And then it hits me—he didn’t have a heart, so he stole mine.
Forty-Eight
Bennett
* * *
“We’re just waiting on Dr. Rathburn, then you’ll be free to go,” the nurse at my check-up says the following afternoon. She shuts the door to the exam room, and the plastic pharmaceutical company-branded clock over the door jolts.
Honor’s school dismisses in fifteen minutes, but it’ll take at least twenty minutes to get there by the time I leave. Longer if there’s traffic.
I’d originally given Eulalia the afternoon off because Astaire had planned to bring Honor home with her after work, but given yesterday’s events, obviously that isn’t going to happen.
Five minutes pass.
Then ten.
Still no Dr. Rathburn.
An hour ago, I called Eulalia to see if there was any chance she could come in this afternoon, but she was already in Gary, visiting her nephew.
Left with no other choice, I text Astaire and ask if she can bring Honor home today.
At exactly 3:01pm, she texts back with a “yes.”
Nothing more, nothing less.
Honor’s glittery backpack is the first thing I see when I get home. When I round the hallway, the second thing I see is Astaire.
“Hey.” I place my keys on the kitchen counter.
Her purse is hanging from her shoulder. It’s hard to say if that’s because she just got here or because she wanted to be ready to leave the instant I came home.
“Thanks for bringing her home. My appointment ran long,” I say.
“Not a problem.” She avoids eye contact. “She’s in her room playing.”
Silence invades the space between us.
“Did you get my calls?” I ask an obvious question. I’ve been calling her since the moment she left last night.
“I did. And your voice mails and text messages. Got them all.”
“Okay. So … can we talk about them?”
“Nope.” She eyes the foyer and drags in a breath that makes her shoulders shudder before finally turning her attention to me. “You are the worst kind of person. You use people and you lie and you’re beyond cruel. I’ll stand by my promise to be there for Honor in any way that she needs me—but you and I are finished.”
“Astaire.” I move closer to her. “If you’ll let me explain.”
She places her hand out to stop me. “You’re only going to tell me what I want to hear. But I’m not interested in that. I want the truth. And that’s not something you’re capable of giving me. So, no, Bennett. We’re done.”
I let her go one more time—but it’ll be the last time I do.
I said what I said to Errol, and she heard what she heard. I can’t take that back. And I can stand here and explain until I’m blue in the face if she’d let me, but at the end of the day, it isn’t what you say—it’s what you do.
I have to show her what she means to me.
Forty-Nine
Astaire
* * *
“Hey, stranger, long time, no see!” Ophelia wraps her arms around me the instant I walk into her namesake bar Friday night.
I needed to get out for a bit and now that Bennett has Honor, I figured this would be a safe place to seek refuge for a couple of hours. Besides, sitting around stewing and feeling sorry for myself gets old after a day or two.
“What are we drinking?” she asks.
“Gin and tonic.” I take a seat at the bar. I’d order that lemony champagne drink the last bartender made for me, but I can’t remember the name to save my life.
“Eduardo, get the girl a gin and tonic.” Ophelia raps on the bar top. The scent of roses and violets wafts from her as she moves, and her lips are the brightest shade of pink I never knew existed.
This afternoon, Honor asked if I was coming over tonight. She didn’t press it when I told her I wasn’t, and it didn’t seem to upset her. Fortunately, she’s too young to understand that the dynamics between Bennett and myself have changed.
I’ll always be there for her. Always.
Ophelia trots to the other side of the bar and mixes herself a martini with two stuffed olives. “So, I heard you’re seeing Schoenbach.”
“What? Where’d you hear that?” I ask.
The first time I met Ophelia, I never gave her my name. The second time I ran into her here, we had a quick chat by the ladies’ room and I took the time to properly introduce myself. There’s a warmth about her, and she’s one of those people you meet once and feel an instant connection with.
“People talk around here.” Ophelia winks and then nods toward Eduardo. “Schoenbach used to be a regular. Word on the street is he was last seen in here with you … and he hasn’t been back since.”
Eduardo slides a cardboard coaster in front of me before delivering my drink.
“Thank you,” I say, turning back to her. “We were seeing each other. I guess. If you can call it that. But we’re not anymore. Turns out everything he told me was a lie.”
“Really?” She comes around the bar, takes the seat beside me, and rests her head on her hand, which I take it as an open invitation to spill my guts.
So I do.
I tell her everything.
Or at least, my side of everything.
I leave out a few scandalous details, a few of the irrelevant pieces Bennett shared with me in confidence.
But she gets the gist of it. When I’m done, she exhales, deflated and speechless. Her martini still untouched.
“I don’t know …” she finally speaks. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
“What part?” I snort and sip my drink.
“All of it.” Ophelia frowns. “I’ve known the man for years. Years. And I’ve never seen him date anyone, certainly never seen him with the same woman more than once. He spent all that time with you and went to all that effort and all that trouble and basically asked you to spend the rest of your life with him … just so the little girl he adopted would have a mother figure?”
“He trusted me. He knew I was good with kids. And I already had a connection with her, so yeah. In his eyes, I was probably his best option.” I take another drink. “Plus regular sex. Let’s not forget that. Lord knows he can’t be taking random women home on the weekends anymore.”
“It’s just … the man you’re describing sounds so self-serving,” she says. “And the Schoenbach I’ve known for years is anything but.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every year, we have a Thanksgiving food drive. Every year he donates a truck’s worth of canned food. Two years ago, Eduardo mentioned taking a second job because he had to replace the roof on his mother’s house in Naperville—Schoenbach came in the next night and wrote him a check for the roof. Last year, my dad needed knee surgery, but the cheap ass insurance he’s got would only cover part of it, and hardly covered the physical therapy he was going to need after that. Bennett took care of it.”
“Those are all extremely generous things, but I think we’re comparing apples and oranges here …”