2. Marcus
2
MARCUS
N ipples.
I got thrown into the deep end of a trauma case my first shift at Manhattan Memorial, and all I could think of as I walked away from the hospital was nipples. More precisely, the dark, pert nipples of Dr. Emma Chen.
There were more pressing concerns that should have occupied my mind, such as why hadn’t there been a better triage intake of incoming cases, or would I be walking into a cage match between the kids when I got home? Instead, all I could seem to focus on was that delicate bra and the way the black lace framed and called attention to Emma’s nipples. They were small, tight, and dark. Maybe that was the fabric of her undergarment, but there was no hint of pink. Pink. Blair’s nipples had been pink.
I couldn’t believe I was actually thinking about another woman’s nipples. But as hard as I tried to bring Blair’s lovely breasts to mind, I could only remember her scars. And the only nipples I could see in my mind belonged to Emma Chen.
A pang of guilt lanced through me as I headed up the stairs to the brownstone. I hadn’t thought of any woman other than Blair for years. It was weird and invasive. How dare my memories of my late wife give way to thoughts of another woman? I wasn’t ready for that.
“Dad!” Jason yelled as he bolted out of the den, nearly crashing into me as he slid across the hard wood floor in his socks. “Tell Lily it’s my turn.”
“You little kiss-ass!” My daughter’s voice rang through our new home after her brother. “Whining to Dad the second he gets home. Don’t believe him, he’s been on the PS5 since school got out. It’s my turn and the little shit knows it!”
“Lily, I would appreciate it if you stopped calling your brother names,” I said as I hung my jacket on the coat tree by the door.
“She’s been bitchy all afternoon. She must be on her period,” Jacob sneered.
“Enough!” I barked.
“You do not talk about your sister that way. As a matter of fact, you don’t talk about women like that ever.”
Jacob wilted, dropping his shoulders and making a guppy-fish motion with his mouth. “She’s such a bi?—”
“What did I just say?” I snapped.
Jacob flopped his arms around, shaking his torso to make the movement. He let out a defeated sigh. “She’s so mean and always telling me what to do.”
The fights between the kids would wax and wane like the phases of the moon. We were due for a physical altercation soon. The move hadn’t been easy on them. Hell, the entire situation hadn’t been easy on them.
First they lost their mother, then they got me. I was aware that my time in the military kept me away from my family, only I hadn’t realized what the damage was. Blair had always been there keeping us together, keeping the kids in check, making sure they wrote to me when I was deployed.
Somehow, I thought when I returned home and stayed, we would have some picture perfect life. Blair had found us a nice home. The kids liked the schools they were in, and there were a few different hospitals within an hour’s drive where I should have been able to get a position.
Well, that picture perfect life lasted three months before her diagnosis came in and everything went to hell. It was clear right away that I struggled at managing the kids. I got it, I did. Dad came home and they were going to lose Mom. Maybe if I had stayed away, she wouldn’t have gotten sick.
It wasn’t logical, but it was the thought process of the kids. It took a year of family therapy to realize they blamed me. It took another year to gain their trust, and then I went and ruined it all by accepting a position that uprooted them and moved us all from small town life into the heart of New York City.
I thought it would be an exciting change.
I was learning how wrong I was about everything.
I reached out to pat my son on his head. He swiveled, and my hand fell heavily onto his shoulder. I gave him a squeeze. “How long have you been playing video games?”
His mouth dropped open like that same half-dead fish he looked like a few moments earlier. It was a dead giveaway that he was lying and trying to come up with an excuse.
“Give your sister the controls, and go to your room and do your homework.”
“But, Daaad.” He dragged the vowel out, turning Dad from one syllable into many.
“Upstairs, or do I need to talk about putting you on restriction?”
He wiggled out from under my hand and dashed back into the den.
“Ow, you little shit!” Lily yelled.
“Lily, language!”
Jason ran past me.
“He threw the controller at me,” she replied.
“Jason!” I barked out. I was met with the loud closing of his bedroom door.
A low growl escaped my throat when I stepped into the den and faced Lily. “You dyed your hair again. I thought we talked about this.”
She twirled her finger through a lock and glanced over at it. The heavy, dark rings around her eyes emphasized the whites and made her look like a cartoon character. “What? It’s black. That’s a natural color. School said no unnatural colors. It’s not purple.”
I shrugged, unhappy with the direction my daughter’s appearance was going in. She was right, her hair was a natural color. The rule had been nothing extreme that the school would send her home for. I should have been more specific, I guess.
She waved the controller around in her hand as she leaned forward and began changing settings on the PlayStation. I was a little surprised when she turned the TV off.
“I thought you wanted to play?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I wanted Jason to stop. He plays with the sound too loud. The neighbors were banging on the walls.”
We lived in a row of townhomes. The walls weren’t as thin as they would be in an apartment, but loud noises did travel.
“I’ll make him go over and apologize after dinner. How was school?”
“It sucked,” she said.
“Lily…”
“It always sucks. I hate it here.”
“I’m sorry, kiddo. I know this hasn’t been easy. What’s for dinner?” I asked as I headed back to the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” Lily said as she flopped onto the couch. “You didn’t say anything about making dinner.”
“It was my first day at work and you couldn’t even think about making dinner without my having to tell you?” From where I stood in the dining room, which was still piled high with unpacked boxes, all I could see of Lily was the hand she held up over the back of the couch. She let her hand fall and flop around as if she were too lazy to wave it about, but still trying to be dramatic.
“I’m just a kid. It’s not my job to think of those things.” She said it with such an attitude, I knew she had actually made a conscious decision to not step up and make dinner.
I wasn’t in the mood to fight with her. I was tired and I had a hard day at work. Working on children took a different level of detachment from working on adults or soldiers had. And I was unexpectedly worn out from it all.
I continued through the dining room into the kitchen. The rooms were stacked front to back in a row—den, dining, kitchen. A long hallway from the front door passed all the rooms on one side and went straight into the kitchen, and the stairs to the upper floors were on the opposite side of the hall from the rooms. The town house was narrow and tall. And I thought it was perfect.
The kids thought it was perfectly horrible.
I stepped into the kitchen, and the smells of garlic and oregano caught my attention. There were no pots on the stove. In comparison to the mess of the dining room, the kitchen was fully moved into and spotless. The dishes that had been in the sink this morning were gone.
I let out a long, heavy breath and shook my head. Lily was her mother’s daughter. She might be overly dramatic, but she always came through. Even when she didn’t want me to think she had.
I opened the oven. It was on. Three cardboard pizza boxes were tucked in, keeping warm. Lily had made sure dinner was taken care of. She just hadn’t cooked it. And pizza to celebrate my first day on the job was perfect.
I grabbed a beer and a soda from the fridge. Once back in the den, I shoved Lily into a sitting position and sat so when she fell back, she would be leaning against me. I handed her the can of soda.
“Pizza, huh? And I thought you said it wasn’t your responsibility to be aware of things like dinner.”
She took a sip. “It’s what Mom would have done.”
“It’s exactly what Mom would have done. Including acting like there wasn’t anything for dinner.”
Lily snuggled in against my shoulder. I didn’t get enough of this. She had been pulling away, into herself for the past few years. It made my heart happy to have this quiet moment with her. I loved my kids more than they could possibly know. I really hoped she understood how precious moments like this were.