Courting Mrs. McCarthy (21 page)

Chapter 27

Nathan awoke to a text message from Jackie that had been sent a few hours ago, giving him a slight moment of panic that he might’ve missed her.

Nathan, I should be arriving at my house around 10:30 if you can meet me there.

The current time was eight-thirty, giving him two hours to arrive.

Griffin was the only one in the house. Nathan found his friend playing Nintendo 64, an older gaming console that maintained a cult following. He made himself a cup of coffee and sat down next to his friend.

“I’ve only got twenty minutes before I’ve got to get to work. Enough time to give you a proper beat down on Mario Kart,” he said as Nathan sat down to play.

Griffin beat him a few times. When they finished their last game, Nathan put down his controller and looked at his friend. He didn’t want to tell him where he was going that day, but he did have something to say to him.

“I just wanted to tell you something,” he said.

Griffin shut off the console and went to put his breakfast away, seemingly oblivious to Nathan’s attempt to have a heart to heart. “Oh God, not more pictures, “he said sarcastically. It was perhaps a solid sign that he could joke about Nathan’s situation like that.

“No, you idiot. God, now you’ve wrecked the moment.” Nathan brushed off the sentimentality of what he was going to say. “I just wanted to say before we leave for the Bahamas that I’ve really appreciated what you and your family have done for me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you guys and I don’t really care to find out.” He grabbed the TV remote to shrug off the emotion of situation.

“Don’t mention it. You are like a brother to me. I know you’d do the same if I got caught having sex with Mrs. Buchanan.” Griffin ran out of the room while Nathan yelled at how disgusting and sick he was.

The time passed relatively fast considering what he was going to do. Nathan made the decision to walk over to Jackie’s. The walk would add about twenty minutes to the journey, but it wasn’t time he was going to spend productively anyway and it left no trail that Corinne Kalford could see. The only way she’d be able to know he was there was if she peered in through the window.

Nathan put on the same dress shirt he’d worn to babysit the McCarthy children for the first time. She was too drunk that night to possibly remember what he’d been wearing and it gave him good luck. He was nervous, but in a good way.

The walk was quiet and pleasant. Though he’d previously regretted not planning what he was going to say, the walk gave him some ideas on how to approach her. Whether or not it was going to work was a different story.

He took comfort knowing that he didn’t seek anything ridiculous and if she decided they shouldn’t see each other anymore, then that would’ve likely been the case anyway. She had been friendly on the phone so Nathan knew it wasn’t going to be a war zone. At the very least, it’d be a fond farewell.

There were no cars in the driveway. He almost turned around before realizing that she’d likely had a car service drop her off. He could see her minivan parked in the garage, which showed she was still there.

He knocked on the door and waited, hoping that Corinne Kalford wasn’t home to take more pictures of them. Jackie came to the door before that could be an issue.

“Hey, Nathan, come on in,” she said. The two had a brief moment of not knowing how to greet one another, but they settled on an awkward hug. There were bags under her eyes that showed her fatigue, but she still looked beautiful. Nathan entered to see a few suitcases scattered around the hallway.

“I could’ve picked you up from the airport,” he said, following her into the living room. He’d never actually sat in there in his two times babysitting her children.

Jackie smiled and said, “That’s okay. I didn’t want to spoil your morning. Can I get you anything? I just made coffee.”

She went to get a cup without waiting for a response. Nathan took the beverage from her and waited for her to face him before starting the conversation. He hadn’t thought of small talk on his walk over.

“Tell me everything,” he said, abandoning any other method to get the information he’d sought for so long.

“Okay,” she said. “Pardon me if I get a bit frazzled. It all happened so fast.

Jackie told him how confused her children had been by the news that they were leaving to go home to Seattle on such short notice. Jackie opted not to tell them why they had to go as she could not figure out a proper way to tell them that she’d slept with their babysitter. Instead, she kept them in the dark, which meant that Steve had been the one to deliver the news.

She lost custody of them the moment they exited the airport. Steve had met them with his lawyers and warned her that he’d take legal action against her if she tried to resist. One of his lawyers had more tact than he did and told Jackie that she would definitely be declared an unfit parent should she choose to engage them in a legal conflict. It was a biased answer, but true.

He supplied her with a hotel room and some money while they could prepare a settlement. Jackie was limited with her selections of attorneys due to Steve’s desire to get the proceedings over with quickly. Few lawyers wanted to take on a case as potentially ugly as this from a woman whose resources were unclear. This explanation left some holes that were interesting to Nathan, but he knew Jackie didn’t have the best grace under pressure.

The deliberation went on for six days. Steve wanted two things above all else. He insisted on full custody and for the matter to be dealt with quietly. This gave Jackie some leverage, but not a lot since Steve could take her to court where she’d lose in a heartbeat.

She unsuccessfully tried to counter with his history of drug abuse, but a drug test by her lawyer came back negative. Her lawyer did not recommend going to court hoping to use his cocaine abuse against him as Steve would take every measure possible to either delay it or make sure that he passed again. This left her options limited.

They reached an agreement that Steve would have full custody for a year’s time after which negotiations could continue. This seemed like a peculiar compromise, but Jackie was told that it was in her advantage to take it as the odds that either Steve or the children would grow dissatisfied was high and his tensions for what had just happened would dissipate. Nathan would also be over eighteen by that point with more credibility to testify.

Jackie was given a large settlement in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement barring her from going to the media and telling the story of how her baseball star husband had been cuckolded by a seventeen-year-old. She had required Steve to hire a full-time nanny, and he had not had a problem with that request.

