A Promised Fate (2 page)

“Shower.”

“How is she feeling today?”

“Great. Why do you ask?” I grabbed a yogurt for Max,
some fresh blueberries and small glass of milk and then plopped him
down at the table for breakfast.

“Eat.” I told him sternly and peeled the small
plastic dinosaur toy from his sticky fingers.

My mom shook her camera at me. “Ava is twenty-six
weeks today! Do you think she is in a good enough mood to let me
snap a photo of her and her belly?”

I rubbed my cheek in thought. My mother, Aggie is a
photographer and has made my pregnant wife her current project. She
was trying to create a pregnancy journal, mapping Ava and the
baby’s progress. At times Ava cooperated and at others she, well …
didn't.

“Ask her after she comes out of the bedroom,” I
suggested. “She was in a good mood when she woke up and I heard her
singing in the shower. That was ten minutes ago though, so no
telling how she may be feeling now. The hormone thing, you know.” I
looked down at my watch. “I have to go, Ma. I'm late.” My mother
put on her make-a-plan-of-attack face and I headed back up to the
bedroom to kiss Ava goodbye.

At our bedroom door, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Lord, she is so beautiful.
How in God's green world did I
get so lucky?
Ava strolled out of the closet in a flowing
summer dress, her baby bump cheerfully on display. The song, “Hello
Sunshine” played in the back of my mind.

“You look ravishing,” I said with overt awe.

“You too.” She pulled at my shirt collar. “No tie
today?”

“Damn it!”

Ava laughed at me, walked back in to the closet and
grabbed my favorite tie.

“Thanks, Baby. I’ll have to put it on in the car. I
should have left fifteen minutes ago. I love you. Call me no matter
what you may need. I'll be home this afternoon, ready to spend the
whole weekend in the sun with you and Max. I can’t wait.”

“Ok. I love you.”

Unable to resist, I kissed her full, pink lips one
last time. Then dropped the bomb: “Oh, um, Mom is in the kitchen
with Max. She wants a twenty-sixer. Please, please make her happy
and just say yes!” I hollered as I practically ran away down the
hall and then down the stairwell.

I kissed Max on the head. “Be good for your mom
today, please.”

He nodded and wrapped his arms around my neck in a
hug.

“Ava,
please
!” I heard just before I escaped
through the door to the garage, my mom's response to the annoyed
groan from Ava. I closed the door to the garage firmly behind me
feeling fairly sure one of them would come complaining to me about
the other by the end of the day. Both, maybe.

After opening the driver’s side door to my car, my
grin inched up my face before sliding into the seat.

“Good morning.”

“Hey, you! You know you’re late, right?” Julia gave a
glossy lipped smirk and leaned across the center console for a
smacking peck to my stubbly cheek.

“I’m always late. You know that about me.”

“I don’t get to see you as much as I like anymore. I
must have forgotten that particular quirk.”

“Where to this time?” The garage door rumbled open
and I started the engine.

Julia knows me better than anyone does and she has
always made it her business to memorize my schedule. She has been
showing up unexpectedly in my car or in my office or outside of one
of my classes for as long as we’ve known one another. If she needs
me for something, she always knows how to find me.

“I texted you like three times this morning.”

“I got your messages.”

“Then why didn’t you text me back? I almost came in
to get you.”

“I was in bed with my wife when you messaged me.” I
smiled crookedly and she shoved her finger down her throat and made
a fake gagging sound.

“Gah! Spare me the details.”

“I don’t kiss and tell, Jules. You know that. Now,
where to this time?”

“I have a summer class. Will you take me to campus?
Pretty please?”

I looked at the clock on the dash with a grimace.
“Sure. But where is your car?”

“Outta gas.”

“What did you do with the money I gave you last week
for gas?”

“I spent it.” Julia tucked a neat strand of hair
behind her ear and I couldn’t help but notice her new summer
highlights. She looked at me from the corner of her eye and knotted
her fingers up in her lap.

“Your hair looks nice.”

“Thank you.” She began to fidget with a diamond
bangle bracelet on her slender wrist that I had given her one year
for her birthday. Tucked just underneath her favorite bangle was a
small, flesh colored Band-Aid.

