Chapter 2
The furniture store is empty of customers. I finish washing the floor and join Henry, whose standing behind the cash register leaning against the dark, wooden counter.
Most days, that's how we spend our time. The shopping center where the store is located is usually crowded, but the recession combined with the furniture's prices stop the flow of buyers.
I can't blame them. I myself wouldn't pay what Mr. Blunt is asking for a sofa or a dining table, no matter how “high-end” it is. Our customers aren't stupid. They know as well as I do these days everything is manufactured in China or some other third world country, and I can't fool them. All Henry and I can to do is stand idly by and look out the window at the people passing by the store, not bothering to peek inside.
"If I'm left with no choice, I'll clean up apartments," I sigh loudly as Henry and I desperately evaluate our professional future. I have to support my daughter, and if cleaning apartments will put money into my bank account, that's what I'll do.
"I was thinking of applying to college again," he reveals to me for the first time.
"Really?" I find that I'm the only one despaired by the situation. My friend, I realize, has plans.
"I think the time is right." He shrugs. Henry would have no problem getting accepted, he's the brightest guy I know. How many people read two books a day and remember every word? If it hadn't been for the car accident his mother had when we were in our senior year in high school, he would have finished a few degrees by now and gotten a doctorate.
"I think you should apply," I cheer him up. He'd enjoy his studies.
"Maybe we'll apply together?" He is quick to offer, breaking my heart again.
"You know I can't."
"Because of Vivian?"
"Because of Viv, and 'cause I don't have the money, and I'm sick of asking my parents for help all the time." This, unfortunately, isn't going to change. I'll continue to lean on their help and money.
"Shame." He doesn't read the disappointment on my face. "You're really smart."
"She always was," the low voice coming from the door sends a shiver down my entire body. My pulse accelerates to a frightening speed and, as if in slow motion, I look up and pray that it will all be a mistake.
My eyes travel up the long legs hidden behind gray trousers to the muscular thighs. Then, to the solid abs protruding from a tight, black polo shirt. His chest is huge, and so are his arms—enormous and covered with tattoos that weren't there before.
"Elizabeth," he calls my name coldly. My eyes rise to his clenched jaw, his familiar lips, his blue eyes. The way he looks at me sends a wave of chill through me, as if someone is washing my bloodstream with ice water.
I stare at him with hate. Hate that has been burning threw me for five long years, Hate I didn't know existed until he did what he did.
I can't make a sound. My words refuse to come together to one coherent sentence. I stay silent, struggling to breathe. He doesn't look like the guy who left.
The jeans and t-shirts he used to wear have been replaced by these clothes, which make him look a hell of a lot more serious. His body was always muscular but now he has grown to a monstrous size.
Everything about him is different—from the blank stare he gives me to the neat haircut.
"Hello, Henry," he addresses my friend with the same remoteness he did me. Henry looks almost as stunned as I am and doesn't say a word. I'm sure he, who's heard me say a thing or two about the maniac in the past five years, doesn't like him, to say the least.
"You have some nerve," I squint at him as I manage to overcome the gap between my brain and mouth.
"Maybe we can go outside." Did he really just suggest that we move our drama to the huge parking lot, where everyone can see?
"I'm going nowhere." I don't take my eyes off the bastard who stands before me, all puffed up. "You can leave."
"We need to talk."
"'Excuse me?" I burst at him from behind the counter, making Henry jump. "We what?"
"You're surprised."
"Surprised?" I snort. "Nothing you do now will surprise me. I was surprised when you didn't show up for our wedding or for your daughter's birth or for any other event in the last five years."
"I think I'll leave you two alone," Henry stammers and turns his back on me, slipping into the storage, allowing me more privacy to explode on the scum that has appeared out of nowhere. I didn't think Henry would stay, he isn't the kind of guy who copes well with confrontation.
"You're expecting explanations." Colin doesn't take his eyes off mine and all I can see in them is distance. There is no trace of his caressing voice or the love he once gave me.
