When I’m finally finished, I drag myself into the shower and let the water spill over me until it runs cold.
Next, I brush my teeth, and then take inventory of myself. Physically, I’m much better. Stomach is settled. Headache is now a dull throb. Mentally, I’m a dark nightmare that resembles a Tim Burton film.
I walk into the living room, dressed for practice. Jenny’s sitting at my kitchen table, talking to whom I can only presume is Charlie, because Jenny says quietly, “He’s here. I’ll call you back.”
“E tu Brute?”
“Fuck you,” Jenny replies. “She’s worried about you.”
“She’s worried enough that she put my daughter in the car and drove to Dallas to check on me? No. No, she’s not that worried. She’s worried only enough to call my assistant. I see.” I know that I’m being a gigantic asshole, but I don’t care. I’m pissed and hurt. Fuck her. “God forbid that she should leave her dad’s practice for a day to check on her husband.” The word “husband” comes out of my mouth sounding like poison. I pull the egg whites out of the refrigerator and begin making an omelet.
“She told me what happened.” Jenny pauses as if she’s waiting for me to respond. “Babies babble. I’m sure what you heard was Ainsley just babbling.”
I expected more from Jenny.
I clench my hands into fists, and lean forward onto the balls of my feet, slamming my whisk against the edge of the bowl. Jenny’s face morphs into a questioning look. She’s never seen me really pissed off. “Jenny,” I squeeze out through clenched teeth. “If you wish to keep your job then stay. The. Fuck. Out. Of. It.”
For the first time in our working relationship, Jenny doesn’t have a snarky retort.
****
I’m a lunatic at practice. I know that I’m trying to escape the pain. Maybe if I do ten extra pushups, I will not feel it anymore. If I can just run a little faster, I’ll leave the pain in my chest behind me.
It’s no use. The ache never dulls, and I only get madder.
When I’m home, I finally check my phone. My voicemail is full. I erase every message without listening to them, and ignore all the texts from Charlie. I only reply to Aiden and my parents, letting them know that I’m alive.
I’m not fine. In fact, fine jumped on the last train headed west. I’m a goddamn heap of mess. I don’t bother eating dinner, because my appetite is also on the proverbial train. I take a shower while I plot out my next move.
The water beating against my back adds a level of clarity that I desperately need. It’s obvious that something has to give. My schedule isn’t flexible. I don’t have the ability to hang out in Houston while Charlie fixes her dad’s shit, or decides to permanently remain there playing head doctor. Charlie’s life is flexible. I decide to give her a deadline. Thirty days. That seems more than fair. Then it will have almost been three months since her father passed away. She needs to figure out if she wants to run the medical practice and give me custody of Ainsley, or bring herself and my baby back to Dallas. Charlie’s choice. But in thirty days my daughter will be living with me again.
I call her instead of Skype for our seven o’clock appointment. This is in no way, shape, or form a date.
She answers as if she’s been sitting by the phone. Her melodic voice fills the line, and what’s left of my shattered heart clenches. My system floods with need and hurt and want. It’s a confusing mess that ultimately washes out in sadness.
I cut off her pathetic explanation ramblings. I don’t care. No excuses. There’s nothing short of “I’m moving back in with you” that will soothe me at this point. “Listen, Caroline.” I rarely use her given name so when I do, she knows that I’m serious. “I have nothing to say to you, other than I expect you and MY daughter,” I emphasize the hell out of the word my, “to be here in two days for Christmas. But, your clock starts now. You’ve got thirty days to clean up the shit storm that Jack’s death dropped in your life, or I keep our daughter with me.”
“Is that a threat, Colin?” she asks, in a voice so cold that it could freeze ice.
“Not a threat, darlin’. It’s a motherfucking fact. Remember my ‘I don’t give a fuck’ list you like to tease me about? Well, my daughter isn’t on it, and you sadly miscalculated if you thought she was.” I’m sitting in my home office, staring out the window at the oak trees I had planted. They’re too immature to give me the feeling of stability that Doctor Benson’s old oak did. Then it hits me. What a fucking perfect metaphor for my relationship with Charlie. Even though I’ve known her since she was nineteen, we’ve only been back together for less than three years. I don’t fully trust that she’s not going to break my heart again. Would I be okay with her taking Ainsley if we’d been together ten years? Probably not, but at least maybe I’d feel like I knew the motivations of the person on the other end of the line.