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“Thanks. I’m going to head back now. Tell Charlotte I’ll see her tomorrow?”
“She should be back in a few minutes.” When I don’t say anything, his brow creases. “I’ll tell her.”
I pictured this going differently. On the drive up here, I imagined this dramatic reunion, the closing credits rolling as Charlotte falls into my arms and we embrace. This feels more like a minefield—I don’t know where or how to step. The air between us warms but then chills just as quickly. She ran tonight and then so did I.
Wes Keller?
After getting Ethan tucked in, I tip-toed around his room, smiling to myself as I took in the animal figures, the dinosaur collection, the blocks and the kid-sized bow and arrow. Charlotte also has an alphabet chart where each letter is paired with a picture, and a whiteboard where she’s been teaching him to write his name. I chuckle when I see an abacus just slightly smaller than Ethan tucked into a corner. Knowing Charlotte, she’ll have him working on linear equations by the time he’s in kindergarten.
I don’t see the drawings until I’m making my way out. You can tell who the subject is, because Charlotte has written the name beneath each figure, with Ethan’s immature scrawl underneath. One is of Lawrence and Moe, another is of a fish. There are a few of Charlotte, and it makes me smile to see the yellow sun he draws in each picture of the two of them together. There’s a family portrait too. You can tell this one’s older by the quality of the drawing, and by the fact that only Charlotte has written names beneath the figures: Janelle, Lawrence, Mommy, Ethan and Moe. I wish I could have met Janelle, thanked her for all the good she’s done.
The last one, the one that’s taped higher than the others, looks just like the one Ethan drew of me. Admittedly, all of his figures look nearly identical, but the details on this one, down to the baseball cap, are the same. It’s recent, because Ethan has done a decent job of copying the W, E and the S. I’m jealous and mad as fuck now. Easing the tape off each corner, I unleash my inner broody bastard and take the drawing with the intent of tearing it to shreds once I’m clear of the house.
Maybe I’ve given myself too much credit—I’m more like Samantha than I thought.
It’s a few hours later when I decide to listen to the voicemails. There are six in total. She must have called right after I left her house the other day, pleads with me to come back and talk, not to do anything rash. The second came in later that night, she’s weeping. The next are a series she left this morning, probably when the damn phone kept going off in Charlotte’s presence. In one she forgives me. That’s rich. In one of the last ones, Samantha finally breaks down and admits she knows what she did was wrong—how decent of her—and is sure “we can get past this.” I don’t even want to know what that means.
When the phone rings sometime around eleven, I pick up.
“Simon?” She’s surprised I answered.
“I was about to call you.”
She lets out a relieved breath. “I’m here for you. Always. You know that, right?”
“Samantha.” I issue her name in warning, but she doesn’t heed it, she presses on.
“Where are you?”
I don’t mean to bark but I do. “Where do you think I am?”
She goes silent. I’m furious with Samantha, but right now my anger is over something else, or reallysomeoneelse entirely, and I’m taking it out on her because she’s the easiest target.
“I’ve been with him all day. I put him to bed.”
“Are you at her house?”
That’s all she really cares about. What she really wants to ask is if I’m in her bed. I’m tempted to lie but don’t have the energy. “I’m staying in a cabin close by.”
“Oh.” The relief in her voice irks me. “So,” she goes on uncomfortably, “tell me about him.”
“He’s...amazing.” And it’s as if I’m talking to myself now, not her, when I go on to describe him and list every great thing that happened today.
She interrupts when I’m in the middle of talking about the chickadee birds. “He sounds adorable.”
“He is. He smiles a lot, seems like a really happy kid.”
“Oh.”
“And he looks just like me, by the way.”
She sighs. “Simon, I still think—"
“If you’re about to suggest that I schedule a paternity test, I’m gonna have to stop you right now.”
“Just...” I can tell she’s crying. “Just be careful.”
I know I’ve done wrong by Samantha. I know I’ve led her on this past year, led her to believe we might have a future together. I’m disgusted with myself when I take a moment to admit that I’ve contemplated a future with her.
