Page 76 of No Kind of Hero
When she asked, “What would you do if I weren’t here?” and Evan gave her a lopsided smile and said, “Clean the house,” and she ran the vacuum cleaner and emptied wastebaskets while he scrubbed the bathroom and mopped the floors? Not glamorous. A long walk by the lake when the day had cooled toward evening, and Gracie’s fever had cooled with it? Also not glamorous, but such a relief after the way the day had started. Eating pizza on the couch, finishing upGentlemen Prefer Blondesand watching Gracie attempt to crawl over Henry as he flopped over onto his side and endured her clinging hands? Not glamorous one little bit, but so comfortable.
And if she thought, while she was doing any of it,Four more days—she put the thought out of her head.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.She didn’t need to think about four days from now. Wednesday would come whether she thought about it or not, and she’d deal with it then. Meanwhile, she had this day. And when she and Evan climbed into bed at barely nine o’clock, they had each other.
No fantasies, and no fights. Comfort and connection, soft touches and soft words. A sigh, a murmur, a kiss, and your eyes closing to feel it better. Half asleep, drifting on slow waves of pleasure, letting them build, surrendering to their rhythm.
A slow rock. A gentle build, winding you up, and up higher, carrying you onward before it tumbled you, half-dreaming, over that blissful edge. And then lying, eyes still closed, with the aftershocks rippling through you. Your hand on a shoulder, a bicep, and his hands on you. Letting sleep take you down, safe in each other’s arms, your hands relaxing into stillness, letting the day go.
Release.
One minute, Evan was feeding Gracie her rice cereal in her high chair while she kept leaning over the side and trying to pat Henry, who was hanging out below her hoping for spills. The next, he was fishing his ringing phone out of his pocket without looking at it.
“Yeah?” he said.
Silence, and he said, “Hello?”
Good. Wrong number. Beth was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table drinking her coffee, her silver hair falling around her face, wearing those little black shorts and a tiny yellow tank, looking not at all like a lawyer and exactly like a relaxed woman who wanted to spend a lazy Sunday with him, and Gracie’s fever was down. Life was good.
He realized he was still holding the phone and had put out a thumb to end the call when the voice said, “Evan?”
His thumb froze above that tempting red circle. He wanted to press it.
He wanted lots of things. He lifted the phone to his ear again and said, “Yeah?” Beth looked up fast, her blue eyes watchful. Reading him, like always.
Focus. Calm.He picked up another spoonful of cereal, guided it into Gracie’s mouth, and waited.
“I want to see her.”
The spoon was in the air. He realized that when Gracie batted at it. He set it back in the Peter Rabbit bowl, wiped her mouth with the washcloth, and said, “No.”
“I get to see her,” April said. “I asked. I can’t decide what to do about this if I don’t see her.”
“What do you have to decide?”
“Whether I should come back.”
The red was rising right up his body, clouding his vision. That thing he’d named for Beth. The red mist. “That’s not a choice you get. You’re not coming back.”
Beth was making motions at him. Calm-down motions. Stop-talking motions. He didn’t want to calm down, and he didn’t want to stop talking. He wanted to shout, and he wanted to swear. He wanted it bad enough that he shut up instead.
“I know you don’t . . . want me back,” April said, a wobble in her voice like usual. Weepy again, her weakness reaching out to him, a black hole trying to suck him in. “I know that. But she’s my baby.”
A voice in the background. Male. Angry. Her dad? Evan asked, “So what are you saying?”
“I’m confused. I need to figure out what to do.”
“You don’t have to do a damn thing. Give me your address, I’ll get you these papers, and you can come tell a judge how confused you are. And then he’ll tell you what you can do. Which is to go away again and stay confused. You don’t get a do-over on this. You had your chance to be a mom. You blew it. You’re done.”
He hadn’t done that well at shutting up, and Beth’s motions were nearly frantic now. She was hissing at him, too. April was still crying, the voice in the background was still there, indistinct and sharp, and Beth was saying, “Evan. Meet her. In public. Tell her you’llmeether. The judge won’t like it if you’ve kept her from Gracie.”
He wanted to say “Hell, no” with everything in him. Instead, he broke through April’s stream of consciousness. “You want to see her? Fine. I’ll meet you. Today. Taco Time. Tell me when.” He could give her the papers, save that month. He closed his mind to everything else.
“Today? Oh. Wait.” Indistinct sounds, like she had her hand over the phone, and he thought,What were you thinking? That you’d see her in two weeks? That’s some urgency you’ve got there. This is about you not feeling bad, and that’s all it is. It’s all about you.He tried to calm his breath, to slow his heart. Gracie was fussing, and Beth came around the table, picked up the spoon, and started to feed her cereal again.
Oh. Good. He wasn’t tracking too well here.
“O-OK,” April said. She still sounded sniffly, like she was suffering, and he thought,What the hell do you have to suffer about? What the hellrightdo you have to suffer?“I’ll meet you at noon.”
