MAY
-Two Months Later -
“Hey, are you ready?” I shout into the kitchen. “If you don’t want to come, you can wait here.”
She grabs her sweater from the closet. “Yup, I’m good. I just wanted to get the frosting on the cake.”
I poke my head into the kitchen, looking at the cake she made. “It’s pretty awesome.”
“Yeah, I’m not that bad in the kitchen,” she says, playfully punching me in the shoulder as she walks past me. “You’re sticking around tonight, right?”
“Yeah, about that, I was going to see if you were okay with Ari joining us tonight. She wants to meet you and Lana and spend some time with Olive.” The oddness of my relationship with Ari is something that’s hard to explain. It isn’t your typical boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I can only explain what we have as a connection I can’t imagine breaking away from. I feel like I need to be around her and she feels the same way. I love being with her, learning everything about her. It’s the strangest relationship I’ve ever had, but it feels right to me.
“Of course. As long as you don’t mind if Lance joins us, too,” Charlotte says. That’s a whole other story. Charlotte has actually moved on. Boyfriend label and all. I can’t blame her. My mind is in ten places and she deserves to be the one and only focus in a man’s life. She kind of knows the gist of my relationship with Ari, but it baffles her at the same time. From what I can tell, Lance can offer her a simple, non-confusing relationship. I want Charlotte to be happy, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t suck to hear about him.
“Of course not,” I laugh. “I love Lance-a-lot. Get it?”
“You’re an ass,” she says, opening the front door.
“Yeah, an ass who lets your cute butt live here.” It’s been a little over a month since Charlotte and Lana moved in. With no child support coming in, Charlotte was going to have to move out and rent her house to make ends meet. It seemed like the right thing to do...letting Lana and her move in with Olive and me. I told myself that’s why I did it. That, and so Olive and Lana wouldn’t be separated. But the truth is, I didn’t want Charlotte to move away. I like having her around, even if we’re not “together” anymore.
“You’re not allowed to talk about my butt,” she sings, walking down the driveway. I pull the door closed and jog up to Charlotte’s side. “You sure you’re going to be cool with meeting Lance tonight?” she asks. I knew this meeting was inevitable at some point since she’s kept things private until now. The only thing I’ve seen of Lance is his stupid ass haircut from the car when he picks her up.
“Of course. He makes you happy, so that makes me happy,” I lie.
“Right,” she laughs quietly, which blends into an awkward silence.
We walk side by side past several houses as the quiet between us starts to burn. Things between Charlotte and I have been fine. Just fine. It’s been a little awkward at times, but overall it’s worked out pretty well. We don’t ask and we don’t tell. It took her weeks to actually admit that she was dating Lance, but it was easy to make the assumption based on the extra perfume she was dousing herself with before leaving at night.
Regardless of our two separate lives veering off in different directions right now, I like having Charlotte and Lana around. My lonely house that Olive and I felt so small in just a few months ago is now full. It’s nice.
“Are you getting nervous about your court date?” I ask Charlotte, breaking the silence.
“Very,” she sighs. “My lawyer thinks she has enough evidence to at least open the case back up but we won’t know for sure until things get started.”
“It’s a gamble, I guess.” I can’t imagine how she must feel. I have a pit in my stomach just thinking about her situation.
“Why, are you eager to get rid of me?” she asks, peering over at me.
I cup my hand around her elbow, stopping her in her steps, and force her to turn toward me. “I don’t want you to leave, Charlotte.” Wanting what’s best for her, I want her to get the case opened back up. At the same time, the thought of her moving out fills me with dread.
“How can you say that?” she asks, pulling her arm from my grip. “You’re in a relationship, or whatever you want to call it, with someone and so am I.” She has a point, and to tell the truth, even though it’s hard living with her while she’s dating Lance, the thought of not having her in my life at all would feel way worse.
“I say it because it’s how I feel,” I admit.
She pulls in a sharp breath and clears her throat, then changes the subject. “I got more milk and Lucky Charms this morning. Olive told me she ran out. I tried to explain to her that she doesn’t need to fill the bowl up to the rim since she only eats about half of it,” she says.
