Every Fifteen Minutes (10 page)

Not your home,
he reminded himself.
Not anymore.

Fifteen minutes later, Eric rounded the bend on his street, driving past the abelias, and the sight eased his worry. Hannah was in front of the house and she didn't seem to be sick or hurt. She was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with another girl, drawing on the concrete with oversized chalk. The other girl was watching, and Eric didn't recognize her; she was taller than Hannah, with a long blonde ponytail, a red T-shirt, and bicycle shorts. Hannah's concentration was typically complete, her glasses sliding down her nose and her hair falling forward.

Eric pulled up and cut the engine. “Hey, honey!” he called to her, getting out of the car.

“Daddy!” Hannah called back, breaking into a smile so big it showed her missing tooth. She started to get up, and Eric noticed that her right ankle was covered to the calf with an Ace bandage.

“What happened to your ankle, honey?” Eric met Hannah on the grass that bordered the sidewalk, knelt down, and gave her a hug. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“I fell down, I slipped.” Hannah kissed him on the cheek, then released him with a sweet smile.

“Let me see how it looks.” Eric examined her ankle, palpating it. Everything felt in order, though there was swelling above the bandage. “You sprained it, huh?”

“I think so.”

“Does it hurt to walk?”

“Only a little.”

“How did you fall? Where were you, the hallway?” Eric had been intending to tack down the carpet in the hallway, a tripping hazard.

“No, in the grass. It was wet. I was trying to catch the ball but it was too high for me to jump up.”

“Oh, this happened last night, at the softball practice?” Eric was putting two and two together. He should have realized it on the drive over, but he'd been too focused on the injury. “And you went to the hospital this morning?”

“Yes, I couldn't sleep because it hurt and got swollen.”

“Did Mommy ice it last night?”

“Ice it?” Hannah blinked.

“Put ice on it, so it wouldn't swell.” Eric was surprised that Caitlin hadn't iced it, she usually knew better.

“No, so we went to the hospital today and they taked X-rays but they said it's not broken. They said it would really hurt if it were broken.”

“Right, it's not broken. It's not a big deal, at all. It'll hurt you for a while, then go away.” Eric realized that Caitlin hadn't called him because she was hiding it from him, probably because it had happened at softball practice. It occurred to him that if he had primary custody, he wouldn't be on the outside, playing games with Hannah's health. Also, he doubted that Caitlin had told Hannah they were moving, because Hannah seemed fine and hadn't said anything to him.

“HEY, LOOK AT THIS!” the other little girl called out, and Eric turned to see her doing perfect cartwheels across the grass, her ponytail whipping around and her limbs forming a human pinwheel.

“Wow!” Eric called to the girl. He patted Hannah's side. “What's your friend's name, honey?”

“Michelle.” Hannah blinked. Her smile faded as she pushed up her glasses. “She does gymnastics. She's on a team, and they go to competitions. She's one of the best ones.”

“Good for her.” Eric had never heard the name Michelle, and Michelle seemed nothing like Hannah's usual friends Maddie and Jessica, who were verbal and bookish, like her. “Is she in your grade? She looks so tall.”

“No, she's going into fourth. She's older.”

“LOOK, LOOK!” Michelle called out again, and Eric and Hannah turned to see the girl cartwheel across the grass in the opposite direction.

“Way to go, Michelle!” Eric called back, but Hannah turned away.

“She really likes gymnastics. She does it all the time. She did it last night and the softball coach told her to stop and watch out for the ball.”

“Is that how you know Michelle?” Eric asked, coming up to speed. “Is she on the softball team?”

“YOU MISSED IT! I DID IT PERFECT THAT TIME! WATCH OR YOU'RE GONNA MISS IT!”

“Yes,” Hannah answered, ignoring Michelle. “The coach told her to pay attention to the game. She got yelled at two times.”

“WAIT, WAIT! NOW WATCH ME!”

“Great, Michelle!” Eric glanced over, then turned back to Hannah and tugged a strand of hair from the hinge of her glasses, where it always got caught. “So, did you like softball?”

“It was okay, but now I can't go anymore because of my ankle.” Hannah didn't sound too broken up, and Eric let it go. Hannah brightened suddenly. “Daddy, do you want to see my drawing?”

“Yes, sure.”

