No Quick Fix: Torus Intercession Book One, page 15
“How do you know she’s not sleeping well?”
“Because she was up and down a lot last night, and she even came in to see if I was sleeping a few times.”
“I’m sorry she woke you.”
“I don’t sleep hard, so it was no problem. But it’s no good for her, especially on school nights, so with your permission, I—”
“It’s fine, Brann. You don’t need to check with me about the girls. I think we covered that yesterday. We’re on the same page.”
“Oh yeah? You trust me?”
“I do, yes.”
It was better to hear than I would have thought.
Eleven
When we got back to Lydia and her friends, she was overwhelmed, I could tell, when Olivia passed her a mojo bag with stones inside that both she and her sister had picked out for her. She opened it and put them in her hand as they explained to her what they got. She was further touched when April took her hand and led her a little away from the rest of us so she could talk to her.
“Oh, Brann,” Shelby said, leaning into me and giving me a quick hug. “You’re such a good influence on the girls.”
I squinted at her. “Those girls have big kind hearts, and I can assure you that it’s their father’s influence on his children and nothing to do with me.”
“And yet,” she said, rounding on me, “you being here seems to have made them warm-up to Lydia.”
“It’s not me.”
“She’s been dying for those girls to like her.”
“They will; they just need time.”
Emery stayed quiet, even though I was sure he could hear us from the short distance away, speaking to Lydia’s other friends.
Olivia walked over to slip her hand into mine. “It’s cold. I wanna go home.”
April and Lydia walked back over to us, and as soon as April reached me, she leaned into my side, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, petting her hair.
“Can we go?”
It did not escape my notice that both of them were clinging to me like I was a life raft in the middle of the ocean.
“Come on, let’s go,” Emery announced, coming up beside me. “There’s grocery shopping and homework—we’ve got things to do.”
Emery gave Lydia a peck on the cheek, and then with a move he’d been perfecting all day, had his hand on my back as he steered me forward, shepherding all of us, me and the girls, toward the parking lot.
I had a perfect day once we got home. Everyone pitched in putting away groceries. Then I helped Olivia with her homework, Emery helped April with hers, and the girls called their grandparents while I made a report to my boss. It went on from there, a day filled with talking and cooking and getting ready for the coming week. I felt like I was part of a family, and even though I knew loving it and wanting it was inherently dangerous to my heart, I couldn’t help falling for the man and his girls. I put thoughts of leaving out of my head.
Monday morning, Emery had to leave early for an English department meeting, which worked out great because I had to accompany April to school so I could speak with Mrs. Dabney. What was great was that Emery had the foresight to put me on the list at the school as a guardian before I arrived. It meant I was able to go to the office and receive a pass to walk around for a specific amount of time. Apparently, he had also given them a copy of my immunization record and background check. The man was definitely thorough. I had to hand it to him, as his diligence allowed me access to the building after showing the clerk my ID.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” April said, clinging to my hand after I hugged and kissed Olivia goodbye.
“Come see me before you leave,” Olivia prodded me.
“I’m not supposed to bother you in class,” I told her.
Her smile was blinding. “You won’t bother me.”
“Of course it won’t bother you, dork, but it’ll bother your teacher.”
She made a face, and I made one back and then promised I’d stop in before I left.
At the library, Mrs. Dabney came to the counter when she was told by the assistant librarian that I was there to talk to her.
“Why did you bring her flowers?” April grumbled beside me.
“Because I’m gonna try talkin’ to her man-to-man before I do anything else.”
“Man-to-man?” she said like I was nuts.
“Shuddup.”
She giggled but got serious once the older woman stepped up to the counter.
I passed her the roses and lilies before she could say a word. She was surprised the flowers were for her, as evidenced by her mouth falling open and her wide eyes.
“I’m sorry about Saturday,” I rushed out, meeting her gaze. “I get loud when I’m surprised, and if you were shooting at me, I could handle that, but this whole regular one-on-one human interaction is not my strong suit.”
“Oh,” she said, huffing out a breath, her hands moving to the sides of the large vase. “Yes, well—I, too, wasn’t at my best.”
I nodded. “Here’s the thing,” I said, putting my hand on April’s shoulder, “she’s been drawing stuff in her book because she’s had a lot of questions about how her mother died and nobody had been answering them. But instead of bottling that all up, she’s been getting that out creatively so she doesn’t explode.”
Quick glance at April before her attention returned to me.
“But this past weekend, she talked to a doctor and got a lot of her questions answered, so I suspect that the art inside the book will change somewhat. Now, she’s not all fixed-up and she’s still sad, and she’s still gonna have good days and bad days, so you still might notice a picture you don’t love now and again, but that’s okay, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she agreed, taking a breath, smiling now.
“So since you’re a librarian and you’re all about books, and since April loves to read and she’s all about the books as well… do you think we can fix this thing?”
“Yes, I do,” she informed me, her eyes never leaving my face.
“Then would it be all right if April comes back to the library and checks out books?”
