I pulled up to the studio apartment Nick had rented out when Connor and I had moved here, using it whenever he happened to be in the city spending time with our son. I locked the doors and hurried up to the studio, opening the door without knocking.
“Momma!” Connor grinned in my direction, as if he had completely forgotten about what had happened earlier. I kissed his forehead quickly, being sure not to smile so he knew I was unhappy. One thing I wanted to always do with Connor was remind him that I loved him very much, but I was disappointed in him if he did something wrong.
“Not so fast, mister,” I scolded, not even bothering to meet the gaze of the man standing before me I hadn’t even seen for months. “Go to your room. I’ll be in to talk with you in a minute. I need to talk to your father.” I sighed and stood up. Connor’s smile fell from his face and he pouted his way into his bedroom that was in Nick’s apartment.
“Lay off him, Sarah. The principal yelled at him pretty good. I told him what he did was wrong, we’ll move on,” Nick said immediately after he heard Connor’s door close.
“Hi to you, too,” I scoffed and sat down at the kitchen table. “And no, I’m not going to ‘lay off’. Fighting isn’t like Connor. He’s never been in trouble before. I’m going to make sure it stops before he starts getting in bigger trouble.” I said firmly. I never allowed Nick to tell me how to be a parent.
“Sarah, you said it yourself. He’s never been in trouble before. So what? It’s his first time getting a call home. Do you know how many phone calls home my parents got when I was a kid? A hell of a lot more than one,” he kept his voice at a low level so Connor wouldn’t be able to hear.
“Exactly why I’m stopping this now. I know how you turned out,” okay, so maybe that was a blow below the belt. But still. He deserved it, in a way. I sighed and closed my eyes. “Sorry…but still. Connor’s only in kindergarten. We can’t let this start now.”
“Whatever,” Nick threw his arms up in surrender and walked to the fridge to pull out a soda.
“Typical. You don’t even care,” I mumbled and grabbed Connor’s backpack off of the kitchen counter.
“How can you tell me I don’t even care when I was the one that showed up to pick up our son?” He frowned. “You were working. I showed up.”
“Yeah, well, what are you even doing in New York anyway? I would have shown up sooner than later. Sorry I have to work my ass off to put food on our table and keep the roof over our heads,” I muttered sarcastically.
“Bullshit, Sarah. You know I pay you enough money to help when I can,” he was right. Nick did keep up with the child support fees. I never once had to ask him twice to help out. But still, I needed to have a job to keep up. Nick never realized that; he had money pooling in at his fingertips. “I’m in New York because if I remember correctly, I told you I’d be taking my son this weekend.”
“Our son,” I quickly corrected with a sigh. “Well, good. He asked about you this morning anyways.” I mumbled and walked over to Connor’s room, tapping lightly on the door so I wouldn’t have to be stuck in this conversation with Nick anymore. “Hey bud. It’s mom. Can I come in?” I whispered.
“Fine,” Connor sighed and slowly opened the door with his head down. I walked in as he climbed up onto his bed. I knelt in front of him so I could be eye level.
“Hey…what happened out there today?” I asked softly and placed my hands on his knees. He continued to stare down at the ground until my index finger lifted his chin to look me in the eyes.
“I don’t know…” he muttered. “I just got so mad at Ryan when he said my family was retarded.”
“He said what?” My brow furrowed and my voice raised a bit. I had no idea why the fight had started; Mrs. Lynn didn’t give details. But that was why I thought it’d be best to get to the bottom of it with Connor.
“He said that since my mommy and daddy lived apart and daddy was a rock star, my family’s retarded,” Connor bit his bottom lip. This was obviously eating him up inside. I pulled him into my lap and kissed the top of his head.
“Hey,” I soothed as I felt him shake a bit with tears. “It’s okay, buddy. Listen, your daddy and I love you so much. Nothing will ever change that. Yeah, daddy travels and sings for a career, but that’s pretty cool, huh? And he loves you more than anything in the world. You know that, right?” I whispered. He nodded in the crook of my neck. “But listen, fighting doesn’t solve anything, k? Ryan was wrong for saying that, but next time just walk away. Don’t let him get you down. It’s not worth it, bab—oops. I forgot you didn’t want me to call you that anymore,” I chuckled softly.
“It’s okay, mommy,” he kissed my cheek. “You can still call me baby if you want.” He wiped away at his eyes. I laughed and kissed him back.
“Thanks,” I winked and kissed his forehead. “Let me go talk to daddy for a second, alright? You stay in here and play with your toys. Then we’ll head back home in a bit.”
He nodded and I shut his door behind me as I exited. Nick walked by drinking a glass of water. “Well? How’d it go?” He muttered, as if he even cared.
“Did you even bother to ask him what happened?” I folded my arms across his chest. “Ask him why he got into the fight, what caused it, who he fought? Any of it?” I shook my head in disappointment. “I swear, Nick. You don’t even know how to communicate with your own son.”