“Good luck with getting her to go along with that. Olive likes things in a certain way. Or else,” I laugh. “But thank you for doing that, though. You didn’t have to. I could have gotten her more cereal.”
“It’s no big deal,” Charlotte replies. “I needed a couple of things at the store anyway.”
We reach the bottom of the hill and take a seat on the bench. “Are you heading back to your job site for a bit before dinner?” Charlotte asks. “I noticed AJ has been gone since six this morning.”
“Yeah, I have to help him finish up after I grab Olive. It was a quick in and out job today.”
“Is he doing okay?” Charlotte asks, crossing her legs and leaning back into the bench.
“Yeah, I guess so. I think he’s gone on a few dates over the past month but nothing serious. He might still be bent out of shape over Alexa. I couldn’t blame him.”
“Maybe,” she agrees. “She definitely gave him good reason.”
Our conversation fizzles when the bus pulls up. “It’s today,” Olive shouts, jumping off the bus. “It’s toooodayyyy.”
“What’s today?” Charlotte asks her with a grin. I’m sure she suspects Olive’s exuberance is associated with Lana’s birthday party tonight.
Olive stops singing her words and directs her body toward me. “Oops,” she says. “I forgot.”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her in to my side, giving her a quick kiss on the top of her head.
“Oh,” Charlotte says. “Are you excited to see Ari tonight?” I’m not sure how Charlotte put two and two together so fast, but she did. I had told Olive about Ari before I asked Charlotte if it was okay to bring her to Lana’s birthday dinner tonight. I’ve wanted them to meet but Charlotte has come up with excuses each time I’ve tried to make plans. She would never admit to being jealous, especially since she’s with Lance, so I really don’t get it.
“Yeah,” Olive whispers, “but only a little. It’s just because she looks like a princess, you know.” While I know Olive was trying to downplay her uber excitement, I don’t think she realizes that she just hammered that nail in a little harder.
“Well, I can’t wait to meet this princess,” Charlotte says, playing along, giving me an indecipherable look. I scrunch my nose and shake my head, trying to tell her that Olive’s description is mildly off. Except it’s not. Ari does look like some fairytale princess. But that’s not the reason I want to be so close to her.
“We get to meet Mr. Lance tonight, too,” Lana pipes in. Okay, so I feel a little better knowing that Charlotte had already made this plan even though she just asked me if I was okay with it. It’s almost worse that she invited him over without talking to me than it was for me to invite Ari over without talking to her. It’s my house.
We’re even. I think we can just leave it at that.
“Olive, we have to go help Uncle finish a job.”
“Oh,” she says, kicking a small pile of dirt. “I thought I was going to help Charlotte cook.”
“She can stay with me,” Charlotte says while yanking Lana’s backpack off.
“Yes!” Lana shrieks, yelling so loudly her birthday crown flies off of her head and spirals into a gust of wind. I run to catch it, grabbing it mid-air. “Thank you, Hunter,” Lana shouts, running over and wrapping her arms around my leg. “You’re the best.”
Why does it feel like the four of us have turned into a family? It feels so normal, yet completely abnormal at the same time. I mean, we’re not together, yet, I could guess that we’re closer than some couples. That right there makes this weird as hell. We’re doing this all wrong.
Just to confirm my thoughts, I walk behind Charlotte and the girls, admiring the fact that Charlotte has her arms wrapped around both girls, one on each side as if they were both hers. Maybe we were just meant to find each other so we could be each other’s solid rock, the sturdiness we both desperately need in our lives right now. Could that be the reason we were meant to meet?
Once in a while I cave and let Olive stay with Charlotte after school, partially because she gets a chance to do her homework while she’s not tired, and she really enjoys the girl time with Charlotte and Lana. It has been hard letting go and making the decision to do what’s right for Olive rather than what feels right to me.
Amy—the listener, as I call her—has helped me work through my selfish traits versus what is being mixed up for my love for Olive. It turns out that someone can actually be smothered by love, even a daughter. As a dad, I’m a work in progress, I guess.
