Chapter 26
Jules
I’m still sitting, stunned, on Russell’s couch when my phone starts to ring.
After the door shut behind him, I was left in the chilling silence of the penthouse condo. Somehow, in the heart of the city, I couldn’t hear a noise from outside. Not a single car horn or crosswalk sign, no music from passing motorcycles or bells from the Salvation Army Santas.
Nothing but the heavy, thick beating of my heart, until the buzz of my phone cuts through it.
At first, like last night, I think that it might be Ettie calling about Gus, and I grab it from the coffee table.
Then, remembering what happened last night when I made that assumption, dread swoops low in my already-stressed stomach, and I think that it might be my mom again, texting once more to remind me how disappointed she is in my life.
But it’s not Ettie, or my mom.
“Jules, great of you to finally answer,” Peter says, sounding out of breath. “There’s a crisis with a client and we’re all-hands-on-deck here. How soon can you get into the office?”
For a moment, I’m stunned at the particular flavor of bad luck that I’m tasting.
Gus on that show, then my mother’s response, then Russell running out of the apartment the minute I asked where this was going, and now Peter on the phone, saying I need to come into the office.
It’s the weekend. It’s not like I’m expected to come in. But if I don’t, there’s no doubt in my mind that he might note something down about me not being a team player on my next progress report so he can justify not giving me the raise I deserve.
Russell’s voice plays through my head again: I want this for you, and I want Gus to have a mom who’s not exhausted and frustrated from her work. I want to invest in you. So let me.
I’d even started to let myself believe it, just for a second. That I might be the kind of person who could relax into someone else, let Russell prop one side of my life up so I could focus on my career. Living here, with Gus’s tuition paid—it would be a dream.
And that’s exactly what it is.
The moment he looked at his phone, Russell had reacted like—
Well, like it was his kid. The way I might react if Ettie was calling me about Gus. When I saw that look on his face, it made my stomach swoop.
And as much as I know I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, I just can’t stop myself from doing it. From going straight to the worst possible explanation.
Especially considering the fact that it’s happened to me before. Russell wouldn’t be the first man to lie to me, to have a family on the side I don’t know about.
Just the thought of it makes me queasy.
“Juliette.” Peter uses my full name, and it doesn’t help the nausea rolling in my stomach. I close my eyes.
Ettie was already planning on keeping Gus today. I didn’t plan to pick him up until after my shift at the Christmas market. And although I am in a soaring, beautiful condo in downtown Chicago, it feels barren without Russell here.
And, if I’m being honest with myself, I’d rather feel like shit in the office than feel like shit here, where I’d just started to really feel a sense of hope.
“I’m coming right now,” I say, throwing the covers off myself and trying to think about the clothes I brought, if they’ll be office appropriate. “Give me ten minutes.”
My heart hammers in my chest as I stomp out of the Elemint office, rage and fury clashing inside me.
Quinn slips through the door after me, saying breathlessly, “He didn’t mean to be so hard. Peter’s just frustrated from the whole…situation—”
“I appreciate that you’re trying to make this better,” I say, stopping and turning to face Quinn, who’s following me out of the office, her heels clicking against the floor as we go. “But it can’t get better. I meant what I said.”
What I said, directly to Peter’s face was, “This is your circus, and all your monkeys are loose. I’m done running in circles for you. You can consider this my verbal and immediate resignation.”
Now, Quinn rushes ahead of me, cutting me off after I hit the elevator button, but before it arrives on our floor. “Jules, listen, you are a valuable member of this team.”
Behind us, the door to the office shuts, and somewhere beyond that, the meeting is likely still raging on with Peter throwing his fits and refusing to take any responsibility for what’s happening right now. My quitting and walking out probably only put a pep in his destructive, juvenile step.
The CEO of a company we represent just accidentally posted to TikTok what was supposed to be a short video for his boys’ group chat.
A video in which he objectifies several of the very young assistants and interns working for him.
Currently, the team is divided—some of them trying to keep the CEO from making everything worse with his own ukulele apology video, some of them attempting to moderate social media comments, keep a pulse on the YouTube commentary scene.
There’s even a dedicated team to wrangle his wife—soon to be ex-wife, hopefully—to keep her from adding fuel to the flames.
“I know that,” I say, crossing my arms and staring her down. “I’ve been telling Peter for weeks that our catastrophe planning isn’t thorough enough. I even offered to go over it myself, but he doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t like me.”
