11. Skye
— ? —
Skye
I drag Jaime inside by his wrist while Aidan’s taillights disappear down the street.
“Sit,” I order, pushing him toward the kitchen table. “Don’t move.”
He sits. For once in his life, he actually listens.
Josh hovers in the doorway, his dinosaur clutched to his chest, eyes huge and scared. He’s never seen violence before. I’ve made sure of that. Three years of careful parenting, of soft voices and gentle hands, of showing him that the world is safe.
And now this.
“Is the man okay?” Josh’s voice is small. “The one who fell down?”
“The man is fine.” I force a smile I don’t feel. “He just had to leave in a hurry. Can you go pick out a bedtime story? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Josh looks at Jaime. Looks at me. Looks at Jaime again.
“Okay,” he says finally. “But I’m picking two stories. Because I was scared.”
“That’s fair. Two stories.”
He disappears down the hallway. I wait until I hear his bedroom door open, the sound of books being pulled from shelves, before I turn back to Jaime.
His knuckles are split open. Blood wells in the creases, dripping onto my kitchen table. The table I bought secondhand for forty dollars. The table where Josh eats his cereal every morning and does his coloring books and tells me about his dreams.
Now there’s blood on it.
I grab the first aid kit from under the sink and sit across from him, taking his hand without asking permission. His fingers are warm. Mine are shaking.
“You can’t just hit people,” I hiss, dabbing antiseptic on the cuts. He doesn’t flinch. “That’s not how adults solve problems.”
“He called you a bitch.”
“So? I’ve been called worse.”
“That doesn’t make it okay. Our son probably heard it.”
The words land like a slap when he says our son, as if the entire situation is that simple and he can just claim Josh with a brief phrase after four years of absolute absence.
“Our son.” I look up, eyes blazing. “You don’t know anything.” I wrap his knuckles harder than necessary, and this time he does flinch. “You think showing up with a fancy car and zoo trips makes you his father? You think punching some creep in my parking lot erases your mistakes?”
“I’m not trying to erase anything.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“I’m trying to be here.” His voice cracks on the last word. “I’m trying to show up. Every day you’ll let me. I’ll claim him every single day, Skye. And I’ll claim you too, when you stop punishing us both for my mistakes.”
“Punishing you?” I laugh, the sound cracked and bitter. “You think this is punishment? You destroyed me. You let another woman make me feel crazy in my own relationship. You made me walk down that aisle with her words still ringing in my ears.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.” I’m crying now, and I hate it.
Hate that he can still do this to me. Hate that after everything, he still has the power to break me open.
“You don’t know what it’s like to give birth alone.
To be in a hospital room for eighteen hours knowing the one person who should’ve been there chose someone else.
To hear your baby cry for the first time and have no one to share it with. ”
Jaime’s face crumples. “Skye-”
“You don’t know what it’s like to look at your son’s face every single day and see the man who broke you.” The words pour out of me, unstoppable. “To love him so much it hurts, and hate that he has your eyes. Your smile. Your stupid curly hair that won’t lie flat no matter what I do.”
“Then tell me.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Tell me all of it. I want to know.”
“Why? So you can feel guilty? So you can add it to your list of things to apologize for?”
“So I can understand what I need to fix.”
I throw the bloody cloth at him. It bounces off his chest, leaving a pink stain on his expensive sweater.
“You can’t fix it,” I say. “That’s the point. Some things are just broken.”
He catches my wrist before I can pull away. So gently it makes me want to scream.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Maybe.” His thumb traces my pulse point. My heart is racing. He can probably feel it. “But I’m an idiot who’s not giving up.”
The kitchen falls silent. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of Josh talking to his stuffed animals, acting out some elaborate drama with Chompy and the dinosaur brigade.
“Mama?” Josh’s voice floats down the hallway. “I picked a story. Actually two stories. Actually three because I found the one about the train.”
I jerk my hand back. “Coming, baby.”
I’m halfway to Josh’s room when I hear Jaime behind me. His footsteps are quiet, hesitant.
“Let me help,” he says. “Please. Let me put him to bed.”
I should say no. Every self-protective instinct screams at me to say no.
“Fine,” I hear myself say. “But I’m staying in the room.”
Josh is already in bed, books spread across his comforter, stuffed animals arranged in a careful semicircle around him. He’s created an audience for storytime.
“The man’s going to read?” Josh asks, eyeing Jaime with cautious curiosity.
“If that’s okay with you.”
Josh considers this. “Does he do voices?”
“I don’t know. Do you do voices?”
Jaime looks slightly terrified. “I can try.”
“Okay.” Josh hands him Hoppy Bunny. “This one first. But you have to do the bunny voice squeaky. That’s the rule.”
Jaime settles on the edge of the bed, and I take the chair in the corner, watching. Ready to intervene if anything goes wrong.