She wasn’t pleased with the way negotiations had ended with Steve, but it was worth it for both her and her children in the long run if the year supplied them with horrible stories of bad parenting to use against him when the time to reevaluate came.

Nathan was at a loss for words. The news was terrible, but it could’ve been far worse. That wasn’t a good response, so he settled with, “I’m sorry,” as a reaction to her story.

“I am too. But it could’ve been a lot worse. Steve will see that he’s not equipped to be a parent and I’ll get them back. His ego will recover, but he won’t want to be a single parent forever.”

“Are the kids going to be okay with this?” He had only known them for a short amount of time and felt terrible that he’d played a part in what was going to be an awful year for them.

The question was hard on Jackie. She wiped her nose and looked away to hide her sadness. “I don’t know. I hope so. They’re confused by what has happened. Tiffany is angry and Randall doesn’t quite get it. And then there’s April.” She paused and smiled at him. “April said she wished you were her father instead.”

In any other circumstance, Nathan might have expressed his gratitude at such a powerful compliment. He stayed silent instead to see if Jackie had anything more to say about the kids. She didn’t, and an awkward silence followed.

To break the silence, he asked, “What are you going to do?” That was the question he cared about more than anything else.

“I thought I told you. I’m going to Virginia in an hour or two, and I’ll stay with my sister. I want to sell the house, but that can wait.”

Nathan didn’t want to come across as pushy, but he asked, “No, I mean…after that. I assume you won’t relocate there permanently.”

This seemed to catch Jackie by surprise. It was clear she hadn’t been thinking about her long-term future. “Oh, I don’t really know. I don’t want to stay there forever. I guess I’ll figure it out when I get down there.”

Now came time for Nathan to make a move. He’d thought long and hard about the consequences of his actions, but he wasn’t prepared to live with not saying anything at all. “What if you stayed here?”

Jackie almost jumped out of her seat. “What do you mean?” she asked, looking for clarification at the seemingly asinine proposal.

He’d dug himself into a hole with no other options but to keep digging. “I don’t mean in this house, but stay in the area,” he replied, trying to find an equilibrium that showed emotion without sounding like a used car salesman. “Move to the city, go back to school and finish your degree. You said you only needed a couple of credits anyway. Use the year to advance yourself and then you can make a whole new life for yourself once you get your kids back.”

Nathan was impressed with his delivery. Jackie still looked at him with disbelief. “And what about us?” she asked, looking for the ulterior motive he might be hiding.

Her interest had been piqued, but Nathan hadn’t won yet. His confidence had been restored. He took a deep breath. “Look, before the incident, I really liked where we were. I’d like to see if we could get back there. If not, then there are millions of people in the city for you to meet. But most importantly, I’m here for you if you need me and that won’t change if you decide you want to move on. I can’t change what happened, but I can help you get your life back in order.” Nathan stopped himself to avoid an oversell. This idea was definitely out there, and he knew the odds that she’d want to go for it were low.

“Do you really believe things can go back to the way they were?”

The truthful answer to that was a resounding no. Most definitely not. But Nathan took a teeny bit of spin on it and said, “I don’t know, probably not to where they were before.” He saw the defeated look on her face and added, “I’ll tell you what I do know. While you were in my life, I had a woman who made sense to me. In a world full of narcissist, nosy assholes and otherwise mean people, you stood out as a genuine, honest woman who I was absolutely crazy about. Then you were taken away by those very same assholes and I was left wondering why we couldn’t be together. I don’t know the answer to that either. But I don’t believe anyone but us has the right to tell us that we can’t be together. I hope you feel the same way.”

His case had been made. It wasn’t as eloquent as he would have liked but he spoke from the heart and showed the kind of genuine emotion that had escaped him throughout his life. Even if Jackie declined, he had learned more about how to express himself.

She looked bewildered by this suggestion. It was as if Nathan had asked them to run away to Vegas together to get married in an Elvis chapel. But something had gotten to her.

“I like you too, Nathan, and I don’t want this to be over either,” she said. “But I don’t know how this is going to work.”

Nathan didn’t know either. He’d spoken from the heart more than the brain, though Jackie’s newfound wealth from the settlement would solve most of the logistic problems. “I don’t know either. All I know is I don’t want to lose you. We can figure it all out. Take it one step at a time.”

He stood up from his seat in another bold move. He grabbed Jackie and gave her the most passionate kiss of his whole life. At the natural break of their intertwined lips, he reassured her by saying, “It’ll all be okay.”

They didn’t have morning sex that day. Instead, Nathan helped her load up her car. Somehow, that felt more romantic. Like a new chapter was beginning.

Jackie offered to give him a ride home, but he instead chose to walk to do some packing of his own. He would’ve liked to have spent more time with her that morning, but he was filled with the excitement of knowing their story was far from over. He kissed her goodbye as she pulled out of the driveway.

As Nathan walked down her driveway, he saw a familiar face peering out the window at him. The person whose evil mischief had changed his life forever. There was Corinne Kalford, spying on him like she always did.

He wanted to yell out at her and tell her about how he’d overcome her attempt to ruin him, that his relationship with Jackie would survive her meddling. Words seemed unnecessary. Instead he stood on the foot of her lawn and pulled down his zipper.

Nathan took a moment to think of how fortunate it was that Jackie had given him that cup of coffee. As Mrs. Kalford looked at him with horror, he peed on her lawn using one hand to guide his stream and the other to give her the middle finger.