The Space Between Us

  “No. I’m fine.” I didn’t feel like smiling, but did anyway.

  And though I wanted to kiss him again before he left, I didn’t.

  Chapter 31

  Instead of going home, I went to Vic and Elaine’s. I intended to just do a drive-by, but when I saw only her car in the drive, I pulled in. I’d take my chances if he came home.

  I knocked instead of letting myself in, though I still had a key. A nervous-looking Elaine opened the door a crack to peer out, then flung it wide when she saw it was me. She called to the kids as she reached for me.

  “What are you doing, knocking?” she cried, enfolding me into her embrace as best she could with the bulk of her belly between us. “Crazy girl. Kids! Look who’s here!”

  I was attacked from the knees down by one small, frantic warrior who clung to me and demanded to be lifted. “Max. Hey. What are you guys doing up so late?”

  “They sleep in longer if they stay up later,” Elaine said. “I know, call me Mother of the Year, but I just can’t face getting up at six in the morning when it’s dark out.”

  Simone hung back, arms crossed, mouth turned down, eyes suspicious. I’d have to work a little harder on that one. I respected the kid for it, though. I guess I couldn’t blame her for being mad.

  “Simmy. C’mere and give me a squeeze.”

  She shook her head. Elaine sighed and closed the door to tug at my sleeve. Max had already begun babbling, a long stream of stuff I didn’t understand but nodded over anyway.

  “I was having some hot chocolate and popcorn. You want some?” Elaine was already leading me into the kitchen, children trailing behind us. “Kids, give her some space.”

  Simone had no trouble giving me my space. She took her usual seat at the table and sat with the same frown on her face, not even drinking her cocoa. Elaine rolled her eyes but said nothing.

  I understood.

  I’d made a promise and broken it. I was anything but proud of that. So when we’d finished our snacks and Elaine had taken Max off to bed, I followed Simone into the bathroom to supervise her brushing her teeth. She did it a lot more vigorously than she used to, scrubbing and scrubbing until I finally sighed.

  “C’mon, kiddo, it’s bedtime.”

  She leaned and spat into the sink, then gave me the evil eye in the mirror. “I have to get rid of the plague.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s plaque, and I’m pretty sure you got rid of it. C’mon, I’ll read to you if you want. Anne of Green Gables?”

  She rinsed her mouth and put her toothbrush back. “We finished that already. Daddy read it to me.”

  “Well, what are you reading now? I could—”

  “Daddy won’t like it,” Simone said, “if we read ahead. Then he won’t know what happens.”

  There was no arguing with her, so I just nodded. “Okay, fine. But let’s go get into bed, anyway.”

  Reluctantly, she let me follow into her bedroom, which had been rearranged and freshly painted. “You got a new bedspread!”

  “And pillows!” she cried, running and bouncing on the bed before she remembered she was mad at me. She burrowed under the blankets and turned her face to the wall.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. “Simmy. Talk to me.”

  Her lip trembled, and she drew a heaving sigh I knew wasn’t faked. I stroked her hair until she turned to bury her face against my legs. Her small shoulders shook. Tears stung my eyes as I smoothed my hand over her hair, again and again.

  “I’m sorry, punkin.” I twirled her hair around one finger. “I know you’re upset with me, and I don’t blame you.”

  “You said!”

  “I know. But sometimes…”

  “I know, I know,” Simone wept. “Shit happens.”

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh, even as the stinging tears escaped to slide down my cheeks. I swiped at them hastily, not wanting her to see. “Don’t say that.”

  “That’s what Daddy says.” She sat up, eyes and nose red, cheeks wet. “That’s what he told Mama.”

  “He wouldn’t want you to say it, though.” I handed her a tissue, but ended up wiping her face for her.

  “Daddy said it wasn’t because of me and Max. Or the new baby.”

  “It wasn’t, sweetheart. I’m sorry you ever thought that.” I cuddled her close to me and sighed at how I’d done such damage to someone who loved me so much. “I suck. I’m sorry.”

