Chapter 6 Briar
Briar
“Bye! Have a good weekend,” I call out to the last after-school program employee as she locks the school’s door and walks across the parking lot.
She gives me one of those forced, professional smiles, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes, and then glances at Harley with a knowing look.
This isn’t the first time this has happened.
It’s not even the tenth time. More like the fiftieth in the four years that Harley’s been at this school.
Tyler is supposed to pick Harley up from school every other Friday for his weekend visitation, and he does . . . mostly. Just on his own schedule, not the school’s. Or mine. Because no one else matters in Tyler’s worldview. It serves him or it doesn’t happen.
So like too many times before, we’re sitting on the bench out front, waiting on Tyler.
Technically, he should’ve been here thirty minutes ago at the designated pickup time—one I have never been late for, not even when one of our petting zoo sheep was giving birth.
Unfortunately, he still has fifteen more minutes before being considered a no-show according to our divorce decree.
Do I have a plan for that? Of course I do.
That’s what mothers do—plan for every possible contingency, both good and bad.
If Tyler no-shows, I’ll surprise Harley with a movie night at the discount theater in the next town over to see the most recently released superhero movie.
I don’t remember what it is, but it seems like there’s always one, and it’d be a decent distraction for a disappointed son.
“Think he’s actually coming?” Harley asks. He’s not even scanning the street hopefully anymore. Instead, he’s sprawled out with his head in my lap, staring at the seemingly endless flocks of birds flying overhead. It’s only September, but they seem hellbent on getting out of Dodge.
I hate this. With every bone . . . every muscle .
. . every cell in my body. I hate that my son is the one who pays the biggest, most painful price for Tyler’s actions, again and again.
Once upon a time, I covered for him, saying he got hung up at work or we must’ve gotten dates or times confused.
Those days are long gone. Not because I want to degrade Tyler to our son, but because I learned that lying on Tyler’s behalf only made Harley not trust me either.
So I’m honest, to a point. “I don’t know, honey. I haven’t heard from him.”
Harley closes his eyes, and I search his face for some sign of what he’s thinking.
What he’s feeling. But he’s perfectly blank, no tears escaping or frown turning his lips downward.
Just empty. I hate that too. At his tender age, he should still think the world is filled with kindness and good people.
He shouldn’t be jaded by the true reality of it, especially when that cynicism is the result of his own father’s actions and inactions.
Harley’s buried pain makes me angry all over again. Tyler fucking up my head is one thing, but Harley’s? That’s an entirely different issue, one I take much more seriously.
Just as I’m about to give up, the obnoxious growl of an engine revving too high comes around the corner. Harley sits up instantly, the dawning shock on his face replaced by happiness in a blink. “Dad’s here!”
I don’t curse. Out loud. But I was starting to look forward to a movie night with a popcorn dinner.
Tyler’s white pickup truck pulls into the school lot and he stops at the curb, right in the middle of the carpool lane. That’d be a cardinal sin, except no one is here to care at this hour. As he comes around the hood, he says, “Hey, Harley! Who’s ready for ice cream?”
He’s got a cosmetically enhanced white smile on his tanned face, sunglasses still covering his eyes, and is wearing jeans and a polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of the construction company he works for.
I used to think he was so handsome, and maybe objectively he still is, but all I see is the devil inside him.
The one I saw too up close and personal to deny any longer.
He holds his arms out wide for a hug, which Harley readily gives him.
There’s no apology. No explanation. Nothing. Not that any excuse he could give would make his tardiness acceptable. The urge to pull Harley back to my side and protect him from Tyler rides me hard, but I fight it back. That would only make things worse . . . for my son and for me.
“What’re you doing here?” Tyler asks me, somehow looking confused at my existence.
“When you weren’t here at pickup time, the school called me.
I was close by”—I give him a pointed look, silently communicating that I do that because he is wholly unreliable, and his jaw clenches at the rebuff—“so I came over to check Harley out. I didn’t want to pay the one dollar per minute fee for”—I glance down at my watch—“thirty-six minutes.”
“I had to pick up Amber from work first.”
