Chapter 11 #3
“No, you don’t. You clearly think I’m a liar. Or is this about something else? Did you get what you wanted from me, and now you’re done? You’re trying to break up with me? New car, new phone, bills paid, see you later?”
I gasped. “No! NO! I didn’t ask you for any of that.”
“Right, like I was just going to leave you wallowing in poverty.” He stopped, and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then he looked at me. “Emmy, I didn’t mean that.”
I stood up, pulled the phone from my pocket, and dropped it in his lap. “I’m going inside to wallow. You can go to hell.”
I stood in the kitchen and spied on him as he left. Then I went up to my bedroom to cry. I could hear Charlie sobbing through the wall that we shared.
What had I done?
∞
Annie and Macdara came to our house on Friday afternoon. Charlie was pouting in his room. He had talked to Mrs. Ferber a little more, and she had moved Rivers to a different section in second grade. But I hadn’t permitted Charlie to go back to swim, as miserable as it was making both of us.
“Hi guys,” I called from the yard to Annie and Mackie.
I had decided to just go ahead and take out all the bushes on the east side of the house.
It was really difficult and left me exhausted, which I appreciated.
Sleep was not coming easy. “Macdara, Charlie is upstairs. Second door on the left.” The door with the signs taped on it saying “I HATE EMMY” alongside other inspiring messages about me.
“This is a big project,” Annie said, looking around the yard with wide eyes. It was looking a little, well, stripped.
“I have more time now to do stuff at home.” Now that I had stopped working at Roy’s.
I had called him to quit, and he told me he knew it was coming, and not to bother to come back in to work and that he would mail me my last check.
Apparently he had a stable full of women waiting for the job, and good luck to them.
Then he told me that he hoped for the best for me and for Charlie.
“You’re very energetic,” Annie complimented me. “This would be a much better workout than the terrible Pilates class I had this morning. There was a substitute for the regular instructor, and I don’t even think she knew how to use the reformer!”
“That’s a shame.” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Anyway, I’ve been texting you, but you haven’t responded, and when Charlie wasn’t at swim for the whole week, I got worried!”
“We’re fine. I’m surprised Luke didn’t tell you that Charlie is being punished. Taking away swim is about the worst thing I can do to him.” I busied myself with my new extension handle loppers, wondering what she would say about Luke.
“Well, that’s the funny thing. Luke hasn’t been responding to me either.”
I was quiet.
“Is something going on?” Annie asked.
I bit my lip. “Not really. I gave him back the phone, so that’s why I haven’t been answering you.” And I would have to give back the Toyota, too, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it yet, and go back down the car search rabbit hole.
“Why did you give it back?” Annie looked astonished. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”
“No big deal. Why don’t you come inside and tell me what’s new with you?”
We walked into the kitchen, and I scrubbed my hands under the faucet while Annie filled me in on the latest Milos story.
“If you can believe it, he’s trying to break the prenup and ask for spousal support! That lazy bastard. But I’m not giving him one thin dime.” She looked at her hands. “And it turns out my dad has been investigating him for a while, so we have a lot of dirt. He had a P.I. following Milos.”
“Your dad was having Milos followed?” I sat down at the table with her. “That seems a little…” Creepy.
“It worked out for me now,” she said defensively. Then she sighed. “Even though the dossier was very hurtful to look through. There was stuff from before we even got married.”
That meant her dad must have known that Milos was a jerk, and according to Luke, he had still finagled their marriage. “I’m sorry that Milos is such an idiot.” We were quiet for a moment.
“So, no problems between you and Luke, right?”
“Would you like anything to drink?” I asked, jumping up from the table. “I really just have water to offer. A glass of water?” I went to pour one for myself.
Annie continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Because usually Luke only avoids me when he’s upset about something. So I was thinking, if he was avoiding me, and you were too, maybe there was something going on.”
“I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t have the phone anymore,” I clarified.
“Why did you give it back to him?” she asked.
I blew out a breath. “We broke up. Or, we aren’t seeing each other anymore, or however you want to put it. I think.” I kept my back to her, and furtively wiped my eyes.
“WHAT?” Annie screeched. “Are you serious?!?”
“We’re very different,” I explained. “This is for the best.”
“I don’t think so!” she said. “It’s not best for Luke! And I don’t think it’s best for you, either! And if you broke my brother’s heart, we are NOT friends, anymore!”
