Page 10

After we broke up, but before I went into BUD/S, I went on a sort of… woman bender. I thought I could fuck Arie out of my system, and I turned it into an Olympic sport. I slept with nearly any woman who would have me, thinking that eventually, I might forget how horrible I’d been to the only woman I’d ever loved. And I had been. An absolute asshole. Not a day goes by where I don’t regret everything that happened between us those days. When I close my eyes each night, I see one of two things: either the flashing of gunfire that ended my Navy career… or the look on Arie’s face when she turned and walked out of the coffee shop.

I’ve thought about looking her up a dozen times, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where she’d want anything to do with me ever again. I was a selfish, arrogant, useless bastard, and she was better off without me then. She is definitely better off without me now.

“Earth to Pierce!” Logan is waving a spatula in front of my face, and some stray egg falls on my arm. I pick it off and flick it at him.

“What? What did I miss?”

“Everything. As usual. Come out with me tonight! I’m going to this new whiskey bar in the East Village. I’ll even pay for your drinks, even though you make more than me.”

I snort. “I don’t make anything, Logan. Right now, I just sit on my ass and watch movies all day.”

“Bullshit. You watch soap operas and we both know it.”

I wave my hands at him to shut up. “We don’t need the whole house knowing my business! Besides, those shows are addictive. And they’re my only vice now. Cut a guy some slack.”

Logan rolls his eyes. “So, you’re going to come with me?”

I shake my head. “Negative. I have physical therapy today, and I’m always exhausted after PT. You go and have a good time without your no-good older brother tagging along. Maybe you’ll meet some pretty college girl who can take you back to her place,” I say with a wink. I know Logan isn’t the one-night-stand type, but I like teasing him anyway.

“Yeah, right. I’ll probably just try out their artisan whiskey, embarrass myself in front of a pretty bartender. Then I’ll come home, dejected and drunk.” He laughs.

“That sounds about right.” I barely avoid getting hit by a dish towel that Logan chucks at me. “But really. Have fun. Maybe next time.”

We both know the odds of there being a next time are non-existent. But as long as I say it, we can continue to pretend it may happen one day. In the meantime, I have to get ready for physical therapy, and that means preparing myself for two hours of unimaginable pain from which there is no escape.

What woman could say no to all of that, right?

Arie

New York City, 2016

“I’m sorry, Miss Blanchard. I don’t understand. You want me to do what?”

I reach into my purse and take out my bottle of pain pills. The only way I make it through the days now is by swallowing as many as I can at a time while remaining functional for Chloe. I had to stop breastfeeding before I started chemo. She’s eating food now, holding her own bottle. I’ve wept so many times I can’t count. I hope there’s love in Pierce. I hope there are things I never saw, never got a chance to see.

Right now, we’re in a lawyer’s office in the Bowery, and Chloe is bouncing happily on my knee. Her thirteen-month birthday was yesterday. I won’t make it to see her turn two. I’m trying not to look directly at her, afraid I might burst into tears. Again.

“I need you to draft papers that designate all parental rights to my daughter to her father. They need to take effect immediately, and I need you to arrange to have her brought to him as soon as possible.” The words come out in a horrible rush. I hope he doesn’t make me repeat myself again.

The lawyer, a squat little man with sausage fingers and a mustache, looks at me like I’m crazy. “Miss, far be it from me to turn away someone who needs help. But have you thought this through? Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. ‘This too shall pass,’ as the poets say.”

I roll up my sleeves and show him the multiple holes in my yellow skin from all of the injections and IVs I’ve had in the last three months. I pull back my knit cap to reveal my patches of missing hair. “Mr. Bailey, my doctors said I had three-to-six months to live. We’re just past three months today. I’ve informed them I want to stop chemo, because it’s obviously not working. My family is in no position to take care of my daughter, and her father is. He comes from a wealthy family, and he can give her the life she deserves. I want to make sure she’s provided for, and doesn’t end up in foster care. So, this is the way it has to be. If you won’t do it, I will find someone who will.”

The lawyer can’t make eye contact with me anymore. As soon as people find out how sick I am, they usually resort to awkward platitudes or completely shut down. I’m not going to give this man the chance. I don’t have time.

“Sir, I need you to do this today. I have all of her things with me. It is important that she be settled with him as soon as possible. But I also have a very important caveat that you must make sure is included in the papers.”

He looks up from the desk with one eye, then quickly looks back down and shuffles papers nervously. “What would that be, Miss Blanchard?”

“Pierce can never know who Chloe’s mother is. It’s for the best. I want them both to move on with their lives. I know he will want proof Chloe is his, and that’s fine. But there is no reason for me to be involved in the equation. Is that understood?”

Bailey looks up in earnest this time. “Miss Blanchard…”

“Arie, please.”

“Arie. I have to be honest with you. I’m troubled. What possible harm could there be in Chloe’s father knowing that you are her mother?”

I cough, and the cough causes excruciating pain in my abdomen. I am so tired of being sick, and I’m tired of being tired. Everything is weighing on me, and the only thing that is keeping me going is Chloe. I know once she is safe, I can finally stop fighting this. And that’s all I want right now.