We step into the house and the girls run upstairs quickly. Charlotte is standing in front of me with a look I can’t figure out. Maybe she’s thinking what I’m thinking. “I miss you,” I want to tell her. Even though we live together, I miss her. I miss the “us” that was too short lived. It’s like our relationship continued to grow even after she ended things with me. It’s not supposed to work like that. I step up to her and wrap my arms around her neck. “You look like you need a hug today.”
“I do,” she whispers.
Driving to the job site, I pull up to the driveway, finding AJ loading up the truck with the tools. As I take only a step out of my door, he shouts, “I just finished up. I wanted to make sure we were home in time for dinner, so I turned up the AC/DC and got that shit done.”
“You’re awfully chipper about dinner tonight,” I say, with a sort of question lingering through my words.
“Uh,” he laughs, running the sleeve of his arm across his forehead. “Do you have any idea how much drama is going to take place tonight? And I have front row seats! Yeah, not missing that for the world.”
“Drama?”
“Yeah, you both have a date and it isn’t each other,” he laughs, a gut rolling laugh.
“How the hell did you—?”
“You two are so fucking loud on the phone. You think the walls are soundproof? What did you think was going to happen when you made me move into the room between you two?” he asks, continuing to laugh. Such an ass.
“You’re about to move into the basement,” I tell him, sliding back into the truck. “Plus, I can’t count Ari as a date. I told you, things are just…”
“Fucking weird,” he finishes my sentence. “You want to be with a woman who you don’t fuck, just so you can be closer to her heart. Does this sound strange when you hear it coming from my mouth? Because it’s weird as hell coming from you. You are aware this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of, right?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I tell him. “Ari and I just get each other and our relationship is something we both desperately need. It’s healing.”
“So then why aren’t you with Charlotte if you and Ari are just friends?” AJ adds in.
“I wasn’t the one who broke things off and now she’s with someone else, so it is what it is and we’re both where we need to be, I guess, plus I never said Ari and I are just friends.” In truth, I don’t know what Ari and I are.
“Neither one of you are where you should be,” he says, climbing into his truck. “You may think I know nothing, but you and Charlotte are supposed to be together. I know that much. No one said you can’t be with the person you love and have a friend who owns your wife’s heart at the same time.” AJ finishes his thought and then steps back out of the truck. “Holy shit, your life is so fucking confusing. Dude...I don’t even know.” And with his last bit of insightful information, he shakes his head and hops back into his truck. Thank you for the talk, AJ.
Charlotte is putting the garnishes on the turkey and I’m stirring up the gravy as Olive and Lana both shout from the living room. “Someone is here!”
“Ooh, Oh, Oh!” AJ shouts, running down the hall into the living room. Sometimes, I swear he’s an eight-year-old trapped in a man’s body. I know he’s just playing along with the girls, but part of him is teasing both Charlotte and me. My chest tightens and my palms are a bit sweaty. Whether it’s Lance or Ari coming in, both are making me feel uneasy right now. This wasn’t a great idea, for either of us.
Plus if this situation is difficult for AJ to understand, it is probably confusing the hell out of the girls. We have waited a while before bringing either of these two into this house but we don’t have a typical situation. Actually, I wonder how much Lance even knows about Charlotte’s living situation.
“Someone else is here, too!” Olive yells. Oh great, they’re both here. They’re both going to walk up the driveway at the same time and they’re both going to wonder who the hell each other is.
I lean back to look out into the living room, seeing AJ manning the door. He opens it and gives them a wave. “Hi there! Come on in, the party is just getting started!” Why does he sound like the biggest tool ever right now? With the way he’s talking, he should be wearing a cardigan, Dockers, and penny loafers, rather than a nearly see-through white t-shirt with paint stains and torn jeans.
“Hi,” Ari’s voice wafts through the house. “I’m Ari, you must be—AJ?” she asks with question, unsure, but assuming, as well.
“That, I am,” he says. “You must be Ari,” he says in a teasing voice dripping with sarcasm.
