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Ethan
Frank,my apparently ex friend piles the work high. On Monday morning, the day of the verdict on my punishment, the Lieutenant Colonel points at a massive stack of files.
“Stay busy, Major,’ he snarls. “Dismissed.”
“Sir,” I say leaving his office a little confused. I’d expected more grilling and a stern lecture at minimum. If not a far flung posting in some out of the way jungle.
By Thursday, I realize that Frank does not care to discuss Rylie under any circumstances. I think he’s missing her as well. I try to get in his head but he dodges my questions. All I know she’s in Boston, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.
On Friday, Caden and I have dinner together.
“Dad,” he says to me all serious, his voice as mature as he can muster, “I thought Rylie was going to take me to the beach again.”
“I did, too, bud,” I say.
“But she can’t?”
“She’s far away. In Boston.”
“Is that really far?”
“Yeah, it’s really far.” It’s an eleven or twelve-hour flight at best. I’ve searched.
“When's she coming back?” He toys with his veggies. I’m not sure if he senses something is wrong or if he’s just avoiding his peas.
“Eat your veggies,” I say deflecting his question.
“Yes, eat your greens,” Lisa says barging through the back door right into my kitchen. We rarely, if ever, lock that door here. Maybe I need to start.
“You don’t knock anymore?” I ask.
She ignores me and sits down next to Caden. “Come on, Honey,” she says in a singsong voice that made sense when he was three or four. “Eat your peas so I can take you for an ice cream.”
He obeys, and I think about his last question. Is Rylie coming back? I wish I knew. I stalked her Facebook account for a few days, but then she unfriended me. She missed the interview with Gary’s non-profit and I had to cite a family emergency back east.
“Dad, can you come have ice cream with us?” Caden asks, innocently or perhaps not. While I’d been daydreaming about Rylie, his mother had been prompting him to include me.
“No, Buddy,” I say. “I have things to do. You enjoy your time with your mom.”
“Your dad wants to be alone with his very young little side piece,” she says cruelly.
“What are you talking about?” I am beginning to feel a rise of heat and anger swell in my chest. How does Lisa know anything about Rylie?
Lisa says in a harsh voice, “I’m talking about that too-young-for-you woman who you have no business seeing.”
“What do you know about…”
“I happened to meet her here,” Lisa lets slip in her smugness. Guilty individuals often can’t resist letting their crime slip out. My mind begins to piece together the puzzle of Rylie’s sudden disappearance.
“I know you belong to Caden and me,” she says with false sweetness.
“I’m not discussing this again, especially in front of him,” I bark like a drill sergeant. I’m furious now because I realize that I’ve never had any religious solicitors come to my door like Lisa had claimed the other night.
A light bulb goes on in my mind. She shafted me again.
“What did you say to her?” I demand. I force myself to remain calm in front of our son, but I want to explode.
“I told her the truth,” she says. “That you and I are going to work things out and she needed to get lost.”
