4. The Beginning of the End
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
T revor carried Zara through the front door, her body had gone heavy with the kind of sleep that fever brings. He nudged the door closed with his heel and held her a second longer than necessary. Her breath warmed the curve of his neck. The house felt colder than it should.
“Alright, Superstar. We're home.”
He eased her onto the couch, took off her shoes and tucked a throw around her.
The thermostat clicked when he raised it two degrees.
He set the kettle on. He filled a bowl with cool water and found the soft washcloths in the linen drawer.
He moved on autopilot. Checks and balances.
Ginger tea, broth, acetaminophen dosed by weight, the blue humidifier that puffed like a train in a children’s book.
Zara stirred. “Daddy?”
“I’m right here.”
He pressed the thermometer under her tongue and traced the Z in her name along her back with a fingertip. She could always feel even half asleep. The thermometer beeped. 101.8. Not terrifying, but still not good.
He called the pediatrician’s line and spoke to a nurse who had the calm voice of a person who had heard every worry in the world.
Fluids. Rest. Call back if breathing changes.
Come in if the fever spikes past 103. He wrote it all on a sticky note and stuck it to the fridge like it was a contract.
He washed her up and put on her favorite Lilo pajamas.
He tucked her in the bed with a kiss on the forehead and a promise of soup.
As he traveled back to the kitchen, he saw the call sheet for tomorrow’s studio day was pinned to the cork board with a bulldog clip.
Reed had made it look like he knew what it was doing.
Trevor stared at the list of times. Lighting test. Camera rehearsal.
B roll of paint mixing. He swallowed against a grind of guilt that tasted like metal.
He texted the group thread.
Trevor: Zara has a fever. I will still make call if needed, but I may have to remote in.
Alicia: We got you. I can shift the camera rehearsal and push coverage
Reed: We can send you a feed. Stay with her.
Mackenzie: Do not worry about us. We are good.
Jackson: We will send soup.
Trevor smiled at that and set the phone facedown on the counter.
He put on a playlist of soft jazz and let it fill the kitchen like it could smooth the corners of the day.
He ladled broth into a mug and carried it to the bedroom.
Zara cracked an eye and took a sip without complaint. She was brave like that.
He put on Carl The Collector at low volume.
The characters moved through bright problems and brighter solutions.
He adjusted the humidifier and remembered the first time he did this.
Zara was four months old, and the fever had landed without knocking.
His mom had sat with him on the bathroom floor while the shower ran hot and turned the room to cloud.
“ You will not break ,” she had said. “ Your girl needs you calm. So, breathe. ”
He breathed now, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Over and over until the drum in his chest softened.
As the afternoon faded, he opened his laptop and pulled up the lookbook for Making Love.
He typed notes for the new structure and flagged two sequences for color tests.
He wrote a paragraph about how silence should be allowed to sit inside a frame like a guest you want to stay.
He felt the engine of his brain catch and run.
He watched it with one eye while the other stayed on his daughter.
The sun slid behind the houses across the street. Lights jumped on, one window at a time. Trevor reheated broth, dosed medicine, rubbed her back in circles until her breath levelled again. He texted Katelyn.
Zara is sick. Picked her up at school. She is resting.
The message marked delivered. No reply. They had been walking on eggshells around each other since that morning she ran off.
She had been home more, but somehow always missed Zara’s pick up or drop off.
Trevor had let it slip that Aniyah was Zara’s new teacher and he could’ve sworn Katelyn froze before rolling her eyes and saying, “After all that work? I thought she was supposed to be a doctor?”
That statement left a bad taste in his mouth.
Considering Katelyn’s profession, he did not know why she felt haughty towards Aniyah.
They slept in the same bed, but he hadn’t touched her since he found the hickey she tried to play off like a burn.
On his brother’s advice, he also went and had an STD panel done, thankfully everything came back clean.
He was due to meet with Angelou and his P.I.
by the end of October, and he was nervous about what he would find out.
He couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that wanted the PI to find nothing.
