chapter twenty
It’s been two weeks now. Two weeks since Erin died. Two weeks since Griffin left. Two weeks since I’ve set foot outside the townhouse. Two weeks and I’ve not breathed a word to anyone about what I did with Griffin.
I haven’t heard from him. Complete radio silence. Nobody knows where he is. Not even Mason. He didn’t take his phone. He didn’t take any clothes. He didn’t even take his camera bag. Griffin never goes anywhere without his camera bag.
I can’t do this. His words echo the way I feel. I’m still mourning Erin. I don’t know if I can mourn Griffin, too. But every time the phone rings, my heart stops. Will this be the call where they tell me his body washed ashore after he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge?
My only hope is that he simply needed time away to deal with Erin’s death. I just wonder how much worse I made things by sleeping with him. I can’t say how many times I’ve re-read the note he left. A mistake. Making love to me was a mistake.
No—not making love. Fucking. That’s what it was. There was no exchange of feelings, no real emotion on his part, other than the obvious grief. Let’s at least call it what it was.
The phone rings and I jump. Then I see it’s just Baylor’s daily phone call. It’s always the same thing. She’ll try to get me to go back to work. She’ll say it will help. But all I want to do is sit in Griffin’s studio and stare at the walls and think of how I can’t do this. I can’t be a mom. What kind of mother will I be if I can’t even resist my best friend’s husband long enough for us to properly mourn her? I screwed up. I ruined everything. And now he’s gone and I’m alone.
“Not today,” I say in lieu of hello.
“Why not today?” she asks. “Do you really think tomorrow will be any better than today for you to go back to work?” I hear baby noises in the background, reminding me of tough decisions ahead. “Listen, Skylar. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but you had six weeks before that to prepare for Erin’s death. We all grieve in our own way, and I’m willing to respect that, but you need to realize you didn’t die with her. Do you think Erin would want you to sit there wallowing in tears over her?”
I shake my head and before I can stop it, it comes out. I blurt it out like a volcano percolates and boils to the point of eruption and then spews all over everything in its path. “Erin wouldn’t give a shit. She would hate me. I slept with him. I slept with Griffin. I couldn’t even wait until the day after her funeral, Baylor. Who does that? You know who—me. Because I never fucking changed. I tried to. But a leopard never changes its spots. I’m a leopard, Bay. Face it. I couldn’t even help myself. I have no self-control. And now I ruined everything. For a quick lay.”
My throat is thick with unshed tears. I swallow the gigantic lump and continue before she can get a word in. “But the thing is, that wasn’t what it was for me. It was the best sex of my life. Nothing has ever come close to what I experienced that night with Griffin. I dream of it every night. I think of it every day. I will compare every future encounter to it, already knowing how disappointed I’ll be. What would even be the point of being with anyone else ever again?”
More damn baby noises on her end of the phone. “And what the hell am I supposed to do about Bean? I thought I could do it. I thought it might be possible. With Griffin. With the two of us trying to figure it out together. But now it’s just me. He could be dead for all I know. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want Aaron.” I take a breath and say the words that utterly destroy me. “He doesn’t want me.”
I close my eyes as guilt consumes me. “I don’t think I can do it, Baylor. I don’t think I can raise a baby. I’m going to have to find someone to adopt him.”
Silence. I’ve shocked her with my confessions. I’m sure she’s trying to think of something sisterly to say, but can’t. What could she possibly say to make this any better?
“I have to go, Skylar. I have a meeting. But I’ll call you later and we can talk, okay?”
I nod. Of course she wants to go. She probably doesn’t want to regret the words she really wants to say. “Later then,” I say. I hang up the phone and make my way down the stairs. I avoid looking at pictures of Erin. I know she’s staring back at me. She knows what I’ve done. What I’m going to do.
I look at the pictures of Griffin with his dad. They are the only pictures of him in his entire studio. He’s usually behind the camera, not in front of it. His dad was so happy to be having a grandbaby. I wonder if he’ll hate me, too.
I walk over and take Griffin’s favorite camera out of its case. The camera is an extension of him and it makes me feel closer to him when I hold it. I carry it over to the sitting room and curl up on the couch with it. I fall asleep dreaming of him taking pictures of his son with this very camera. Taking pictures of me. Of the family we were supposed to be.
