The court date is coming up, and I’m screwed. Completely screwed. I’m going to lose Laura completely, and I’ve already lost Olivia.

“There’s nothing you can do?” I say to my lawyer on the phone.

“It’s messy,” he says. “As your legal representative, I shouldn’t know anything about what you just told me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Save the spiel for someone else. So I tried to defraud the legal system and whatever other system.”

“It doesn’t look good,” he says, speaking in grave and serious tones.

“Just give it to me straight. Am I going to lose custody?”

“I’m afraid it’s looking like that.”

“Damnit. Aren’t you lawyers always supposed to give good news?”

“Not that it’s improbable.”

“Can’t we get another judge? Can’t you do something?”

“I’m afraid there’s really no further legal recourse at this point. You just need to wait until the trial and see what happens.”

He starts to drone on and on, and I simply hang up the phone. I’ve had enough. Simply enough.

Laura’s upstairs in her room, probably reading. I need to go talk to her. I need to tell her what could happen, but I just don’t know how. Again, I’m completely stumped about what to say.

I start running the words through my head, over and over, trying to prepare a little speech I can give her, telling her that I still love her, that I still care about her, that we need to prepare for the possibility that she might have to go live with her mother, but that I’m sure it won’t last long, and that I’ll always be there for her, no matter what, and no matter what the courts say.

Honestly, I’ve been avoiding talking to her since Olivia left. I don’t know how to explain that either.

I sigh as I get out of my chair and start the slow walk upstairs.

“Laura?” I say, knocking on her door.

“Daddy?”

I open the door.

Laura’s sitting cross legged on her bed, reading a book that has a picture of a dinosaur on the cover.

“Just talk to her,” said Olivia, when we were at the museum together. The memory gives me an internal pang of pain. That was such a great day, just the three of us together, enjoying one another’s company.

“What you reading?” I say.

“A book about dinosaurs,” says Laura. “Well, it’s about a girl who lived with dinosaurs.”

Normally, I would just not tell her that Olivia’s gone, and tell her the bad news about Alicia. But I’m going to try out Olivia’s advice, even though she’s long gone.

“Hmm,” I say. “That’s funny. I thought dinosaurs lived a long, long time before people.”

“Yeah,” says Laura, nodding her head excitedly. “But it’s a time travel story.”

“That sounds cool,” I say. “How does she time travel?”

“She’s got a time machine. Her crazy old uncle built one, and she went into it by mistake.”

I nod, wondering how I’m going to tell her everything, now that we’re talking about dinosaurs and time traveling.

“Are you listening, Daddy?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, Laura. It sounds like a cool story. I was just thinking about Olivia.”

“Where is she, Daddy?”

“She’s gone,” I say.

“Why? Where’d she go?”

“We had… sometimes grownups have problems with relationships.”

“Like you and Mommy?”

“Sort of,” I say. “Although your mother has some other… problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Grown up problems,” I say.

“I liked Olivia,” says Laura. “Is she going to come back?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m sorry, Laura.”

“Why don’t you get her to come back?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“There are things… I don’t know, Laura. It’s complicated. I don’t know what to tell her.”

“Just tell her you want her to come back.”

I look at Laura. It’s like a light bulb goes on in my head.

“You know, Laura,” I say, “I may just do that. You’re getting pretty smart, you know that?”

“Daddy,” says Laura.

“Yeah, Laura?”

“What’s happening with Mommy?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Nancy said something about it. Something about a judge.”

I sigh. Nancy shouldn’t have told her anything.

“What did she tell you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t understand it.”

“Your mother wants you to go live with her.”

“But I want to live with you.”

I smile.

“And I want you to live with me, too, Laura,” I say. “But your mom is suing me. Do you know what that means?”

Laura nods.

“And the judge might say that you have to go live with her. Now, your mother loves you very much, but she has some problems, and I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“Can’t you do something? Can’t you tell the judge that I don’t want to go live with her?”

“Unfortunately, the judge won’t listen to you until you’re fourteen years old. But don’t worry, it’s not over yet, and I’ll think of something. You’re going to live with me.”

“You promise?”

I know I shouldn’t, since the most likely outcome is that she’ll live with Alicia.

“Yes,” I say. “Now why don’t you go to bed now. It’s getting late.”

I give her a kiss on her forehead and leave, turning out the lights as I go out the door.

She’s so cute curled up in her bed, under the covers.

