“I’m sorry for disrupting your life.”
“Egal,” she says. “You are my Maisie. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
* * *
When I meet April Thomas at the law offices the following day, she’s wearing a yellow power pantsuit that pops against her dark skin, and her natural curls are touched with gray. She’s close to my mom’s age.
“From what I’ve gathered by talking with the Schroeder family’s attorney, Brian’s mother is the driving force behind this,” she says, gesturing toward a chair in her office. “Mrs. Schroeder is old-school—personally, I think she’s watched too many episodes of Law & Order—and believes the only way to make this official is to take it to court. Her attorney can’t budge her. But he tells me she’s been pushing Brian to be a responsible parent for years, so I get a sense that this is not really about you.”
“So Rosalie dragged me back to Florida to teach Brian a lesson? That sucks.”
“Well, you weren’t under any obligation to return, and if you had called a lawyer immediately, you would have known,” April says, and I wince a little inside as I remember how I pushed the idea away when Mason suggested it. “But it kind of works in our favor that you did. You have essentially been a single parent for the entirety of Maisie’s life, and you’ve put her well-being first. Quitting your job and returning to Florida is evidence of that. Despite cleaning up his act, Brian has not demonstrated that he is a competent parent.”
“Can’t they blame me for separating him from Maisie?”
“They can try, but you were within your right to move when you left,” she says. “Prior to that, Brian had nearly four years of opportunity, and what did he do with that time?”
I hand her the folder. “My mom kept records of what he did and didn’t do.”
She flips through the pages, nodding. “Mediation is your opportunity to work things out without going to trial, where a judge would make a decision for you. We can suggest alternating months. Or even alternating quarters, so you could move back to Ohio.”
“I don’t know how to be away from Maisie for months at a time.”
“Before we go to mediation, I’ll put together a few options,” she says. “The Schroeders are pushing for equal time-sharing and if they force us to trial, they might get it, but we can try to convince them otherwise.”
Back at my mom’s condo, I look for apartments online, but every place in my budget is in an unsafe neighborhood. Reviews complain of loud neighbors, theft from cars, and palmetto bugs, which is a fancy Florida name for cockroaches. I consider renting a more expensive apartment in a nicer neighborhood, but until I get a job, I can’t afford to burn through my savings.
“Stay here with me,” Mom says.
“There’s not enough room.”
“You and Maisie can have my bed, and I’ll take the sleeper sofa. I know it’s not a perfect situation, but this complex is safe, and I’ll be here to watch Maisie.”
I’m tired of crying, but I can’t stop the tears from coming. It feels like the past five months never happened. Back to sharing a room with my daughter. Back to relying on my mother for childcare. The only difference is that now her condo is even smaller than our old house. We’ll be living on top of each other.
I close all the apartment tabs on the computer, and I can understand how Anna spent so many months overwhelmed by grief. I can’t raise my daughter in an unsafe apartment, but I can’t stay here, either. I don’t know what to do, and I feel paralyzed by sadness. Instead of choosing an apartment, I open a bookmarked job finder website and enter in my search terms. I apply for all the management positions available—even if I’m underqualified—but most of the listings are for housekeepers. Even the Sunway Hotel is looking for a housekeeping supervisor. I apply for that job too.
“Rachel, you’ve only been here two days,” Mom says. “Don’t jump at the first apartment or the first job. Take time to rest and heal.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ve never been wired that way, but … Anna had it right,” she says. “You’ve experienced a loss—more than one—and you need to grieve. You don’t always have to be the strong one. You’re allowed to fall apart.”
“I don’t want to fall apart. I want the universe to bend my way for once.”
September
CHAPTER 24
Taarradhin
Arabic
“the act of coming to a happy compromise where everyone wins”
“The toilet is clogged. Again.”
The problem with being the overnight manager of the Atlantic Waves Motel in Dania Beach is that there’s no actual overnight staff to manage. There is only me, sitting in a tiny office behind a bulletproof window. There’s a metal vent for talking, and a shallow scoop for checking people in and out of the motel. Some guests stay for months, others stay a few hours, but nothing is my business unless it needs to be. The Atlantic Waves is the kind of old-school place where Sam and Dean Winchester might hole up while solving ghostly mysteries on Supernatural—except our rooms weren’t styled to look old and out-of-date. They are old and out-of-date.
I’ve applied for management positions at a few of the luxury and boutique hotels in Miami, but so far I haven’t heard from any of them. It could be that I’m a pariah, tainted by my encounter with Peter Rhys-Blackwell. Or it could be that no one in South Florida cares about my role in creating a small brew hotel in Ohio. I’ve been offered housekeeping jobs from Pompano Beach to Homestead, but I don’t want to send Maisie to day care for eight-hour stretches. Maybe someday I’ll be able to jump ship. Until then, I hang up the office phone, grab the plunger, and head to room 15.
The one good thing about working at the Atlantic Waves is that there’s never a dull moment. Complaints about clogged toilets and malfunctioning cable TV. Complaints about the air-conditioning being too cold or not cold enough. Complaints about noisy neighbors in the next room. Complaints about the traffic on Federal Highway. Complaints about the homeless guy who sits on the edge of the dry fountain in the parking lot. So there’s not a lot of time for me to think about Mason.
Except every morning, just before rush hour, as I’m making the twenty-minute drive home, my brain always goes there. I miss him with a longing that makes my chest ache. It feels exactly like panic, but it’s really the biggest sadness I’ve ever felt. I consider calling him daily. At least once a week since I returned to Florida I’ve said, “Hey, Siri … never mind.”
I don’t know where to put all that leftover love.
I don’t know how to go back to the way things used to be.
I don’t know how to go forward without him.
If there is such a thing as rock bottom, I’m pretty sure I’ve hit it.
* * *
Although I haven’t worn business clothes since I was fired from Aquamarine, I dress my best for mediation, in a black pencil skirt, a white blouse, and a textured gray blazer. I style my hair in a sleek, low bun, and right before I’m ready to leave for the mediator’s office in Coral Gables, I slip on a pair of black sling-back pumps. Brian’s best suit is ill-fitting garbage, and today I feel petty enough to revel in that knowledge. The universe may not be giving me what I want, but I’ll look damn fine not getting it.