Cal
When Cal returned home from his physical therapy appointments that evening, all he wanted to do was climb into a hot shower, and let the water wash away all the detritus of the day, all of the stress and worry and exhaustion. But Cal so rarely got what he wanted, at least nowadays.
He was barely through the front door of his house before he heard loud shouting and the footfall of tiny feet. The two little boys were running through the house, and by the looks of it, they’d been playing together for the whole day, running into his expensive furniture, kicking up the sides of the rugs, and rearranging his meticulously organized pictures and knickknacks. What the fuck? Cal thought to himself, his jaw dropping as he walked from the entryway of the house into the living room and then on to the kitchen and dining area. It looked like a goddamn warzone. What the hell had happened here? He was only gone for a few hours.
“Oh, hey there,” Antonia said, popping up on the other side of the kitchen, flour dusting the front of her jeans. “I’m baking cookies. Want to help?”
“Uh, no I don’t,” Cal said stiffly, watching as Antonia shrugged and went back to her work, mixing eggs with butter and sugar in a bowl. His bowl. Clearly, she felt more than welcome in his house. “What exactly happened here?”
Antonia froze and turned back around to face him, still stirring together the ingredients for her cookie dough. “What do you mean?”
“The house,” Cal said slowly, trying to keep his anger restrained. He really didn’t want to yell at the nanny on her first day of work, but this was ridiculous.
“Oh, you mean the mess?” Antonia asked. Cal nodded and stared at her some more, waiting for an explanation. “Boys will be boys, I guess,” she said before turning back around to focus on her work.
“Uh, well, they can’t be ‘boys’ in my house,” Cal said. “Listen, I work hard all day at my office, and I really don’t want to have to come home to a disaster area at the end of the day. Did you just let them run wild or something? I mean, I’m paying you to actually watch the kid.”
Antonia froze at that, slowly putting her whisk down on a paper towel on the counter. She cleared her throat and then spoke without turning around to face Cal. “Excuse me?” she said.
“I said I need you to actually supervise him. I mean, what’s the point of you even being here if you don’t do anything? I’m not paying you to bake cookies,” Cal said, feeling his frustration rise as he looked around the kitchen to see various food items out of place on the countertops.
Antonia slowly turned around, her brow deeply furrowed as she looked across at Cal. “What exactly are you paying me for? To take care of your house? Or to take care of your son?”
“He’s not my—” Cal interjected, but Antonia scoffed, shaking her head a little bit until he fell silent. Cal felt weirdly reprimanded, like he was a little boy who’d disappointed his teacher, rather than a boss justifiably annoyed at his employee.
“You know, I guess I didn’t understand at first,” Antonia said, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “You’re really new at this, huh?”
“New at what?” Cal asked, confused.
“The kid thing,” Antonia said. “Bobby. Your son. You don’t understand how this works at all.”
Cal didn’t know what to say. His skim squirmed a little bit at having Bobby referred to as his son twice over the course of a single minute, but he knew better than to protest again. It was clear that Antonia wasn’t amused, to say the very least.
“You know, kids are like little energy bombs. Two or three or sometimes even four times a day, they have to detonate, okay? They go off, running in every direction, and guess what? It’s healthy. It’s good. Otherwise, they’re just going to internalize all of that energy, and it’ll just come out in less healthy ways. Believe me, I’ve been there with my own kid. I know what I’m talking about.”
“So it was your kid that did this?” Cal asked without thinking.
Antonia’s eyebrows flew up towards her hairline, her eyes going wide with shock before narrowing in apparent anger. “Huh. I see. So you think I don’t know how to control my son?”
“Well, do you?” Cal asked. He knew he was pushing the issue too far by questioning her parenting skills, but he couldn’t back down now. He wasn’t sure he was totally right, but he was certain that he wasn’t completely in the wrong, either. His house didn’t have to look like this, right?
Antonia brushed some of the flour off her hands, wiping them down on the front of her already white-streaked jeans. “So you really weren’t kidding, were you?”
“Not kidding about what?” Cal asked.
“Not being a father,” Antonia said with a shrug. Cal almost flinched back from her words. They hit him right in the chest, like a great big iron fist, but he had no idea why. She was just repeating the truth back to him. He wasn’t a father. Antonia kept going. “It’s just…I really think Bobby might not even be yours. You’re so different.”