I wipe my hands off on the dish rag and place the wooden spoon down on a napkin. “Hey hon,” I say, walking toward Ari. “I see you’ve met AJ. Feel free to ignore him; he’s in a particularly obnoxious mood today.”
“Hon,” I hear Charlotte’s voice quietly echo through the kitchen. I don’t think she intended for me to hear that, but I did. Irritation noticed.
“How was work?” I ask Ari.
“Good, we did well today. You know, with Mother’s Day in a few days, things have been a little crazy.” Mother’s Day—the day I have hidden Olive and myself from in a dark room as we watch movies from the minute we wake up until the minute we go to bed. I have done my best to avoid her knowing much about Mother’s Day. I don’t think it’s necessary, seeing as it would probably cause her unnecessary sadness. She’s aware it’s a holiday but she knows it as the day we watch movies together all day. Movies without commercials, I should add.
Ari moves her hand out from behind her back and reaches out with a small bunch of blue jasmines. “Olive, I heard these are your favorite?” she says, leaning down to hand them to her.
Olive runs over to Ari and carefully takes the flowers from her hand. “These are my favorite. My mom’s, too. That must be why you drew them on the back of daddy’s letter,” she giggles.
“It is,” Ari says softly.
Olive looks up to me and back at Ari. “Daddy said you knew her?”
A tight-lipped smile touches Ari’s mouth, illuminating her deep dimples. “I did know her. She was a beautiful and incredible woman and you look just like her.” Ari touches her fingertip to Olive’s nose.
“Daddy says that, too,” Olive giggles.
“Hi, I’m Charlotte.” Charlotte steps out from behind me and offers her hand to Ari. “I—I’ve heard so much about—you. You—,” she laughs uneasily. “It’s nice to—this is nice.” Her voice sounds friendly enough, although unsure, as she introduces herself.
“Oh my goodness,” Ari says gleefully, “I-I” she stutters, sounding similar to the way Charlotte does. “I’ve heard so much about you, too. Hunter gushes about you all of the time.” Gushes? Geez. Didn’t know I was going that far. Charlotte’s cheeks turn a scarlet hue and she backs away, moving toward the front door where Lance is now standing. Wow, this is awkward.
“Hey babe,” he says to Charlotte. Babe. Gross. He gives her a peck on the cheek and runs his hand down to the small of her back. I shouldn’t be watching, but I am, and now I know Ari is watching me watching them since she nudges her shoulder into mine before gripping the sleeve of my shirt and pulling me into the kitchen. This was such a bad—no this was a fucking horrible idea.
“Are you okay?” Ari asks me, grabbing the wooden spoon from the counter and stirring the bubbling gravy. “You haven’t met Lance before tonight?’
“Yeah, this is a little more stressful than I thought it would be. I’m just glad you came,” I tell her, trying to laugh through my words.
“Why? Because your ex-girlfriend invited her new boyfriend over to your house to celebrate her daughter’s birthday?” Ari’s eyes are squinting from her grin and her teeth are pressed firmly into her bottom lip. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic, or truthful. “Then you add me into the picture, the carrier of your wife’s heart, and things can seem a little weird.” Her laughter relieves some of my stress. “Relax. Everything is fine. There’s a reason there is no instruction manual for life.”
“Uh,” yup, that’s the only thing I can think to say right now because everything she just said is true.
“Hunt, not to make things more stressful, but I do have one question?”
With only a second of breathing freely, my chest tightens back up. “Yeah?”
“I’m pretty sure Charlotte is married to the chief of surgery at Brookhill Hospital. Or was, I should say...I mean, he was the chief of surgery.”
“What? She’s divorced.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense then,” Ari retorts.
“But, I didn’t think he was a surgeon,” I say. Although, I do remember the on-call doctor at the hospital recognizing Charlotte the day Olive fell at school. I never thought to ask how she knew anyone there because I was so wrapped up with Olive. I’m always so wrapped up that I never ask important questions. I also never thought to ask much about her ex-husband. Other than hearing he’s an asshole on a daily basis, I didn’t see the need to know more about him.
“Was the chief of surgery?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes scanning the kitchen, rather than looking at me.
