Chapter 10 #2
His hand tightened on the steering wheel as he replied, “Yeah.” I almost thought that was all I was going to get out of him, but after a beat, he continued, “I’m selling my house. Aria is my realtor. Aria St. George. Her twin brother, Andre, is good friends with Nox.”
“Oh.” I swallowed down the information, wishing it satiated my curiosity.
I remembered now that Max had purchased a house down here. I wasn’t sure exactly where, but I knew it was close to his dad’s. He’d bought his house around the time things were getting really bad between me and Todd, so we’d never come to visit. I’d only ever been to Max’s apartment in Portland.
That whole time felt like a blur now. I’d felt so…
distant from Todd, but I didn’t want to quit on the relationship.
I wanted to give it one more honest try.
I didn’t want to face the idea that I’d made a mistake.
So I’d gone with Todd to his family’s beach house for his dad’s sixty-third birthday party.
And one more honest try turned into two pink lines.
“You’re selling it already? You’ve only had it—”
“A year.”
“What happened?”
Max stared ahead, his extra second of pause telling me there was more to the story than I was going to get.
“Wasn’t what I thought it would be.”
My chest pinched, and I rested my hand on my stomach. “I know how that feels.”
I heard the sharp pull of his breath, and I bit my cheek, annoyed at myself for saying too much. We were doing so well, not talking about Todd. About my runaway fiancé. About my disaster.
“Daze—”
“Did you just put it on the market?” I interrupted, wanting desperately to continue this conversation over the alternative.
“A few months back.”
Months? So right around the time he’d disappeared from my and Todd’s lives. Right after that birthday party. I tried not to think about the coincidence, but it was impossible.
I tried not to think how, even after all the time we’d spent together, even over the last two weeks, our conversations spanning almost every topic under the sun, it was things like this that made me feel like I didn’t know much about Max’s life at all.
Meanwhile, he knew everything from my favorite childhood books to my pregnancy cravings.
“I’m surprised there’s no interest in this market,” I said, a glutton for punishment as I tried to keep the conversation afloat.
Max grunted. “Aria thinks the price is too high, but I know what the property is worth, so I’ll wait it out.”
That sounded…exactly like Max.
Now, it was my turn to be distracted by my phone.
Every time it buzzed, I expected it to be Todd, and at the same time, hoped it wasn’t.
It was a strange and terrifying place to be.
A limbo I’d lived in for two weeks. Two weeks of no contact.
Not a call. Not a message. Not an Instagram post. Not even a carrier pigeon.
And nothing to Max or his parents either.
Todd was just…gone.
Of course, part of me worried if he was actually okay, but even that started to wane.
If something terrible had happened, we would’ve heard by now.
Even the authorities weren’t inclined to spend resources looking for him, no matter what kind of political weight Mr. McCormick threw around.
The last Max heard, the McCormicks had finally settled on hiring a private investigator to look for their son.
Whether they found him or he came back, I knew exactly what to expect when I saw Todd next. His usual childlike repentant self, replete with apologies and gifts and begging forgiveness. To give me a thousand reasons—many of which blamed his parents—for how he acted. And I didn’t want to hear it.
No, I didn’t want to have to face the decision it came with: walk away because I deserved better, or stay because my daughter deserved to have her father? There was a middle path, but I imagined it was narrow to the point of invisible when squeezed by the expectations of Todd’s parents.
“Daze?”
I blinked, the number on the screen swimming into focus. It wasn’t Todd. It also wasn’t a call I wanted to answer right now.
“Who is it?”
“Not Todd.” I clicked to silence the call. They would leave a voicemail.
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine,” I said, irritation firing in an undeserved direction. It wasn’t Max’s fault I was dodging calls from my OB’s office. “Let’s finish up here. I don’t want to be late.”
While the woman took Max around her house, asking his opinion on how many and which bouquets she should order for her daughter’s baby shower, I stepped back outside. Fishing my phone from my pocket, I tapped to listen to the voicemail from earlier.
“Hello, this is Jackie from Portland Birthing Center. I’m just calling to confirm your appointment for tomorrow morning with Dr. Barrett. Please note we do have a $150 late cancelation or no-show fee.”