“So, we’ll move you to my team,” Quinn offers, and that almost convinces me. It’s all I’ve wanted since I started working here. To get away from Peter, and to get away from what he did today—pinning this on me. Simultaneously giving me no agency and all the flack when something goes wrong.
Working for Quinn would be different. Sure, I would still have to see Peter around the office, and he might still be able to mess with me through round-about ways—but he would no longer be my boss. I wouldn’t report to him, wouldn’t have to attend the molar-grinding one-on-ones every month.
“You’re considering,” Quinn says, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine, hope lighting up her face. Of course, she can read me—that’s what makes her good at her job.
I want Gus to have a mom who’s not exhausted and frustrated from her work. You love this shit, and I think you could do a much better job with your own place.
Despite everything I’m feeling about Russell right now, I know he’s right about one thing—Gus deserves better from me. And I need to be the role model I strive to be for my son. To show him that we don’t take shit from anyone, and don’t tolerate being treated like this.
“I really wish you’d said that months ago,” I say, reaching out and squeezing Quinn’s arm, watching as the hopeful expression on her face morphs to shock. The elevator dings, the doors slide open, and I step past her. “Good luck.”
When the elevator doors slide open in the lobby, I have the sense of being coughed up by a beast, sliding out slimed in saliva and exhausted, partially digested even—but happy to be alive. That last part is buried under rapidly emerging worry over everything else, but is present.
I hurry through the lobby, grab my coat from the check, and shiver against the cool air as I push out onto the street. For the first time in many, many years, I’m largely unemployed.
I could go straight back to my apartment—in fact, that’s a huge part of me that wants nothing more than to hug Gus to me, kiss the top of his head, and hold him as close as I can while we drink cocoa and watch those clay animated Christmas movies.
But there’s still too much bouncing around in my head, so I cross the DuSable bridge and head toward Millennium Park. It’s still afternoon, but the sun is already dropping low in the sky, threatening that early winter sunset that I haven’t noticed to this point.
By the time I make it to the park, the light has turned deep blue and purple, and it’s getting even colder, but it feels good. As I walk, I turn the scene at Russell’s apartment over and over in my head, trying to approach it from every angle.
Two days ago, I saw that mark near his ear that’s identical to the one Gus’s father had. The more I look at Gus, the more I see the similarities—that same nose, gray eyes. Last night, Russell held me while I cried over my parents, and this morning, he told me he wanted to invest in me.
Then, when I asked him to clarify our relationship, he got a text and ran out the door.
Family emergency.
But something about it felt like a lie to me.
And it’s at that exact moment—right when the thought forms in my head—that I look up and see him.
Russell.
There’s a section of the concrete where the sidewalks converge, a sort of epi-center of spider-webbing paths, and he’s pushing a stroller. A woman stands beside him, leaning down and comforting a crying baby inside it.
Something hot and sticky plummets through me, like a searing rock sizzling in water. It heats me through, until I’m queasy and lightheaded, reaching out to a bench to keep my balance.
It can’t be him. Not with a stroller. Not with a woman.
Not again.
When I manage a deep breath and look up, though, it’s still him. And this time, the woman next to him is holding a little bundle bouncing it gently, cooing. And when she turns, I see that nose—the same nose on Russell. On the other kid in the double-wide stroller.
On Gus.
Russell reaches out and puts a hand on her arm, and it feels like when an escalator stops moving suddenly. When you’ve jumped on a trampoline for too long and you return to the earth, finding regular ground far too jarring and unrelenting after the world you’ve been inhabiting.
Of course it was too good to be true. All of it. How many times am I going to have to learn this lesson?
Everything crashes around inside me—guilt, shame, anger, but more than anything, rising up above it all, is disappointment. I thought Russell was different.
Before I know what I’m doing, my feet move, carrying me through the crunchy, frost-tipped grass. The stroller, and the baby, and the man come into focus, and only distantly do I feel the hot tears on my cheeks when I finally reach them.
I’ve had a lot of shitty days. But this one is easily taking the fucking cake.
Russell turns, his eyes widening. The woman steps back, holding the baby closer to her chest, eyes darting between me and her—what? Husband? Boyfriend?
Did he really think I was going to sit at his apartment, waiting for him? Russell was under the impression that I really was going to stay like a good girl and wait for him to finish his romp in the park with his babies and this woman.
His partner. His wife.
“Russell—” she says, at the same time he says, brow furrowed, “Jules?”
But both of those are drowned out by me saying, “Fuck you, Russell. And also—Gus asked Santa for a dad, but I’m not so sure he actually wants him. Because that man is you. Gus is yours.”