“If you needed money for your hair, you could have
just asked. You know I can’t tell you no.”

“I know.”

I pulled up to a drive-through coffee place and
placed an order with a barista. “May I have a large cup of coffee,
black, and one soy, hazelnut macchiato, venti?”

“Have you eaten?”

Julia shook her head no and I added a blueberry scone
to the order. I got the change from the twenty I gave the barista
and I handed it to Julia with her drink and her scone and then
palmed an additional fifty dollars into the pile.

“For gas.” I told Julia sternly and she took the
money and shoved it into her oversized designer bag.

“Thanks again,” she responded over a sip of her
drink. “You look tired.”

“Uh, yeah, I am actually. I had this messed up
nightmare. It scared the shit out of me. Anyway, I didn’t sleep
much.”

“You? A nightmare? Isn’t that like Ava’s thing?”

“Right, yeah normally.”

“So? What was it? Did you dream that you showed up to
work in your underwear or something?”

“Not quite, no.”

“What, did you dream that zombies were chasing you or
something stupid like that?”

“No.” I looked at her as if she was a moron and she
flipped her hair back out of her eyes.

“Then what was it? You have to tell me. You tell me
everything. C’mon!” She pressed.

“I do not tell you everything.”

“Whatever, you totally do. So?”

“I um… I did something really bad. Something I
regretted. You were there…in the dream.”

“Me?” Her pointer finger jabbed lightly into her own
chest.

“Yeah, you.”

“Oh? What was I doing?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell whose side you were
on.”

She picked at the corner of the Band-Aid. “I’m on
your side, Ari. Always.”

Looking back to the road, I coughed to clear my
throat and changed the subject. “Are you going to tell me what
happened a few nights ago with you and Rory? Where were you, Julia?
You can fool him but you can’t fool me. What’s going on with
you?”

This was my third attempt to get her to tell me the
details from an incident that had happened a few days earlier.
Julia and Rory had had a massive argument that started after he
woke in the middle of the night to find her missing. He freaked,
thinking something terrible had happened, and called everyone he
knew looking for her, but no one had seen her. He had just decided
to call the police when she showed back up at home in the wee hours
in the morning with some lame excuse about not being able to sleep
and taking a long walk up the beach to clear her thoughts. He was
upset but in the end she was able to convince him that she was
telling the truth. Love will do that--make an obvious lie seem like
God's truth. I knew better than to believe her story. Julia and I
have a deeply rooted past together and I know her better than most.
She has a near crippling fear of darkness and the beach at night
isn’t a place she would dare venture off to alone.

“I already told you, it was just a walk.”

“Whatever. Don’t let that shit happen again, Jules.”
I warned. “Rory was worried sick.”

“It was just a walk, Ari.” She said louder and rolled
her eyes.

“Lie to him, not to me.” My teeth clenched down tight
and she looked away from me, out of the window.

We arrived at the edge of campus. “Just drop me off
here. I can walk the rest of the way.”

I glanced down at her tall, strappy sandals.

“You sure?”

“Yes, here is good.” She pulled at the door handle
before I could come to a complete stop and release the child
locks.

“Will you need a ride later?”

“Nah, Rory promised he would pick me up.”

“Ok, then, have a good day.”

She blew me a kiss from the curb. “Thanks for the
ride, Ari. Love ya.”

“Sure. Bye, Jules.”

It was half past six by the time I walked into our
home from the garage. Earlier than I showed up most days – but very
late for this day. I pulled the knot out of my tie as I walked into
the kitchen. The refrigerator was open and the only thing visible
from the person behind the stainless steel door was a pair of flip
flop clad feet.

“Ava,” I began my apology, “I am
so
…”

The door closed to reveal my mother holding a
watermelon.

“You aren’t my wife.”

“What gave it away, Ari? The fact that my arms are
not covered in tattoos or that I’m not six months pregnant?”

My eyebrow lifted upwards and I opened my mouth, a
dozen or so witty replies played at my lips.

“Never mind, don’t answer that!” she laughed.

“Where’s Ava?”