“Yes,” she said softly, her eyes back on April. “I’m sorry I kept you from reading, young lady, and I’m very sorry about your mother, as you know. She was a lovely person who we all adored. I miss her too.”
April nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
Mrs. Dabney followed suit.
I had to sit them both down at a table and go on the hunt for Kleenex, which thankfully, the assistant librarian had in her desk.
“I don’t have the whole nanny thing wired yet,” I confessed to Mrs. Dabney, “but I’m working on it.”
She took my hand in hers. “You’re doing better than you think, Mr. Calder.”
I told her to call me Brann. It was a hell of a morning.
On the way out, I poked my head into Olivia’s room to say goodbye, and she came tearing over to me, hurling herself into my arms.
“What’s wrong, Livi?”
“We can’t go on our hike ’cause Mr. Daniels can’t come.”
I glanced up as Olivia’s very pregnant teacher, Mrs. Nakama, walked over to join us. I of course had been regaled with stories about the epicness of Mrs. Nakama on the ride to school, so I knew all about her. “And who is this, Olivia?”
“This is my nanny, Brann.”
“This is your nanny?” Mrs. Nakama said, the surprise clear in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m the nanny,” I advised her as I stood up from my crouch.
She looked me up and down.
“Can we still go if Brann comes with us?”
“Oh, honey, he’s not even allowed to be––”
“I got a pass,” I told her, flashing the sticker that was on my hoodie underneath the open flap of my jacket. “I’m legal.”
“See,” Olivia said, jumping on the bandwagon, “he’s legal.”
Mrs. Nakama gave her an indulgent smile. “Yes dear, I see he does, but he would have to have a background check and—”
“The sheriff will vouch for me,” I told her. “Will that work?”
“Well, yes, I think that, uhm—yes probably, but we were having a forest ranger come with the kids today, Mr.… uhm…”
“You can call me Brann.”
She coughed as her cheeks turned pink. “Oh, yes, Brann. That’s nice. But, uhm, we were having a forest ranger come to go with the… the—”
“Kids?”
“Yes. The kids. We were having a ranger come and—do you have any survival skills, Mr.—I mean—Brann?”
“Does retired Navy SEAL count?”
She squeaked. It was cute. “SEAL.” She sighed and put her hand on her chest.
Olivia tugged on my hand, and I gave her my attention.
“What?”
“How come people care that you worked with seals? Dolphins would be better.”
“I one hundred percent agree.”
A quick call later to the sheriff, and I was cleared to go on the field trip.
On the trail, I turned to Olivia, feeling like crap. “Aww, dude, I forgot about Winston. Is he going to pee in the house?”
She giggled. “That’s what the doggie door is for, Brann. Duh.”
I scowled at her, which sent her into peals of laughter. “You’re a real smartass, you know.”
She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Yeah, I know. Can you show us all what not to eat now?”
I could do that.
Emery wasn’t there when we all got home that afternoon, and after April fed Winston, and Olivia gave him fresh water, we took him with us when we walked first to the dojo and then down three more doors to where April had fencing practice.
“You can sword fight?” I asked April, excited over the news.
“Yeah,” she said, beaming up at me. “You want me to teach you?”
“Shit yeah.”
She laughed at me as Olivia told me to not use the word shit. It was naughty.
I went back-and-forth between the two girls for the next hour, checking on both, Winston trotting along dutifully beside me, and I was at the halfway point when they came running out to find me.
That night, we all caught Emery up with the events of our day.
“I think Mrs. Nakama liked Brann a lot,” Olivia reported to her father. “She turned pink when he held her hand to make sure she didn’t fall.”
Emery grinned at me. “You’re like a knight in shining armor, aren’t you?”
“Not quite,” I teased him, passing him the steamed broccoli.
“I think you’re being modest,” he assured me. “And that too is a lovely quality.”
During the rest of the rehash, I left out April’s and my chat with Mrs. Dabney, because he’d told me I didn’t have to check in with him on everything, and since it was all fixed, repeating what had gone on, and the resolution, seemed useless. Besides, I was doing what I was supposed to—removing obstacles for his girls and taking care of them when he wasn’t around. As it was, he had more than enough to respond to between April talking to him about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and listening to Olivia dramatically explain the horror she felt deep in her heart when no one in her class besides the girls on her soccer team knew who Lionel Messi was.
“It was just so awful,” she told her father as I pretended to cough so I wouldn’t laugh.
After having fun doing the dishes together and talking some more, when the girls went to shower, I took Winston for a walk, checking in on Jenny Rubio’s house in the process, while Emery graded papers. When I got back, he was lying on the floor in the living room, arms and legs flung out, eyes closed as Olivia and April sat close and giggled.
“What happened?” I asked after locking the door behind me.
“Dad is giving up on teaching because some of his students are so stupid.”
“Oh, come on, that’s mean.”
Without opening his eyes, Emery pointed at the coffee table. Crossing the room, I picked up a paper that appeared to be bleeding with how much red pen he’d used.