As far as explanations go, it’s as good as any, but it’s most definitely telling. Amber is Tyler’s girlfriend, and choosing to pick her up before Harley shows his priorities clearly.
I glance at the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, and she gives me a narrow-eyed scowl.
Thanks to Tyler’s version of our divorce, in her mind, I’m the enemy, the evil ex who keeps trying to get her claws back into Tyler, who left me because I’m a crazy bitch.
Girl code rules state that I should tell her to watch her back because she’s sleeping with the actual enemy, but she’s not ready to hear that.
She’s too deeply under his spell, enthralled with the charming man he at least on the surface can be.
And if I’m honest, she’s a stabilizing force in Tyler’s life, or at least as much of one as he’ll allow, and selfishly, I can appreciate that.
It means that he’s more consistent with his obligations than he used to be.
Plus, she is nice to Harley, which is the main thing I care about, so I just offer her a hint of a smile, hoping that by not pressing her buttons, she can manage Tyler’s emotions when they leave with my son.
“Pickup time is six o’clock. Drop-off is four o’clock on Sunday. I’ll meet you at the park then.” Straightforward, factual, and emotionless is the goal, and I hit every point.
Tyler takes his sunglasses off, hooking them in the neck of his shirt.
“Aw, Briar, don’t be like that. I appreciate you coming to sit with my boy till I could get here.
” He places a hand on Harley’s shoulder, pulling our son into his side for a moment, and flashes me one of those aw-shucks grins that used to fool me.
This is his game.
For all his faults, stupidity isn’t one of them.
He’s strategic. And this whole picture reframes in my mind.
This is how he wanted it—me waiting for him, him heroically showing up to rescue Harley like the good-times-only dad, flaunting Amber in my face and me in hers.
Every piece a pawn, but he’s the only one playing.
I ignore him. The gray rock method has become my way of taking back power, especially when all Tyler wants is to find some little way to still control me.
Every time he tries to throw toxicity my way, I don’t react and just do my thing.
I hug Harley tightly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
“I’ll see you Sunday, honey. I love you. ”
“You act like you’re never gonna see him again. It’s not even forty-eight hours, babe. He’ll be fine.”
The fact that he thinks I want forty-eight hours—hell, an hour—away from my son pisses me off.
The last thing I want is to send him away, with his dad or anyone else.
But I don’t react, knowing he’s baiting me with that and the endearment he used to call me.
I haven’t been his “babe” in a very long time.
“Call me anytime.” I pointedly say the words to Harley and Harley only, nearly nose to nose with him so that there is no misconstruing my intention.
When Tyler doesn’t get the reaction from me that he’s looking for—whether that’s anger or affection, he tries another tactic. “Why don’t we do handover at my house on Sunday? I can grill out and we can eat dinner like the old days.”
The old days.
Sunday cookouts were our routine. I’d clean the house, top to bottom, making sure every nook and cranny was spotless, wash, dry, fold, and put away all the laundry, go to the grocery store, haul it all inside and put everything away, prep snacks and lunches for the week, and generally, do all the work, taking care of an into-everything toddler along the way, while Tyler played a round of golf with his buddies and drank too much beer.
Then, he’d waltz in, disappear into the bathroom for an hour, reappear to throw the meat I’d trimmed and marinated onto the grill while I made side dishes and set the table, and then remind me to thank him for taking care of dinner as though he’d done me a favor.
And also, his house used to be our house. He kept it in the divorce because I couldn’t pay the mortgage on my salary. I have no desire to go back to the place where I was the unhappiest version of myself.
I don’t give him that truth, though. He’ll only hold it against me, delighting in any remaining echoes of the pain he caused. “The park is fine.”
He shrugs as if completely unbothered, but I see the muscle twitch beneath his eye, a telltale tick he can’t control when he’s angry. “Suit yourself. We’ll meet you there at five o’clock.”
“Four,” I correct before I can stop myself.
Habits are hard to break, even after all this time, even when I know better.
He intentionally said the wrong time to make me say the right one.
It’s an example of “his cause, his desired effect.” Tyler’s every word is a bullet looking for a target, and I let him hit one.
