LIKE ANY COMPLETELY sane person, I’m standing in the middle of the bedroom I have shared with Tori for the past year and I’m circling around, looking for a place to start. Top drawers are always where women keep their private shit, at least in the movies. Feeling only slightly bad for doing what I’m about to do, I pick up the picture frame with Tori and I shoving ice cream into each other’s faces from our first date, and turn it around to face the wall. “Sorry, babe, but this is for your own good,” I say to the back of the frame.
I pull open her top drawer, feeling a little more guilt spill through me as I push her black laced panties to the side.
After running my hands over every pair of panties she owns, I pull my hand out and close the drawer. Following with the next three drawers, I come out empty-handed each time. Before more guilt finds me, I’m on the ground, searching beneath the bed. Nothing here either.
My last resort is the closet, because I refuse to dig around through the basement right now, plus it’s mostly my junk down there anyway. When we moved in together last year, Tori came with very little. I believe it was less than a dozen boxes, three suitcases, a duffel bag, and a cosmetic bag. I never thought much of it, but I guess it was a little weird. Being in our late twenties, I’d expect us both to come with a decent amount of baggage. Turns out, she’s been hiding said baggage all along. The joke is on me.
Frustrated and annoyed, I pull myself up from the ground and do another circle around the room. I don’t even know what she’d be hiding. I’m looking for nothing and hoping to find the answer. I’m not that damn stupid.
Still, with my last ounce of hope, I open the closet door and search from the top down to the floor. She has a million fucking pairs of shoes but no answers as to why she’s turned into a damn loon. My anger is getting the best of me when I tear down shoe boxes from the top shelf, looking to see if there’s anything behind them. Of course, there’s nothing. Why would she be hiding something? Fuck!
I shove everything back in, one box at a time, replacing it exactly as it was. As I position the last box into the closet, the lid pops off and a bunch of crumpled pieces of notepad paper flies out. What the hell is this?
I lift the box up and dump it on the bed, finding at least two dozen crumpled balls of hot pink notepaper. The idea of unraveling them makes me feel uneasy, but I have to know what this is. I uncrinkle the first one and smooth it out over the bed, finding words written in thick black marker.
The note reads:
This was a bad day. A very bad day.
The written words appear childish, not like Tori’s perfect handwriting. I begin unraveling more notes, lining them up on the bed. At first, I don’t know what order they go in but now I see each note is numbered by days.
In the order I have laid them out, the notes read:
Today was number two. I know this isn’t right.
Today was number five. We’re scared.
Today was number six. No one will care.
Today was number ten. I don’t know who to call but I think we need help.
Today was number twenty. We’ve run out of food and it smells in here.
Today was number twenty-four. I’m going to find help.
I feel less enlightened now than I did before, as I crumple each piece of paper back up and toss it into the box. Every kid does weird things. Maybe she was grounded for a couple of weeks. This discovery, although mysterious, is no help at all.
I place the box back into the closet and slam the door shut, realizing a second too late that I shouldn’t be slamming doors in a house with a sleeping baby.
I freeze for a minute, hoping Gavin didn’t hear the noise. No such luck, though. Crap. Gavin’s up, and he’s definitely feeling that pain in his ear now. Shit, shit, shit.
Just as I kick the door one last time, my phone buzzes on the bed. It’s Mom. I forgot she was coming over with the prescription for Gavin. I’ve forgotten everything in the last thirty minutes.
With a couple of deep breaths, in and out, doing my best to calm the redness that’s likely splotched across my tell-all face, I leave my bedroom, walk past my screaming baby’s door, and head downstairs to greet Mom.
“Coming,” I shout, even though she didn’t ring the bell.
I need to take one last breath before I let her in, but none of the breaths I’ve taken in the past few seconds have done anything to ease my anger and frustration. I open the door and let it fly wide as I make my way back upstairs and into Gavin’s room to pick him up. “AJ?” Mom calls from the front door.
“Tori isn’t home; you can come in,” I shout back, in between hushes to Gavin.
Mom meets me in the hallway outside of Gavin’s bedroom. “Oh, my poor grandbaby,” she coos.
“Holy cow, your grandson has a load in his pants,” I say, getting a whiff of something rotten. “Give me a sec while I dispose of whatever crawled into his diaper.”
Mom laughs, a knowing little chuckle reminding me that she’s been here, and she’s done this. “Honey, I think you dropped a note or something out here. Want me to throw it away?”