  Simone breathed a sigh. “Daddy and Mama were fighting a lot.”

  Shit. “About me leaving?”

  She nodded against me. “And about his new job.”

  “Does Daddy have a new job?” I stroked her hair, then tugged so she’d sit up again. “Not at the garage?”

  She shrugged. I shouldn’t have expected her to know. I’d have to ask Elaine.

  “Why’d you move away?” Simone snuffled again.

  “Well…I thought it was time. With the new baby coming, you and Mama and Daddy and Max need more room in the house. And I always knew someday I’d have to move out. I couldn’t live in your basement forever.”

  “That’s what Cappy said.” She looked up at me with swollen eyes. “He said you had to move out because you wanted to be with other people. More than me and Max and Mama and Daddy?”

  “Just different, honey.”

  “Grown-up stuff.” She sounded disgusted.

  “Yeah. Grown-up stuff.”

  Simone fixed me with a stern look. “I know how babies are made, you know. Mama showed me a movie.”

  Again, I bit back laughter. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Are you having a baby, Tesla?”

  “Um. No. Not now, anyway.” I shook my head and cuddled her again. “But when your new baby arrives, I’ll come over and help your mom take care of it the way I did with you and Max.”

  Simone was silent for a few seconds. “It won’t be the same.”

  Not at all. “Things don’t always stay the same, punkin.”

  “I wish they did,” she said.

  At that moment, I did, too.

  I tucked her tight into bed and read her an old favorite, The Velveteen Rabbit, which put her to sleep within the first few pages. I kissed her forehead and listened for a few minutes to the even rise and fall of her breathing. I remembered Simone as an infant, just an hour after she was born. The weight of her. The heat. The way she’d opened her eyes to look into mine when I’d stroked the blond fuzz of her hair.

  This was love. I loved this little girl, and I loved her brother. I would love their new sibling, too, I knew. But she was right. It wouldn’t be the same. Nothing ever would.

  I found Elaine in her bedroom, propped against the headboard with a journal and a pen. She looked up when I knocked on the door frame, and gestured for me to come in. She put the pen and book aside.

  “Trying to get caught up,” she explained. “They grow so fast. Simone has so much stuff in her baby book, I don’t want Max to feel cheated. And as for number three, I guess I’ll be lucky if I remember to write down how much he weighs when he’s born. Or she.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Sure.” She handed me the hardbound book.

  I flipped through the pages. She’d written notes on first teeth, first steps. Taped in wisps of hair from first cuts. There were pictures, too, all of us looking so crazy young, though none of them were more than five years old. I studied one of me holding Simone, with Elaine and Vic on either side of me on the couch.

  I was crying again. This time it was Elaine who petted my hair as I cuddled next to her on the bed. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even shush me. She did hand me a tissue, but she didn’t wipe my face. I took care of that.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I miss you guys, that’s all.” I sat up and blew my nose.

  “Nothing’s stopping you from coming around, you know.”

  I choked out a laugh. “Uh, yeah, there is.”

  “Vic would get over it, Tesla.”

  “Simone said he h
as a new job.”

  Elaine’s lips thinned. “Don’t act like you didn’t know about it.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was my place to spill the beans. I told him to talk to you. But he was…” I shrugged, still feeling bad about the whole thing, but wanting to come clean. “I guess he felt I might understand more. Because I knew already.”

  “He’s afraid for me and the kids. All the time. With the new baby coming, he’s even more freaked out. He watches too much shit on the news. He sees too much stuff. I try to tell him that nobody can live like that, being afraid…but I guess he thinks if he’s on the streets doing something about it, he’ll somehow make a difference. Protect us. Or maybe he just wants to be ready to protect us if something happens, I don’t know.” She sighed. “I tried to tell him that he can’t protect us from bad things if he’s not actually here, but that didn’t seem to sink in. He says he needs to work the weird shifts because he’s new, that it will settle down in a few months, and the benefits and extra money are worth it. I’d rather have him, Tesla. We had enough money. We were doing fine.”