“YOU'RE NOT WATCHING! MY KNEES WERE SOOOO STRAIGHT THAT TIME!”

“It's this one.” Hannah took his hand and led him, with a slight hitch in her step, to the sidewalk block that contained her drawing, which showed farm animals in bright pastels, their outlines indistinct, owing to the thickness of the chalk.

“Wow, that's great! It looks like a farm.”

“It is.” Hannah looked down with pride, tucking her hair behind her earpiece. “It has chickens in it and pigs and also Charlotte the pig. Do you remember Charlotte the pig?”

“Of course.” Suddenly they both looked up as the front door to the house opened and Caitlin came out, striding toward him. She was wearing a white tank top, jeans shorts, and a forced smile.

“Hey, Caitlin, hi,” Eric called to her, waving. He wasn't about to make a fuss, especially since Hannah hadn't been injured seriously.

“LOOK, CAITLIN! LOOK AT THIS!”

“Excellent, Michelle!” Caitlin nodded at Michelle as she passed her, then kept going, crossing the lawn toward Eric and Hannah. “Eric, what a surprise,” she said when she reached them. “I didn't expect to see you today.”

“I just thought I'd stop by.” Eric kept his tone casual. “I heard through the grapevine that Hannah was in the emergency department at Whitemarsh Memorial, so I thought I'd see if she was okay. Next time you guys have a medical problem, feel free to give me a call, okay?”

“CAITLIN, WATCH! I CAN DO IT AGAIN! WATCH MY KNEES!”

“Great!” Caitlin called over her shoulder to Michelle, then returned her attention to Eric, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. “I didn't want to bother you with it. It's only a sprain, and she could've done it anywhere.”

But she didn't,
Eric thought, but didn't say. He became aware that Hannah was looking up at him and then at Caitlin, her head swiveling. He hated to stress her, so he lightened his tone. “I know that, and I'm glad to see it's nothing serious.”

“Of course it isn't, but thanks for stopping by.” Caitlin gestured at his car, a less-than-discreet invitation for him to leave, so he took his cue.

“Anytime, no problem.” Eric bent over, kissed Hannah on the head, and then on the cheek. “Bye, honey. I have to go run some errands. You and Michelle have a good time today, and I'll see you soon.”

“Okay, Daddy. Bye-bye!” Hannah smiled and waved to him, and Eric headed toward the car.

“CAITLIN, LOOK AT THIS ONE! YOU'RE GONNA MISS IT!”

Caitlin put her arm around Hannah, as if she were taking physical possession. “By the way, Eric, I saw the sign.”

“Sign?” Eric stopped beside his car, his hand on the door handle.

“The one you left for me, in the trash. Got the message.”

“Oh.” Eric realized she meant the For Sale sign.

“DADDY! DADDY, LOOK!”

Eric looked over reflexively at the sound of “Daddy,” to find that Michelle wasn't calling to him, but toward the house. He didn't understand what was going on. He looked in confusion at Caitlin.

Caitlin snapped her head quickly away, to face Michelle. “Great job, Michelle! I saw it! That was great!”

“DADDY, YOU'RE MISSING IT!” Michelle started running toward the house. “DADDY, I DID IT PERFECT!”

Eric watched as Michelle ran inside the house, calling for her father, and all of a sudden, he realized what was going on. Caitlin was seeing someone else, and the man was in the house,
his
house, right
now.
It couldn't have been an innocent relationship, because the man would've come out and introduced himself. Instead, he had stayed in the house, and Caitlin had come out, that's why she'd been giving Eric the bum's rush. She hadn't wanted him to know the man was there, the same way she hadn't wanted him to know she was selling the house.

“Hannah, let's go,” Caitlin said tersely, walking her toward the house.

Eric watched them go, their backs to him. Caitlin had moved on, and her new boyfriend had a kid who played on the softball team—a completely annoying kid who played softball, gymnastics, and God knows how many other sports—just like Caitlin herself had done when she was little. And so now, Hannah—his bookish, adorable, klutzy daughter who hated sports—had to play softball. No wonder Hannah and Michelle hadn't made sense to him, as friends.

