Waving goodbye to my father, I follow her. She’s already buckled up when I get in the car.
My eyes seek her out in the rearview mirror. Tendrils of her dark hair fall into her face. She tries to blow them away, her blue eyes watching me. She has a way of looking at you like she’s looking through you, like she can see how you’re feeling on the inside, those things you try not to let show. It’s unnerving sometimes. For being so young, she’s quite intuitive.
Which is why I plaster a smile on my face, but I can tell she doesn’t buy it.
Home is a small two-bedroom apartment a few blocks away. It’s not much, but it’s enough for us, and it’s what I can afford, so you’ll hear no complaints from me. As soon as I open the front door, Maddie takes off through the apartment.
“Straight into the bathtub!” I shout, locking up behind me. I flick on the hallway light as I make my way to the bathroom, passing Maddie’s bedroom as I go, seeing she’s rooting through her dresser, looking for the perfect pair of pajamas.
She’s fiercely independent.
Something she got from her father.
“I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready!” she says as she runs into the bathroom when I get the water started. Shoving between the bathtub and me, she grabs the pink bottle of bubbles and squeezes some under the faucet, giggling, as always, when they start to form. “I got this, Mommy.”
I take a step back. “You got this?”
“Uh-huh,” she says, not looking at me, fixated on the filling bathtub. She sets the bottle of bubbles down on the floor near her feet before turning the knobs, shutting off the water. “I got this.”
Like I said… independent.
“Well, go on then. Do your thing.”
I don’t close the door, but I give her some leeway, keeping an eye on her from outside the bathroom. I can hear her splashing, playing in even more water, like the rain hadn’t quite been enough. I use the time to gather up laundry, trying to distract myself, but it’s pointless.
My mind keeps going back to him.
I sort two weeks worth of dirty clothes into piles on my bedroom floor. Every time I pause, my eyes flicker to my closet, drawn to the old ratty box on the top shelf. I can’t see it from here, but I know it’s there.
I haven’t thought about it in a while. I haven’t had a reason. Life has a way of burying memories.
In my case, they’re buried under a mountain of other junk in the closet.
I fight it, for a moment, but the pull is too much. Abandoning the laundry, I step straight for the closet, digging out the box.
The cardboard rips when I yank it down, falling apart in my hands. Things scatter around the floor. A picture lands by my feet.
I carefully pick it up.
It’s him.
He’s wearing his school uniform… or as much of it as he ever wore. No sweater, no jacket, and no dress shoes, of course. His white button down is unbuttoned, the tie draped around his neck. Beneath it, he’s wearing a plain black t-shirt. His hands are in his pockets, his head cocked to the side. He almost looks like a model, like the picture belongs in a magazine.
A knot forms in my chest. It’s suffocating. I can feel the anger and sadness bitterly brewing inside of me, growing stronger as the years go on. My eyes burn with tears, and I don’t want to cry, but the sight of him takes me back.
“All done!”
My gaze darts to the doorway as the small cheery voice echoes through the bedroom. I grip the picture tightly, holding it behind my back. She’s dressed in a pair of red pajamas, her hair drenched on the ends, a few bubbles around her ears. Mud still streaks her right cheek.
“All done?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “Did you even wash your hair?”
“Nope.”
Of course she didn’t. She can’t.
“And what about your face?” I ask. “I’m starting to think you only played in the bubbles.”
“So? I’m gonna get more dirty later!”
“So?” I gasp, acting horrified. “You can’t stay dirty. You have school tomorrow!”
She looks about as thrilled about school as I was as a child. Rolling her eyes, she shrugs, as if to say, ‘why does that matter?’
Before I can say anything else, her attention shifts to the mess scattered along the floor, her eyes widening as she gasps. “Breezeo!”
She dodges forward, snatching up the old comic book encased in a plastic protective sleeve. I freeze. I wouldn’t call it vintage, nor is it worth more than a few bucks, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to part with that comic.
To me, it meant too much.
“Mommy, it’s Breezeo,” she says, her face lit up with excitement. “Look!”
“I see,” I say when she holds it up to show me.
“Can we read it? Please?”
“Uh, sure,” I say, moving one hand from behind my back to take the comic book from her. “But first, back into the bathtub.”
She groans, making a face.
“Go on.” I nod my head toward the doorway. “I’ll be there in a minute to wash your hair.”
Turning, she trudges back to the bathroom. I wait until she’s gone to set the comic book down and pull the picture out from behind my back. I stare at it for a second, letting myself feel those things once again, before crumbling it up into a ball and discarding it on the floor with all of the other memories.
Pulling out my cell phone, I scroll through it, dialing a number as I stroll down the hall, hearing it ring a few times before voicemail clicks on.
‘It’s Andrew. Can’t make it to the phone. Leave a message and I’ll give you a call.’
Beep.
“Hey, Drew. It’s, uh… Kennedy. Look, I’m going to have to take a rain check on tomorrow night. Something came up, and well, you know how it is.”
Chapter 2
JONATHAN
The limo slows as it nears Eighth Avenue, the traffic thick at seven o’clock in the morning, just south of sunrise as the world heads to work. Friday. I’m sure the detours don’t help people get where they’re going, but it’s New York—they ought to be used to it. Never a day goes by that something isn’t going on here. They’re some of the most adaptable people on the planet—New Yorkers—but they’re also some of the most no-nonsense. They don’t have time for bullshit.
And this morning, it feels like we’re all knee-deep in it.
People line the streets as we near the metal barricades. Out-of-towners, I’m assuming, because locals aren’t usually the type to give a shit when filming happens in their territory. We’re more of a nuisance than anything, blocking off streets and shutting down neighborhoods, disrupting lives. I have nothing to do with any of that—I don’t pick the place, I just show up when they tell me to—but more than once I’ve had the blame thrown my way. Smug bastard, who does he think he is, shutting down part of Midtown during rush hour?