Great. Not only could I not afford to go to my twenty-four-week check-up, but I couldn’t even afford the late fee they would charge me to cancel right now.
The urge to cry hit me like a freight train, and I quickly bit into my bottom lip to stifle it. Damn you, Todd. It was he—his parents—who’d insisted that I go to this fancy private birthing center. Private rooms. Water baths. A husband suite. A chef on staff. Translation: expensive.
It didn’t matter if I wanted the luxuries. I couldn’t afford them now.
I tapped on the number to call them back. Swallowing my pride was almost enough to make me want to gag, but I wasn’t just not going to show up.
“Hello, thank you for calling the Portland Birthing Center. This is Dolly speaking. How can I help you?”
“Hi, Dolly. This is Daisy Turner. I have an appointment tomorrow morning, and unfortunately, I’m going to have to cancel it.”
“When would you like to reschedule for?”
“I’ll have to call back, I’m sorry.”
She paused, and I braced for what I knew was coming. “Are you aware of our cancelation policy? This is considered less than twenty-four hours’ notice.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I was…on my honeymoon, and I completely forgot.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t make an exception for you.”
If that wasn’t the story of my relationship with Todd’s…world, I didn’t know what was.
“I understand.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule? It would spare you the fee, and the twenty-four-week ultrasound is a very important checkpoint for development. You shouldn’t put this off.”
“I know,” I snapped, unable to handle a single shred more of judgment on my shoulders. Tears sprouted in the corners of my eyes. “I know this appointment is important. Every appointment for her is important, but unfortunately, I can’t make this one right now—”
“I’m going to have to charge you the late fee—”
“I’m sure Senator McCormick can afford it. I believe his card is on file,” I said and hung up before she decided to scold me further.
The only thing I hated more than hanging up on the woman was using my ex-almost-father-in-law’s name to get me out of this jam.
Not once since meeting them did I feel a sense of shame for anything they judged me for.
My looks. My upbringing. My work ethic. My missing social connections.
But I felt ashamed now. Not for being unable to afford the birthing center without them, but for using their name to get me out of a tight spot.
I didn’t want to rely on them—I never had—but dropping the McCormick name was the only hope I had for dissuading the center from actually charging the card Todd put on our account.
“Daisy?” Max appeared next to the open door.
Gasping, I stood quickly from the bed of the van, my phone clattering to the ground as I bumped it from my hand. If he heard me…if he knew…My heart stammered in an unsteady beat.
“What’s up? Are you finished?” I asked, wiping my tears on the soft sleeve of my tee as I bent to pick up my cell.
Max’s expression was drawn tight when I looked at him, my lungs holding my breath hostage until he spoke, “Yeah, I’m done. We can head out.”
I thought I nodded, I hoped I did, and then I spun for the passenger door, which Max still beat me to hold open. “Thanks.”
Unlike Todd’s parents, who the thought of relying on them made me physically nauseous, Max was the opposite. Relying on Max didn’t make me sick with shame, but ache with undeserved longing.
“Everything okay?” he asked once he joined me in the van and started the engine.
No, but it would be soon, I thought, and rested my hand on my stomach as he started to drive.
Almost instantly, I felt the churn of worry start to settle.
It would be soon, little sprout. As soon as I started saving.
As soon as I got on MaineStems’s insurance policy.
As soon as I stopped needing to rely on the man next to me so much.
“Yeah.” I smiled through my guilt.
Max offered health insurance to his employees. I knew because Todd had been on it until he left the business, and his parents bought him a private plan that I was supposed to go on.
Health insurance wasn’t the first thing to cross my mind when I realized Todd had jilted me.
It wasn’t even the second or third thing when I was managing hurdles like where I was going to live and where I was going to have to work to afford to live.
But now that I was settled into the apartment, I was starting to face all the other consequences of Todd’s abandonment, like having no car of my own to even get to my job.
“You can’t continue to drive that rust bucket, Daisy. It’s not safe for the baby.”
My 2003 VW bug wasn’t completely full of rust, but that wasn’t the point. Todd wanted me in a Mercedes like his, like his parents drove. And he knew just how to get me to agree to it. “After the wedding, we’ll go and you can pick out a nice, safe SUV in whichever color you want.”