"What explanation could you give me? Was the gym more important than your daughter? Because, apparently, that’s where you spent your time!" I give his huge arms another look. Yep, without a doubt caused by weights, a balanced diet, protein shakes and a whole lot of money, that I should have gotten for our daughter.
"You're busy." He pulls out a wallet from his back pocket and hands me a business card. "This is my number."
I crumple it between my fingers and throw it at him without thinking.
"You can shove your number." He takes a deep breath, puts the wallet back in his pocket, glares at me hard, and out come the words that crush my frail world into a thousand pieces.
"I want to see her."
"Forget it," I whisper as I try to breathe. My heart has trouble pumping blood all over my body, which makes me pale. "You won't see her, you lost the right."
"She's my daughter."
"Really?" I thank God for my anger, which prevents my tears from breaking out. "If she's your daughter, please tell me, where were you when my water broke in the middle of the night and my mother had to take me to the hospital while I was terrified to the bone?"
His steady posture doesn't change, his body doesn't move an inch, even as my words beat him mercilessly. "Where were you, when the monitor showed she was in trouble and I was rushed for a C-section? When I got out of bed, sore, stitches on my belly and went to see her in an incubator 'cause she couldn't breathe?"
"I deserve that," he answers in a steady voice, free of apology.
"Where were you when she was two years old and vomited so much she suffered from dehydration and I had to hold her when they stuck a needle in her vein? When I held her hand and there was no one there to hold mine, where were you, Colin?" My voice cracks as I shout, "Where the hell have you been?"
I want to hear his answer, but the ringing of an unfamiliar phone interrupts my racing thoughts. He reaches into his trouser pocket, pulls out his cell phone, and without looking away from me, answers confidently.
"Colin Young."
I have to figure out a way to make him disappear. To make him crawl back into the hole he came out of. If he thinks he can just show up here with delusional demands, he is wrong.
He wants to meet her . . . She doesn't even know who he is!
"Don't make me laugh, not more than a dollar. I'll handle it the minute I'm in front of my computer." His voice is steady and authoritative. "I know it's urgent, I'll get back to you as soon as I can." He hangs up and puts the phone back in his pocket.
"Let me guess, something came up." I cross my hands on my chest.
"Work."
"You have a job?" I mock him. "How nice."
"I have a business. Elizabeth, we need—"
"I don't know what you thought would happen when you came here, but you're wrong if you think I'll just let you show up in Vivian's life, just to disappear—"
"I'm not going to disappear," this time he interrupts me. "I'm staying in town, I'm back, and I'm not leaving again."
"You can't meet her," I insist.
"We need to come up with a solution."
"No solution, take me to court."
"I really would rather not to." His answer makes my knees shake.
"You won't do that to me."
"You need time."
"No time in the world will convince me to change my mind," I sneer at him. "No time in the world will change the fact that all you left behind was a note."
"I don't expect you to understand."
"I understand just fine," I raise my hand in front of his face, "you pretended to love me for four long years just to have a roof over your head and food on the table. When I think of all the things I did, everything I gave you . . . I should have listened to my father."
His jaw tightens in a second. I see his face darken and something passes through his gaze when I mention the man who raised me.
"Your father hated me from day one," he says, trying to hide the loathing in his voice. I know he's right but still, he has no right to talk badly about my father, who has saved me time and again over the last few years.
"My father loves me," I remind him. "He tried to warn me about you, tried to save me from the fate that awaited me, but you . . . crawled into my heart like a snake."
"The fuck I did," his words destabilize me. He never spoke to me this way. "You know it had nothing to do with me."
"You're all the same," I repeat the sentence he's heard more than once. My father told him to his face again and again. I should have to listen to him.
A football player?
You know why they can get away with it.
You know who they really are.
"I have to go." Colin realizes he won't get what he came for.
"Of course you have to go," I reply scornfully.
"Think about when I can meet her."
"There's nothing to think about," I shake my head. "You have to disappear."
"That's not going to happen. I don't expect you to forgive me, but we have a child, and I want to know her."
"Not in this life." I've got to get him out of here before the tears overcome me.
