The Billion Dollar Sitter (17 page)

"Oh ho. Poor boy can't manage a few days without me. You better hope nothing ever happens to me, Tyson. You'd become the next Howard Hughes or something real fast." I shared an uncanny resemblance to Margaret Knight. It took the longest time to get Tyson to stop comparing me to her. Her voice, though, was nothing like mine. Hers was sultry, like she'd be just at home tossing back beers in a seedy bar as she would be in a boardroom.

"What can I say? You're the only woman I could ever truly love. Without you, I may as well become a recluse."

"Seriously? Ty, without me, you'd have women beating down the door to be with you. I'm sure one of them would be worth loving." Margaret laughed.

"Perish the thought, right now, Margaret. I don't want to think of such things. There's one person for us. It's a big world, but when you find the one, you know it. It's only one."

"Please. A hopeless romantic to the fucking end. Jesus. You bite it, I'm back on the market in six months, tops. Life doesn't end just because someone else's does. You heard the priest, 'til death do you part."

"No. You're the only one for me."

"Stop with the posturing. I know you love me. I know you'd do anything for me. The way you keep going on about it is kind of pathetic."

"I mean it, Margaret. My love is for you, and you alone."

"Goddamn I'd smack you if I could do it over the phone." She paused a moment. "Pilot finally showed up. Another person we ought to can, Ty. But Jet's ready regardless, and I'm not waiting for another pilot to show up, and the weather's clear right now. I'll talk to you in - Jesus, I don't feel like doing time zone math. Hours? Day? Whatever. Love you."

"I love you too, Margaret. Be safe."

The call ended. I had sulked down on to my butt outside of his room. There it was. Everything I had feared. Confirmed. He couldn't love me. He was a one woman man.

The recording began to play again from the start. Was he just sitting in there listening to it over and over again? Of course. His wife's voice was probably comforting to him. He tried to move on like she wished him to, but he ultimately couldn't.

I sighed. At least, finally, I knew. It wasn't the truth I wanted, but it was truth.

I went back to my room, my tears dried, and slept my final night on Tyson Knight's estate.

***

My luggage was stacked high. Gifts, clothes, everything else that I've accumulated over the past year. I don't know if I could even keep these mementos if they kept me thinking of him.

One last thing to do. To finalize our deal, as the contract outlined.

Alone, I walked into Tyson's main office. The one I had eavesdropped on him the night before. It didn't seem like he even left his seat since then. Dark circles around his eyes, his beard had more scruff, lacking the general maintenance that he usually did. His eyes were heavy with a sadness as he met mine.

"Ah, Miss Sky, we expected you at noon. It is fifteen minutes past that." It wasn't his voice I heard. I turned and saw a suit next to him. Wire-framed glasses, hair soaked in gel, his suit maintained perfectly. He looked like exactly what you think of when you think of generic lawyer.

"I had to say goodbye to the kids. Took longer than I thought."

My eyes were closed. Would I ever see them again? The legalese said I didn't get any rights to them. Cold, calculating text. Ironclad, I probably couldn't dispute it if I tried. Surely, I couldn't afford a good enough lawyer to battle Tyson's.

"Your compensation." Generic Lawyer handed me a check. A million dollars, as promised. Even with that, I couldn't afford to go to war with Tyson's legal team. To him, this was how I saw the nickel I spent on a piece of bubble gum. Literally nothing.

I stared at it. "I'd tear this up right now if you want me to, Tyson. I don't want to be a whore. I want you. I want you to love me. Please."

Tyson turned his gaze away. He couldn't even look at me.

I breathed, and placed the check into my purse. It was going to be awkward taking this and depositing it into my local mom and pop bank. "I understand. You can only love one woman. I totally understand." The tears ran down my cheek, and I turned toward the door. The handle turned, I was prepared to make my exit from Tyson Knight's life.

"Marci, wait." I turned. Hopes welled up inside me. Just like the movies, at the last possible minute, he would rush toward me, sweep me up, and tell me he loves me. That he was sorry for his inability to tell me how he feels.

"Tyson?" I felt the smile forming on my lips.

"Marissa is yours. I award you full custody."

"Mr. Knight, the child belongs to you," Generic Lawyer said. "You have no worries of legal ramifications. I assure you."

"Damn the contract, Cole. She is her mother. I don't want to cause more heartbreak than I need to. Cut her a check for another five million. More if she requests it. Any amount she asks of is hers."

"Excellent thinking, sir. This places you in a better situation if she comes seeking child support."

I didn't expect this. Why couldn't I just get those words? Why was giving up his daughter and giving me millions of dollars so much easier than just giving me those three words? Some part of me during our intimacy told me that's how he felt. I've never felt like that way about anyone before. Was I mistaken? I had to be. That's why he couldn't tell me.

"Shut up, Cole. I don't care about any of that. If you talk so insensitively again, I will strangle you, and I have the money that all I'd have to do is community service as penance." His voice was low, seething.

I turned and ran out the door. I wasn't going to get what I sought. Hope? What the heck was that?

One month later...

My bags were packed and loaded into Mom's fancy new car. My flight left in three hours. Given I didn't have the power or know how to bribe my way through security, I had to show up early like everyone else. I tucked my daughter into her car seat. I could see traces of him in her face already. A living memory of what could never be.

I sat in the front seat, and buckled myself in. Mom was running late, talking away on the phone inside. She was hot about something, screaming into the device. I wish I knew what, but the insulation I paid to have fixed on the windows also served as really good soundproofing. She was seeming to calm down at least. I was glad, I didn't want the last time I'd see her to be with her in anger. She laughed. Then a smile? What an odd phone call to be holding her up.