Eric stood at his car, and it dawned on him fully. He didn't know how he could've been so blind, so stupid, in so much denial. He'd actually believed he'd get back with Caitlin, they'd reconcile, and she'd love him again. He'd thought he could weed-whack his way into her heart.

His mouth went dry. He felt stunned, angry, heartbroken. It killed him to lose Caitlin, but worse, it killed him to see Hannah put second, her interests subordinate to Caitlin's new boyfriend and her health sacrificed for God-knows-what-reason. No reason was good enough, not to him.

He stood still, after Caitlin and Hannah had vanished inside the house and closed the front door behind them.

Leaving him on the outside.

 

Chapter Eleven

Eric painted with a vengeance, his brain on fire. He had no idea how late it was, he wasn't tired. He wasn't going to bed. He knew he wouldn't sleep anyway. It was dark outside, and the windows were open, with no sound but the crickets. Gnats flitted through the screens, and the box fan whirred on the floor.

Eric rolled the brush like a madman, picturing Caitlin with her new boyfriend, imagining them making out in the kitchen of his own house. Having sex in
his
bed. In
his
bedroom. A wave of intense sexual jealousy flooded his brain.

Eric tried to think when they had started seeing each other, but he didn't know. He tried to remember the littlest things, sifting for clues about when she met him and who he was, driving himself nuts. He rolled the brush into the ribbed bottom of the pan, then held the roller up, but dripped on his jeans. He brushed them off and when he looked down, the front of his blue work shirt was also spattered with a fine pink spray. Obviously, he wasn't paying attention, but he couldn't.

Eric rolled paint on the wall, listening for the telltale tacky sounds. His thoughts turned to Hannah, with her hurt ankle, and though it was true that it could've happened anywhere, it made his blood boil that it happened at softball, which she wouldn't have been playing but for the fact that her mother was sleeping with another man, whose kid was on the team. It made him sick to his stomach that Hannah was being used, or pushed to do something she didn't want to do, and he considered again the decision about going for custody.

Eric kept painting, his thoughts elsewhere. He found himself wishing that he had someone to talk it over with, but Caitlin had been his best friend. His other friends were tennis players, but this was too heavy a thing to lay on them, though he'd told them that he and Caitlin had separated. Two were divorced dads, but neither would want primary custody, and he wasn't sure they could relate. Otherwise, he had become friendly with his three attending psychiatrists at the hospital, but they reported to him as chief and he had to maintain a professional distance. He knew in his heart whom he truly wanted to talk to, anyway.

He left the roller in the pan, reached into his back pocket for his phone, and scrolled through contacts until he found the number for Arthur Markusson, then pressed Call. Arthur was Eric's former psychiatrist, who had treated him so successfully. Arthur had a law as well as a psychiatry degree and had become a mentor, colleague, and surrogate father. Eric felt himself smile as the call was picked up. “Arthur?”

“Eric, my boy!” Arthur's voice sounded instantly friendly, if thin with age. His Norwegian accent hadn't completely disappeared, though he'd lived in the United States all of his professional life. “What a surprise!”

“How are you doing?”

“Delightful! Retirement agrees with me, I must say. I have all the time I wish to read. Reading without guilt, can you imagine?”

“Good for you.” Eric sat down on the tarp, plucked his leftover turkey hoagie from the oily brown wrap, and took a bite.

“The weather down here takes getting accustomed to, but I fish now. Me, a sportsman.”

“You? You used to be so indoorsy.”

“Ha!” Arthur laughed with him.

“How's Ina?”

“Fine, thanks. Does water aerobics with a clutch of other octogenarian hens. Between the two of us, we're on the water more than the land. Perhaps we'll devolve into a lesser life form. Become geckos or the like.”

“Don't do that, I need you the way you are.”

“What's going on with you? How's Caitlin and Hannah? I haven't heard from you in a while. I always worry when that happens.”

Eric set the elbow end of the hoagie roll back into the paper, not relishing telling Arthur the bad news. “Caitlin and I separated, and I have a decision to make about custody of Hannah.”

Arthur moaned. “Oh, that's unfortunate. May I ask what happened?”

“I don't know where to begin,” Eric said, meaning it. “Caitlin has been pulling away for a long time.”

“I'm sorry.” Arthur's voice turned sympathetic. “I know it must be painful, the ending of a long-term marriage, and I realize how much she meant to you.”