“So, do you know Charlotte?” I ask, holding my focus tightly on her wandering eyes. I realize wives of surgeons aren’t typically found in the hospital but I can’t help but wonder, after their odd greeting in the living room.
Ari looks down to where her fingers are fidgeting with the hem of her black shirt. “Yeah, I mean, Dr. Don Drake was my doctor for years. He was the best there was and I was dying. I was practically living at the hospital with the amount of testing and episodes I had, and Dr. Drake seemed to always be on an endless shift so Charlotte was around quite a bit. Actually, a few times she brought me flowers. I’m just not sure she remembers me. I’m sure she visited plenty of his patients.”
It’s like this whole other side of Charlotte I don’t know. How could a heart surgeon of his status be consulting underground somewhere now?
“Charlotte!” I shout into the living room. I’m getting to the bottom of this.
“Hunter, what are you doing?” Ari, says, pressing her hands up against my chest. “Stop.”
It is several seconds before I even hear Charlotte’s feet moving across the floor and I’m guessing her hesitation is playing a part in her speed. “Do you need something?” she asks, walking over to the turkey.
“Hunter,” Ari says again.
“Look at her, Charlotte,” I tell her.
Charlotte turns on her heels and slips her hands into her back pockets. It takes her a minute but she lifts her chin, forcing eye contact with Ari who now looks incredibly uncomfortable. “Ariella,” Charlotte says. “How could I forget you?”
Charlotte places her hand gently on Ari’s shoulder. “How’s the heart?”
“Did you know about Ellie?” I ask Charlotte. “Your husband, he’s the chief of surgery over at Brookhill. Don Drake, is that his name? The surgeon who removed Ellie’s heart.” My words may be a little harsh considering Ellie died from an aneurysm, but for five years, I have had no one to blame and right now blaming him feels so damn good.
“Ex-husband,” she snaps. “And I don’t believe Ellie was a patient of Don’s,” Charlotte says softly, so softly I’m not sure she’s being truthful. “He was a heart surgeon and Ellie didn’t have heart problems, right?”
“No, she didn’t.” There is still a lingering explanation somewhere in this room and I don’t know who the hell to turn to.
“You know something, don’t you?” I take the wooden spoon from the counter and throw it across the kitchen. “Did you know I was the fucking reason Ellie died? Huh? Did you, Charlotte? God,” I laugh. You must have. “You fucking knew about Ellie, didn’t you? Clearly, HIPAA regulations don’t matter in your household. You know all that doctor-patient confidentiality crap. Is that why Don doesn’t have a job at the hospital anymore? Because he immorally broke laws?” As the words continue to filter from my unfiltered mouth, I hear Dad’s words ringing loudly in my head. You know what assuming does.
Tears are now spilling from Charlotte’s eyes, and she’s holding herself tightly as Lance steps into the kitchen with his gym-buff air-lats stance. Dude, you don’t fucking work out. You look like you just stare in the goddamn mirror all day flexing.
“What’s going on in here? Everything okay, babe?” Fuck you and your babe shit.
“Yeah,” she says, sniffling. With a hand on his shoulder, she forces a fake, tight-lipped smile and squeezes her hand around him a little more. “Just a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go talk to AJ for another minute? I promise I’ll be right out.”
Without much concern on his part, he places a quick kiss on the top of her head and grabs a beer from the counter before heading back into the living room.
“You have some nerve accusing me of all that,” Charlotte says under her breath. “You also have the audacity to upset Ari after she’s only been in this house for five minutes. She didn’t ask for any of this.”
I glance at Ari, who is leaning awkwardly against the wall, hugging her arms around her body with her sleeves curled over her hands. Her teeth are pinched over her bottom lip and her focus is glued to the tiled floor.
I cup my hand around Ari’s elbow and tug her into me. “I’m sorry.”
She begrudgingly complies with my effort to make her less uncomfortable but she doesn’t look at me or say anything.
