NICK
BEFORE
I stand in the doorway to the bathroom, watching as Clara forces Maisie’s hair into twin pigtails with adroit hands. Maisie, excited for an afternoon at ballet, is completely incapable of standing still, though Clara reminds her countless times, “The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can go.” She forces a pair of white tights onto Maisie’s legs, then slides on her leotard and the pink tutu. Maisie begs Clara for lipstick, and at first Clara hesitates, but then she relents, painting a pale pink lip gloss across Maisie’s lips.
My heart stops. My little girl is all grown up.
“Look at me, Daddy,” she says, and I smile at her and tell her she’s beautiful. I smile at Clara and tell her she’s beautiful, too, though she scowls at this, wearing her maternity clothes still because it’s the only thing she has that will fit. On her bottom half is a pair of sweatpants, and up top a spit-up stained shirt. Her hair is unwashed, oily, and she looks whipped. She hasn’t showered; she covers the smell with deodorant and perfume. In the past four days, she’s slept much less than me, awake at all hours of the night to feed Felix. I’ve offered to help, but there’s only so much I can do, and so I make every attempt to stay up and keep her company, but inevitably my eyes drift closed while Felix is still imbibing his nutrients from Clara’s sore chest. Her eyes are weary, and her mood is starting to sink.
I pull her into an embrace and tell her it’s true, she does look beautiful, but she draws away and says that she has to change before she can take Maisie to ballet.
“I can’t be seen in public like this,” barks Clara as she rummages through the closet for something to wear. I see my own reflection in the bedroom mirror. I, too, am looking worse for wear. My hair is slovenly, my face covered with so much stubble it now resembles dirt. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve shaved. My jeans are slouchy where they’re not supposed to slouch; it’s quite likely I’ve worn the same pair of denim every day this week, tossed over the end of the bed at night only to be slipped back on, come morning. There are pit stains on my shirt, and even though I have plans to go nowhere, I can’t stand the smell of my own body odor. I yank the shirt over my head, toss it to the floor and slide into something clean, a blue polo shirt that smells of lavender laundry detergent.
Ballet class is only an hour long, and with the commute either way, Clara and Maisie will be gone less than three. Clara has got it all timed out down to the minute, a chart left on the breakfast nook for reference. Felix has just been fed and burped, and is fast asleep on a blanket on the living room floor, which should be enough to tide him over until she gets back home. Then he’ll need to eat again. “If he wakes sooner,” she says, having yet to start using the breast pump we rented from the hospital, “call me and I’ll come home.” She quickly ushers Maisie down the stairs, and they grab the ballet slippers. She tells Maisie to use the bathroom.
“But I don’t have to go,” says Maisie, arms across her chest, pouting, as if using the bathroom is the worst thing in the world.
I tell her to try.
Clara’s purse and the car keys have been gathered; Maisie’s feet are stuffed in her pink sandals. They’re all set to go. They’re halfway to the door when, from the living room, we hear the sound of a baby’s cry, soft and subdued at first, but quickly growing more needy, more insistent, as we stand by the garage door and listen. It’s instantaneous, the way the worry lines besiege Clara’s face. “Don’t worry,” I tell her, setting my hand on her arm. I’ve been a father before. This isn’t new to me; I’ve done this all before. He can’t possibly be hungry, but is instead fussy, lonely, plagued by gas.
“He’ll be fine,” I say, but still she’s worried. “He can’t be hungry,” I assure Clara. “He can’t. I’ll rock him. I’ll settle him down. It will all be fine.”
But by now Felix is wailing, and I can see in Clara’s eyes that this will not be fine.
“He needs me,” she says, nervous, as beside her Maisie’s face reddens, and she begins a mounting tantrum, sure that if Felix is crying she won’t be able to go to ballet. Her eyes plead with mine, and it’s easy, a no-brainer, when I lean into Clara and whisper, “You stay. I’ll go,” and Clara and Maisie both turn to me at the same time and ask, “You will?”
