Pieces of Him (12 page)

“Why would you help me after how shitty I was to you?”

“It didn’t start out that way. I was helping
him
. He couldn’t help himself. Now, you’re not quite the asshole you presented yourself to be so …” Her lips tip up in a barely detectable smile.

“So you’ll help me too?” I grin at her, and I know it’s flirtatious, but I’m a guy. What do you expect?

“I guess I’ll help you too.” She’s prettier than I remembered. Or maybe my life has been such madness that I forgot. I wonder how she can be so shy and alternately get in your face in the blink of an eye. I wonder what she’s doing here all on her own because she’s young. I can tell … maybe too young. I wonder how she would look in the moments before she’s about to come. Jesus Christ, I’m a pig, but she’s beautiful and I’m not fucking blind.

“He’s totally out.”

“Yeah.”

“I changed him before I fed him, so he should be okay until his next feeding.” She can’t look at me, and it makes me wonder if she knows what I’m thinking. Can she feel how the air in the room has changed because I feel it. “You should get some sleep before his next feeding,” she says. She gets up and lays Xander down. As she straightens, I push off the couch and come to stand next to her.

“Yeah,” I repeat. I sound stupid, but what else am I going to say. I’ve seen this girl on three occasions, and I didn’t make a good impression on either of the first two.

“I guess I’ll come by tomorrow to take you to meet Mrs. Park? Around noon, okay?” she questions grabbing her purse and heading to the front door. I follow her thinking about what a dick I am that I want to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her to me. Make her feel exactly what her presence here does to me. I don’t, though. I reach out and grab the knob opening the door for her.

“Noon’s good.”

“Great.” She smiles up at me on her way out, and as she walks by, I can’t fight the pull. I reach out and catch her hand giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Emelia,” I call, and she turns back, her eyes on our conjoined hands. She recovers and lifts her gaze to meet my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“What you did today, for Xander. Thank you.” I release her hand and take a step back; she steps back too.

“You’re welcome, Max. Good night.”

“Good night.” I watch her walk across the hall.

Watch her as she puts the key in the lock, turns it, and opens her door.

I continue to watch as she moves through it and into her apartment.

I keep watching her as she turns to close it.

Watch as her eyes catch mine right before her door shuts.

Only then do I go back into my apartment. I grab a blanket off my bed, bring it out into the living room, and spread it out on the couch. Lifting Xander up again might wake him, so I decide to sleep out here for now. I lie down on the couch, close my eyes, and let my body relax. My mind goes back to Emelia, to what she did today, and how she protected Xander. I think about how crazy I got at the thought of something happening to him, and it unsettles me. I don’t know how to react to that; I don’t know what to do with how I feel about him and why. I’m thinking about that when I fall asleep, and it’s the first time in two weeks I’ve had a dreamless sleep.

Max~

The sound of my cell ringing wakes me up at eleven in the morning. Xander was up every three to four hours last night. Finally, I gave him a bottle at eight this morning, and afterward, we both fell back to sleep. The phone’s caller ID tells me it’s Dana calling, and at the sight of her name, last night’s events come crashing back into my mind and I’m furious again.

“What?” I answer through gritted teeth.

“Max?” She sounds scared; it’s the correct emotion. She should be fucking terrified of me right now. "I know you’re probably pissed at me but …”

“Pissed?” I say disbelievingly. Pissed doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I feel for her right now. Enraged would be more like it. “Bitch. You better pray you never see me again because I’ll show you pissed.”

“I was just having a bad day. Being around Keri’s boy … yesterday was two weeks since she died. I guess it just got to me.”

How dare she fucking remind me of what yesterday was? As if I could ever forget, as if I don’t live with that shit every day. Nobody feels Keri’s death more than I do because she left me with a permanent reminder. I’d like to drown that shit away in a bottle too. I’d love to forget for one minute that she’s gone. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel so goddamned guilty for not loving her.

“Yeah. Then you do your job, take care of her boy, and wait till you get home to get wasted.”

“I know.” She whines like a child, and it grates my nerves. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“No. You won’t do shit. I don’t want to see your face again, Dana. I’m warning you.”

“Wait,” she drawls on as if a lightbulb finally went off in that dim head of hers. “You’re firing me?”

“Are you fucking shitting me?” I ask because the bitch cannot be believed. “What did you think was going to happen? Did you think that I was going to pat you on the back and say no worries?”

“I just ...”

“Do not come back here,” I say, before hanging the phone up. I run a hand through my hair and say a silent prayer for patience. If this lady Emelia’s taking me to meet today doesn’t agree to watch Xander, I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I was forced to put him in daycare, there’s no way I’d be able to contribute to my savings the way I have been doing. Instead of dwelling on it, I make Xander his next bottle so that it’ll be ready when he wakes up. I use the free time to get Xander’s clothes for the day and get myself dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. I’m putting socks on when I hear him start to cry and I head back out into the living room. I snatch up the bottle I made him, scoop him up, and sit on the couch with him.

“Hey, bud, you hungry?” I have no idea why, but when I talk to the kid, he almost always seems to calm down. It’s as if he knows me, as if he knows I’m his dad.

I give him his bottle and when he’s done, I set him down while I go make myself a cup of coffee. It’s almost odd the way we’ve fallen into a routine of sorts, but it’s also refreshing not to have to go through every single minute of my day wondering what to do next. When I make it back to him, I grab his change of clothes and a fresh diaper so I can get him ready to go. I smell him immediately; this is the worst part of taking care of him. I wasn’t cut out to clean shit.