“I did not know Ellie’s history and to be quite honest, I didn’t know much about her death. What I do know is that Don lost his job after a hospital-wide malpractice suit following Ariella’s transplant. You must have heard about his case; everyone in this state heard about it. It was all over the news, as was Ari.” That’s why she looked familiar to Dad. Unbelievable.
I feel lost at the other end of her story. I don’t remember hearing anything about this doctor. “I wasn’t exactly watching the news after Ellie died. I was managing a newborn while mourning.”
A sheen of sweat covers Charlotte’s forehead as she rakes her fingers through her hair. “Things were kept under very tight wraps when it came down to the details but what the public knew was that Don mishandled the paperwork for the transplant. And I don’t know more than that because days after the surgery, he was let go from the hospital. At the same time, he told me he wanted a divorce. I asked him over and over again what had truly happened and he would only tell me there was a misunderstanding and he was wrongfully terminated. That’s how our marriage was—need to know basis only.”
“Mishandled paperwork? What the hell does that mean?” I bark at her, as I pace back and forth with my hands on my hips. Did he do something to Ellie? I know that sounds absurd but what can be mishandled with organ transplant papers?
She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, he now sells scripts underground to international sources, making more money than he did as a surgeon. Except, he doesn’t have to file taxes or let anyone know he’s making a dime. That is why I’m here, living with you, in case you forgot.”
Stunned, at a loss, and trying to piece together this garbled information, Charlotte sweeps by me, grabs the platter of sliced turkey and takes it out into the dining room.
“I know what she’s talking about,” Ari speaks up after Charlotte is out of hearing distance.
I huff a soft laugh. “What?”
“I didn’t know he got fired because of me.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask again.
“I shouldn’t have gotten Ellie’s heart, Hunter.”
“Didn’t you say she wanted you to have it?” The oxygen left in my lungs feels like it’s being sucked out through a tiny straw. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“She did but I guess a living donor can’t promise a heart to a particular person. It’s against medical ethics or something.”
I’m trying to think my words through before they spew off the tip of my tongue, ultimately putting Ari in a corner and emotionally beating her senseless. “Then how did you end up receiving her heart?” The question I form is much better than many of the other thoughts I had to choose from.
“Dr. Drake sort of had a thing for me…”
I can feel my face burning from the inside. I know I’m red. I know I look like steam should be coming from my ears. And I’m not sure I can handle whatever is about to come out of her mouth next. “You can’t be serious…”
“I never gave in, Hunter, but he made his feelings pretty clear,” she says, breaking her gaze from my face.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” I ask, trying to keep calm regardless of how flaming angry I am right now.
“He wanted to save me more than any other doctor. I—”
“I get it,” I cut her off.
“When Ellie and I figured out we had the same blood-type, she came with me to meet with him and told him she would only donate her heart if it went to me. She played him, knowing she could easily blackmail him with what I told her about Dr. Drake—the things he had said to me, the moments he tried to…” She sighs and swallows hard. “In any case, it worked. There was no paperwork. Everything was a verbal agreement.”
I squeeze my hand around my chin, feeling my head begin to pound. It feels like someone just slapped me upside the head with a frying pan. “Jesus.”
“There would have been no other donors—my chances were less than two percent. He didn’t even put up a fight. I can only imagine what you’re thinking right now, but if you were me, wouldn’t you have done questionable things to save your own life?”
Guilt. That is what Ari is surviving with. Owning the heart from my dead wife, being the reason the chief of heart surgery conducted malpractice and subsequently lost his medical license. He should have lost it, regardless. Piece of shit. I wonder if the answer to her last question would be different if she asked herself that right this second. To live or die? I think most people would choose to live, regardless of what the repercussions might be.
“I get it,” I tell her. I still don’t get why Ellie didn’t tell me any of this, though. I would have told her not to get involved.
“I don’t expect you to understand. Ellie kept this from you and you have every right to be angry and heartbroken, but I promise you she kept this from you because she loved you.” It doesn’t matter how many times she says this, the thought of secrets, secrets this fucking big, between us, hurts like hell.
