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I leaned back in my chair and groaned out loud. It had been a hell of a long week. Thankfully, it was Friday and I could spend some time this weekend relaxing. We’d had three fires that week and all of them had been huge. Thankfully, nobody was hurt badly and no one in the crew had been injured either. We’d saved lives and property, so we could all consider it a great win.
Still, weeks like this left you physically exhausted and drained. In many units with such a busy week going on, the Chief would take it easy on assigning training, but Chief Josephs was different. He was a stickler. It was his belief that if you rested on your laurels then you were doing the job for the wrong reasons. And it would soon come to pass that you were really just going to phone it in next time. I wasn’t sure I understood his logic, but he was a complicated, mean spirited little man who loved to abuse his power. I disliked him for the most part, but working for him was really not that bad. He just expected hard work and results. If you gave him those things he would forever sing you praises. They would be silent praises sung with his eyes and minute facial expressions, but they would be praises nonetheless. And sometimes that was enough.
I was lucky enough two months after Amber was born to get another job as a trainer here in Columbus. It was a city I’d fallen in love with and it had become my home over the past three years. It had seen me through my pregnancy, giving birth to the most amazing little girl (Amber was two now and walking and talking like mad), some good friends, and also a new life. That didn’t mean that I missed the old life any less, but it did help ease the pain a bit.
There was not a day, an hour even, that I didn’t think about Gary. I wondered what he was doing now, who he was with, and I wondered how often he thought of me. That beautiful, sweet face…I stared at it on my phone every single day and every night before I fell back to sleep. I hadn’t so much as thought of dating another man, even though I’d had offers here and there. I politely declined and said I was involved with someone. And in a sense, that was true. My heart would always belong to Gary.
Even three years later, I still wrestled with that choice that I had made, and three years later I still did not know if I’d made the right one or not. Of course, the question that Lucy pestered me with constantly was when I was going to call up Gary and tell him the truth. He had a little girl that he deserved to know about. It wasn’t right that I was keeping his child, our child, a secret from him.
But it had been so long now. I’d waited so long that I thought there was no way I could tell him that wouldn’t just crush his heart and soul and cause him to hate me forever. Even though I’d left out of the blue like that, I still held onto the belief that Gary did not actually hate me. He was most likely just very hurt.
I packed up my things and headed out the door locking the office behind me. I said goodbye to a few of my crew and then headed out to the car. I had to pick up Amber from preschool. She had just started and she was already doing great. It was mostly a daycare, but at least a portion of the day was spent on learning. She was the sweetest little girl and everyone who came in contact with her fell in love with her instantly. I just hoped that one day when she did meet her father, he would, too.
But when would that be? “You’ve got to stop beating yourself up here, Shelly,” I mumbled out loud as I got behind the wheel. I fired up the engine and drove out of the parking lot headed towards the school.
The traffic was fairly light and I was glad to get ahead of it. I had worked out my shift so that I could be done by midafternoon and actually spend some quality time with my little girl before she got too tired and sacked out sometime around six or seven. I would usually put her to bed then and she would sleep soundly through the night. She needed at least eleven or twelve hours of sleep a day or she was not happy. She could turn in to a little demon child if she didn’t get sufficient rest.
When I picked her up, Amber was a ball of energy. She was cheering and clapping, trying to squeeze my nose and pinch my cheeks, as I strapped her into her car seat.
“Momma, we go?” she asked with a giggle and a big clap of her hands.
“Yes, sweetie. We go,” I said.
“Yay!” she yelled loudly. Wow, the kid had a set of pipes on her. I wasn’t sure how such a loud scream could come out of such a little voice box, but she had it in spades.
When I got her home, we went through our normal routine of snack time (an apple) and then we did some story time. She loved it when I read to her. Dr. Seuss was her favorite. I’d loved those books as a kid as well.
After I read a story to her and she ate her snack, we played some games with her dollies and her little miniature vacuum, which she used in her space as I vacuumed the floor for real. It was fun when she tried to be like me. I never understood the love a parent could have for a child being so extreme, but now I totally got it. I believed that she was part of the reason I’d never told Gary about her. What if he handled the situation badly and sued for partial custody? A judge might see how I just never told him about his child as being some sort of neglect on my part and award Gary at least partial custody, or even full custody. There was just no telling with something like that. It was a terrifying thought.
But I never thought Gary would be that type of person.
Then again I had lied to him, and he would have thought this was a big deal. This was the type of thing that Gary might actually lose his shit over. And I wouldn’t blame him one bit.
I’d bought the new house about six weeks after Amber was born, right before I’d started work at the fire station. I’d done well with advertising, and I even enjoyed it, but my heart was not really in it and I swore I was always going to go back to what I loved. And I had done that. I hated that I had to dust off the fake resume again, but it had done its job once more. It had gotten me the job I loved. I just hoped I could hang onto it this time.
After dinner, it was bath time. Then another story and finally bed time for Amber. Now I had the house to myself. It was too quiet. I actually dreaded this time of the evening, mostly because it reminded me of how lonely I was outside of Amber. I had some friends, several of them I worked with, and occasionally I would hire a sitter, but most of the time I just didn’t feel comfortable leaving Amber that much. I knew I was being a bit overprotective, and I figured that this feeling might leave me one day when she was a bit older. Right now, she still seemed so helpless that I hated to leave her with anyone.
I decided to call up Lucy and see what she was into. As I did so, I grabbed beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch. Lucy answered on the second ring. “Hey, girl,” Lucy said. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” I said. “I just put the munchkin to bed.”
“This early? Are you one of those parents who is always going to be looking for ways to get rid of your kid? You know, like summer camp all summer, relatives on holidays, and absurdly early bed times?”
I laughed. “No, but she is two and she needs her rest. She will sleep a good twelve hours and still be a bit tired and cranky when I wake her up. But if I let her sleep beyond that then she will be a holy terror. There is a very scientific thing going on there. I have to find that sweet spot, you know?”
“I have no kids, so no. I have no idea what you are talking about,” Lucy replied.
“Speaking of which, why aren’t you out with what’s his name?”
“Really? You got to call him what’s his name? You’ve met him several times. We’ve been going out for three months now. His name is George.”
“Ok, I’m sorry. Why aren’t you out with George.”
“He said he was playing poker with his friends tonight,” Lucy replied.
“He would rather do that than hang with you? That sounds weird,” I said.
“Yeah, he is probably cheating on me,” Lucy said.
