Chapter 24
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“T hat's what I was expecting,” I tell the man on the other line. “I appreciate all of your help.”
With a quick goodbye, I press the hook to end the call and release it before dialing Nia’s number. The line rings for long moments, and my eyes flick toward the clock on the far wall of my office. It isn’t until several moments more that the ringing comes to a stop.
“Hi,” a tiny voice says through the receiver.
“Hello Katherine,” I chuckle. “Are you supposed to be answering your mother’s phone?”
After a too-long silence, she says, “Yuh-huh. I can talk to Grammy, and Brody, and nine-one-one.”
“That’s a good list,” I tell her. “Can you put your mother on the phone, please?”
“Nuh-uh,” she tells me so assertively that I can almost hear the shaking of her head. “Her tummy hurts. My tummy doesn’t hurt. I’m making pictures.”
I have a hard time trying to convince myself not to worry that save her daughter, Nia is on her own, and that to a five-year-old, a ‘tummy ache’ could be any number of things. Edie would have told young Clare that something as serious as an evisceration was ‘just a tummy ache’ to keep her from being frightened.
Of course, I know that Nia is most likely not lying somewhere with her intestines spilling out, but the concept applies, regardless.
“I’m sure your pictures are very nice,” I tell her. “Does she need to go to the doctor?”
“Nuh-uh,” she says, and by the sound of her voice, I can tell that she’s quickly losing interest in our conversation.
“Okay. Can you tell her to give me a call at my office when she’s feeling better?” I ask.
“Yuh-huh.”
“And do you know how to call me back if either of you need any help?”
“Yuh-huh,” she repeats.
“Alright,” I say. “Then I’ll g—”
Before I can finish my sentence, the line disconnects as Katherine decides that we’re done speaking. I chuckle as I set my phone back onto my desk before picking up a pen to write myself a reminder: check in with Nia before going home.
Three o’clock passes with no phone call.
Four o’clock is silent, too.
At five o’clock, I make a decision; not one that I’m confident in, admittedly, but a decision all the same.
My knuckles roll against my steering wheel as I move my attention to the bundle of shopping bags on the passenger’s seat.
This is too much.
It’s going too far.
With a decisive breath, I grab the bags by their handles and head to the front door, not giving myself the opportunity to overthink my way out of what I’ve already committed to doing.
When I finally make my way up the porch steps to knock on the door, standing behind it is Nia, dressed in a loose pajama set that looks well-loved. Her hair is disheveled, draped over her shoulders, and her face is devoid of any makeup.
“What are you doing here?” She asks. “Did something happen?”
Finding it hard to come up with a valid reason to have shown up at her house uninvited; to not feel like a ‘total weirdo,’ as my niece would likely call me, I tell her, “You didn’t return my call and Katherine said that your stomach hurt, so I figured that meant that you either have appendicitis, food poisoning, or particularly difficult cramps.”
Her features fight between smiling and scowling, and I fight back a laugh as she says, “The third one.”
With a nod, I move past her into the house and head for the kitchen, dropping my bags onto the counter. Nia rounds the corner as I unload each of the bags, and I toss her a large bottle of ibuprofen.
“He got the right pills,” she teases with a soft laugh. “Did he bring ice cream and chocolate, too?”
Laughing, I pull a pint of cookie dough ice cream and a box of chocolates from the bag in front of me. Pointing to the one next to it, I say, “Soup and crackers, too, in case it was food poisoning. Take your pills and your treats and go lie down. I have Katherine.”
“My mom already offered to—”
“I’m not offering,” I counter, arching my brow.
“Brody, you don’t like kids,” she argues.
“I don’t like back talk, either,” I tell her as I pull open the drawers in front of me in search of a spoon, “and yet, here we are.”
“Okay,” she concedes, her teeth tugging at the corner of her lower lip. Reaching for the ice cream, she looks to her hands as she fidgets with the container. “I’m going. But if she needs anything…”
“Nia, I have her.”
With a glance toward her daughter in the living room behind us, she offers me a quick nod and a smile before plucking the spoon from my hand and ducking out of the room, headed up the stairs toward her bedroom.
Once I’ve gotten the shopping bags emptied and the items inside of them put away, I find Katherine on the couch, using a small pink tablet and a stylus to draw what looks like a unicorn. Crouching on the floor in front of her, I offer her a chocolate chip cookie wrapped in a napkin.
“Don’t tell your mother that I gave you this,” I tell her, holding the index finger of my free hand to my lips.
Her little round eyes widen in excitement and she snatches the cookie from my hand with the same force that an alligator might use to snap a piece of meat from its handler. The napkin serves virtually no purpose as she tosses it away and inhales the treat in less than three minutes, leaving a mess of crumbs all over her lap and melted chocolate at the corners of her lips.
That may not have been the best idea that I’ve ever had.
I find myself in the kitchen moments later, mumbling to myself as I pull open the cabinets in search of dish rags. I always kept them in the small cabinets above the microwave, which means that Nia most likely keeps them…
“There you are,” I say with a chuckle as I pull open the door beneath the sink to reveal a neatly-folded stack of multicolored rags.