“I need a break from this conversation. My head might explode trying to come to terms with all of this.” Ellie was a strong-minded woman. If there was something she wanted to accomplish, nothing was getting in her way. It doesn’t come as a surprise that she would bust her way into the chief of surgery’s office just to tell him what’s what. Only my wife could control what happens to her organs after she dies. The thought brings a proud smile to my face—a foreign feeling when considering the unknown details of Ellie’s life I’ve come to learn in recent months. What I do know is that she wanted Ari to live. She made that happen.
“We should join everyone. The food is going to get cold,” Ari says. I place my arm around her and lead her out to the dining room, pulling out a seat for her.
“I want to sit next to Ari,” Olive says breathlessly, as she runs into the dining room. “And Daddy, you can sit on the other side of Ari.”
Everyone circled around the table is quiet except AJ, who is chewing his bread obnoxiously loud while taking the time to stare at each one of us for several seconds.
“So,” he says, pointing with his butter knife. “You two know each other?” He points back and forth between Charlotte and Ari. “Small world, huh?” The room goes utterly silent. Oh God, AJ. Shut the hell up! I yell, inside my head, while trying to catch his eye.
“I would hardly say we know each other,” Ari responds. “Charlotte was just a lovely person who brought me flowers on occasion.”
“Did you know Ari received Ellie’s heart?” AJ continues with a question to Charlotte, a question I considered asking but decided to hold off on after the way the last conversation ended.
“You and Ellie were friends, right?” Charlotte asks Ari, redirecting from AJ’s question.
“We just worked together, but yes, you could call us friends.” Keeping my thoughts to myself. Keeping my thoughts to myself. I knew all of Ellie’s friends. All of them except Ari. Why did you keep this from me, Ellie?
“And Ellie promised you her heart once she died?” Charlotte continues.
“Well—” Ari stumbles.
“Ah,” Charlotte says. “Don made it very clear he was not going to lose you. I assumed the mishandling of papers might have had something to do with your case but I never knew for sure.” Charlotte isn’t being rude with the way in which she’s stating her realization. Instead, her jaw is grinding back and forth, suppressing what looks like a possible grin. “That man was a total a-hole to me and never failed to let me down, but to his patients—some of his patients—he would never let a beautiful girl like yourself down.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” Ari says, cautiously.
“It doesn’t really matter now,” Charlotte says. “It’s actually nice to finally have an answer to what happened.”
“Nothing happened…” Ari says, sounding on the brink of tears.
Charlotte allows a slight smile to form over her lips, almost as if she’s grateful for the answers. “Thank you.”
Silence consumes the table and the discomfort grows ten-fold. Lana and Olive are staring at each other with perplexity, and AJ and Lance are probably trying to figure out what the hell everyone is talking about. I never intended for tonight to end up like this. I didn’t think tonight through very well, obviously, and we have gotten way off track from celebrating Lana’s birthday.
“We have a birthday girl here tonight,” I say. “That’s why we’re all here so let’s put everything else aside so we can let Lana enjoy her favorite dinner.”
“You started it,” Olive says, her nose crunched up and her bottom lip pursed over her top.
Charlotte snorts and mutters something under her breath, which I’m assuming is some type of sarcasm.
“So,” Ari says, following my lead, “how old are you today, Lana?”
Lana holds up a hand full of fingers and then two more fingers on her other hand, but doesn’t speak up. She’s upset. Lana is always talking unless something is bothering her.
“Sweetie, is something wrong?” Charlotte asks her.
“Is Daddy a bad man?” she asks, fingering a hole into the piece of bread in her hand.
Again, we’re all silent. Normally, we’re careful about what we say out loud but things slip in anger. “No, Lana, your dad is not a bad man.” Charlotte closes her eyes and clasps her fingers together. My attention is drawn to her hands, noticing the red polish coating her nails. I have never seen her nails done before tonight. She’s a t-shirt and jeans girl. I take a better look at her face and see she’s wearing way more makeup than usual, too. Is she trying to impress this dickwad?
“Are you lying?” Lana asks.
“Do I lie to you?” Charlotte snaps back.
“No,” Lana replies.
“I want you to tell me what you want for your birthday. What have you been asking me for since September?” Charlotte asks her.
