Chapter 4
TYLER
BANG. BANG. BANG.
There were days where parenthood felt like a noble endeavor, an opportunity and experience bestowed by the gods. Like a fragile, gentle thing that deserved care, attention, the lightest touch.
There were also days when it felt like Tyler had been thrown into a fighting pit armed only with four hours of sleep and a kitchen towel.
“I’m a kitty, Papa,” Rowan wailed, his wide blue eyes brimming with tears. “And kitties don’t eat sweet potaybados!”
Tyler ran a hand over his face, trying to hide his frustration. Sweet potatoes had been one of Rowan’s favorite foods up until five minutes ago, when his son had informed him that kitties did not, under any circumstances, eat them.
Now the scramble he’d made with pork sausage, eggs, spinach and sweet potatoes sat untouched on the plate, and he had a hungry and raging three-year-old on his hands.
Rowan had woken up at 5:45 that morning, and Tyler hadn’t had a chance to do anything more than brush his teeth and throw on a thick, baggy sweater in a color palette that reminded him of a Vermont autumn.
Rowan was still in his mismatched pajamas: jack o'lantern-patterned pants and a long sleeve shirt with a rainbow butterfly print.
They needed to leave in twenty minutes so Tyler could deliver groceries for two hours, and then they were going to check out a potential new place to live.
It still didn’t feel real that the man who’d knocked himself out in Tyler’s front yard just happened to be a professional hockey player with a lead on a place to live.
He’d fully prepared himself for Sully’s offer to be lip-service, the kind of thing someone who has everything says to the poor single dad.
He hadn’t expected anything when he’d called the number Jamie had given him, but then a woman had picked up on the first ring.
Dotty had been warm, friendly, and let him know their last tenant had just moved out when she married her fiancé.
Tyler had learned that Dotty and her wife, Sandra, were retired school teachers who loved kids.
It was hard to imagine it all working out. Sure, what they asked for in rent was affordable, but he’d need to figure out childcare if he wasn’t living at the house with Annabeth anymore. He’d looked at some of the local daycares, but most of them had a waiting list.
He didn’t know how it was going to work, but he was trying. They were trying.
“Row,” he said gently, walking over to stand beside the wooden learning tower where Rowan was glaring daggers at his plate. “All of the kitties I know love to eat sweet potatoes.”
Rowan bared his tiny, white teeth. “They do not!”
Okay. Time to pivot. “I can offer you some apple sauce or a scrambled egg.”
“No!” Rowan’s wavy brown hair–a mirror to Tyler’s–flew out from his head as he shook it back and forth with a vehemence that signaled the approach of a meltdown. “Kitties only eat muffins!”
There weren’t any muffins.
Resigned, Tyler scooped up his son. “Let’s go get some clothes on, kitty. We’ve got an adventure to go on.”
Later that afternoon, Tyler pulled up at the curb of the address Dotty had sent and stared.
They were obviously undercharging on rent. The house was beautiful, the yard well-maintained even in winter. The Victorian was painted a dark blue with green trim on the windows, and looked like it had recently been updated.
“Papa, it looks like a castle,” Rowan said, his breath hot on Tyler’s cheek.
“It really does,” he replied.
He’d only knocked once when the door opened, revealing two women, standing side by side with sincere smiles on their faces.
“You must be Tyler and Rowan! Come on in,” one of them said. “I’m Sandra, and this is my wife Dotty.”
Tyler gave them a grateful smile and walked into their bright, comfortable living room. Sandra was broad-shouldered and tall, with an ample chest and shoulder-length blonde hair streaked with gray. Tyler immediately recognized pieces of Sully in her face.
Beside her, Dotty was a shorter Black woman with short hair and a beautiful, bright smile. A gold necklace rested around her neck, and she wore a crew neck sweatshirt with a big green fish on the front.
“Thank you so much for showing us the spot,” Tyler said.
“Well, aren’t you just the sweetest,” Dotty said, looking tenderly at Rowan. “Can you tell me who you have with you today?”
Rowan looked down shyly at the well-loved stuffed sloth he held. “This is Bunny,” he said softly.
Sandra looked delighted. “Bunny! Was there a mixup at the zoo on naming day?”