“Before the Industrial War,” I read and then glanced at the man lying prone, all rumpled and sexy in his sweats, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and crew socks. “Did I miss something?” He shook his head. “When, uhm, did the Industrial War occur?”
“After the Industrial Revolution, of course,” he said dramatically.
I laughed all the way to the kitchen for water, and he stayed there, on the floor, until his girls attacked him and he chased them around the house.
It would be so easy to get used to this.
That night, after the girls headed to bed, I went in and kissed them both goodnight. When Emery followed me, I thought maybe we’d have time, just the two of us, to talk. But he got a call from Lydia and went to take it in his bedroom. I was reminded then that the man did not belong to me, and it hurt more than I was ready for it to.
Later as I was lying in bed, texting Huck on my phone, I heard the creaking of the floorboards right outside my door, like he was standing there, then nothing for several seconds before there was the same sound again, as though he’d walked away.
I thought a long time about that.
I decided, during the second week, that even though I loved being in the house, putting some distance between myself and Emery was the smart thing to do. I was so attached already, and when I talked to Huck at night, he was all over me about taking a night off from being the nanny to drive somewhere and get laid.
“Just find a bar, pick somebody up, and fuck ’em in a bathroom stall.”
“Oh, you romantic you.”
“You know what I mean, Brann. You’re not gonna be any use to this guy if you’re living in a fuckin’ fairy tale. Don’t be an idiot. He’s straight and he’s getting married and just because you’re there helping him with his kids, that doesn’t make you his husband or their parent.”
He was always the voice of reason when I didn’t want him to be. “I know that, all right?” I snapped at him because he was right and I was there, in the man’s house, eating my heart out.
“Then fuckin’ act like it.”
He was right, and I knew that, but going to the movies with Emery and the girls, eating dinner, sitting around talking in front of the fire, taking care of Olivia when she got a stomach bug and had to stay home with me, or going on a field trip with April made it really hard to separate me from them.
The way Emery treated me didn’t help.
He called me during the day. He bought me a parka and a scarf and a ridiculous neon orange beanie.
There was a school song contest on a Saturday, and after the third hour, I did a slow pan to him, and my expression must have been grim, because he turned and spit out his water. It was lucky we were at the end of the bleachers, or he would have done his dolphin impression all over some unlucky people.
“Seriously,” I whined without meaning to. “Every grade level in the whole school sings?”
He nodded, wiping his mouth, chuckling.
“Like the whole elementary school?”
“You need to wrap your brain around this,” he teased me.
“But… we could die here.”
More nodding and he cackled that time. “It’s like a high school graduation,” he explained cheerfully. “And I’m speaking from experience.”
“Oh,” I said soberly, feeling for him. “You gotta sit through that every year, huh?”
He waggled his eyebrows at me.
The horror.
Emery found April a new therapist in Whitefish. Even though she didn’t want to go at first, we both insisted, because united front and all, so she relented. She had to go, it was that simple, because even though she’d turned a corner after talking with my buddy, I knew from experience with others, Huck included, that there was no magic cure for grief. Children were resilient, more so than people often gave them credit for, but she was going to have residual periods of mourning. She was going to lapse. She was going to make progress, but there would be days, triggering events and memories that would cause her to backslide.
Wonder of wonders, it turned out she liked Dr. Haggerty quite a bit. He was funny and down-to-earth, and it was like he said, the thing that hit home for us, three years in the life of a child so young was an eternity. Closure and progress didn’t happen in a day. He was thrilled that both Emery and I were on board with an ongoing treatment effort.
His only concern was with me.
“April is quite attached to you,” he told me after one of her appointments, having invited me into his office while she sat in the lobby. “I’m not convinced that your leaving is in her best interest.”
I had no control over that. “Maybe Lydia—that’s Emery’s fiancée—should start coming with her instead of me. What do you think?”
He nearly choked on the Earl Grey he was sipping. “I—uhm, no. No. That’s not—April’s not all that fond of Miss Cahill. I think we’d be moving in the opposite direction of progress.”
I nodded. “Then I should do what?”
He didn’t have an answer.
When I walked into the lobby, April got up and put her hand in mine. Outside, on the sidewalk, walking toward my Toyota, I asked her if she thought, maybe, since Lydia and her father were getting married, she should start coming to talk to Dr. Haggerty with her sometimes.
“I’d rather go on poop patrol every day than have Lydia come with me,” she replied succinctly, capping off her statement with a quick nod.
Poop patrol was what Emery called picking up Winston droppings in the backyard with colorful orange baggies. It was the least favorite chore of both his daughters.
The message was crystal clear; Lydia was not about to be invited into April’s therapy.
One Friday, I had a beer with dinner, and when I glanced up, he was looking at the bottle like it was the Holy Grail.
“Hey,” I said, and his gaze met mine. “Would you like a beer?”
The whine was really cute. “Yes, please.”
I opened it for him, set it down in front of him, and he savored it like he hadn’t had one in years. “Maybe I’ll get some good stuff and put some mugs in the freezer,” I suggested.