~ ~ ~
The doorbell rings. Three times. Someone’s impatient. “Geez, I’m coming.” My sleepy legs carry me up the stairs from the basement while I wonder who’s been sent to be on ‘Skylar watch’ today. I look through the sidelight. Baylor. And, oh great, she’s brought the baby with her. Just what I need.
I open the door and then walk to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
“Don’t bother helping or anything, little sister,” Baylor pouts as she pushes Jordan’s stroller through the door and then leans down to retrieve a bunch of other crap. How does one tiny baby need so much shit?
She parks the stroller, checking on her daughter who is perfectly happy staring at the ceiling of the townhouse. “Slight emergency,” she says. “I need you to watch her.”
No need for coffee. I’m fully awake now. “What? No!” She should know better. I don’t babysit. Kids hate me. I never have any idea what they want. I look down at my twenty-two-week belly and apologize to little Aaron that he was dealt such a shitty hand.
“You have to, Skylar. Nobody else can do it. I’ve called everyone. I can’t miss this meeting with my publicist.” She checks her watch. “If I’m not there in thirty minutes, he will drop me. He’s the best publicist in New York. I’ve put him off for weeks and now he’s pissed. You have to help me.”
She pulls a notepad out of the gigantic baby bag. “I’ve written everything down. Just follow the schedule. Jordan is very easy.” She pulls some bottles out of the bag, putting them in my refrigerator. “I pumped just in case I can’t make it back for her next feeding in two hours.”
My eyes go wide in horror. “Two hours? You’re leaving her for two hours? What am I supposed to do with her, Baylor?”
I try to remember the few times I babysat Baylor’s son, Maddox. But all I remember is my little sister, Piper, holding him, feeding him, changing him. I think I would just play with him until he needed something and then I would pass him off to her. I suck at this. She can’t possibly trust me with her six-week-old baby. She’s lost her freaking marbles.
“Oh, I don’t know. Hold her maybe?” Baylor looks at me like I’m a dimwit. “She’s a newborn, Skylar. She doesn’t need much. If she cries, check her diaper. Pick her up and walk around with her. And here’s a thought—use the world’s best rocking chair Erin got for the nursery. You have everything you need right here.”
She looks at her watch and gasps. “Hell, I have to go. You’ll be fine. Call Mom out in Long Island if you need any advice. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She walks out my front door before I can get in another word.
I look around. Maybe I’m being punked. This is not happening. Nobody in their right mind would leave a little baby with me. Jordan makes a squeaking noise and I walk over to look at her in her stroller. “Your mom is nuts, you know that, right?” She just stares at me. I think she smiles. Can a kid that little smile? Then I hear an awful sound. It sounds like explosive diarrhea. I bolt to the front door and run down the front steps. “Baylor!” I yell, looking in the direction of the subway. I stand there and wait for something to happen. Anything.
I hang my head and go back up in the townhouse. Jordan is really squirming around now. And it stinks to high heaven in here. I grab her bag and put it on my shoulder. Then I lean down to pick her up and the heavy bag falls off my arm. I roll my eyes at my awkwardness. I deposit the bag on the couch and pick up little Jordan. I hold her tightly in one arm, supporting her head like Baylor showed me, while I put the bag over my other shoulder. I did it. Okay, I can do this.
Proud of myself, I head to the stairs. I stand at the bottom of them and look up. What if I trip and drop her? What if my foot slips and we both fall? Who the hell decided a baby’s room should be up the fucking stairs anyway? How on earth did so many of us survive this?
I take one slow step at a time until we reach the top where I exhale the breath I was holding. I walk into the nursery and eye the ornate changing table. I decide it’s too dangerous. She might fall off it. I put Jordon in the crib and get a blanket from the closet, spreading it on the floor. Then I get a diaper and a cleansing wipe from Baylor’s bag and put them next to the blanket. Grabbing Jordan, I carefully place her in the middle of the blanket and proceed to take her out of her clothes. When I’m struggling to get her little arms out of the outfit, I curse the sadistic makers of the baby clothes before I discover the crotch snaps.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, Skylar,” I mumble to myself.
I gasp when I remove her diaper. She must be sick. There’s a gooey pile of greenish-yellow poop. Oh, God. I try to breathe through my mouth. I just have to do this and then I’ll call my mom. Or a doctor.
I remove the diaper, but not before Jordan’s little feet smear the disgusting poo all over her legs, my hands and the blanket. I reach over for the wipe, realizing I got out only one and the rest are tucked into the designer baby bag. I wipe her up the best I can with the one wipe and the blanket beneath her. I’ll throw the damn thing away. Anything to get rid of the nasty poo she’s spreading around.