"I'll be in touch." He gives me a last icy look. "Goodbye, Elizabeth."
He turns his back on me and walks confidently out the door, and the dam brakes.
Oh God. Oh God. Where did he come from?
Breathe!
He thought he would just show up here and . . . and . . . and ask to meet my daughter?
My daughter! He isn't anything more than a sperm donor who broke my heart. I gave him four years of my life just to stand at the alter at twenty-one with a five-month belly in front of all our guests.
Screw him!
I wipe the endless tears.
I don't know him. I used to think I did, but I was wrong. I don't know what else he is capable of. As far as I'm concerned he might . . .
Oh God!
My heart is threatening to collapse, I grab my bag from under the counter. Henry emerges from the storage and stares at me with sympathy.
"I have to go . . . I. . ."
"Are you sure it would be wise to drive in your condition?"
I'm not sure of anything. It took me five years to get my life into some kind of order, and the bastard has just pulled the rug from under my feet again. I have to get to Vivian.
"I'm sorry, I . . ."
"Go, do what you need to, I'll back you up." Henry gestures toward the door. I run out of the store, get into my car and pray I'm not too late.
I curse every driver who moves too slow, every car that stops, every red light that refuses to change and makes me wait patiently. I have no patience, and I have no time, because if the bastard decides to pull a number on me . . .
I haven't heard from him in five years, and from nowhere he appears at the door and asks to see her. With what right?
I can't trust him. I mustn't believe a word he says, I have to protect Vivian.
With a screech of brakes I stop the car in front of the daycare and burst in, panting in front of Mrs. Robbins' stunned face, staring at me in confusion.
"Elizabeth, is everything all right?"
No. Nothing's all right and it won't be all right until I take my daughter from here, home.
"I have to get Vivian." My eyes are searching for my child, who is nowhere to be seen.
"Okay . . ." She hesitates. "Maybe you want some water first?"
What good will some water do me now?
"Mrs. Robbins, I know I look…" Hysterical. "I just need to get Viv, there's an emergency in the family." I blurt the perfect excuse I had prepared in advance to explain my situation.
"Oh, of course. I hope it's nothing serious."
"Nothing serious, no need to worry," I reassure her.
"She's in the backyard, I'll go and get her."
"Thank you." I take a deep breath. She was in the back yard, he hasn't reached for her.
Mrs. Robbins turns, walks out the side door and comes back after two minutes, which I passed trying to arrange my red hair so that looks less terrible.
"Mama!" Vivian comes running and jumps to my arms.
"Sweetheart," I crush her into my chest, "I've come to pick you up early."
Real early, considering it's eleven in the morning.
"Where are we going?" She wrinkles her sweet face.
"Home." Straight home, without stopping.
What if he knows I've never moved? What if he appeared there?
Okay, I have to calm down, this paranoia doesn't help one bit.
I look up at Mrs. Robbins, who still seems unsure of entrusting Vivian with me, in my state.
"I'll be in touch." I give Viv a hand and walk her to the door.
"I'll wait to hear from you," Mrs. Robbins calls, as I step out the door and rush my girl into the car and fasten her seatbelt.
We've got to get out of here.
Please wake up. Wake up and find out it was just a bad dream.
The solemn prayers I carry in my heart as I press the accelerator never come true. In the backseat Vivian plays on my phone, while my eyes jump to the mirror to see if anyone is following us.
I breathe slowly, begging God not to cry again. I can't even run away. I don't have the privilege of disappearing, throwing a suitcase into the car and never looking back. In order to run away you need money, the kind I don't have. To escape, you need a plan, and I have a child. I can't tear her out of her life.
Why did he come back? Why couldn't he stay away, why was he so selfish and so inconsiderate? I am beating myself again.
The man I loved never existed. He was just a creation of my wild imagination. The outcome of a calculated blindness. I wanted to believe that someone like him could love me and was left with a child who doesn't know her father, a minuscule salary and an apartment to keep. He will pay for what he did. He'll pay big time.
