Parenthood certainly brought its share of surprises, but we were gradually establishing a routine The girls got up, made their beds, dressed themselves in the clothes that were laid out the night before, and even packed their own backpacks. I had a sense that we were a team, building something together.
We had our morning and bedtime routines down to a science, and I’d even learned the girls’ food preferences. Andi hated pulp in her O.J. Joey preferred crunchy peanut butter to creamy. Both girls loved pizza and equally detested any sort of fish.
I’d found them a pediatrician that I was happy with and therapist that they liked. However I was not a fan of their teacher. Mrs. McDonald sent home a note about how Joey wasmaking friends, but Andi was quiet and reserved, which didn’t seem to surprise me. She also said Joey talked too much in class, and she could see her becoming a discipline problem and she believed Andi might be behind. Joey was talkative, but she did understand the times she needed to be quiet and was very capable of following directions. Not only that, she wanted to do a good job and behave. Andi was smart, not just smart, likeGood Will Hunting“wicked smaht,” if Mrs. McDonald didn’t see those things about my daughters, then she was blind or just not looking.
I was considering getting them switched to another classroom, but I was concerned about what one more change would do to them.
Overall, while things with the girls felt like they were going okay, the rest of my life that felt like a shit show. I couldn’t stop thinking about Billie. She consumed my every thought. I kept expecting her to pop by like she used to. But that hadn’t happened.
When she saw Genesis’ name come up on my phone, something changed in her eyes. Before that, I was almost positive she was about to agree to stay at my house. After that, she hopped out of my car and wanted nothing to do with me.
Birdie mentioned in passing that there’d been no more incidents with the stalker, but they also hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out who it was. I felt like the clock was ticking. Any day now she might move back to her apartment, and I was squandering the time I had such close access to her.
But she’d made it clear, after we’d crossed the line, she wanted nothing to do with me. I tried to tell myself I was fine with it, that my main job now was the twins, nothing else mattered. At night, though, when the house was too quiet and nobody needed me for anything, I’d catch myself staring at my phone, waiting for it to ring. I also found myself on Amazonlooking at walkie talkies to order and send to her. I didn’t know if she would think that was cheesy or not.
It didn’t matter because I’d told myself I was going to have an actual conversation with Billie tonight. I’d wait until the girls were asleep and then I’d go next door and speak to her. We needed to discuss what happened between us. It was more than a one-night-stand. We were best friends, maybe not currently, but there was history there, and now she was avoiding me, avoiding me when someone was stalking her and wanted to harm her. Avoiding me when she was living a hundred yards away from me. It was driving me fucking crazy.
After pairing the final socks and folding the final shirt I left the girls’ room and headed downstairs, planning to check on what we had in the fridge for dinner. I hadn’t even made it five steps when my foot caught something, a hardback copy ofCharlotte’s Webleft halfway out from under the banister. My legs went out from under me and I went downhard, landing squarely on my lower back and then my shoulder, which exploded with a pain so bright it nearly knocked me out.
I must have yelled, because the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, and Andi and Joey were above me, staring down at me, eyes huge.
“Dad!” Andi shrieked, her voice bouncing off the old plaster walls.
“Daddy!” Joey echoed, both kneeling awkwardly beside me, their knees digging into my ribs and hips as they tried to help and mostly just crowded me, their breaths coming fast and panicky.
The pain seared through me as I clutched my arm to my chest like someone had sawn it halfway off. But for a split second, the agony was just background noise because hearing them both call me “Dad” at the same time was such a shock of pure emotion that it nearly knocked the wind out of me. Like I’dfinally graduated from a trial period to full-time, no-takebacks parenthood. They’d been tiptoeing around the word for weeks, like they weren’t sure if they were ready to use the real title. Now they both had, and it landed heavier than the hardwood I’d just crashed into.
“I’m fine,” I managed, but my voice came out strained and tight. “I’m okay, really.”
I could feel the shoulder hanging loose and wrong, throbbing with every heartbeat. I knew I’d dislocated it, it had happened once in high school, once on a direct-action mission in Ahwar, and once in a hostage rescue in the Strait of Hormuz. I’d gotten it back in myself before, but you had to get the angle just right or the pain would make you puke.
There was no way I would let the girls see me do that. No need to traumatize them even more than they already were. After inhaling through my nose, I tried to sit up, but the pain made the edges of my vision go gray. I winced, and when I opened my eyes Andi was hovering above me, scanning the room like she was hoping a trauma team would pop out. “Should we call nine-one-one?” she whispered to her sister.
“No, no, no,” I said quickly, which made my head swim. “I don’t need an ambulance. I just need…someone to help me for a minute. Go next door, okay? See if a grownup is home. Just tell them I need help getting up from the stairs.”
“I don’t want to leave you!” Joey was on the verge of tears, her lower lip trembling. She was gripping my good hand so hard her knuckles were white, and I couldn’t feel my fingers.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her, forcing a smile. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
“I don’t want to leave you!” Joey cried.
“I’m okay.” I spoke in in the most calming voice I could. “Go with your sister.”
As soon as the girls were out the door, I tried to sit up again and realized something was wrong with my back, too. What had felt like numbness was giving way to a searing, white-hot throb with every heartbeat.
I managed, with excruciating difficulty, to push myself to a seated position and sat for a minute in the extreme discomfort. It was a familiar kind of agony, the kind that demanded your full attention and left no room for anything else. Then, I drew in a trembling breath, braced my knees against the step, and clamped my right hand around the wrist of my deadweight left arm. It hung there, slick with sweat, numb and burning at the same time. My fingers found the hollow at the top of the humerus, and I did as I had been trained to do: a sharp tug, angle down, don’t hesitate. I steeled myself, counted down from three and yanked.
A white flash. The world inverted. My vision shrank to a pinpoint as the shoulder socketed back into place with a wet, primal pop that I felt in the soles of my feet. I couldn’t even scream; the pain swallowed me whole, then spit me out and filled me with a static so electric my bones vibrated. For a second I was sure I’d thrown up, or maybe time-stopped altogether. My only conscious thought was absolute, animal relief that the girls hadn’t had to see that.
Everything after went fuzzy. I tried to breathe but couldn’t catch a breath. I was vaguely aware that my head lolled, that my body slumped sideways on the stairs, and the hardwood dug into my ribs. I made out the sound of voices—high and frantic, maybe the girls, maybe it was my own heartbeat, pounding in my eardrums. I fought to keep my eyes open, but the world seemed to tilt away from me. I heard footsteps, the echo of a slamming door, someone calling my name. My tongue was thick and useless, all I could do was blink as the world blacked out entirely.
23
BILLIE
I couldn’t believe it,an actual quiet evening in the house. Leo and Luke were at their friend Jeremiah’s house at a sleepover. Bailey and Cole had gone to a new sushi place—the one with the conveyor belt and robot waiter—and wouldn’t be back until late. Even Carly had made herself scarce, claiming she had to work on a “group project” for a science class with Steven Jones, who didn’t go to Carly’s school, which I knew because his mom, Stephanie, and I went to school together. She was on Insta and constantly posting his private school photos. I wasn’t going to snitch on my soon-to-be niece, though.
So it was just me and Sarah, two grown women left unsupervised and in control of the television for the first time in the two weeks since I’d moved in.