For this just to be the rough patch married couples who have lasted talk about and for him and Katelyn to be the couple they once were.
From the distant look in her eyes every morning, the smile that she always has when looking at her phone and the nonchalant way she handles Zara, those days are long gone. Still... he hoped.
At eight, he went upstairs to check on Zara.
She blinked at him when the light from the hallway entered her room.
He brushed her hair off her forehead and read one book about a pig who wanted to fly and another about a train that chose to be brave.
He tucked her in and set the trash bin and a glass of water within reach.
He kissed her temple and stood for a second longer than needed.
He listened to make sure the rhythm of her breath did not change .
Downstairs, he cleaned the kitchen. The hum of the refrigerator and the low saxophone on the speakers held the silence between them like a blanket that had gotten too thin.
He thought of Aniyah saying, “She is loved and in good hands,” in today’s classroom newsletter.
He held that sentence in his mouth for a full minute because it fit.
The front door opened at ten forty-three.
Katelyn stepped into the foyer like she was entering a party.
Heels clicking. The kind of perfume you could name by brand if you cared about that sort of thing.
She slid her coat off her shoulders and draped it over the banister.
She looked good. She always did. The city had put a shine on her that made strangers stare.
“You are home,” she said, like he had been away. She looked past him into the living room, then at the stairs. “Where is Z?”
“Asleep, she is still fighting her fever.”
Katelyn paused for half a second. “She will be fine.”
He nodded. “She will.”
Katelyn’s eyes moved back to him. She let them travel the length of him like a new idea.
He was broader than he used to be. Gym mornings had carved his shoulders without his permission.
The serious switch was on his face, and she had always liked that.
She walked toward him slow and deliberate, hips a suggestion inside a pencil skirt and silk that caught the kitchen light.
“Hey,” she said softly. “You look good.”
He did not move,“It has been a day.”
“I can make it better.” She stepped close enough for her perfume to find his throat. Her fingers slid up his chest and hooked at his collar. Her mouth tipped toward his jaw. She laughed low like they were sharing a joke in a quiet theater.
Trevor pulled back, “No.”
Katelyn frowned at his rejection. She couldn’t believe it, “You are serious right now?”
“I’m serious every time I’m standing in our kitchen wondering why I’m alone in this house. I’m serious when our daughter asks where you are and I make something up because the truth sounds like I hate you. I’m serious when I say we cannot keep doing this.”
Her chin lifted, “I was at work.”
“You were somewhere,” he said. “It has been months of somewhere.”
She rolled her eyes, “I’m sorry! Do you want a cookie because you handled a fever?”
He stared at her for a long beat, “I want a partner who comes home.”
Silence settled for half a second. She broke it with a sound like a door shutting.
“I am home!” Katelyn shouted.
“Aye, watch your tone when you’re talking to me.
Our daughter is finally sleeping peacefully, I’ll be damned if you walk your triflin’ ass up in here and wake her up.
” Trevor's voice was a whisper but it was so hard.
Katelyn had never heard him talk to her like that.
She had been dodging this conversation since he sent that text message last month.
“Why are you talking to me like this?!” She screeched.
“Do you know our daughter asked if you still loved her? She apologized for whatever she did wrong and wanted her mother back,” Katlyn’s eyes began to water as Trevor continued, “She asked what she had to do to get her mom back. You always come home after her bedtime, if you’re coming home.
You’ve missed taking her to school and her fucking birthday, Lyn!
Do you know how fucked up that is?” Trevor paused because he felt himself being overcome with sadness thinking about his little girl.
“I get it, if you’ve fallen out of love with me, but Z” —he points up, signaling where she is sleeping in her room— “Does not deserve any of this. Either you’re in or you're out.”
Would it be dumb that there was a large part of him that wanted her to say that she wasn’t done, that she still loved him and her daughter and they would work on this. The pair locked eyes for a moment. That’s when he saw it, her resignation.
“This was not the life I pictured for myself, Trevor.” Her confession came out tired as she sat on the arm of the couch.