Nick just stared at me long and hard, as if he wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure what. “Okay, so maybe I don’t know everything, Sarah. But I know I’m trying. Alright? I’m trying really hard. That’s why I’m here.” He spat. “So if you could maybe not be a bitch for two seconds, maybe we’d figure everything out.”
“What is there to figure out, Nick? The only thing that matters to me that deals with you right now is the fact that you still have partial custody of our son. So I’d really like to make sure you’re capable of taking care of him,” I folded my arms over my chest and glanced towards the closed door. “He’s a special kid, Nick. Really is. And I don’t want him hurting ever because of us. He told me the fight he got in was because some kid told him our family was ‘retarded’,” I sighed. “I never wanted to be the cause of my kid’s sadness.” I sat down on the couch; my anger suddenly turning to gloom.
“He’s fine,” Nick brushed it off as if it wasn’t a big deal. “He’s a big kid now. We can’t baby him forever.”
“He’s my baby, Nickolas,” I couldn’t understand how none of this seemed to matter to Nick. “I understand you’re a man and that you see things differently. But come on, for Christ’s sake! He’s our son! Don’t you care whether he’s happy, sad, angry, or whatever? Do you even care?!” I was back to yelling.
“Stop yelling!” Both of our heads spun around towards the sound. There was Connor – standing in the doorway clutching his teddy bear, tears streaming down his face. “Why do you hate each other so much? Can’t you just be normal?”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” my tone dropped and I quickly dried my eyes. “Come on, let’s go home.” I hurried and grabbed my purse and his backpack, praying to God he wanted to come home with me and not stay with Nick. Connor looked back and forth between me and Nick and then placed his hand in mine.
“Bye daddy,” he whispered softly. And that’s where we left Nick…standing dumbfounded like always in his apartment foyer.
“Hey you,” Jake greeted me at the front door with a peck on the lips. He had flowers in one hand and a football in the other.
“Hey, you’re early,” I frowned, glancing down at my watch and letting go of Connor’s hand to open the apartment door. Connor looked up at Jake hesitantly. I sighed. I knew it had been a long day for Connor and he probably wasn’t going to be too excited to hang around Jake for the night.
“Yeah, well, I thought I’d surprise you,” he shrugged. “Hey Connor.” He tossed the football in his direction. “How about we trick your mom into letting us play some ball outside?” He pretended to whisper so I wouldn’t hear. I rolled my eyes and laughed.
“I guess you two could play for a little while so I could start up dinner,” I kissed Jake fully once we got into the living room. “Connor, go put some play clothes on…sweat pants, please. And your winter coat.”
“But mom,” he whined. “I can’t move around in my coat. Right Jake?” I was surprised he was opening up so much to Jake. I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Jake for his response.
“Sorry honey, I gotta agree with the kid,” he laughed. “How about I wear my coat too, Connor? That way we can fall all over the place together?” He suggested. Connor nodded and ran up the stairs to get ready. Jake glanced down at his watch and followed me into the kitchen. “You’re home later than usual today. Caught up at work?”
I inwardly groaned. “Ugh, more like caught up in hell,” I sighed and pulled the chicken out of the freezer to defrost. “Connor got into a fight at school today. I got the message late and Nick ended up picking him up. So then I had to go to Nick’s place and that turned into an even bigger mess.” I rubbed my temples realized the headache that was growing there.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he wrapped his arms around me from behind and kissed my neck. “Anything I can do to make it better?” I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on his shoulder.
“You’re already helping immensely,” I smirked and turned in his arms to kiss his lips fully. He deepened the kiss just as we heard someone clear their throat behind us.
“Ready Jake?” Connor asked. Jake nodded and kissed me one last time, then hurried out to toss the ball around with Connor.
“Play nice!” I yelled back as I continued to prepare everything for that night’s dinner. As I began humming some song I had heard on the radio earlier, the phone rang. “Hello?” I answered, lost in my own thoughts.
“Hi, this is Sandra from New York Medical Associates. Is Sarah James available?” The voice asked.
“This is she,” I was completely used to these phone calls. I was born with a heart murmur – it was completely normal and so routine. I just had to be careful growing up and take antibiotics before I went in for a visit with the dentist. Nothing drastic.
“Miss James, your results came back from your echocardiogram last week, we’d really like for you to come in and meet with the doctor,” the woman said. I frowned. Everything stopped. This was abnormal.
“Is everything alright? I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years and I’ve never had to come back in for a follow-up so soon…” I explained and leaned against the counter.
“Everything should be fine. We’d really like to talk with you in person,” she said rather calmly. I swallowed hard and nodded.
“Alright, I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.” I tried to keep reassuring myself everything was fine. If it was an emergency, they would have asked to see me right away. Everything would be fine.
Author's Chapter Notes:
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