“I’ve seen your shirt after a knife went through; that wasn’t knives, was it?”
“No,” I said.
“Claws, Jesus, Zaniel, what clawed you up like that?”
I shook my head. “Demon.”
“Demons aren’t that solid.”
“It’s been a hell of a day,” I said.
She looked up at me with fear raw on her face, fear for my safety. She’d started using her anger to mask how scared she was every time I left for work.
“You could die.”
“Everyone can die,” I said.
She stood up and in the high-heeled boots, which she knew I loved to see her in, she was six feet at least, not that much shorter than me. I’d liked that she was tall and still loved wearing heels, liked that she hadn’t tried to hide her height like so many tall women do.
“You’d leave Connery without a father.”
“We’ve had this fight before, Reggie. Now I say that statistically driving a car is more dangerous than my job, or working as an overnight clerk at a 7-Eleven, and you say—”
“The clerk doesn’t chase monsters or fight demons every day.”
“I go days without chasing anything, and demons are rare even on my job.”
“Damn it, Zaniel, stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“Missing my point.”
“Your point is that you hate my job, because it scares you, because you think I’m more at risk than on most other jobs.”
“Yes, yes, that is my point.”
“You’re a teacher in a public school, Reggie; you’ve taken knives off of students, and there was a gun scare two months ago.”
“There was a rumor two months ago that a student might bring a gun to school, but it was another student trying to get someone in trouble.”
“I’m just saying that your job is dangerous, too, but I don’t ask you to quit.”
“If you asked me to give it up, I would.”
“Really? And what would you do?”
“I’d stay home with Connery.”
I smiled, and it was a mistake.
“Why is that funny?” She half yelled it.
“You’d be climbing the walls in a month being a stay-at-home mom.”
“How do you know that? If you made more money maybe, we could have tried it.”
“I’m making pretty good money, especially for a cop.”
“Not enough for me to quit my job.”
“You don’t make enough for me to quit my job and stay at home with Connery either.”
“You’ve never said you wanted to do that before.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I would? I’d love to see him every day. I miss dropping him off at preschool. Maybe being a stay-at-home dad would be awesome.”
She studied my face, not angry anymore, but thinking, trying to decide if I was serious. She wasn’t the only one, but suddenly the thought of tucking my kid in at night and being there when he woke up, taking him to preschool, even cooking meals for all of us while Reggie went to work sounded . . . possible.
“You never said that you wanted to do that before,” she said.
“I make more money than you do; if we can’t afford to make it on just my salary, there’s no way for us to make it on just yours.” I shrugged, and then wished I hadn’t because it hurt. “If something isn’t possible, what good does it do to talk about it?”
“I like knowing that you’d try to be the stay-at-home parent. I love knowing that you’d want to spend all day with our son.” She started to touch my bandaged arm and then switched her hand to my other arm. I tried to put my hand over hers, but that hurt the scratched arm too much. I had to stop the movement halfway and take a deep breath not to say ouch, or something even less manly.
She slid her hand down my arm and took my hand in hers for the first time in six months, maybe longer. Her hand was like the rest of her, bigger, still slender and feminine, but her hand held mine easily. She had never made me feel like I couldn’t shake her hand without overwhelming her.
She held my hand and smiled up at me. My heart did a flip-flop, and just like that I felt hopeful and realized that I still loved her, and that with a little encouragement I could be in love with her again. Part of me was happy and part of me thought I was a damn fool.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We made plans to have dinner together, with Dr. Martin acting like a referee as we negotiated all the details. I’d have called it a date, but Reggie called it just having dinner, so I didn’t say the D-word. But the excited, bubbly feeling I had in my stomach and chest felt like more than “just dinner.” I felt happy and stupid for feeling that way, but it’s how I felt. I tried to enjoy the feelings without thinking too hard about how I’d feel if the dinner was a disaster, or if Reggie backed out on it altogether. I pushed the thought away and tried to hold on to the happy excitement.
I got into my car and texted Charleston and Lila almost the same message: “Done with appointment. Do you need me at the house?” to her, and to him, “Done with appointment. Do you need me at the college?” Then I hesitated because I didn’t know where to drive. I’d give them five minutes, then call. Before the separation I’d have been hoping that they didn’t need me and I could go home. Now the last thing I wanted to do was go home to the tiny apartment I’d gotten after I moved out of the home that Reggie and I had made together. I’d let her stay in the house with the kiddo because what else could I do? I was supposed to take care of them; making them move out of the house didn’t feel like I’d be doing that, so Reggie and Connery stayed in the house and I found a tiny, reasonable apartment in El Segundo where the sound of airplanes going overhead almost never stopped. But there was a pool, and a big sycamore tree outside the window where a mockingbird sang all night. It almost drowned out the airplanes. Connery went back home to Reggie full of the pool and the landlady’s pug puppies. He thought sleeping in the big bed with me was an adventure. I’d put him on the couch one weekend, but he’d gotten up in the middle of the night and tried to make popcorn. He’d set off the smoke alarm, so he went in the bedroom and I didn’t fit on the couch. I barely fit in the queen-sized bed.
The thought of going back to the apartment drained away the excitement and the last adrenaline from the emergency at the hospital. I wanted to go home, and the apartment would never be that. I wanted to go home with my wife and be there when Connery got home from preschool, but I couldn’t have that today. There was a dinner planned, almost a date; we’d take it slow, because Reggie didn’t want to take it fast. I took a deep breath and squeezed my hands around the steering wheel until my scratched arm protested as if some of the nail marks had gone into the muscle. I hadn’t had stitches because the skin had peeled away underneath her nails; you can’t stitch a scrape, just bandage it and wait for it to heal.
I could chase after Reggie like an unwanted dog she’d dropped off at a shelter. I couldn’t face the thought of going to the tiny apartment, so what did that leave? Exercise; one of the reasons I was in the best shape of my life was that it was one thing I could do that I could control. I could always lift more weights, or run one more mile, or . . . but I was too hurt to hit the gym, or even run. You use your upper body a lot more than you think when you run. So, what next? What would I do if Charleston told me he didn’t need me and to go home, rest, and heal?