I’ve never been to Maisie’s ballet class before. I’ve never met the four-year-old Felix who Maisie is crazy about; I’ve never met the other moms with whom Clara finds conversations therapeutic, a way to combat all the monotony of motherhood. I’ve never laid eyes on Miss Becca, and so I tell them that I will.
We say our goodbyes to Clara, who hurries off to tackle Felix, and as she goes I hear her say, “It’s okay, Felix, Mommy is coming, Mommy is here.”
Grabbing Maisie by the hand, we step outside. I decide to take Clara’s car to ballet because her car is parked at the edge of the drive, roasting in the hot summer sun. It’ll be like an oven when we step inside, the interior a smothering eighty or ninety degrees. “Come on, Maisie,” I say, tugging on her hand as she stops to snap a dandelion from the yard. “We have to hurry so we won’t be late to ballet.”
At that she picks up the pace, letting go of my grasp as she rushes ahead of me and toward the car, yanking on the locked door handle as I fumble with the car keys to let her in. But I have Clara’s car keys, and so finding the right one isn’t as easy as it seems.
“Come on, Daddy,” says Maisie, bouncing back and forth between her feet, and I tell her I’m coming.
I’m not halfway to the car when I see a black Beemer inching its way down the street, the tinted windows rolled down, Theo staring out at me from behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, moving in slow motion. At seeing me, he stretches out an arm, a finger pointed at me like the barrel of a pistol as he cocks the imaginary hammer and shoots. I flinch instinctively, and Theo laughs, this patronizing laugh that’s hard to hear from the distance. But still I see it. Even Maisie sees it, as her eyes wander from Theo to me and back again, and I think to myself, God, how I hate him.
I remember Clara’s comment from months ago as we stared out the window at Theo and the Maserati he had at the time. It’s not like it’s his, was what Clara had said. Clara, if possible, hates him even more than I do. Theo could never afford his own BMW, much less a Maserati, but he always has some fancy loaner that he likes to cruise around town, purporting it is his, letting it go to his head like a boy with a toy. What I want to do is tell him to fuck off or to give him the finger, but with Maisie standing there, tugging on the car handle, waiting for me to unlock the door so she can climb inside, I can’t. I’m better than that.
I try hard to ignore the threat—I will fucking kill you, Solberg. I turn away from his bullying eyes, telling Maisie as I grope for the car keys, “Just a second,” when, before I take two steps, I see the Beemer swerve onto the end of my blacktop, the hood aimed momentarily at Maisie. It’s a jerk, a simple tug of the steering wheel. It happens so fast, as Maisie sees the car coming at her full throttle, her skinny legs crumbling at the knee as she drops to the ground facedown, covering her head with her hands. The engine revs, a loud, hostile sound. By now I’m running, and just as quickly as it began, it’s through. Like that, Theo tugs on the steering wheel once more, rerouting the car less than three feet from where Maisie lies, and this time I hear his laugh out the window as he calls out to me, “See? See that, Solberg? How does it feel to be on the receiving end for a change?”
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I carp, muttering under my breath asshole, so that Maisie can’t hear it, though somehow or other Theo does. Or maybe he doesn’t hear the word so much as he sees it form on my lips.
“What the fuck did you say?” he demands. “What did you fucking call me?” he asks, but I hardly pay any attention to him because already I’m hurrying to lift Maisie from the hot blacktop. I gather her shaking body in my arms as Theo slams on the brake and the car comes to a complete stop. He thrusts the gearshift in Park and steps from the car, towering over Maisie and me on the drive. Maisie clings to me like a baby chimpanzee, fingertips sinking into my skin, confessing, “I’m scared, Daddy,” and though I don’t admit it to her, there’s a part of me that’s scared, too. There’s a threatening look in Theo’s eyes.
“I’m not the asshole,” Theo says, as I lower Maisie into the car and turn back to look him in the eye. Except that I don’t look him in the eye because Theo is a good three inches taller than me and likely another fifty pounds.
