Chapter Thirteen

ETHAN

I pull into the parking lot outside of Lara’s apartment building, barely awake, just alert enough to be able to drive safely. I drink a gulp of coffee and look around for a parking spot. The first full week of our new schedule is coming to a close, and I’m just happy that I’ll have three days with my little girl, and no work to worry about.

I find a spot relatively close to the entrance of the building and pull into it, looking to make sure it’s actually a guest spot. I got yelled at by one of the security guys the first time I parked in Lara’s lot. I put the car in park and glance in the back seat to make sure it’s clear for Riley’s car seat.

I finish my coffee, shut off the engine, and get out of the car. It’ll only take me about thirty minutes to get back to the house, and if I’m lucky, Lara is already feeding Riley. I’ll be able to get my daughter home, and she’ll get a nap, and then we can play for a while. It’ll be a nice, restful weekend after a damned stressful week.

It isn’t until I’m knocking on Lara’s door that it occurs to me to think about how weird it is that I’m at her place at all, or that twice this week Lara’s been to the house Alexis and I bought together when we got married. We’re obviously going to have to tighten the schedule. Yesterday I nearly ended up late for work because I just hadn’t figured on how much the morning traffic, combined with dropping Riley off at Lara’s place, would throw off my drive. But so far it looks like things are going to go more or less smoothly, however weird the whole situation is.

The door opens, and Lara is right there in front of me, her dark hair messy and her face a little tired-looking, but her eyes are bright, and I can’t help but notice that the front of her tank top is damp, and she doesn’t seem to be wearing anything underneath it. She pulls the sweater she’s got on over that to cover herself, and I look away, feeling ashamed.

“Riley’s just finishing breakfast,” Lara says quickly, letting me into her apartment. I follow her and see my daughter, seated in her high chair, banging on the tray in front of it. She has some yogurt smeared around her mouth, and I can’t help but smile.

“Looks like a good breakfast,” I say, sitting down.

“Can I get you something? A cup of coffee?” In spite of how awkward things are between us, there’s this weird kind of polite thing that both Lara and I seem to have decided to try without speaking of it. When she picked up Riley from my place I made sure she had coffee and something to eat, and the times I’ve come to pick up my daughter, whether it’s in the evening or in the morning, she’s offered me something.

“I just finished a cup, actually,” I say, picking up the spoon on my daughter’s high chair tray to help her feed herself.

“I’ve got some oatmeal if you’re hungry,” Lara says.

I shrug. “I’ll eat some,” I tell her. Normally Riley eats a little more properly if other people are eating too.

Lara fixes me a bowl of oatmeal and sits down at the table. Riley’s learning new words at a crazy rate, and she babbles at the two of us in between messy bites of food, throwing words out without really paying much attention to whether they make sense or not.

“Any plans for the weekend?”

I shrug again, taking a bite of my oatmeal. Lara sets down a glass of orange juice without asking if I want it or not, and I take a sip.

“We might go to the park,” I say. I need to meet with some people about the headstone for Alexis’ grave today, and I’ve got a meeting at the bank tomorrow to finally formally take her name off the account. Our lawyer’s been organizing a lot of the details of what he calls “the estate,” which always chills me, thinking of my wife as an ‘estate,’ but there’s stuff that I actually have to do in person, and the weekend is the only time I’ve really got to do it.

“Sounds like fun,” Lara says. She gets up again and grabs a towel off the ring next to the sink, and I watch her get a corner of it wet before bringing it to Riley’s high chair to mop at my daughter’s face. “Oh! I meant to tell you, if you need me to pick anything up for the week, I can drop it off on Tuesday when I pick her up.”

“You deserve a few days to relax,” I point out. It’s obvious to me that the whole situation is taking a bit of a toll on Lara as much as it is on me, and I have to think that it can’t be that easy for her to work from home when she has to watch Riley. She’s probably working into the night.

“I’ll have the actual weekend,” Lara says.

“You have to go in today, right?” I look her up and down, she doesn’t look like someone who’s about to start the morning commute.

“I’m going in at ten,” Lara explains.

“Oh,” I say, trying to think of something to say to that. It’s been ages since we really talked on a normal basis, and I’ve seen her more in the past week than in at least six years. In the last year I’d only seen her at her mom’s funeral and then at Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, before Alexis died.

“Anyway, like I said, if you need me to bring anything to the house, let me know,” she says.

“Right, yeah. I will,” I tell her.

“Ann-Lara! Ann-Lara!” It’s as close as Riley gets to “Aunt Lara”, which Alexis had wanted Riley to call her, and Lara ignores me in favor of my daughter at the call.

“What is it, Riley-baby?”

I take advantage of the moment to myself to eat a little more oatmeal and drink some orange juice.

“Love you!” Riley giggles at the success of distracting her aunt, and I grin to myself.

“I love you too, Riley-baby,” Lara says, and I can hear it in her voice. The way she sounds talking to my daughter is totally different from how she sounds talking to anyone else, even her own father. But I guess that makes sense, her father isn’t a baby. But there’s a kind of love in her voice, and on her face, that I just can’t imagine anyone else being on the receiving end of.

“Up? Up?” Riley looks up at Lara hopefully and Lara shakes her head.

“Two more bites of oatmeal and you can get up,” Lara says. She sounds so much like Alexis in that moment, firm, but caring, and warm, that it wakes up the dull ache deep down between my ribs and sharpens it into something like a knife. I close my eyes and wait for the pain to return to its regular dull throb.

“Okay,” Riley says, pouting slightly.

I help Riley finish her breakfast, and then Lara takes the tray away, bringing it to the sink while I unfasten the belt holding my daughter into her chair and lift her out of it. I give my little girl a kiss and a hug, and clean her up a bit. Obviously, Lara gave her a good bath the night before, judging by the sweet smell of her skin and hair, so I won’t have to worry about that.

I gather the diaper bag, make sure Riley and I aren’t leaving anything behind that we’ll end up needing over the weekend, and even though I know I’ve got a ton of shit to do today, and obviously, Lara needs to get ready for work, I can’t help wanting to linger. I hadn’t counted on how different the house would be without Alexis in it. I keep expecting to turn a corner and see her playing with Riley, or hear her call for me to get the laundry out of the dryer, or to take the trash out.

Even if things are incredibly awkward between Lara and me, at least her apartment isn’t haunted. At least she’s another adult I can talk to.

“I’ll see you on Tuesday, I guess,” I say finally, making sure that Riley’s secure in the carrier that doubles as her car seat insert.

“Yep, see you then,” Lara says. I try to think of an excuse to stay for a few more minutes, just to talk, maybe even about the weird haunted feeling I have in the house when alone with Riley, but there’s no point in it. I just have to go. I pick up the diaper bag, and my daughter, and Lara unlocks her apartment door and opens it for me to leave.