I couldn’t answer her around the tears. They were all lodged in my throat.
“Oh, Emmy, I’m sorry!” Annie said, standing up and grabbing me into a fierce hug. “What happened? Did he break up with you?”
“No. I don’t know what happened. It’s just all so much. He…I…Cassie…” I couldn’t understand it myself. Annie waited. “I’m sorry. I get it if you hate me too.”
“I don’t hate you. And I know Luke doesn’t either. He loves you! As soon as he bought you that water heater, I knew.”
I stared at her. “Luke bought me the water heater? He didn’t tell me…” That did it. I covered my face with my hands and started to sob.
“Oh, Emily,” Annie said, and patted my head. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” Mutely I shook my head no. She let me cry for a while then pulled my hands away from my eyes. “You know what we need? A girls’ night out! Let’s get dressed up and hit the town!”
I wiped my nose with a paper towel. “No, I don’t want to go to Roy’s.”
“Not our town, silly, it’s just an expression! Come on, I’ll get a babysitter and the kids can stay at my house. They can have a sleepover! They’ll have fun and so will we!”
I thought about it.
“Come on!” she urged. “We need to let our hair down!” I flashed to the image of myself running my hair all over Luke’s naked body. Now I would never get the chance.
Maybe I did need to get out. How long had it been, months? Years? My whole life? “Ok. Let me get dressed, and I’ll meet you at your house in about an hour.”
“Perfect!” Annie hugged me again. “Pull out all the bells and whistles, ok? Let’s do it up!”
She called to Macdara, who beckoned conspiratorially to me when she came into the kitchen. “I talked to Charlie,” Mackie said in a low, serious voice. “I think he understands that he can’t be fighting. It could really derail his swim career. I don’t think he’ll do it again, ok?”
“Um, thanks, Macdara, I appreciate your help,” I told her.
“Anytime. He’s my cousin now, so I get to give him advice,” she said, and hugged me just like her mom always did.
After they left, I climbed the stairs and knocked on Charlie’s door. “Pal? Can we talk for a minute?”
He creaked the door open and shrugged.
“Can we take these signs down now?” I gestured at the hate speech directed at me taped to his door. “Because I don’t think you feel this way. I think, even when you’re really mad at me, you always love me. Just like I love you.”
And there it was. Charlie was so easy to love. He always had been. Charlie would never let me down, or leave, or screw me over.
Slowly he stood up from his bed, and walked over to rip the signs off his door.
“Do you want to sleep over at Macdara’s?” I asked him.
“Really? You would let me?”
“Yep. You guys can hang out together in her game room. Annie and I are going out to dinner.”
“Should I wear my tie?” Charlie asked. “Her house is so fancy.”
“I think this in an informal occasion. No tie required.” I slowly sidled up to him and hugged him. “You’re still my best sweet pea. You’re always my best sweet pea.”
He didn’t say it back, but he hugged me too, which was a good start.
While Charlie packed his overnight bag and got changed—he was still under the impression that he had to dress up for Annie’s house—I looked in my closet for some bells and whistles.
But, shock of shocks, still no new clothes had grown in there.
I thought about it. Then I went into Nana’s bedroom, Cassie’s bedroom.
I turned on all the lights. It was getting dusty in here. It didn’t take long in Nana’s old house for the dust to creep in. I ran my hand across the top of the bureau. It really would have looked nice in Luke’s big bedroom, under the window overlooking the lake.
I studied the bed, the side where Cassie had always lain.
I sat down in her spot, feeling a little creeped out, but wondering.
What had made her do it? Fear of her disease?
The loss of Mike? I lay down and looked at the cracked white ceiling, then turned my head.
I could see down into the moon garden, where every day more bulbs were coming up, more greenery was sprouting.
In the summer, it would be beautiful. I closed my eyes, and remembered Cassie.
The mean, witchy parts, and the sad, sick parts. But there were good memories too.
“Emmy?”
I levitated about a foot off the bed. “Good Lord, Charlie, you scared me to death!”
“What are you doing in here?” he asked, taking a step into the room.
“I was thinking about your mom. Nice things I remember about her.” I smiled at him. “Like when she was on the dance team in high school. I thought she was so cool. I wanted to be just like her.”
Charlie took another step in. “She was a good cook,” he said. The “unlike you” was thankfully left off.