From behind I hear Maisie wince, and before I can tell her everything is okay, everything is all right, Theo shoves me against the car and tells me, “You’re the asshole, Solberg. You got that? You’re the asshole. Not me.”
“Not in front of my kid,” I plead, but Theo doesn’t care who’s around to see. His hand forms into a fist and before I can react, he gets me in the lip. Maisie screams out loud, pressing her hands to her eyes so that she can’t see what happens next, which just so happens is a good thing for me because it’s a gut reaction this time when my own hand follows suit, and I jab Theo in the jaw. Three times. With all of my might. He staggers, but comes back at me with a hook and uppercut, putting the weight of his entire body behind the blow so that the car behind me is the only thing that keeps me upright.
He laughs as I wobble, calling me a sissy, a pansy, and I’m about to hit him again when Maisie cries out, professing loudly this time that she’s scared, and Theo retreats a step, saying to me, “We’re not through here. This isn’t done,” before waltzing away, back toward the car, smug as can be, thinking he’s doing me some favor by not beating the life out of me in front of my kid. I’m transported back to ninth grade when some asshole told me to meet him at the flagpole after school so he could beat the crap out of me, and I let him, unable to put up much of a fight. I’ve never been a fighter. I always had guys around like Connor to do it for me, except that this time Connor isn’t here.
Theo laughs arrogantly, sure that he’s won this round, but when his back is turned, I consider tackling him, taking him down with a chop drop or an elbow drop, catching him when he isn’t looking and turning the tide in my favor. It’s the only way I could really win, with a cheap shot or a low blow. I have a vision of him lying facedown on the burning concrete like Maisie just a minute ago, bleeding out, crying uncle.
I start to advance, but as I do, Maisie whispers, “Is he gone, Daddy?” and her words freeze me in my tracks. I can’t move.
This isn’t something Maisie needs to see.
Theo gets in the car and slams the door. He steps on the gas and disappears down the street. “It’s okay,” I tell Maisie, stroking her hair, seeing that her pigtails are all out of whack, the knees of her tights smudged with dirt. “You’re okay. He’s gone.” I peer up and down the street to be sure he’s gone, and like magic, Theo and his black car have disappeared from view, the only sign of him the unmistakable smell of burning rubber that lingers in the air.
“Why did he do that, Daddy?” Maisie asks, her voice shaking, as I secure the straps, wiping the tears from her eyes. I hold tight to Maisie. It was such a close call. Just one more second and Theo would have hit my girl. “Why, Daddy?” she begs with this childlike innocence that reminds me that in Maisie’s world, bad things don’t happen. Bad people don’t exist. Maisie hardly knows Theo. He’s Teddy’s daddy, and yet we don’t let Maisie play with Teddy when Theo is home. Maisie has hardly laid eyes on him, and I plan to keep it that way.
As soon as I get home, I’ll tell Clara what happened, even though it means I’ll have to come clean about my run-in with Teddy. She should know. Maybe it’s time to activate the home security system, too, just in case there’s a psychopath living across the street. Maybe it’s time to put the house on the market and move somewhere new.
Three feet. He was less than three feet from hitting Maisie. I could tell her it was an accident. I could make a story up, how a squirrel had darted into the road and he was trying to avoid it, how he didn’t see Maisie. But I don’t.
He wasn’t going to hit her, I tell myself. It was just a threat. But still…
“He’s a bad man, Maisie,” I say, because for once I can’t think of anything better to say, some way to sugarcoat this situation for Maisie’s delicate ears. I want her to know. I need her to know. Theo is a bad man, and under no circumstances should she ever be around him. I look her straight in the eye. I need to be sure she hears. “He’s a bad man, Maisie,” I say again, point-blank. “That’s why.”
And then I close the door and take one more look up and down the street to be sure Theo isn’t around as we take off for ballet. I don’t need him following me there.