“I swear to you, Anna, I would never do that. I just have to…I have to protect you. I have to protect you both for as long as I can. I’m asking. No, I’mbeggingyou to let me do that.”
It all came down to trust. If you asked me six weeks ago, did I trust E.G.?
Yes. He’d never lied to me. Never done anything that was inconsistent with what he’d said.
On this issue, we understood each other. I was sure of it.
“If you’re not going to let me work, what am I supposed to do for nine months?”
He smiled then. Like something suddenly occurred to him. A side benefit to my being pregnant.
“Lucky for you, I haven’t filled your position yet.”
Talk about walking back into the lion’s den.
Again, I walked through my options. There was nothing to be done today. Maybe I should have had a better plan waiting if he showed up at my door, but I honestly didn’t think he would.
I thought…I believed…it was over. I was ready to live my life without E.G. in it.
I looked at the duffel bag sitting on the bed and thought how fucking twisted this all was.
“You can wait in the living room,” I told him. “I don’t need you staring at me while I pack my underwear.”
“Fine. I need to make a call anyway.”
“Yeah,Ricky. Sorry to bug you last minute like this. I appreciate it. Fifteen minutes works fine. Thanks.”
The duffel bag tossed over my shoulder, I walked back into the living room. E.G. was standing there running his hand through his hair, his phone pressed to his ear.
On the phone with Ricky, apparently.
“Why do you need to call Ricky?” I asked him.
“I can’t…drive you. Not like this. Where is my cat?”
“Hiding under the bed. Apparently, you suck as a cat dad and he’s scared of you.”
It wasn’t true. Rocco was lounging on top of my laundry basket, which was his favorite place outside the bean bag chair, when he wasn’t draped all over me. But any chance I had to stab E.G., I was going to take it.
The amount of pain I wanted to inflict on him was no joke.
“All the cat stuff is in the front coat closet.” I said, dropping my duffel bag on the floor.
“That’s it?” he asked, looking at the bag. “Seems light.”
“It’s a few days’ worth, including some work clothes. I’m going to give Tom the respect of talking to him in person. And if I’m resigning-”
“You are.”
I glared at E.G. “If Iamresigning, I’m giving at least a month’s notice. Things just started clicking in the office. We were starting to get into a rhythm and it’s unfair to disrupt that without some notice.”
“A rhythm, huh?”
“Yes,” I hissed, hearing the tone in E.G.’s voice. “Leaving him suddenly without coverage is not fair and I won’t do it. And if you say one word about me leaving you abruptly-”
“I won’t,” he said, quickly.
“Tom’s a good guy. He and I have an easy working relationship, without any of the freaking weirdness we had between us. It was delightful. I bought him a bagel on my third day and he was like, ‘Thanks, Anna, that was nice of you.’ It was crazy!”
