8. Luke
Luke
My feet pound against the pavement. Bikers pass me on the path, calling out when they’re near.
Another rolls up behind me. “On your left,” he calls. He passes me, lifting two fingers in a little wave. I wave back without smiling.
It’s been less than forty-eight hours since Natalie left, and I’ve been a train wreck the entire time. I’ve had calls from property managers looking for advice on a few home repairs, but with each conversation I have, I can only think of Nat and how I let her go. I freaking let. Her. Go.
I could punch myself in the face for that.
We’ve wanted different things for a long time, but I never thought this is what would become of our marriage.
But I should have seen the signs. Since waking up yesterday, I’ve thought a lot about what those signs may have been.
What did she say or do that might have hinted at her leaving? What made her want to leave now?
Was it the way she watched children on the beach with a forlorn smile on her face that should have told me she was dreaming of a life as a mother?
Was it the way her face lit up when she babysat Emma’s daughter—how her voice softened, her eyes grew three sizes, and her laughs were louder?
How she jumped to spend any extra minute with Ceecee that she could get?
Or was it the way she actually asked me every year on her birthday if I could get her pregnant as her big gift?
I thought she was playing around the first couple times, but I knew deep down she was truly desperate to become a mom.
I just didn’t want to acknowledge that I couldn’t give her what she wanted.
Instead, I smiled and told her we had each other. I told her all the ways in which we were free by not having kids. I told her we didn’t need anyone else to be happy if we had us. I told her I was terrified of committing to raise someone in a dangerous world such as ours.
But all of that only placated her for so long. She clearly had a breaking point.
I, on the other hand, have never been tempted to want to be a father.
It isn’t that I don’t like kids—I do. I’ve gotten used to having Ceecee at our house, and I’ve become a little attached to her.
But having one of my own is other-level scary.
You go to the hospital, the baby is born, and they test you on your knowledge of installing a car seat and watch you drive off, baby on board?
No way. That’s not for me. It’s too much responsibility. What if the car flips or dives off a bridge?
And then there are the things I went through with my mom, things I’ve never told Natalie about.
I know I should have—maybe I could have prevented her leaving—but the things I dealt with as a kid aren’t things I ever talk about.
Mom and Dad don’t know the cost I’ve paid for Mom’s years of depression.
I shake my head, wishing I didn’t have all these fears around fatherhood. Empty, lost, and wanting Nat back, I’m almost ready to throw caution to the wind and give in to her baby demand just to have her with me.
But will that really fix all our problems? Superficially, yes. But deep down? No, not at all.
My phone rings. Maybe it’s Natalie. Hoping it’s her, my heart skips a beat as I lift my phone to see a call from my property manager in Atlanta. Sweat drips over my eyebrows and down my nose, falling onto my bare chest.
Florida is hot this time of year, and it will only grow hotter as the summer progresses. I slow to a walk and answer it on my cordless earbuds.
“Hey, Gray,” I say. “What’s going on?”
His raspy smoker voice sounds worse each time I hear it. “Hey, Luke. Is now a good time?”
No.
“It’s fine. What’s up? Is everything okay with the water furnace?”
“No, not really,” he says, sounding impatient. “It never showed up.”
I wipe sweat from my brow, wishing I’d worn my sunglasses. Sunlight bounces off every passing car, piercing my eyes.
“What do you mean it never showed up?”
“I mean, the guys never delivered it, never showed up to install it, nothing. Are you sure you had the right day?”
I thought I did. With everything that happened with Natalie the past couple days, I’ve been in a haze of sorts.
I’ve been answering phone call after phone call without really knowing what any of them are about.
I’ve talked with my hired guys, heating and air companies, my dad—who’s also my business partner—and every conversation is a blur by the end of it.
It’s possible I wrote down the wrong date.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I rub sweat from my eye and tension from my neck as I walk steadily in the direction of my house. A seagull watches me from a metal bench. “I thought they said today.”
“I’ve been waiting here for two hours,” says Gray. “Do you want me to stay a little longer?”
Gray is a thirty-five-year-old man that my dad hired to manage the rental homes we own in the Atlanta area.
We have houses all over the country, but of all the property managers we have, Gray is the absolute worst. He calls about the smallest things, unable to piece together puzzles enough to troubleshoot problems himself.