“All right, kid, you stink. Let’s get this over and done with,” I tell him unzipping his pajamas. I pull the sleeves off him and when I get to his legs, I stop dead. “What the fuck?” I ask horrified at the sight. “Xander, what did you do? Jesus Christ, it’s everywhere.”

He looks at me as if the sight of me fascinates him, and all the while, I’m fighting back the urge to hurl. The kid blew out his diaper, and shit is literally everywhere. I have no idea how he could possibly have made such a mess of himself in the last ten minutes. I don’t want to know, and I seriously consider waiting for Emelia to get here and begging her to deal with this for me.

“Fuck, little man, stay here,” I say as if he could actually go anywhere. I go to his makeshift nursery, grab a washcloth and a towel, and head to the kitchen sink. I pull the baby bath and soap out and start the water letting it run until it’s warm. When I’m satisfied it won’t burn him, I go back to him,
carefully
strip him out of his clothes and diaper, and take him to the sink. Even though the remains of his umbilical cord fell off a few days ago, I’ve been putting off giving him a full-fledged bath. I don’t want to drown or burn the kid, but I have no other way to clean him when there’s this much shit everywhere. I lean over the sink and hold him against my chest so that I can run the warm water over his back. I expect him to cry, but he doesn’t. I pour some of his soap on the washcloth and wipe his back and bottom down before laying him down on the bath sling thing and washing his front. When I’m done, I scoop him up and wrap him in the towel. I’m fucking impressed as shit with myself for getting through that.

A knock sounds on the door as I’m walking back into the living room, and I call out that the door’s open. Emelia walks in hesitantly as if coming into this apartment is uncomfortable for her. I guess I can’t blame her. I’m not exactly the easiest person to deal with.

“Hi,” she says as she closes the door behind her.

“Hey,” I return, quickly taking stock of her. Her brown hair falls in loose waves around her face. Her purple top fits snugly against her torso accentuating her curves and her jeans fit like a second skin. In other words, she looks amazing again. Jesus Christ, I need to stop looking at her like this. “I just need a minute. Xander had an accident.”

She looks around I’m sure seeing the evidence of the destruction that remains. She smiles at me. “I can get him dressed for you while you clean up if you want?”

I grin at her and chuckle. “You wouldn’t rather clean the shit?”

“Ah, no ...” She draws the no out in exaggeration … it’s cute. I shake my head at her and transfer Xander into her arms when she gets close. She plops down on the couch with him and starts to dress him. I start picking up the layers of clothing, blankets, and diapers that he shit all over and load it into the stackable washer and dryer in my bathroom. I throw the rest of his laundry in there with the special detergent Nurse Marie told me to get and start the machine. By the time I come out of the bathroom, Emelia has Xander fully dressed and is rocking him back and forth.

“So was that your first blowout?”

“That wasn’t a blowout. It was an explosion.”

She giggles at me and gives Xander a squeeze. “Maybe you should move to the bigger sized diaper.”

“I didn’t think of that,” I admit, suddenly feeling like I’ve dropped the ball.

“You’re doing a great job, Max. He’s thriving and you should be proud of that. I don’t know how you’re doing it. I would have buckled under the pressure already.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true … and blowouts can happen at any time. Going up a size is just a suggestion.”

“I’ll get him the bigger size,” I tell her. “You ready to go upstairs?”

“Yeah.” She nods, pushing to her feet. “I went up there this morning and let her know we’d be coming. She’s excited to meet Xander.”

Jesus, this girl is full of surprises. I have no idea what I did to deserve her help, but for once in my life, I’m grateful. I take Xander from her and lead her out of my apartment. Together, we walk silently up the double flight of stairs that lead to the second floor. She walks ahead of me when we reach the landing, and I follow her down the hall to the second door on the right. She knocks on the door, and it opens almost immediately. On the other side stands a woman of average height, shoulder-length brown hair with streaks of white throughout, kind eyes, and a genuinely nice smile.

“Hi, Mrs. Park,” Emelia greets her with a smile.

“Emelia.” She returns then turns her attention to me. “You must be Max.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say in confirmation, but her eyes are already on Xander.

“And this must be Xander. Oh, my goodness! He’s so beautiful,” she says with a smile. “Come on in.”

She shows us into her apartment, which is almost identical to mine. Different furniture, same layout. Her walls are full of pictures of children and family, unlike mine, which are bare.

“Have a seat. Can I get you two anything to drink?”

“No.”

“No, thank you.” We both answer simultaneously. We sit down on her couch and she begins to tell us about her background. How she taught elementary school-aged children for the majority of her career. She tells about her family, her children, her young grandchildren, and how they’ve moved away. She tells us how she’s been looking for something to fill the hours of her day and how she would just love to go back to what makes her feel good about herself. She’s willing to accept the same amount of money I was paying Dana, so at hearing this, of course, I’m thinking she is the perfect person to watch Xander.

“Mrs. Park, I think this would be a perfect fit for us if you’d really be willing to watch Xander.”

“I’d love it. What are the hours that you’d need me?”

“Seven to five most days.”

“Oh. Honey, I’m sorry. On Mondays and Fridays, I volunteer at the hospital, and I start there at four pm.”