Rowan giggled. Tyler felt himself relax.
“No, this is Bunny for Bunny Wailer!”
The older women seemed to think about it for a second, before recognition dawned on Sandra’s face. “Bunny Wailer! Do you like listening to The Wailers, Rowan?”
Rowan nodded. “They’re my favorites.”
“That is too much fun,” Dotty said, shaking her head with a smile. “Well, let’s show you guys the place.” She led them back out to the front stoop, where there was a second door off to the side of the small porch. “This is a separate entrance for the apartment.”
Tyler had trouble keeping himself from staring as they guided him through the attic apartment. It was small, sure, but there was a complete kitchen that opened to a living area, and two small bedrooms with a shared bathroom off the hall. It even had a tub and shower combo.
There were plenty of windows, and mid-morning light streamed in. The wooden floors were scuffed, the fixtures dated, but it was perfect.
A few minutes later, they sat in the living room downstairs. Sandra had made them all tea, and, after checking in with Tyler, had offered Rowan a plate of sliced apples, cheese, and some rolled turkey lunch meat.
“Any questions for us?” Dotty asked, settling onto the couch next to her wife.
“I don’t think so,” Tyler said, his head reeling. “The place is beautiful, and the rent is incredibly affordable.”
Sandra shrugged, looking at Dotty with a soft, tenderness in her eyes. “We don’t need the money. With Jamie’s generosity and our pensions, we aren’t trying to do more than cover taxes.”
Tyler frowned. “Jamie?”
“He probably introduced himself to you as Sully, didn’t he?” When Tyler nodded, Sandra rolled her eyes. “His name is Jamie. Jamie Sullivan. The nicknames are a hockey thing. They all call him Sully.”
Jamie. His name was Jamie.
“Got it,” Tyler said.
“We’d love to have you and Rowan stay here,” Dotty said gently.
Tyler felt his eyes burn, and he pressed his teeth down on his bottom lip. Just the thought of getting out of the boarding house, of being somewhere quiet and private, of giving Rowan more stability, felt like more than he could process at once.
“Thank you,” he started. “I want to say yes. Your place is beautiful, and it’s exactly what I’ve imagined for us.
But I don’t know if I can say yes until I figure out childcare for Rowan.
A roommate at the boarding house watches him for me while I work at the coffee shop.
If I’m going to have to start paying more for childcare, I need to know before I commit to a new place. ”
Dotty and Sandra looked at each other. They were obviously having one of those ridiculous, silent conversations people who’d spent years together managed to make look effortless.
Sandra was the first to look back at Tyler. “I have an idea, and I want you to know that my wife and I have reached a point in our lives where we don’t do anything we don’t want to do.”
Tyler felt himself smile at that. Rowan was fully occupied with his snack, munching away at an apple slice.
“We love kids,” Sandra went on. “If you’d like, we could watch Rowan while you get your feet under you.”
Tyler blinked, certain he’d misheard. “What?”
“I keep waiting for Jamie to settle down with a nice man and have babies of his own, but in the meantime, we would be happy to watch Rowan.”
Sandra nodded with a fond smile on her face. “Hockey keeps him too busy most of the year, and he’s gotten it in his head that no man will stick around for a guy who’s practically married to his job.”
Tyler’s brain did a little stutter step. So Jamie was a queer professional athlete with soft blonde curls and a slutty mustache. That was…Fuck.
There was no time for that.
What these two women were offering him? It was beyond comprehension. Saying yes to something like this, from strangers? They were strangers, and yet they’d asked Rowan about his sloth. They’d looked him in the eye and engaged with him like they really cared.
And they’d even asked Tyler before offering Rowan a snack.
“What would you charge?” He asked. “For watching Rowan?”
Sandra shook her head. “Nothing. Really, it would be a gift to us.”
“Can I think about it?”
The two women nodded. “Of course. We’ll hold out on posting the apartment for a few days while you decide.”
Tyler thanked them both for the tour, the tea, and the snacks. As he buckled Rowan into his carseat, he looked back over his shoulder at the big, blue house.
It was so easy to imagine it being their home.