“She’s out by the pool alongside everyone else. You
promised that girl you would be home early. We've all been waiting
on you. Max has been begging for you!”

“I couldn’t get away in time. I tried. My assistant
gave me her resignation notice today, she’s gone in two weeks and
her notice threw everything off and then I was held up in this
meeting for marketing. I couldn’t skip out on that meeting. They
are trying to approve this image of Ava for the show, I really
think they are using her to…”

“Fauna quit? My goodness, why?”

“Oh, um, this sounds bad but, I don’t know why she
quit. She never really said.”

“Ava will be happy to hear it at any rate. She never
cared for much for that girl…”

“Fauna's okay. I’m actually going to miss her, she
does a lot for me. More than she probably should… Anyway, how mad
is
Ava that I am late?”

Her twisted grimace said it all. I was in
trouble.

Turning away from her, I walked back to our bedroom
and removed my watch, suit jacket and tie then pulled a velvety
Harry Winston
box from my pants pocket. I flipped the lid to
inspect the simple and delicate diamond evil eye necklace I had had
designed for Ava. Ava’s wedding ring rested on her dressing table.
Her fingers had swollen up just enough within the past few weeks
that her ring no longer fit her comfortably. Picking up the ring, I
twirled it around my pinkie finger, thinking of the day she said
yes, the happiest moment of my life. I strung her ring onto the
chain of the new necklace, where it rested nicely against the
circling rows of sparkly diamonds. After changing into a pair of
shorts, I slipped the necklace and my cell phone into my pocket and
headed to the deck.

Music streamed through the speakers and the evening
summer sun was still warm in the sky. My dad and uncle manned the
grill alongside Nick and Roar. My mother and my Aunt Gianna talked
with one another at the long harvest table that was just large
enough to seat all of us. Beside the pool, in a row of lounge
chairs, sat Collin, August, Julia, Lauren and Luke. Lauren looked
up and sent a little wave. As soon as August spotted me, he shot me
a nasty look and angrily pushed his hot pink-streaked hair out of
his eyes with his pinkie finger. Ava obviously had spent her
afternoon complaining to him about me. Finally, my eyes rested on
her.

She hadn’t noticed me yet and I smiled automatically
as I watched her. She had on a bikini and had her hair piled up on
top of her head. Her swollen baby belly was round, and shiny with
oily sunscreen. Max sat in Ava’s lounge chair at her hip. He had a
matchbox car and treated Ava’s stomach as if it were a mountain. He
drove the car all the way up to her belly button and then let it
fly down her stomach and crash in her lap. He laughed and clapped
each time he let go of the car.

Max caught site of me after one of his car crashes.
“Daddy’s home!”

Ava looked up at me and frowned. She helped Max out
of the chair and he did that walk/run thing that kids do by
swimming pools all the way to my open arms.

“Swim with me?” he begged.

“I have to talk with your mama first, Max.” He whined
at my answer and pushed out of my arms.

“Papus!” Max billowed out a pouty cry for my dad, his
Papus Andy, and my dad indulged him by turning the grill duty
completely over to Thais and hopping into the pool so Max could
swim some more.

I edged down to the pool deck and over to Ava. She
didn’t even bother a second glance at me. I knew how badly I had
messed up and I also knew that “I’m sorry” just wasn’t good enough
but I had to start somewhere.

“Ava, I am so sorry.”

“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes and scoffed out a pissy
puff of breath.

“Baby, please talk to me. Forgive me. I hate that I
couldn’t get away from work earlier. There is no excuse for being
late today, especially after I promised you I’d be home early. I
only want to be with you. You know that. Please talk to me. I am so
sorry.”

She finally looked up at me, but with a cold angry
stare.

Despite her chilly demeanor, I cupped her cheek in my
hand and brushed my thumb against Ava’s tan summer skin. “I’m here
now. I am yours. I promise to be at your and Max’s side for the
rest of the weekend. I am sorry, Ava. Truly I am.”

She nodded her head and her frown eased
infinitesimally.

“Look, see…” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket
and held it in my open palm. “Take my phone. I swear not to touch
it or look at it. The phone is yours for the rest of the weekend. I
won’t even think about work.”