard.”
“It’s Rock’s favorite. He said I would like it.”
“Yeah. We’re not watching Die Hard.”
“Please?” Gavin asked.
“No. We can watch cartoons. Or a superhero movie. But we’re not watching Die Hard.”
“Rock said Bruce Willis is his superhero.”
I laughed and shook my head before I let out a sigh.
In the expanse of maybe a week, Rock had completely infiltrated my home.
My body. My son. There wasn’t a moment that passed by that Gavin wasn’t mentioning him in some way.
And I knew that was my son’s way of expressing how much he missed having Rock around.
I was most certainly not allowing my five-year old to watch Bruce Willis blow things up and fill our television screen with profanity, but it shouldn’t shock me that Rock was into the Die Hard series.
“Let’s go find something a little more kid-appropriate to watch. When you’re older, you and I will sit down and watch all the Die Hard movies.”
“And Rock, too?” Gavin asked.
“We’ll see, sweet boy,” I said. “We’ll see.”
I settled down with my son on the couch and held him close.
His long legs sprawled out along the cushions and his arms wrapped around me.
He laid his head in my lap and I mindlessly ran my fingers through his hair as cartoons rolled across the screen.
But I wasn’t paying attention to them. Not even a little bit.
My mind was focused on my pocket. On the phone pressing into my hip.
I was willing it to vibrate against me.
Cartoon after cartoon passed, and the longer it took for Rock to contact me, the more worried I became.
Something was wrong. I knew something was wrong.
This was a terrible idea. I should’ve told that man ‘no’ and left it at that.
He could have never taken me to court for custody without exposing the insanity of his life.
I would’ve won, hands down. And if he made my life a living nightmare, I could’ve moved easily.
Taken another job somewhere else, given Gavin another year to hang out with me, then enrolled him into first grade after testing him out of kindergarten.
Why didn’t I do that?
Why didn’t I do any of that?
“Ouch, Mom.”
I looked down and saw my fingers had gotten tangled in Gavin’s hair.
“Sorry, sweetheart. We need to give you a bath tomorrow and wash your hair really well. It’s tangled like crazy,” I said.
“Can I take a bath tonight?”
“You know what? That sounds like a great plan. Come on. We’ll get you a bath, then come back down here and dry off with more cartoons.”
“All right!”
He scrambled off the couch and ran up the steps as I untangled his loose hair from around my fingertips.
Then, without thinking, I pulled my phone out to check the time.
Almost ten at night and not a peep had been heard.
No text messages, no returned phone calls, and no voicemails.
I jammed my phone back into my pocket and tried to abate my worries.
But the sound of running water soon ripped me from my worried state.
“Don’t make it too-”
“Ouch!” Gavin exclaimed.
“Hot,” I said flatly.
I really needed to color-coat those knobs before my son’s hands became a massive mound of scar tissue.
“Mom! I burned myself!”
“Coming with the first aid kit, sweet boy! Sit on the toilet and wait for me.”
Then I went to go dig around in the kitchen for the kit so I could patch up my son, all the while hoping and praying Rock didn’t need any patching up of his own.