  “I don’t think it’s really about the money,” I told her quietly.

  She smiled sadly. “I know.”

  “Still. He should’ve talked to you about it first.” I blew my nose again and tossed the crumpled tissue in the trash. I couldn’t tell if I was stuffed up from crying or from getting a cold.

  “Well, if spending a couple weeks on the couch at the garage didn’t convince him of that, I guess nothing will.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “What?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “I kicked his ass out. Told him he’d better get his priorities straight, that if he was going to be a part of this family he had to start acting like it. Let me know when he was going to be here, and then be here. Not keep secrets. I told him we had a new baby on the way, but I was pretty much raising two on my own, and I figured I could make it with three just as well.”

  “Wow.” I was impressed. “Go, you.”

  She laughed, though without much humor. “My mother raised four kids on her own, Tesla. I’m not saying I thought it would be easy, but a man who’s not home isn’t any use to a family. I love Vic, but if he thought lying to me was the basis for a strong marriage, he needed some schooling.”

  “And you gave it to him. Good.” My eyes felt hot, swollen with tears, but I felt lighter.

  “You know…you can move back in if you want to. Your room’s the same. And I won’t lie, I’m sure I could use the extra hands. Even though I know where he is and what he’s doing now, Vic’s still gone a lot.”

  “Thanks. But…”

  Her laugh was more real this time. “I know. A houseful of kids isn’t as appealing as one you share with your, um, whatever you call them.”

  “My boyfriend and his wife. My girlfriend and her husband.” I chewed the inside of my cheek for a second or two. “You think it’s weird, don’t you.”

  “I think it’s unconventional, honey, but when would I ever expect anything less than that from you?”

  It had been one thing for Meredith to call me wild, but hearing Elaine say sort of the same thing was totally different. I frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  Elaine looked thoughtful. “Well…honey, you’re just…you. You’re Tesla. You’ve always marched to a different beat. It’s what makes you special.”

  “What if I don’t want to be special?”

  “Everyone is special, whether they want to be or not.” She shrugged. “Why don’t you want to be special? Don’t tell me you want to be normal.”

  “I don’t want to be abnormal.”

  She chuckled. “You’re not abnormal, Tesla. Like I said, you’re just you. And if it takes two people to make you happy, well…I guess you’re blessed you found them, right?”

  “That makes it sound like I’m greedy.” Which was probably part of it.

  “Having your cake and eating it, too?”

  I shrugged. “I like cake.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Elaine smiled. “But just remember. Too much can make you sick.”

  “So I’m unconventional. They’re not.” I paused, thinking. “Charlie, especially. He teaches third grade at a private charter school. He doesn’t even have a Connex page or anything like that, because some teacher at his school was fired for some stuff she put on hers. Private stuff, set to Private, and still she got in trouble.”

  “And Meredith?”

  I had to be honest. “I think she wants to be wild. Unconventional, I guess.”

  “But she isn’t?”

  I thought of the precise ways she needed everything to be arranged, from the clothes in her closets to the food in the fridge. “Not really. No.”

  “But they both care about you. They invited you to live with them. Be a part of them as a couple.” Elaine cleared her throat, sounding a little uncomfortable. “I know growing up you saw that sort of thing all the time, but you do realize that most people wouldn’t even think about it, much less do it.”

  “Yeah,” I said wryly. “I know.”

  She put a hand over her face, laughing. “You living here with me and Vic is totally different, and you know it.”

  I hesitated. “But you know that Vic and I…”

  She peeked at me through her fingers. “I know, honey. That was one of the things he did tell me the truth about—that summer.”

  I plucked at some of the threads of her quilt. “And it never bothered you? Knowing? I mean, you never said anything about it, and you let me live here. Did you ever…”

  “Worry? Get jealous?”