Without a car, I’d relied on Max to give me a ride to the warehouse every morning, both of us pretending it was just part of the job.
Health insurance was a different story. I needed it ASAP. I hadn’t broached the subject yet because I was still in training this week, but come Monday, I’d ask. I’d have to.
I hated to feel like I was asking more from them, from Max, when he’d already done—was doing—so much, but I didn’t have a choice.
I wasn’t getting any less pregnant. Even with insurance, I couldn’t afford the birthing center in Portland, which meant I’d have to find a new doctor, a new hospital.
There was one just outside of Stonebar, but I had no idea what their facility was like.
“Why are you canceling doctors’ appointments, Daze?” Max growled after a single strained minute.
Every muscle I had tensed. He’d heard.
“Why are you listening to other people’s phone calls?” I countered, trying to keep my voice light and teasing. Maybe if I made it seem like no big deal, he’d drop it.
“I’m serious, Daze. If it’s because it would interfere with work, please tell me. I can have someone cover—”
“No.” I tried to protest. He was getting the wrong idea, and I couldn’t stop him.
“After everything, after all this time, if you think I wouldn’t let you take time off to go to a doctor’s appointment for the baby…” He trailed off, and I looked over at him, shocked by the hurt on his face. “Is that really what you think of me?”
“No,” I blurted out, my chest feeling like it was splitting in two. Why was it every time I tried to protect myself from embarrassment, from vulnerability, it was at the expense of the one man who’d done more for me than anyone, especially over the last few weeks?
Max stared at me, his warm eyes screaming for an explanation.
“Of course, that’s not what I think of you, Max. It’s just…” I said, my tongue slowly untangling the vulnerability knotted on its tip. “I don’t have insurance yet. That’s why I canceled the appointment. Well, that and it was at this fancy birthing center in Portland that I couldn’t afford anyway.”
“What do you mean you don’t have insurance?”
My throat worked for a second. “I mean, Todd was going to put me on his as soon as we were…married.” It was strange how the idea sounded so implausible now.
Only two weeks after he’d disappeared. “It’s fine.
I’ll just wait until I go on your…on MaineStems insurance.
It’s just a few weeks, right? I’m assuming after orientation and…
” I trailed off as all the color started to drain from his face. “Max?”
“Three months.”
“W-What?” I didn’t, couldn’t have heard—
His voice was hollow. “The waiting period for insurance as an employee is three months.”
Three…
I’d have a baby by then.
“Can you pull over?”
He swung the van off to the side of the road, hardly coming to a complete stop before he threw it in park and tried to get to the passenger door. He didn’t make it in time.
I pushed open the door, my head barely clearing the doorframe before my blueberry smoothie from earlier, along with the jam and crackers, made an encore appearance onto the ground.
“Shit, Daze.”
“I’m fine,” I said, though I was anything but. I wanted to shrug off his hand, but if I was being honest, it might’ve been the only thing holding me together.
“You’re not fine.” His hand rubbed slow circles on my back, the other gently gathering my hair back in case I threw up again.
I would be fine. I had to be fine. I had to get health insurance.
Clutching my stomach, I straightened and looked at him. There was no shame. Not anymore. Not when it came to my baby. “Can you make an exception?”
From his expression, you’d think my question had been a hot poker driven through his gut.
“I can’t, Daze. If I could…if there were any way—” He broke off with a ragged breath. “It’s against the law for me to make an exception for you. Benefits have to be equal for every employee.”
It took a second to process what he’d said. The weight of what I’d unknowingly asked him to do and the reality of why he couldn’t.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly and pulled away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…didn’t know there were rules. I didn’t mean to ask you to break them.”
“Daze—”
“I’ll figure something out,” I insisted, knowing if I let him continue, he’d do exactly what he said he couldn’t.
He’d break every rule to be my knight in shining armor, and I couldn’t let him.
He’d already done so much. I drew the line at him breaking the law to save me.
“Don’t worry about it, Max. Please, let’s just finish our deliveries. ”
I started to go into trauma response mode again, just like when I read Todd’s letter.
I didn’t want to think about this moment—about the implications of what I’d just learned.
I wanted to get back in the passenger seat and ride.
I wanted to finish our job and find some success in today.
And somehow find a way to face all my failures tomorrow.