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I touch the ballerina figurine again. “I’m glad it’s over.” He’s gone. We’re all safe, and as we deal with the leftover emotions, we can move forward and forge stronger paths. I walk much lighter towards the couch again.
This might be one of the best sessions I’ve had.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that it’s over,” Connor says, his grin growing. “I always win in the end.”
I laugh into a bright smile.
It might be conceited but it’s very, very true.
Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap starts playing, the ringtone set for Ryke. He’s usually really careful about not interrupting my sessions. One time, he spent a whole hour searching for our motorcycle helmets, which I stuffed in a suitcase. My idea of cleaning is to just wedge things in other things until more space appears.
Ryke could’ve texted or called me, but he actually waited until I arrived home. He considers very few events more important than my therapy sessions, so my stomach tangles as I dig in my jean shorts for my phone. In seconds, I place it to my ear. “Is everything okay?”
Connor and Frederick are eerily quiet, not even pretending not to listen into my call. I face the bookshelf and wait for the tormenting pause to pass.
I can sense Ryke hesitating on the line, his breath cut short. Then he says, “Yeah, it’s fucking fine. Call me when you get home.”
“You’re not home?” I frown and then make a fast choice. On a chair by the door, I grab my backpack and my helmet. For Christmas, Ryke gifted me a lime-green Kawasaki Ninja supersport motorcycle, which can reach nearly a hundred-and-ninety miles an hour. It’s even faster than my old Ducati, the bike that I gave to the EMT who basically saved my life.
That was almost two years ago now.
Ryke growls at himself like he really, really didn’t want to interrupt me—hating that he did.
“Ryke, it’s okay. I was done.” I sling my backpack straps on, and in my peripheral, I see Connor stand up. I shift my phone to my other ear. “Is it Sulli?” Fear spikes my voice.
“It’s not fucking serious, but…fuck.” Just by the tone of his voice, I can tell that he’s upset. It’s Sulli. It has to be about our daughter, who’ll turn two next month.
“Just tell me where I need to go.” I have my hand on the doorknob.
Another long pause before he says, “The ER.”
Color drains from my face. “As in emergency room?” My hand slips, and my helmet clatters to the floor.
“What the fuck was that?” he asks as I pick it up.
“My helmet.” I have no time to ask what happened—he speaks again, as though remembering I rode my bike to New York City.
“Don’t fucking ride upset. Last thing I fucking want is my wife and my daughter in the hospital.” He suggests calling my father’s private driver as an alternative, but he doesn’t realize that Connor Cobalt is ten feet behind me.
I rotate my helmet in my hands, restless, my lungs in my throat. I’d rather ride my bike, not just to reach the hospital faster but because my body screams to move. To lunge. To speed ahead.
“Daisy?”
I listen to my husband’s wish, and before I even ask Connor, he says, “I already called my driver. He’s waiting.”
“Thank you.” I focus on my phone call and tell Ryke that Connor is here to see Frederick. “He’ll bring me to the hospital,” I finish.
Ryke lets out an audible breath like thank fucking God. In the background, I suddenly hear Sulli crying. No more lingering, I run out the door.
* * *
With my backpack on and helmet in hand, I say goodbye to Connor and rush into the waiting room of the ER.
“Is that Daisy Calloway?” I overhear a flurry of whispers, the waiting room crammed and loud with crying babies, sniffing patients, and a television playing GBA News.
I bypass most of the people to reach a chair, tucked in the corner between a magazine stand and potted plant. Ryke tries to calm Sullivan by combing his fingers through her dark brown hair, her cheeks tear-streaked and splotchy. Sitting on her dad’s lap, she hugs her white stuffed starfish, her chin quaking either from pain or the new hospital surroundings.
Ryke sees me halfway across the room, relief loosening his shoulders, and he whispers to Sullivan, “Who’s that?”
She follows his finger to find me, and she tearfully shouts, “Mommy!”
Before she tries to spring off his lap, I’m here. I kneel, my hand on Ryke’s knee in comfort, and I gasp at Sulli. “I hear you’ve been on a big adventure.” I try to hide away all my worry and fear. A piece of toilet paper is stuffed up her nostril and soaked with blood.
“It…it hurts…” Sulli tries to sniff, and she starts wailing at the discomfort in her nose. Ryke told me what happened over the phone. It’s not life-threatening, I remind myself throughout her piercing cries. It still sucks watching my daughter in pain. It still sucks being stuck in the crowded emergency room, unable to know when a doctor will see us.