A wide grin unfurls across Lana’s lips while her thoughts of her shitty dad melt away. “Ummm, a bike?” she squeals.
“Lance, could you grab Lana’s gift?” Charlotte had asked me to help her with the bike and I obviously said yes but when she never followed up, I assumed she went in a different direction. Now, I realize, she just had Lance-a-lot help her. Douche.
“Sure, babe.” Is that all he says?
Lance stands up, pressing his chest out to make a show of it, and groans as he pulls his chair away from the table. He points a finger at Lana and winks. “Wait until you see this, little girl.” That doesn’t sound creepy at all.
Lance slips out the front door and returns a minute later carrying a turquoise bike with a big hot pink ribbon on the handle bar. Lana lets out a shriek that could be confused for a pterodactyl screaming.
Olive looks excited for Lana because I just bought her a bike for her birthday, too, and the two girls have many plans to go bike riding all summer.
“Sweet ride, kid,” AJ says in his tough guy voice. “How many different speeds you got on that thing?”
Charlotte thwacks AJ in the chest, forcing him to choke with laughter. “Do you like it, sweetie?”
“I love this so much, mommy!” Lana croons. With her arms flung around Charlotte’s chest and Charlotte’s head resting over hers, my heart warms up from the past hour of coldness. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Lana releases her arms from Charlotte and hops over to Lance, giving him the same hug. And that hurts me. It shouldn’t. I’m not her father and I’m not her mother’s boyfriend, I’m only the person she is staying with right now. But I love her, regardless.
“Olive, you should go get Lana’s gift now,” I tell her.
“Yay!” Olive shouts while skipping up the steps. I hear her wrestling with the wrapped package in her bedroom before she returns.
“What is it? What is it?” Lana asks, gleefully.
“Two-way radios!” Olive spills the beans before Lana can open the gift but it doesn’t seem to take away from the excitement. The two girls have been asking for these for the last couple of months so I thought it might be a nice gift.
After the gifts are opened and the girls have settled back down, we’re digging into our cold dinner. Everyone seems content for the moment so I think we’re all okay right now.
I scrape up my plate first, looking up at Charlotte just because she’s sitting across from me. I catch her looking back at me with a small, almost unrecognizable grin. AJ, Ari, and Lance are all caught up in a conversation about flowers and Ari’s shop, the girls are in the living room playing with their radios and Charlotte and I are lost in a staring contest. “I never wanted to cause you any more pain, Hunt,” she says softly. “When you first told me Ellie’s full name, I did put two and two together but with the amount of pain I saw in your eyes after so many years had passed, I didn’t see the purpose of telling you who my ex-husband was. I wasn’t withholding the information for any reason other than not causing you more stress.”
I want to reach across the table and take her hand but that would be inappropriate right now. I believe what she’s saying. “I know,” I tell her.
“This town is so small it’s hard not to come across someone who you haven’t had some degree of connection with.”
“Oh,” I laugh, “I know.”
I stand up from the table and collect as many plates as I can hold at once. Charlotte does the same on her side of the table and we meet in the kitchen.
“This all feels wrong,” she says to me, once behind the wall between the kitchen and dining room.
“What does?”
“This whole situation tonight. I don’t like Lance and I think I’ve come to realize that I need to fix some algorithms on my dating site because it matched us together.” She looks somewhat embarrassed, and yet, humored at the same time.
“Yeah, you might want to get on that,” I say, placing my hand on her shoulder. Charlotte looks over at my hand as if it is strange for me to be touching her at all. Which it is, once again, considering our current status.
“Are things still in limbo with you and Ari?” she asks.
I close my eyes briefly, unsure how to respond. “Yeah, pretty much. But she has Ellie’s heart. I’m in love with that heart and I don’t know if it has anything to do with Ari but I’m in no shape to push her away after wondering who she was for so long.”
Charlotte places her hands on the outsides of my arms and looks up at me. “I get it,” she says, her eyes squinting slightly with the sense of understanding. “I really, really get it.”
“You do?”
“Yes, just be fair to your heart too, Hunt.”