She seemed calm about the whole matter. She closed the call out with some effort, still not used to the fancy phone I had bought her. She leaned on the fireplace for a few moments. The soft smile was still on her face. She finally started heading out to the car, locking the door and arming the security system behind her. All new and top of the line. The house really didn't fit into the neighborhood anymore.

Mom opened the door and got in beside me.

"What was that phone call about, Mom," I asked. "You were, um, really into it."

"Oh, that?" She smiled. "Nothing, really. Don't you worry about it, Marci. A heated argument. They made me see their point of view. Not a bad point of view. One I understood."

"What was it?"

She turned on the ignition of the car and pulled out on to the street as she spoke. "Marci, you know why I never remarried after your father passed?"

"I don't know. You never told me. I was, like, three. Barely even remember him."

"A shame. He was a good man. Such a good man that I felt terrible at the prospect of betraying his love by remarrying."

"I do remember you going on dates. I had my own share of babysitters. And the occasional memory of you with some weird men."

"I tried, Marci. I really did. I wanted the nuclear family for you. I wanted you to have a father. But I also wanted a man I could truly love as much as my husband as well.."

"Uh huh." I always wondered what it'd be like having a father. If I had one and he didn't really love my mother or the other way around, I don't think I'd have liked it very much. I had friends with ice cold parental relationships. It was just kind of awkward being around them. I'd have hated to be the kid in that situation.

"There were good men who wanted to be with me. One even proposed to me. I had to turn them down. It hurt me to do so, because I felt they would have been good choices, but - but I couldn't do it."

"Couldn't do what?"

"Betray your father. Every time I was tempted to say yes, the memories came rushing back. I'm regretting it, years later. Far past when such offers are still on the table for me."

"Don't talk like that. I got you a nice car Mom. You go get yourself a nice trophy husband now." I smiled at her. She deserved happiness like everyone else. For putting up with me, for all the pain she's went through.

"I'll try, but I don't know if there's anyone out there for this old woman."

"You're like, thirty-seven. That's like, not old."

"Hah, I wish I could believe you." She shook her head. I could tell her she was the sexiest woman on the planet, brought on a panel of young, buff hot guys, and she probably still wouldn't have believed me. "Point I'm trying to make is, Marci, is when you love someone so much, it's hard to move on."

"Wait," her metaphor started to catch up with me. "You're talking about Tyson."

"Yes, honey."

"You hate him! You went on and on about how you thought he was exploiting me. That I was being used, and how I was making a youthful mistake by doing any of this."

"Yes. A man who is my age shouldn't be dating nineteen and twenty-year-olds, let alone having children with them. It seems improper and wrong to me, really."

"Then why the whole sudden defense? I mean, I never even told you about Margaret." I hadn't. I had the sneaking suspicion that my mother probably thought he was existing kid was from him knocking up some other teenager and pulling the whole contract thing, not that Tyson had a decades long committed relationship with a woman before he even met me.

"Oh, Moms have ways of figuring things out. It all made some weird logical sense to me. The way you've been moping around all the time. How you look at your daughter with a painful regret - not a regret that she exists, but just a reminder of what you want doesn't. You're madly in love with that man. It doesn't seem to make sense to me. But there's something else that really makes no sense whatsoever."

"What's that?"

"Love. Love makes no sense. Your father was a steel worker. My family was rich. They disowned me for what they saw as marrying under my class. I didn't care. I had him. They didn't think we had anything in common, but I couldn't imagine life without him at the time. It didn't make sense to them. You and Tyson doesn't make complete sense to me, either. But who am I to judge?"

"Mom, I think we're way off from the airport." I had gotten somewhat used to the road to the airport through my year with Tyson. The private airfield was across from the commercial one. We weren't going anywhere near the right way.

"I'm taking a short cut."

"A short cut? I think I've seen that same laundromat three minutes ago. Are we driving in circles?"

"What? Of course not. I know where I'm going. I'm awfully thirsty though."

I stared at my mother like she was going mad. With the grin on her face, and how she looked like she was about to burst out into laughter, my guess wasn't that far off.

"I know you don't want me to go Mom, but if I'm not going to have him in my life, I need to go to a school where I don't see one of Tyson's towers on my commute every morning."

She pulled up the car at the city's central park. It was completely empty, the sky gray. Rain seemed like an inevitability at this point. "Marci, I think I need a bottle of water. Could you go fetch me a bottle out of that vending machine over there?"

She handed me a dollar bill. I took it, and got out of the car. If she was having a nervous break down, I had to do what I could to calm her down. I took a few steps toward the set of vending machines, and I heard the car door close behind me.

Before I turned around, I heard the tires peel out and on to the road. "Mom?" I cried out, chasing the car as if I had any hope of actually catching the thing. "Where the hell are you going?"

I stopped running. I didn't even have my purse to shove the dollar bill into. My mother ditched me in a park and I have a flight in two and a half hours. Great, because I need more to worry about in my life.

Like the dark gray sky hanging above. Everything just needed to be worse for me, just now.

I began walking through the park, chattering in coldness. A light travel dress was intended for the warmth of my destination, not the temperature of where I was leaving from.

Kind of eerie, going through the park with no one there. I worried a little bit with my mother acting somewhat batty and having my daughter in the car. I just had to trust that she was still my mother and would never do a single thing that would definitely put me or her granddaughter in any real danger.