I need to wash her. I get another blanket out of the closet knowing I’ll ruin that one as well, but at this point, I really don’t care. When I’m in the closet, I notice a small baby bathtub. I look at the picture on the box. It shows a little baby, about Jordan’s size. It has this thing up by the head so she can’t slump over and fall under the water. Yes, this’ll work.
What seems like hours later, I have one clean baby, but a train-wreck of a bathroom. I leave it to deal with later. I carefully carry Jordan down the stairs, one step at a time, leaving the baby bag in the nursery. No need to chance it. I call Baylor but go directly to voicemail. I call my mom. She laughs at me. Laughs. She assures me that Jordan’s poop was perfectly normal for a breast-fed baby. Good Lord, why would anyone choose to breastfeed if that’s what it produces?
She starts crying and I check the clock. Two hours almost on the dot. Baylor thought she’d be back by now. I retrieve the notebook and follow the instructions for warming up the bottle of breast milk. After she eats, I curse Baylor for leaving out the fact that Jordan will vomit half of it back up, ruining one of my favorite shirts. I wonder if I should feed her again. Baylor did bring extra bottles, maybe that’s why. But Jordan falls asleep before I can heat one up. Thank God. I’m sure Baylor will be back before she wakes up.
I run upstairs and clean up the bathroom and nursery while Jordan sleeps in her stroller. How can one baby cause this much of a mess? Frazzled, I change my shirt, grabbing an old t-shirt from the laundry.
I sit down to finally get that cup of coffee when Jordan starts to cry. I look at the clock and I could swear she just went down, but time tells me it’s been over an hour. I sigh and take a few luke-warm sips before I walk over to see what’s wrong. She’s been fed. She’s clean. I stick my head a little closer—nope, no more explosive poop. I pick up my phone and call Baylor. Voicemail. I call my mom again. She tells me to pick her up. Talk to her. Play with her—babies need attention, not just care.
I look in the baby bag and pull out some sort of play mat. I lay it on the floor and then put Jordan on it before I lay on my side and show her the rattles and bears that detach from the Velcro on the mat. This seems to mollify her for a while so I sneak into the kitchen and grab a quick bite to eat, running out to check on her every ten seconds in case she learns to roll over or crawl in the span of time that I’m gone.
I take my sandwich out and sit next to Jordan when my phone pings with a message from Baylor that tells me she’s going to be a lot longer than she thought. Hours longer. She may not even be back until dinner time.
Shit!
I call my mom. “You need to come help me. Baylor may not be back for hours.”
More laughter. “Honey, I’m here all by myself, waiting on a delivery. By the time I get someone to cover for me and take the subway all the way into the city, Baylor will be home. You’re doing fine. You shouldn’t doubt your abilities.”
“Mo-om,” I whine.
“Oh, gotta go. The delivery is here. Call me later if you need anything else. Bye, honey.”
I stare at the dead phone. My own mother hung me out to dry. I try calling Mindy and Jenna, but both go to voicemail. I look at Jordan, happily sucking on her little fist and drooling like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“I know what’s going on here,” I tell her. “They can all go to hell. They’re throwing me in the fucking deep end.” I roll my eyes at my choice of words. “Sorry,” I say to Jordan.
By the time Baylor comes back to get Jordan, it’s after nine o’clock at night. I had to give Jordan two more baths and take a shower myself after her faulty diaper leaked and she got shit all over me. It was awful. I put her next to my shower in a bassinette from Aaron’s room. Every noise she made had me poking my head out and checking to make sure she wasn’t climbing out or falling over. How do people do this?
Baylor finds us sleeping on my bed. I had barricaded Jordan’s side of the bed with furniture and pillows. I know I could have put her in Aaron’s crib, but I was afraid to leave her in there. What if she woke up and I didn’t hear her? What if she got sick or got her little arms stuck in between the slats? But I was exhausted. I had to lie down come hell or high water.
I’m only half awake when Baylor enters my room. I don’t even have the energy to yell at her. I just tell her to get the hell out.
~ ~ ~
I wake up to discover a letter on the pillow next to me. It’s labeled with only my name. There’s a sticky note attached to it that reads ‘I was supposed to give this to you when the time was right.’ It’s signed by Baylor.