Wetting one of the rags, I take both the cloth and the small trash can to the living room and help Katherine to dust her clothing into the bin.
Almost immediately after scrubbing her mouth with the cloth, she hands it back to me and asks, “Can I have another cookie?”
“I don’t think so,” I chuckle. “How about some fruit?”
“Yucky,” she groans.
With a shrug, I cart my cleanup supplies back to their places in the kitchen, stopping at the refrigerator to throw together a bowl of fresh fruit. Strawberries, pitted cherries, grapes, and blueberries sit with each other to make a beautiful blend of color, and I carry the bowl with me into the living room, dropping onto the couch next to Katherine.
Picking up one of the grapes, I lean my head backward and toss it into the air, letting it land in my mouth with a pop as I bite into it. I follow suit with a cherry, watching from the corner of my eye as the little girl seated next to me looks between me and the bowl sitting on my legs.
“It’s ten points for every piece that you catch and eat,” I tell her. “One hundred points wins the game.”
She studies me for a moment, considering her options, before reaching for one of the cherries. Leaning her head back, she moves as if she’s going to throw the fruit into her mouth similarly to the way that I did, but her little fingers hold onto it until she drops it directly onto her tongue.
“Darn it,” I say, “ten points already. I’ll bet that you can’t catch one of each.”
“Can so!” She argues, as if I’ve just said the most offensive thing in the world to her.
I stifle my laughter as she reaches for one piece after the other of the fruit, repeating the same action until the bowl is left emptied. With a look of pure jubilance on her face and a mouth full of berries, she asks, “How much points did I get?”
“That was definitely three hundred points,” I tell her. “You beat me fair and square.”
“Good,” she says with a firm nod, reaching once more for her drawing tablet.
While she dives back into her artwork, focusing in a way not unlike my little brother did when he was her age, I take the bowl back to the kitchen. I strip off my suit jacket and fold it onto the counter before I pick up a sponge and start to wash the dishes waiting in the sink.
It’s strange to be back in this house, spending time with a child.
We were two years into our marriage when April decided that she did, in fact, want to fill the house with kids; bunk beds in the bedrooms, one for girls and the other for boys. Family dinners around the table every night and a Christmas tree too big to even fit in the living room every year, piled high with gifts from Santa Claus sitting underneath it.
We had very different visions for our life together here. Even if I’d been able to give her the children that she’d come to want, I didn’t want them. I still don’t.
Yet here I am, in this house again, enjoying the time that I’m spending with the child of a woman whose place in my life I’m unsure of.
A tiny hand tugs at my slacks as I rest the last of the dishes in the drying rack beside the sink.
“Do you know my daddy?” Katherine asks me.
“Yes,” I nod, “I do.”
“He hurt my feelings,” she tells me.
My brow creases and I crouch down to her level so that I can look her in the eye. “How did he do that?” I probe.
I should have my phone with me. I should be recording this conversation.
“He didn’t come with grandma,” she pouts.
Reaching for her hand, I hold onto it and make sure that she holds eye contact with me. “Katherine, when did you see your grandma?”
One of her shoulders lifts in a shrug, a frown crossing her face. “I had a corn dog.”
Lunch time, then, and most likely today.
The worry coursing through my veins is replaced with an icy rage as I think back to the warning that I gave the woman less than a week ago to stay away from them.
“I’m sorry that hurt your feelings,” I tell her. “Did your mother invite your grandma over to the house?”
“Huh-uh,” she says with a shake of her head, rubbing the back of her wrist under her nose. I make a mental note to have her wash her hands. “She said ‘ you’re pissing me off, Judy .’”
“I don’t think she would appreciate you using that word,” I chuckle. “Let’s wash your hands and we can find a movie to watch.”
We’re halfway through our second run through of Oliver she must have installed it herself. When, I’m not sure, but it adds something to the space that I didn’t realize was missing when I lived here. It’s comfortable.
“Can I ask your opinion on something before you go?”
“Of course you can,” I shrug.
“Daniel told me that he’s in love with that woman,” she tells me. “So why wouldn’t he just sign the papers and be done with it?”
Draping my jacket over my arm, I pull my lips into a tight line while I run through the menu of options and the things that I’ve observed over the years.
For some, it’s been as simple as not being able to let go of their past. Others can’t admit to themselves that a marriage has ended. Some have even hoped that contesting the divorce would make their spouse realize that they still loved them.
But for people like Daniel Hart…
“It makes you miserable,” I tell her. “You’ll have peace when your divorce is finalized. You’ll be able to move on and rebuild your life. You haven’t given him what he wants, so he’s keeping you from having what you need.”
Her face falls, her brow pinching just slightly, and she offers a shake of her head. “That’s cruel.”
“Yes it is,” I tell her. As I reach forward to push her hair behind her ear, I tell her, “So we’ll just have to keep building your confidence and taking your power back, whether he wants to give it to you or not. Have a good night, Nia.”
“Goodnight,” she says with a soft smile.
She closes the door behind me as I leave the house, and as I walk down the driveway, I can’t stop myself from turning to look at the house and the door that she stands behind.