He’d pulled out onto the road when his phone buzzed in the cup holder. He glanced down. Mom.
Ignoring the tightness in his chest, Tyler answered, putting the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Mom,” he said.
“Hi, darling,” she responded, her voice full of love and home. “What are you up to today?”
“Mimi?” Rowan called out from the back seat. “Papa, is that Mimi?”
“Rowan, sweetie!” Tyler could hear the smile in her voice. “I miss you so much, bug. Both of you.”
“Where’s Pop Pop?”
Tyler loved Rowan’s name for his dad. It was the same name his sister’s kids used, and fit his thin, sweater-wearing dad to a T.
“Pop Pop is taking the dogs for a walk with Marley and Hazel,” Tyler’s mom said, mentioning two of his sister’s three kids.
“Sebby is napping, so I’m getting some cleaning done and thought I’d give you two a call.
” Tyler heard the unmistakable sound of water running in the background.
Probably the lunch dishes, he thought. “We miss you, you know. I know you felt like you needed to go, but–”
“Mom,” Tyler cut in. They’d had this conversation over and over again, both before and after he’d left Vermont.
His parents were loving, generous people who loved being grandparents. Tyler wouldn’t have survived with a newborn without their support.
But as he’d come out of the haze of learning how to parent an infant, Tyler had come to realize just how much his parents did.
Not only for him and Rowan, but for his sister and her three kids.
She worked as a pharmacist in a rural hospital, and her husband was a fireman.
Between the two of them, they worked long hours and relied heavily on their parents for childcare.
In addition, his parents ran a small bed and breakfast just down the hill from Stratton Mountain Ski Resort, which required constant upkeep. Asking them to take care of Rowan on top of everything else felt like too much.
Tyler had a degree in creative writing, and work experience ranging from coffee shops to a lucrative job as a stripper he’d had during his last two years of college.
Other than helping out at the bed and breakfast, he hadn’t been able to find steady work.
On top of that, he hadn’t been able to escape the gnawing guilt that he was cheating, somehow. That living in his parents’ house, barely working, and relying on their generosity was somehow skipping out on the real work of being a dad.
So he’d left. Packed up his Subaru with trash bags full of their things, in spite of his mother’s insistence that they stay. She’d pleaded with him, reassuring him how caring for her four grandchildren was all she’d ever wanted, but still, Tyler felt like he needed to go.
“We’re doing okay,” he said finally, glancing at Rowan in the rearview mirror. There was a sleepy smile on his face as he played with Bunny. “We’re figuring it out, one day at a time.”
His mom was quiet for a moment. “Your room will always be ready for you,” she added. “Just in case. If you need to, you can always, always, come home.”
The conversation wrapped up quickly after that. He told his mom he loved her, and then hung up, the silence weighing heavily in the car.
He peered into the backseat again, his shoulders slumping when he realized Rowan had fallen asleep.
Tyler was going to figure it out.
Tyler woke up to Rowan's cries.
His brain wasn’t even aware of his legs climbing out of his bed and taking two steps to reach Rowan’s crib.
Tiny fists glowed in the orange light of the salt lamp, rubbing furiously at his eyes as the whimpering cries built into wails.
Tyler shook the sleep off slowly, sluggishly, as he picked Rowan up and cradled him against his chest. Bang. Bang. Bang.
He looked up at the ceiling.
Fucking Samira.
Or, more accurately, Samira fucking.
Tyler tried to rationalize with himself.
This was the shittiest part of their situation.
There was no reason why Samira shouldn’t be having what sounded like very athletic sex in the middle of the night.
Most of the people in the house were up at that point, either getting off work or entertaining their own company.
It was Tyler and Rowan who were out of place. They were the ones who didn’t fit.
Rowan’s cries quieted, his body slumped heavily against him. Carefully, Tyler carried him to his bed, laying him down beside him. Rowan curled into Tyler’s side, sighed, and seemed to drift back off to sleep.
Tyler grabbed his phone, pulling up the phone number Sandra had given him.
He knew he should wait until morning, but he needed to act now before he changed his mind. Before he convinced himself that what the women were offering was too good for them.
Tyler
If the apartment is still available, we’ll take it.