As a property manager who gets paid well above what his work ethic should allow, he should be calling the heating company himself. And I have no trouble telling him so.
“Gray, you need to call the heating company.”
“And ask them what?” he says with the tone of a thirteen-year-old who just got told he can’t play video games until his room’s clean.
“You need to ask them what day the water heater replacement is scheduled for,” I reply gruffly. I don’t have time or the brain power to deal with this right now.
“Sure thing, boss. Can you send over their number?”
I roll my eyes, stomping more than walking now. “I’ve already sent it to you, Gray. In a text and to your email inbox.”
“Huh,” he says.
I get the feeling he doesn’t check his email like he should, and I know for a fact he doesn’t always look at my texts when I send them. That was proven when I sent him a code to the garage of one of the houses he manages, and three hours later he called me asking for the garage code.
I should have fired him then.
“Check my last text or email for their number and call the company. Text me what day they’re coming.” Without saying anything else, I hang up.
Walking inside my front door feels like coming home to a living house that no longer breathes.
The bones are good, but the insides are dull and lifeless without Natalie here.
The air is stale under the lingering scent of her perfume in the hallway.
Her black high heels from our dinner out the other night still sit by the front door.
Pulling a clean glass from the dishwasher, I fill it with water from the fridge and down it. When I place it in the sink, I notice for the fifth time that Natalie’s pink coffee mug from the other morning still sits half full on the counter. I don’t touch it.
My hands itch to do something, anything that will make this situation better. Anything that will convince her to come home.
The doorbell rings, and I frown. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I grab the blue T-shirt I left on the counter before my run and pull it over my head. Then I open the door. A little brown-haired toddler wiggles in the arms of a tall woman with long black hair.
“Ceecee!” I sing, reaching for the little girl.
Emma hands her off to me, and Ceecee croons, “Loo”—her version of Luke—in her adorable tiny voice. For someone who isn’t a kid person, I love Ceecee. Probably because she’s not mine and I can hand her back to her mom at the end of the day.
Although, I do have to admit: she’s made her mark on my heart.
Ceecee wraps her arms around my neck, and I look at her mom. “Hey, Emma. I know you hoped Natalie would come back after you and I talked, but she didn’t. And … I don’t know if she will.” I rub the back of my neck, hoping the tension will ease now that Ceecee has given me a reason to smile.
I haven’t slept at all the last two nights without Natalie, and I know the bags under my eyes are a dead giveaway to the stress and loss I’m feeling.
Emma’s blue eyes turn down at the edges as her black eyebrows deepen. “I know. I talked to her.”
I open my mouth, then close it. What do I even say? Emma has been Natalie’s best friend for years, and she’s like a sister to me. Nat didn’t just leave me, she left her friends—she left Emma and Ceecee, who depend on her to babysit so Emma can go to work at the salon.
“And I want you to know,” Emma continues, “that I don’t agree with her leaving. And I told her as much. I think she’s acting crazy.”
I try to smile at her but fail. “Thanks, Emma.”
Ceecee pulls at my nose, and I laugh for the first time in two days. I bat her hand away playfully.
“Nat told me I could check in on you.” She shrugs. “I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. She told me to come over.”
My eyebrows lift in surprise. “She did?”
“Yeah.” Emma rests a manicured hand on my shoulder. “She loves you, you know, contrary to what the evidence of her leaving shows. She’s just … struggling.”
I nod, shifting Ceecee to my other hip. “I know she is. But what can I do? She wants to have kids; it’s no secret. I’m sure she’s told you.”
Emma’s lips twist to the side. “Only, like, a million times.”
“I told her before we got married that kids weren’t in the cards for me, and now she’s acting like I’ve somehow screwed her over.
I told her from the start how it would be.
” I don’t want to be offended or act like I’m caught off guard, but I am.
I am caught off guard. We had a plan going into marriage: no kids.
And now she’s left me because of the same damn plan.
My T-shirt sticks to my sweaty skin, so I put Ceecee down and motion for the two of them to follow me into the house.
I end up back in the kitchen, staring at that half-empty mug, wondering how long it will sit there before Natalie comes back, or whether I’ll ever have the courage to wash it and put it away.