  I nodded.

  Elaine shook her head. “No, honey. Whatever happened with you two…well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it wasn’t anything like what Vic and I have.”

  I laughed. “No hurt feelings. I know that. I was so glad when he started to go out with you, you can’t even imagine.”

  “I can imagine. He was good to you and Cappy. It’s one of the things I fell in love with—how generous he’d been to you two. And I knew before he even told me that you two had done some things.”

  “You did? How?”

  Elaine looked serious. “Women always know, don’t they?”

  I guessed we did. “You know I’d never, ever do anything like that with Vic again, don’t you? I’d never get between you that way.”

  “Honey, if I thought you would, do you think I’d let you in my house, around my kids?”

  “I guess not.” I rolled onto my back to stare up at her ceiling. “But it’s unconventional.”

  “Oh, I know that. Believe me, my mother had plenty to say about me letting you and Cap live here when I moved in with Vic. Especially about you. But I told her it wasn’t any of her business, it was between me and Vic. And if he thought he needed to give you two a home, I wasn’t going to be the wicked witch coming in and kicking you out. Besides, that I could see how much he cared about you both showed me what sort of man he was. Loyal and protective. It’s what I love about him, even if it’s also what makes him such a pain in the ass.”

  “It’s what makes him crazy,” I said. “He thinks too much about the world turning to shit.”

  “And thinks he can protect us from it. I know.” She laughed. “Do I love that he’s out there on drug cases, dealing with those people? No. But I guess if that’s what he has to do, all I can do is support him.”

  “Even if it drives you crazy?” I rolled over to look at her. “Don’t you worry about him?”

  “Of course I do. But I just have to hold out hope that everything will be all right. I can’t think about the alternatives.”

  I sighed.

  She leaned to stroke a hand over my hair. “You can come back anytime, you know. We love you, Tesla. The kids miss you, and so do I.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “He does, too,” Elaine said.

  I shrugged. “It was time for me to get out on my own, you know?”

&nbsp
; She squeezed my shoulder. “But you didn’t, honey. Did you?”

  I knew she was right. I’d traded one safe place for another that didn’t feel so safe anymore. And all it did was point out to me how much I wanted things to work out with Charlie and Meredith, and how I knew it wasn’t going to.

  Chapter 32

  Charlie and I were playing chess while Meredith flipped through a magazine on the couch. He was kicking my ass, no surprise, since even though I could remember all the moves each piece made, I sucked at strategy. He was trying to help, but I spent more time laughing about my bad moves than really learning anything. At least it made for a quick game.

  “We could play Uno or something,” I said to her. “Monopoly?”

  “Really?” She gave me a look of such disdain I was sorry I’d said anything.

  “I just thought…never mind.” I turned to Charlie. “How about you?”

  “I have papers to grade.” He made a sad face. “It would be easier with some popcorn.”

  I got up as he swept the chess pieces into the box. I kissed the top of his head and worked at the knots in his shoulders for a couple seconds before kissing his cheek. “How about some hot cocoa?”

  “Your special homemade?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

  “As if I’d give you powdered mix.” I pinched his cheek.

  Meredith met up with me in the kitchen. She’d pulled her hair on top of her head in a high ponytail that emphasized her cheekbones, the clarity of her skin, the full and silky length of her locks. In contrast to her sleek yoga pants and matching hoodie, I wore an old pair of Charlie’s jeans cinched tight with a belt, and one of his oxford shirts over a tank top. I’d washed but not bothered to style my hair, the roots gone dark, and it fell over one eye as I puttered with the milk, cocoa and sugar.

  “Want some cocoa?” I held up the milk carton. “Plenty for two. I can make enough for three.”

  She shook her head and leaned against the counter to watch me work. “It’s Saturday night.”

  I looked at her over my shoulder as I mixed the cocoa powder, sugar and milk in the pot, then set the heat to low. “Yeah. And I don’t have to work tomorrow. It’s awesome!”