He reads slowly. His bunny voice is indeed squeaky, though it sounds more like a mouse being stepped on than an actual rabbit. Josh giggles anyway. By the time he gets to the old lady whispering hush, Josh is correcting his pronunciation and adding his own commentary.
“The mush is gross,” Josh informs him. “Why do they have mush?”
“Maybe the bunny likes mush.”
“Nobody likes mush. Mush is yucky.”
“You make a good point.”
They debate the merits of mush for several minutes while I watch from my corner. By the last page, Josh’s eyes are drooping. His grip on Chompy has loosened. His breathing is slowing into the rhythm of approaching sleep.
“Sleepy,” Josh mumbles, burrowing deeper into his pillow. Then, so soft I almost miss it, “Daddy.”
Jaime freezes. His eyes meet mine across the dark room, bright with tears he’s not bothering to hide.
“Sleep well, buddy,” he whispers back.
We tiptoe out together, closing the door behind us. The hallway feels too small and too intimate. His arm brushes mine.
“Thank you,” he says. His voice is rough. “For letting me do that.”
“He needed his stories. You were available.”
“Skye.” He catches my elbow. “Hearing him call me that...”
“He’s three. He doesn’t understand what it means.”
“I do.” His eyes search mine. “And I’m going to spend every day earning it.”
“You should go,” I say finally.
He nods. At the door, he turns back.
“I meant what I said, Skye. Every word. I’m not giving up.”
He leaves and I stand in my empty living room, listening to his car drive away. Then I check on Josh. He’s sound asleep, Chompy tucked under his chin.
***
We’re reviewing the contract in Jaime’s office when the door swings open without a knock.
I look up from the spreadsheet, expecting his other assistant with files or a message.
Leslie walks in.
She’s carrying a gift bag tied with ribbon, her designer dress immaculate, her smile sharp. She surveys the office, her gaze landing on me with barely concealed disdain before sliding to Jaime.
“Surprise.” Her voice is honey and poison. “I heard you finally found your runaway bride. Thought I’d come say congratulations in person.”
Jaime is on his feet before I can react. “How did you get past security?”
“I just have to act the right way. After all, I look like someone from your circle, unlike this...” She sets the gift bag on his desk, casual, proprietary. “I brought something for the little one. A son, I hear. How wonderful for everyone.”
My blood turns to ice. She knows about Josh.
“Get out,” Jaime says. His voice is steel.
“Now, now. Is that any way to greet an old friend?” Leslie’s smile doesn’t waver. She turns to me, eyes glittering. “Skye. You look so... tired. Motherhood must be exhausting without help.”
“We were never friends,” I say.
“No, I suppose we weren’t.” The smile turns cruel. “Jaime and I were, though. Weren’t we? The tabloids certainly thought so.”
There it is. Said out loud to my face.
She knows exactly what those photos did. She’s proud of them.
“I said get out.” Jaime moves around his desk, putting himself between Leslie and me. “Now. Before I call security.”
“I just wanted to see it for myself.” Leslie peers around him, her eyes raking over me. “The woman who kept your son from you for four years.” She tilts her head. “I have to say, I expected more.”
A sudden fury snaps inside me when I see the coffee cup on Jaime’s desk, still warm from when I made it for him twenty minutes ago, and my hand closes around it.
I throw it straight at her.
The liquid splashes across Leslie’s silk dress. Brown staining light color, spreading like a wound.
She gasps, stumbling backward. “Are you insane?”
“Get out of this office.” My voice doesn’t shake. I’m surprised by how calm I sound. How cold. “Now. Before I do something that actually matters.”
“Jaime.” Leslie turns to him, her composure cracking for the first time. “Are you going to let her assault me?”
“Yes. You’re done,” Jaime says. “If you contact me again, if you come anywhere near Skye or my son, I will make sure every hiring manager in this country and the next knows exactly why you’re unemployable. Doors will close, opportunity will vanish. You will never work in this industry again.”
Leslie stares at him.
The mask slips entirely to reveal a hideous truth underneath, a raw presence that is hateful and small.
“You’ll regret this,” she says. “Both of you.”
“Security is on their way,” Jaime replies. “You can walk out or be escorted out. Your choice.”
She walks and the door slams behind her.
I’m shaking. My whole body trembles with adrenaline, with rage.
“Hey.” Jaime’s hands land on my shoulders. “She’s gone. It’s okay.”
“She knew about Josh.” I can’t look at him. “She knew where to find me. She just walked in here.”
“I’ll make sure she’ll never do that again.”
“How? How does she know anything about my life?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” He turns me to face him, his hands still on my shoulders.
“That doesn’t fix this.”
His eyes hold mine. “But I am going to fix it. Whatever it takes. However long it takes. She will never get near you or Josh again.”
I search his face for the lie. The tell that always gave him away before.
I can’t find it. That scares me more than anything Leslie said.