“How’s that?” Cal asked, curious what she was going to say even though he knew it was likely intended to hurt his feelings.
“Bobby’s free,” Antonia said, turning back around to face her cookie dough, finally combining the flour and cocoa mixture with the eggs, butter, and sugar. “He’s a really smart kid, you know. Doesn’t get hung up on the small stuff.”
“And what, you’re saying I do?” Cal asked defensively.
Antonia turned back around again, her wrist moving in slow circles as she whisked the dough into shape. “I’m saying you don’t know what you’re dealing with at all. He’s not just a piece of furniture that got dropped off at your house for a few weeks. He’s a person, a whole, live person with thoughts and feelings and needs. And I don’t think you understand any of that.”
“What does this have to do with the house being trashed?” Cal asked, stepping a little bit closer. He could smell the sweetness of the dough from this closer distance, and he couldn’t stop his stomach from growling lowly in response.
“Everything,” Antonia said confidently. “You don’t know what it’s like having a kid around. A real, live human kid full of energy and excitement, staying in a new place. He talked to me about it today. You tried to keep him pent up in the living room for days at a time. You can’t do that to a kid, especially not one as bright as Bobby. It boxes him in with his thoughts. He needs to be moving, to be active so that he doesn’t get trapped up in the bad memories.”
“Bad memories?”
Antonia sighed and nodded to herself a little sadly. “Right. You wouldn’t know anything about those either, because he’s not your son. Or so you say.”
She pulled out a pan from one of the cabinets underneath the sink and set about putting little dollops of the cookie dough in neat lines on the pan. When she was done she popped the pan in the oven and then turned back to face Cal, who’d been frozen on the spot, watching her work while trying to come up with an appropriate response.
“So you’re not going to try to clean up, then?” Cal asked.
Antonia shrugged again, apparently unbothered by the question. “I’m a nanny, not a maid. If you want someone to keep this place spotless, then no, that’s not going to come from me. But…on days when I have more time, I will make more of an effort to get the boys to clean up after themselves. It’s a good habit to start young, anyway.”
She turned back to start wiping down the stove and countertops, humming a little as she worked. Cal just watched her for a long moment, unsure of what exactly had just happened between them. Did she win the argument? Or was it just a draw? Did Antonia compromise somewhat by agreeing to teach the boys how to clean up, or was she going to do that anyway? Cal had no idea how to feel. All he knew was that he felt like his world was off-balance. This woefully disorganized “nanny” had gotten the upper hand, and he wasn’t even sure how it happened.
“Whatever,” he sighed out loud, speaking more to himself than to Antonia, who made no move to acknowledge him. He went upstairs and hopped into the shower for a few minutes before getting into more comfortable clothes.
“I’m going out again. Be back in a few hours,” Cal called out to Antonia as soon as he walked downstairs.
“Don’t you want to check in on Bobby?” Antonia asked, following Cal to the front door.
“Can’t. Got to go. Business to do.” He had stuff to take care of at the Bone Breakers compound, but he didn’t feel like explaining all of that to Antonia at the moment. It’d take too long to get her to understand the MC lifestyle, and he really didn’t feel like being judged by her anymore tonight.
“All right, I’ll put Bobby to bed, then,” Antonia said. “I’ll save you some cookies.”
Cal stuttered for a moment, taken aback by Antonia’s last statement. He’d assumed the cookies were just for the kids, and he was tempted to tell her as much. But then he caught a glimpse of Antonia’s face, her sweet, soft, almost teasing smile as she opened up the front door for him. There was something weirdly reassuring about her, some soft center at the core of her, underneath the thick tough exterior.
Maybe she’s a lot like me in that way, Cal thought as he waved goodbye to her, heading back towards his bike in the driveway.
Stop it, he told himself sharply. You don’t have a soft center anymore. You’re the king of the Bone Breakers. You don’t have time for bullshit. You don’t have time for any more people in your life right now.
He knew it was true, but still, even as he rode away into the night, he couldn’t fight off this slight ache in his chest, like there was a rope tied around his heart, tugging him back home.