"What do you mean, he just showed up?" My mother yells so loud on the phone that my ragged nerves are about to surrender again to tears. I stand outside my house so that my four-and-a-half-year-old won't hear a thing. I turned on the TV, turned up the volume, and snuck out, hoping that maybe my mother would have something smart to say.
"You can't tell Dad," I plead. "He'll go look for him, and we don't know how it will end."
We know exactly how it will end. At the police station. My father has already stated more than once that if he ever sees Colin's face, it will end badly. He may be willing to forgive a lot of things, but not my crushed pride.
"You shouldn't have taken Viv out." My mother is breathing deeply.
"What was I supposed to do, leave her there in hopes that he wouldn't decide to go tell her Daddy's back?" The thought makes me sick.
"Shit, that's not good," she murmurs tensely.
"You think?" I yell.
"And he didn't explain himself, didn't say where he was all these years?" She continues her investigation.
"At the gym," I grumble in disgust.
"What?"
"Nothing, he didn't explain, I didn't give him the chance."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." I sit down with my back to the front door, fold my knees to my chest and drop my head. "I don't know what to do."
This little confession makes a tear trickle down my cheek. How could I love him? What a fool I was.
"How does he look?"
"What?" Why does my mother care what he looks like?
"You know, does he look like he's on drugs?"
"Drugs?" I'm stunned by her question, "No, he looks . . ."
For the first time since this morning I allow myself to think of what Colin looks like. I think of the clothes he wore, sitting on his enormous body perfectly, as if tailored to his size. I see in my mind his safe stance, remembering the confidant tone of his voice. He is no longer the boy who sat on my bed and let his shirt rise. Come to think of it, in the end, whatever was waiting under the waistband of his boxers is what got me in trouble.
And I think about that now?
"Lizzie, are you there?"
"Sorry," I hasten to apologize and reprimand myself. "He looks healthy."
He looked really good, not that it matters, not for a moment.
"And he didn't say anything?"
"He said he's back in town and has a business. I didn't ask questions." Maybe I should have gotten more details out of him. Find out what I'm dealing with. "I have to go, we'll talk tomorrow, and shut your mouth around Dad."
"Elizabeth . . ."
I know what she's going to say. She doesn't want secrets kept between her and her husband, but it's my decision when to tell him. My parents have a perfect relationship, the kind one hardly ever sees. Not an easy thing considering what they've been through. As if I'm not short of trouble, their anniversary is approaching, and they're going to celebrate like they do every year, a constant reminder of what I don't have.
"Give me time," I ask of my mom.
"All right," she sighs from the other side.
"Thanks." I hang up the call, put the phone on the floor beside me and lean my head on my lap. This is not happening to me.
The white lace trail of my dress is gathered into a pile on the floor of the car. On my knee lays the veil I chose, the one that had not been used. I'm sitting in the back, my hands on my growing belly, bowing my head to avoid my mother's looks, who sits behind the wheel in silence.
Every once in a while she glances at her cell phone, as if it'll ring any second. She steers the car through the streets. My father is gone, I'm afraid to think where.
"Are you sure?" My mother asks quietly for the thousandth time. I look up and gaze at her with a stare that immediately silences her. I'm not sure of anything, I just want to get home.
Twenty minutes ago I stood in front of everyone I know and in a trembling voice sent them on their way. My groom never showed up. No one had seen him, heard from him. The worry consumes me like fire spreading in a field of thistles.
Where are you, Colin?
The car pulls up in front of the house. I open the door and, without waiting, pick up the hem of my dress and start running, my mother following me. The key to the house rustles in my hand as I push it into the keyhole, push the door, and burst inside.
Please be here. Just tell me you got cold feet, I can live with that. Panic is something I can forgive.
The dark house doesn't bode well. I turn on the light in the living room and stop at the entrance to our bedroom. My eyes dart from the bed I arranged this morning to the open wardrobe and my heart drops. My dresses still hang where they were this morning, my clothes folded in piles.
And Colin's shelves are empty.
A flood of emotions batter me at once. The worry dissipates into smoke, replaced by confusion and anger of intensities I didn't know could be felt. He left?
