Page 67 of Hold
♦
At two o’clock in the morning, he felt just punch-drunk enough to listen to the voicemails. Sleep was a joke. He heard his third-floor tenants moving around, students whose idea of day and night seemed to be reversed. Liam didn’t mind: he liked the company, and he liked the income.
“Liam,” her voice said. The rush of… whatever he’d felt for her came back to him with that one word. She’d gone from a cold, clipped, sarcastic use of his name to breathing it into his mouth when he’d entered her.Shit. Maybe he couldn’t listen to this.
“Please, please see me,” she went on. “Everything I have to say sounds ridiculous, I know, so I have to say it to your face so you’ll know I… oh, crap, now I sound like him. But I’m telling the truth, Liam. He’s not back the way you think. He showed up on Sunday night and… and he’s the kids’ father…” Liam closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his beard. “And I was just telling him how pissed I was—am—at him…”
By cuddling him?
“And it just all… overcame me. Plus, I was drunk a little bit. And I want to remind you that I wasn’t at all drunk this week, with you. So please—oh God, I know you won’t, and I don’t blame you, but this is not like your wife. I sent him away, and I need to talk to you because… because it’s important to me what you think of me. So if you can, please, call me.”
Another message went on as if she hadn’t hung up and redialed. “And I know he’s a total bullshitter, Liam, and you’re not, and I do know the difference.”
Another: “But if he’s here for the kids, then I can’t make him stay out of our lives, and I don’t know what that means but I need to talk to you about it.”
Another: “Forget it. I’m sorry. I’m asking the impossible. I know you can’t do this, and I don’t blame you. You said before you didn’t do complicated and I am extra-complicated and it just got worse so… Thank you, Liam, for making me feel…” Ah, shit, she was crying. “Human again.”
Liam dug his nails into the splinter in his hand, which he’d been halfheartedly trying to get out all night. Then, before he could think too much about it, he’d dialed her number.
She picked up at once, said his name with tears in her voice. “I said forget it, but don’t, please don’t, you don’t know what—”
“What do you want to do about Benji?” he interrupted. Sticking to business might just help him hold it together.
“Oh.” Pulling her explanation up short made it hard for her to switch gears. “I—I don’t—”
“I’ll pick him up. If he won’t be—” He wanted to sayconfused, but he was kidding himself that he’d had any time to become a father figure to either Jake or Benji. Benji’sown fatherwas in town, like Santa after an endless twenty-four days of December. And was that what Liam had been going for, in spending those extra hours with the kids? If so, he’d been kidding himself for a long time. “If he isn’t getting picked up already,” he finished.
“No, he isn’t,” she said. “If you could pick him up tomorrow, that would help to give him a sense of normalcy in all this. But after that… well, we’ll see.”
Perhaps his father would pick him up after that. Liam burned with jealousy he hadn’t earned. “Right,” he said. “I’ll be at your house at seven tomorrow then, for Jake.”
“God, Liam, I—”
“What?”Crap. He hadn’t meant to put that much emotion into the word. He should cut this off before he made a fool of himself. “It’s no big deal, Thea,” he said, pleased that his voice was calmer. “We didn’t have any… obligations to each other.”
“ButIdid!” she cried. “That week wasn’t just because, Liam. I don’t do that.”
He knew that.
“And I know it… meant something to you, too, Liam, and I’m so, so sorry Gabe showed up the very next day, of all damn days.”
He stared dully at the television, where kingdoms were won and lost on the word of a woman. He hated to feel this raw. “Thea,” he said. “Figure out his place in your life. And then…”What? Will you be waiting for her like some pathetic, faithful dog? Sitting on the front porch long after his owners have moved?“Just… do that.”
“But you had a place in my life. A good place. I wanted to… see where that would take us.”
So had he. But he’d been forgetting about real life, about history and exes and lessons learned. And he was all done opening himself up. “It took us here, T,” he said, his voice dull. “I don’t reckon there’s anywhere else to go, do you?”
He hung up.
♦
The next morning was excruciating. After a night of trying to cry silently so the boys wouldn’t hear, Thea gave up and got up at five, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, staring into nothing, listening to the ticking clock on the wall that brought closer the moment she would see Liam again.
Jake came downstairs early as well, looking as rested as she. She made him some eggs, and he took a cup of coffee, which he never drank. His hair was spiked up again; she had gotten used to seeing his natural curls and mourned them, for all they made him look more like Gabe. The truth was, he’d looked more like himself, and now Gabe had made him retreat into this persona again.
At seven o’clock precisely, they heard the dull roar of the blue monster baby, and a quiet knock sounded on the front door.Just don’t look at him. Nothing good can come of it.
Jake put his free arm, the one that wasn’t carrying his mug, around her as she sat, and pressed his head to hers. “Bye, Mom.”