I open it and the first thing that comes to mind is that Griffin was wrong. She did leave parting words. It’s a letter from Erin. My heart pounds inside my chest and Bean moves around as if he can feel the shot of adrenaline coursing through my body. I close my eyes and breathe. In and out. In and out. I settle into my pillow and read her words.
Skylar,
I’m not sure if this is the first letter you’ve been given, or one of the last. So if this is redundant, I apologize. Baylor and Mason have a series of letters written by me. They have been instructed to give them to you and/or Griffin in certain situations.
Right now, at this very second, I’m rejoicing. It doesn’t matter if I’m still alive but unaware, if I’ve been dead for a year, or if I’ve only recently passed. It doesn’t matter, because if you are reading this letter it means that you and Griffin have taken a step towards being together. A step towards becoming the family I so desperately want for you. A step towards the love and caring that radiates around you when you are together.
I’m talking about sex. You and Griffin making love. If you are reading this, it’s happened. But if you are reading this, something has gone wrong. I wish I could see into the future. But I can’t. I’m only human, or maybe an angel by this point. All I can do is try to put myself in your shoes. How would I feel if I had just slept with my best friend’s husband?
I can only imagine that you are carrying a heavy load of guilt. Shame. Betrayal. How could you do this to your best friend?
I have one thing to say. STOP IT!
I put you there, Skylar. I put you in the very position you’ve found yourself in. I threw the two of you together with the sole intention for you to develop feelings for each other. If anyone is to blame here, it’s me. You fell into the trap that I perfectly orchestrated.
I lied—I have another thing to say. GET OVER IT.
Let go of the guilt. You are doing exactly what I’ve asked you to do. You are trying to fulfill my dying wish. You are allowing yourself the chance at happiness. And let me tell you something, Skylar, you deserve it. You deserve every loving touch Griffin bestows upon you. Every tender word he whispers to you. Every wonderful child he gives to you. And I will be smiling down upon you every single second of it. You don’t need it, but if for some reason, you think you do, I’ll say it anyway—you have my permission. I give it to you wholeheartedly, now and always. I give you my blessing to love and live and be happy with him.
I don’t presume to know if it’s you or Griffin or both of you that are fighting your feelings. I don’t presume to have any magical words of wisdom that will take down any walls you may have erected. I don’t presume to have any heavenly powers that can fix what might be broken.
All I can say is this.
Have faith. And love them.
Love them hard.
Love them forever.
Your best friend on earth and in heaven,
Erin
I read the note again before folding it up and returning it to the envelope. Then I do something I haven’t done in many weeks. I smile. A weight is lifted from my shoulders. From my heart. This may not change the fact that Griffin is gone and may never return. But I feel the guilt being drawn from me as if Erin has attached a string to it from heaven and is actively extracting it from my every pore.
Then it hits me and I take a breath so big, it feels like it’s the first air I’ve allowed into my body in fourteen long days. Jordan was with me for twelve hours yesterday and she survived. I survived.
I put my hand on my growing belly. “You might have to cut me a little slack, Aaron. But I can do this.” I look around my room. The guest room that became mine almost a month ago.
Moms don’t sleep in the guest room.
I get up and walk down the hall and push open the door to Griffin’s bedroom. His suit still lies crumpled on the floor. Erin’s glass of water still sits, evaporating, on her night table. His pillows still lie on the decorative couch where he slept. I put my hand on the rich oak of the large bed. I pull up on it to see that I can’t even begin to budge it. I grab my phone and make a call.
“Mason, I need your help at the townhouse.”
After we hang up, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and laugh. Yesterday after my shower, in my haste to get back to little Jordan, I had inadvertently put on one of Griffin’s traitorous baseball shirts.
It feels good to laugh. It feels good to smile. It feels good to have the rest of my life ahead of me.
I call Mindy and tell her I’ll be back to work at the end of the week, after I take care of a few things. The last call I make is to Baylor. I only have one thing to say to her. “Thank you.”
I hear her relief come through the phone. “Anytime, little sister.”
I head down the stairs and sit on the couch, staring up at the urn that resides on the mantle. I’m not sure why I decided to put it there. Maybe it’s the best place for her to watch over us. Until we decide where she truly belongs.
I sigh. We. There isn’t a we. There’s only a me. And somehow, someway, I’m going to make the most of it.
I look up at the urn. “Don’t worry, Erin. I got this.”