It’s not a center mass hit, but his grin says he still recognizes the win.
The smallest, stupidest one, but a win nonetheless.
“Right, four.”
Why do I feel like he’s going to be an hour late for drop-off? Because he will be, especially now that I reminded him. Just to be ornery, to irritate me, to make me sit on a park bench and wait for him the way I sat on a school bench today.
“Dad, did you mean it about getting ice cream?” Harley asks.
I want to tell him to at least eat dinner first, but I swallow those words down.
Still, Tyler knows I’m thinking them. Any responsible parent would be.
Which is why he tells Harley, “Of course I did. Who would joke about ice cream? Get in. Amber can tell you all about the Fall Festival we’re going to tomorrow. ”
“Festival?” Harley’s grin is nearly ear-to-ear as he runs toward the truck and climbs inside without giving me a second glance. “What festival are we going to?” I hear him ask Amber before closing the door.
I pray it’s actually fall themed, with pumpkins and leaves, and not Halloween, with zombies and monsters.
Harley likes to fancy himself a brave, big kid, but scary stuff can still give him nightmares.
I want to ask. I want to tell Tyler to be thoughtful about what he’s exposing our son to, but I don’t have any control over what they do on their visitation and have to trust that a haunted house isn’t going to let elementary-aged kids in if it’s too scary.
It’s ridiculous that I trust a haunted house to be more responsible for my son’s well-being than his father, but that’s where we are.
“Let me know if you change your mind about dinner Sunday,” Tyler tells me, his voice gone husky and his smile filling with heat. “Or anytime.” He lets his eyes drop over me from head to toe, making sure I feel every unwelcome caress of his weighted look and that Amber doesn’t see any of it.
“Four o’clock at the park.”
“Sure, babe. Whatever you say,” Tyler tells me with a chuckle. He walks away, and I swear he’s trying to strut around the truck with a little more pep in his step, as though he actually did something with our exchange.
As he climbs in, the back window of the truck rolls down. “Bye, Mom! I love you!” Harley calls out. He didn’t forget. He got distracted by the dangling carrot his dad threw out, but he remembered me in the end.
“Love you too,” I yell, but I’m not sure he hears me over the too-loud engine of Tyler’s truck as he pulls away. So I wave the ILU fingers, hoping it’s enough.
Alone in the school parking lot, I wrap my arms around myself.
Almost forty-eight hours until Harley comes back.
These weekends are the worst. I don’t know what to do with myself and too often end up stress cleaning, doomscrolling, or forcing myself to do something fun and feeling ungrateful the whole time as I wonder what Harley is doing while I’m goofing off.
That night, I’m eating a bowl of popcorn for dinner, the remaining vestige of my movie plan, when my phone dings. It’s a text from Hockey Coach.
I’m free all weekend if Harley wants to practice?
It seems pretty straightforward, and I’d like to believe that’s true and Dominic is exactly what he says he is—a new-to-town guy who wants to share the sport he loves.
But he’s also Dominic Lee, a professional athlete with a whole life that doesn’t involve elementary-level hockey drills with a nine-year-old kid. I might’ve done a bit of googling to see what his story is, and while nothing damning showed up, surely he has better things to do.
That alone makes me question his motives.
Truthfully, Dominic has been nothing but nice, but I used to know another nice guy, and he turned out to be a monster. Masks are easy to keep in place at first, and while I’m not sure Dominic’s wearing a mask, I also don’t trust that he isn’t. Nor do I have the time or inclination to figure it out.
Especially when I’m feeling too raw and vulnerable after the forced interaction with Tyler today and I’m worried if Harley is going to be okay all weekend.
Tyler will make sure he’s safe and fed, stuff like that, but emotionally?
He’s always a bit of a wreck after spending so much time in Tyler’s toxic cesspool of influence.
He’s busy. Sorry.
I leave it at that and so does Dominic. And I only glare at my phone a few dozen times after that, wishing it would ding again and his Hockey Coach label would flash on my screen.
I’m a mess of inconsistencies, both wanting him to leave me alone and contrarily wanting him to ask if I’m busy too. But he annoyingly respects my no.