I look around, maybe I'll find an explanation. Maybe it’s not what I think. I'm pregnant, he wouldn't do this.
On the dresser beside the bed, under the bedside lamp, lies a piece of paper that looks as if someone has ripped it off hastily. With trembling legs I walk into the room, move closer and lift it between my fingers.
The words are written in black, in handwriting that I have learned to recognize as well my own. Words that threaten my breathing and change my world order. Words that ruin my life.
This was all a mistake. I don't love you anymore.
Our small house is quiet. I finish washing the dishes and peer into the bedroom. I hate this time of day, when the sun gathers into the horizon and everything darkens, and I have no dinner to cook and no girl to shower. When everything is still and the street seems to be preparing itself for the night Vivian sleeps, and I'm left with my thoughts.
She behaved so well throughout the evening. She ate her food, played with her dolls, and I cleaned the house like a madwoman in a psychotic attack. It was as if removing all the dust would also remove my troubles.
I used to wait impatiently for this hour. Colin would come back from work on the scaffolding, dusty and smiling, always tired. He would go into the shower and then sit at the table and, together, we would have dinner and exchange experiences from the day we went through, even though our days was usually dull and sounded just like the day before.
Colin could make everything sound funny and intriguing, like that lady who used to walk under the building every morning and shout obscene words at the workers for no reason. We were both trying to guess what her story was, inventing strange and illogical plots until my stomach ached with laughter.
Then we would lie on the couch in front of the TV and stare at the screen. All I was really interested in was Colin's fingers stroking my forearm and chilling me, as if he were doing it for the first time.
Most nights I would fall asleep with that movement of his fingers on my skin. A feeling forgotten in the countless days that had passed since the last time he stroked me, countless evenings that had led to countless nights. The only thing that broke the solitude was Vivian's breathing. The only thing left of him.
I curse in my heart the boy who pretended to have a life taken out of a Hollywood movie, the boy who revealed the truth only to me. The blond boy with the blue eyes, Captain of the football team, who returned every day to a house no one would want to live in.
The tears run down when I think of what was deprived from Vivian, of what was deprived from both of us: The right to lean on someone, the promise that he will always be there. The father he chose not to be, who abandoned his daughter before she was even born. I didn't imagine he, of all men, would run away, but he did and he left us alone. And now he is back, but the loneliness is not gone. It is still there, in the empty bed he left behind, the dinners he never attended, in the trust he broke, that no man after him could repair.
I look at Vivian sleeping, oblivious to the storm in our lives that is about to sweep us both onto an unfamiliar beach. The man who calls himself her father is back, and I'm the only one standing between them, trying to save her from heartbreak. What if one day she finds out that I was the one who kept her father from returning to her life, and doesn't forgive me?
What if he really is going to stay?
I close my eyes and try to soothe my breath. I have no idea what his plans are, but it's too early to let him get close. What Colin did was unforgivable, and my heart will not forget so quickly how he broke it.
The smell of pancakes fills the house and I take another sip of coffee in hopes it'll wake me up after my sleepless night. The fears I managed to hold back finally came in full force and for most of my questions I have no answers.
What does he want, except to meet Vivian? Does he want to keep in touch with her? Custody, visitation rights?
"Why are we staying home today?" Viv asks, for the third time since she woke up, as she takes the maple syrup out of the fridge.
"I thought we'd spend the day together," I lie to her, putting a plate of pancakes on the table. Last night I called Mr. Blunt and apologized for my expected absence. I'm not sure he took it well.
"What do you want to do?"
"Tea Party!" she climbs to her chair and opens the bottle.
"We can have a tea party."
"And bake cookies!"
"Sure." Baking cookies sounds like something we can do.
"And then we'll go to the playground and rock on the big red swing." She pushes a piece of pancake in her mouth.
"We'll see." I load pancakes on my plate, aware of the fact I have no intention of going to the playground today. "Eat with your mouth closed," I tell her, before she raises any more ideas that I will have to rule out.
We're staying home.