It still sucks catching people snapping our pictures during a moment I’d rather not document.
I playfully use the corner of her starfish to dry Sulli’s chubby cheeks. “Hug Starfish with all your might, and she’ll make you feel better.”
Sulli squeezes the stuffed creature like it’s her life force, her wails dying and muffled in the soft animal. Ryke picks out a seashell clip that has fallen down a strand of hair, his hard eyes meeting mine. I never take my hand off his kneecap.
“You should fucking sit.” He’s about to stand up and give me the seat. Such a Ryke Meadows thing to do, but I shake my head, so he stops. Sulli is comfortable on his lap, nestled in the crook of his arm and his chest.
“I’m good here.” I set my helmet aside and take off my backpack, staying knelt.
While Sulli calms, Ryke reaches out and massages the top of my head in a hello. I smile at him, but his lips never upturn. Guilt hardens his jaw and darkens his features, and not long after, he rakes both of his hands through his thick hair.
“It could’ve been worse,” I say quietly. Ryke and I don’t always sit still, and the times where we do go hiking, camping, snowboarding, surfing, and even off-roading, we bring our baby with us. Two years with Sulli, and we try to tone down the risk in our choices, but it’s difficult to cut out everything. Admittedly, we both struggle with what’s too dangerous because we love bringing her along on our experiences.
We like having a third companion, and it seems more selfish to leave her home and bar her from sharing these moments with us.
So I add softly to Ryke, “I think most people expected Sulli to break an arm rock climbing.” The mini rock wall in her room is so much safer than it looks.
The truth of the matter: a random bead from a broken keychain caused Sulli more harm than any of our daring adventures. She stuffed the thing up her nose when Ryke wasn’t looking. He said he tried plucking it out with a tweezers, but it’s lodged in there.
Ryke takes a deep breath, pinching his eyes. “A fucking bead.”
“A fucking bead indeed,” I say so lightly that his lips tic up, and he drops his hand. He soaks in my green eyes, my mouth, my blonde hair and long, long legs. My white tank top says: Feed Me with a giant flower graphic.
“How do you fucking feel?” he questions, even though he already asked this morning. I answered earlier, I’m seeing Frederick today.
Now I say, “Better.”
Ryke holds Sulli even closer to his chest, our daughter relaxing into her starfish. With his free hand, he ruffles my hair and pushes my cheek. My face brightens tenfold, and I clasp his wrist before he drifts away.
“I need practice,” I say, layering on as much seriousness as I can.
He lets me have his hand. “For what?”
I lower my voice. “Kissing.”
His brows rise at me. “Someone tell you you’re a bad fucking kisser, Calloway?”
“I just know that I’m definitely not up to par with my husband. He’s so good with his tongue.”
Ryke’s dark expression never alters, and my smile only grows. “I can kiss you to see if you’re as good as him, but I need to practice first.”
“Ask your husband if you need fucking practice.”
“Do I need practice?” I ask Ryke.
“No.”
I mock gasp. “Yes?” I pretend to hear him wrong and then make out sloppily with his palm.
When I lick his skin, he starts laughing and then reclaims his hand, just to push my forehead, but then he clasps my shoulder, so I don’t sway far from him.
I laugh at the sight of his laughter, and then Sullivan, our two-year-old sad baby, starts giggling up at us, sharing in our merriment. Bloody nose and all.
Ryke and I exchange an identical expression that just screams I fucking love you.
Five whole hours pass by.
Ryke is no longer seated, his leg too cramped in one position. I’m not seated, too restless. We’re standing around the same area, still waiting for a doctor to call us, and Sullivan sits on her dad’s shoulders, hands on his head.
We distract Sulli from her constant nosebleed by interviewing the “mermaid under the sea” for Shell Time TV, a game I concocted on the fly a few months ago. It’s helped Sulli grow comfortable at the mere sight of cameramen, especially the crew for We Are Calloway. She thinks they work for Shell Time.
And until very, very recently, she’s been mostly hidden from paparazzi. I remember everything Frederick told me today. The wedgie photos aren’t a prelude to a horrible future.
She’ll be okay.
I call up to Sulli, “What’s your favorite thing to do?” I needed something to do with my hands, so I’m currently crafting an intricate tree out of green scrapbook paper. I always bring the paper to my therapy sessions, so luckily I had some with me.