I can’t let anything happen to her. I just can’t.

I need to protect her, and I need Olivia back.

Normally my mind is completely filled with business. Business ideas, deals, stocks, cash flow, overhead.

Now it’s like my mind’s been rebooted completely. And the only two things that remain are: protect Laura, and get Olivia back.

I grab my phone, and then remember that she hasn’t been answering when I call.

“Nancy?” I say, pressing the intercom.

“Yes, sir?” comes her sleepy voice after a few moments. She’s probably in her room, asleep, even though she’s supposed to be putting Laura to bed. Any other night, I’d be enraged that she’s not fulfilling her duties. But tonight I have more important things to take care of.

“I’m headed out for the night,” I say. “Make sure Laura’s OK.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, her voice crackling a little through the intercom.

Grabbing my keys from where they hang in the garage, I hop on my motorcycle, a Japanese super bike.

The garage door isn’t even all the way open when I blast out of the garage, ducking my head down to avoid the heavy door.

I lean into the curves, revving the engine, my left hand puling back on the throttle, my fingers grasping the clutch lever, my foot kicking it higher and higher into gear.

The bike whines as I roar through the dark Philly streets, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding through red lights.

At her apartment, I pop the bike up onto the sidewalk, doing a small wheelie. I leave the bike there, running, kicking the kickstand down as a mere afterthought.

I rush towards the lobby, where I can smell natural gas even from outside. The fluorescent lights are bright. I grab the worn metal door handle, but the door is locked. The intercom box, when I go to use it, has been shattered into a hundred pieces. It looks like someone smashed it with a metal baseball bat.

“Damn,” I mutter.

I didn’t realize she lived in such a shithole apartment building.

The prize of a million dollars must have been quite a temptation for her when I made the offer.

And a huge temptation to walk away from.

But she had her reasons. And I understand them now.

I stand here for about five minutes, expecting someone to come along and open the door. But no one comes. The street is deserted.

I look back at the intercom box, thinking that maybe if I cross a couple of wires together, I can hot wire the thing. But it’s sparking ominously at me, and I doubt it would be a good idea.

But fuck it.

I need to see her.

I reach into the box, into the electronic innards. As soon as my finger makes contact with a piece of metal, I get a bad shock that runs through my entire body.

Fuck it.

There’s got to be another way in.

I walk down an alley on the side of the building.

There’s a man there passed out next to a dumpster that smells like rotten fish. He’s got a couple bottles of rubbing alcohol next to him. Only one of them is empty.

“Buddy,” I say, giving him a gentle nudge with the toe of my dress boot.

He stirs. “Get out of here!” he screams at me, and then falls back to the ground, passed out completely.

I check my phone for her exact address, her apartment number. 3F. Looks like she’s on the third floor.

In the apartment building right next door, one of the windows is open, and someone is screaming in Russian.

Just now, it starts to rain. It begins as a drizzle, and soon becomes a ferocious downpour.

There’s a fire escape that looks extremely rickety.

But it’s the only way up.

I put my foot on it, and the entire thing shakes, from the ground up to the roof.

But what the hell?

You only live once.

You only fall in love once.

I climb it as quickly as I can, figuring that that gives it less time to collapse under my weight.

I walk along the metal catwalk. It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights.

I pass by one window and a man inside screams at the sight of me.

In another window, someone is watching TV.

In another, three people are having sex on the floor. I don’t stop to look.

I’m beginning to wonder if I even have the right floor, until I see her.

There she is, standing with her hair flowing down. She looks painfully beautiful. The longing fills me, stabbing me like a spear. She’s so close. I need to get to her.

I watch her for a moment. She looks terribly sad.

I rap on the window with my knuckles and she jumps a few inches into the air.

Her face is in complete terror. Until she recognizes me, that is.

Her face turns into… a smile.

That’s not what I expected, not in the least bit.

I motion for her to open the window.

She’s mouthing something at me, but I can’t hear her, since the window separates us.

The catwalk of the fire escape is starting to tremble, and I hope it doesn’t fall until I at least get a chance to talk to her.

The window seems to be stuck on her end, so I put my fingers under the frame and tug on it until it pops open. Paint chips fly all over the place.

“Hi!” she says enthusiastically, leaning forward through the window, which I’m holding up so that it doesn’t fall on her neck. She kisses me deeply and passionately.

“Wow,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You came for me!”

