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Stone must take my non-answer as hesitation. “Jett is with his granddad this weekend. So, do a lonely man a favor and go with me?”
He’s not held back his flirting and I should’ve seen this coming—having prepared for it.
“Listen”—he stands a little closer to me, a hushed tone in his voice— “I hear things. And I know you went through it with your ex, and I’m not suggesting anything but a fun night, no strings attached. I can see you’re caught off guard, so you can let me know or not know. And I promise no hard feelings if you choose the latter.”
He picks up his I-Pad, leaving me to my thoughts, and is out of my sight, rounding the corner on his way to the next patient.
* * *
Meadow’s screamsbegin as muffled cries but become louder and louder in the closed space of my vehicle. Turning my head toward the house, my suspicions are confirmed when the slender body of my ex-husband hurries down my large wraparound porch, pulling at the door on the side of my SUV where Meadow sits.
“Open the door, Care, let me get her.” Not only is the door locked, not my doing but a safety feature of the vehicle, but he’s promised me he won’t just up and land on my front porch.
I roll down the passenger side window, just enough that I can speak with Jimmy, not having to yell over our scared child. There’s no way in hell I’m letting Jimmy get his hands on Meadow, who is crying at the sight of her dad. She may just be three, but she’s a smart little girl. She understands the shit storm her dad is, even in her youth.
Although, if the tables were reversed and Meadow saw me separated by glass, she’d be attempting to unbuckle her own car seat. But with her father, she’s not pawing to get to him.
“Jimmy,” I call for him and he moves a few feet from watching Meadow to the open window. “What are you doing here? We had an agreement, and this is not one of them.”
His eyes are bloodshot. Ah, fucking hell, he’s showed up on my doorstep hammered, too. This is not how I saw my Monday night working out.
“Well, that’s funny, Charis. We also agreed to spend our entire life together, too. And look how that turned out.”
I’m not stepping foot out of my car, and shift the gears into reverse, but even in his drunkenness, he’s fast, pulling for my purse on the front seat.
“Jimmy Andropolis, give me my purse. I can’t with you right now. And…” On cue, Meadow begins crying again. “Great, now you’re scaring our daughter.”
I turn back to soothe her, and I’m able to reach her leg, since she’s kitty-corner from me. “Vréfos”—my Greek accent is very identifiable speaking in the first language I ever learned— “mi_téra has you.”
I speak to Meadow predominantly in both English and Greek. It drives Jimmy insane, who doesn’t have the same love for his country as I do.
“For fuck’s sake.” Here we go. “We’re Americans. You’ve not been home in five years, and you barely remember living there.”
I don’t start what always seems to be a huge fight between us. I’ve not been home for five years because I’d been married to a fucking asshole who controlled me and every bit of money I contributed to our household.
“Jimmy, you’ve gotta leave, or I’ll call the cops and I really don’t want Meadow seeing her father getting carted away by the police.”
He’s leaning over and as he speaks, the beer and whiskey, his double vice as I call them, knock me over.
“And how you going to do that, babe, with your phone in your purse?” He fishes through my purse, my number one pet peeve when we had been married. Now it just sets me off. My phone is in his hand, and he’s taunting me with it.
I try to grab for it, and he pulls it away. “Jimmy, give me my phone.”
Meadow is quiet behind me. When I turn around to check on her, large tears roll down her cheeks. Her eyes, the same as the asshole who’s currently torturing us, lock on me.
“Daddy meanie.” Her speech is clear as day. She never talks much in front of Jimmy because she’s scared of him, but she’s spot-on.
“What the hell did she say? Meadow, what did you say about Daddy?”
I have to leave, even if he has my purse and phone. He’s never physically abused Meadow, not yet anyway, but the fear has been there, especially with the combination of the beer and whiskey in his system.
“Jimmy, you’re scaring her, give me my purse.” My demand is empty, because I can’t make him, not with my fear for Meadow in the here and now.
He leans in, trying to unlock the doors, but since I have them switched to safety locks for Meadow, he can’t.
“Dammit, Charis, what did Meadow just say about me?”
I remove my foot from the brake to reverse when a loud yell of some sort gets our attention from the house next to mine.
