“So are you looking to buy?” He asks. “Or are you checking rentals too?”
“Buy,” I say with a solid nod. I’m, oddly enough, already used to this question. Most say it as if they don’t think a recently divorced mother has the money to put a down on a house and, they quickly conclude, if she does, it’s most certainly her entire settlement. Of course, that’s quite wrong I know exactly what I’m getting into because buying turnkey properties was what I did and I sold all of them before I came home so that I could buy a place for the kids and myself.
“Renting is a waste of money—unless you happen to be the one collecting the rent,” I say.
“Sounds like you’re quite experienced,” he says. I note he doesn’t say what I seem to be experienced in but let it slide. “I know a couple of places up for sale. One’s in a great area but I’m not sure of it’s condition.”
“Really?” He piques my curiosity. He nods as he holds his soda can out on the counter with both hands outstretched, fingers pushing evenly on either side. I reach over to the other side of the counter and bring back the napkin holder. He looks at the napkins, then at me.
“Sorry, force of habit. I’ve learned to let the kids find out for themselves what kind of mess they’ll make, but I also figure the mess can be kept to a bare minimum if the right tools are provided.” I answer his question. I fully expect him to find a way to run while he still can. I’m not ready for a relationship and I’m not ready for a sexual one either. I can’t even remember the last time I shaved my legs – although given the sweltering heat and my youngest one’s fascination with Mom’s pricker bushes—it couldn’t have been that long ago. He looks around, then back at me quizzically.
“If you don’t mind me asking, who has custody?”
“I do.”
“Okay, another question, then. Where are your children?”
“Oh!” I laugh. It finally dawns on me where he’s going. “They’re at my Aunt Gretchen’s. She has three kids, too and we figured they’d do better spending some time playing then having to stay cooped up with me all day.”
“Ah,” he nods. “Makes sense. You must miss them, though.”
“You have no idea,” I say as I tilt the can and finish off my pop.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says. Now he has me curious. I glance down at his hand: still no band but he did say he was meeting a buddy so he could be on the prowl sans a wedding ring. I catch a glimpse of myself in Aunt Starla’s polished toaster. My hair is limp from spending the entire day schlepping from house to house, not even bothering with running the car’s A/C because by the time it kicks in, I’m having to shut it off again. Since I wasn’t putting in offers or meeting anyone I wanted to impress, I went as au natural as possible in the makeup department for no other reason than to give my pores a bit of a breather and after arriving ‘home,’ I changed into a pair of shorts and my NYFD tee shirt. If you’re into stereotypes, I look like the cleaned up version of white trash. I’m definitely not someone he’d be prowling after, I decide.
“Do you have kids?” I ask.
“No; nieces and nephews galore. Do you remember my older sister, Shawn?”
“Vaguely,” I reply. He pulls out his wallet and flips it open. My breath catches at the sight of his badge, which I wonder if the reaction would qualify me as a Badge Bunny. He fiddles for a moment and extracts a family photo.
“That’s she and her husband, John, and their five kids.”
“Beautiful family,” I nod approvingly.
“They moved outside of Chicago two years ago. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I miss them,” he says tightly. “We used to do quite a bit together before they left. Fishing, boating, hiking, skiing or just hanging out.”
“I’m sorry,” I offer my condolences. And I am sorry too. He pulls out another photo. I instantly recognize the man in it. It’s his younger brother, Hank.
“My brother’s family; Hank, his wife Jane and their four kids. They’re over in Jackson. He’s a CPA and she’s a paralegal. Or was. Since they had Adam, their eldest, she quit. Now she designs websites. Pretty good at it, too.”
“So what about you?” I ask boldly.
“Still single,” he says as he tucks the photos away. “Not a lot of women out there who can put up with the life of being married to a cop.”
“I guess not” I say. “But by now there has to be someone else whose caught your interest.”
“I thought so,” he says. “But that was a while ago. She couldn’t handle being at work knowing that something bad was happening and not sure if I was okay. It happened once shortly after we got engaged. It took several hours before she got word I was fine and things were never the same after that. A few weeks later, she called it off.”
“I’m sorry,” I say for the second time. I wonder how I’d be in her shoes. I find it difficult to feel so helpless but having kids who are reliant upon you regardless of what may happen to either of their parents puts those kinds of fears at ease, or at least that’s the way I see it, but who am I to know? I have to empathize with her because she doesn’t have the foresight I’ve been afforded with having kids and somehow managing to make ends meet and things work out now that we’re on our own. I’m on the outside looking in, like window-shopping. You can look all day but unless you cross over that store’s threshold, you’re safe. Of course now this means some poor woman using her lunch hour to drool outside of Saks will be abducted and blow that theory out of the water.
“Do you have any pictures?” He asks.
“Of the kids? Yeah, but they’re on the computer which is down in the basement.” I pause as I get up and take our soda cans, rinse them out, crumple them flat and toss them into the recycling box. “Want to see?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“None at all. Follow me,” I say and head downstairs into Uncle Jake’s office.
“It amazes me how different the room is from what it was before Uncle Jake remodeled it,” I say as I slide back into the comfy exec chair and type the URL to the photo album into the browser’s address bar. As the machine grinds away begrudgingly, I try to recall what album would be best to show.
Rich stands behind me, off to my left. The index page appears, hiccups, and then continues to load. The cursor hovers over the upper right, begging to click on the private page link. Had I given it any thought, I would have typed in the direct URL instead of connecting through the one off my blog. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. I make two mental notes: create a new blog so if I want to write anything form here on out he shouldn’t be reading, I can still write there and, two, archive the entries from earlier when I was going through my divorce. It’s one thing to have complete strangers who are empathetic to what you write reading it, different when it’s someone you know and just oh so wrong if it’s a potential beau doing the reading.
The first picture is one Keith took of me as we drove into Michigan. Rich chuckles.
“Here you go,” I say as I stand up leaving the desk open for him to settle in. He does and strolls through the first set, taking time to look at each picture.
“Wow, Charlie, you have a beautiful group of kids. You must be proud,” he says as he stares at the six eyes smiling back from the monitor.
“More like humbled,” I say quietly.
His stomach growls.
“Oh my God,” I say. “You must be ravenous.”
“I’m okay,” he shrugs as he clicks on the “next” link.
“I’m sure there’s something up in the fridge,” I say.
“Seriously, Charlie, I’m fine. Maybe after I look at these last three we can do down to Duffy’s and get something to eat.”
The clock on the wall reads six-thirty. I doubt Uncle Jake and Aunt Starla will be home much before midnight and since I’ve already talked to the kids and have both a cell phone and pager on me at all times, I guess it can’t hurt to get out.
“Sure,” I agree. “I’ll run upstairs and freshen up while you do that.”
“Why?” He asks as he turns the chair’s seat and looks at me. “You look fine to me.”
“Thanks,” I say with a slight and horribly shy smile. “But I’m still sticky from today and could use a nice cool, wet cloth to wash it away.”
I’m certain I’m blushing because it doesn’t sound right when I say it. But he’s back looking at a photo of the kids at the lake and so I decide not to dwell on it.
“Okay. No rush,” he calls back as I climb up the steep stairs.