“Of course. I can’t do it without you,” I say. “I have so much to tell you.”

“You’d better come in, before that fire escape falls down.”

“Has that happened before?”

“Only once, but it was before I moved in.”

I climb through the window quickly, half expecting the fire escape to collapse seconds after I make it into the window. But this isn’t the movies.

I’m standing next to her in the cramped bathroom. Her body is pressed up against mine, and I lean in and kiss her deeply. She kisses me back, her lips flush with mine.

Her breathing is heavy and fast with excitement. Her hair falls down around her.

“You look incredible,” I say.

“So do you,” she says.

“Look,” I say. “I know I was a dick. And I understand why you ran away.”

She smiles at me. “You can say that again.”

“Which part?”

“That you were a dick.”

I laugh. “All right,” I say. “I was a dick.”

“I didn’t mean it so literally.”

I kiss her again.

Suddenly, she looks startled, pulling away from my kiss.

“What is it?”

“I just remembered…”

“What? What’s going on?”

The bathroom is really small. There’s hardly enough room for the two of us to stand in here, let alone move around.

There isn’t a bathtub, just a shower stall, and a strange toilet that’s low to the ground.

Suddenly I notice that the mirror looks odd. The bottom half of it is completely covered with a strange substance. I lean in closer. It’s toothpaste.

Toothpaste… toothpaste. What a weird thing to smear onto a mirror. But I’ve seen it somewhere before. It’s familiar.

Suddenly, I remember. Alicia! When we were still married, she used to cover the mirrors with toothpaste when she would get high. I got used to it, and stopped even noticing that there was toothpaste on the mirrors.

“She’s here?” I say, pointing to the mirror.

The window, which was still open a moment ago, falls shut with a huge crashing bang.

Olivia gets startled and jumps again, moving closer to me, pressing her body against mine.

“It’s just the window,” I say.

But she still looks scared.

“How did you know?”

“Is Alicia here?” I say. “My ex-wife?”

“Yeah, what are we going to do? How did you know?”

“She used to do that to our mirrors all the time,” I say, pointing to the mirror with one hand. My other is holding Olivia tight against me.

“Oh,” says Olivia. “That makes sense. She’s hiding behind the couch in the living room. She thinks there are bugs everywhere. And she glued all my things to my ceiling…”

“Because of the ice?” I say.

Olivia nods.

I laugh.

“Sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t be laughing, but it’s kind of funny.”

“She moved in here at random,” says Olivia. “When I moved out, my roommate Sasha was looking for a roommate and your ex-wife replied to the advertisement. I didn’t realize it was her until just tonight. I was going to tell you.”

I chuckle. “So Alicia isn’t clean like she said.”

“Right, and I figured this would be good evidence that… you can keep custody of your daughter. There’s no way that woman should have custody of your daughter.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say.

“The only problem is how are we going to convince the judge. How can we prove it? That’s what I was thinking about in the bathroom here right before you came in. I’m sure I’ve ruined everything by leaving.”

“Well,” I say, “the judge does somehow know that you’re not my real wife. I don’t know how he found out, but he did. I guess he’s smarter than I’d thought before.”

“I’m so sorry to run off,” says Olivia. “I ruined everything, and Lily was getting a dress for me from her car. She was so nice to me and she probably hates me now.”

“She still likes you,” I say. “Frankly, I’m sure she understood. After all, I haven’t been the easiest guy to be with.”

Olivia laughs.

“You can say that again,” she says.

I laugh. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s… not easy for me to…”

“Express your feelings?”

I nod. “But I’m going to work on it.”

“You’re already starting to,” says Olivia.

“Olivia,” I say. “Before we deal with my drug addict ex-wife, and figure out how to get her out of your apartment, there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Yeah?” says Olivia.

I get down on one knee as best I can. I take her hand in mine.

“Oh my God!” she says, before I even say anything.

“Olivia,” I say. “Will you be my real wife?”

“Oh my God!” she says, squealing in excitement.

I wait.

“Of course!” she says.

“I wasn’t planning this,” I say. “I don’t have a ring, except for this one.”

Gently, I remove the wedding ring and engagement ring that she still wears on her fingers.

“They were just for show, but now they’ll mean something real. I’ll get you another one, of course.”

I slide the engagement ring onto her finger, handing her the wedding ring.

“I love this one,” says Olivia.

“I love you, Olivia,” I say.

“I love you too, David Masters.”