Hannah dragged my sorry ass out of bed before dinner. I didn't feel like eating, I didn't feel like talking to anyone, looking at anyone, or even being around anyone. But Hannah wouldn't have an ounce of my self-pity.
Fucking stubborn Brannigans.
She was trying to get something cooked, but Ada was fussing. Carlos had mysteriously disappeared, and when I thought she was gonna give me cooking instructions, she didn't. Instead, she handed me Ada.
"There's expressed milk in bottles in the fridge," she said, stirring two different pots at once. "Take the teat off and microwave it for twenty-eight seconds." I stared at her, not too sure what I was doing, holding a baby and trying to heat milk up. Hannah raised an eyebrow at me, in true Brannigan style. "Go on," she urged me. "You can do it. You must have bottle fed all sorts of baby animals."
Trying to hold and soothe a still-fussing Ada, I heated the milk, put the teat back on and handed it to Hannah to test. By this time, Ada was crying and squirming, and I was bouncing her in my arms.
Hannah swirled the bottle, splashed a few drops on her wrist and smiled. She must have had the milk-heating procedure down to a science because she said, "It's good." So I tucked Ada into my arm like a football and stuck the bottle into her open, crying mouth.
The silence was immediate, and I let out a huge sigh of relief.
Hannah smiled. "See? Nothing to it."
I almost smiled as I walked into the living room and sat down with a now feeding, much happier Ada.
"She'll need burping and changing afterwards," Hannah said from the kitchen.
"Oh. Okay."
Hannah was the master in the art of distraction. She just wasn't very subtle about it. She made me burp Ada, clean up spit, change what was thankfully only a wet diaper and then redress her into pajamas.
I was trying to settle Ada and get her to sleep by walking a path into the living room carpet when Carlos got home. Even as he came in, juggling bags of groceries, and then on his second trip to the trunk of the car, a carton of beer, I was still relegated to Ada-duties.
Not that I minded. She was a cute little thing. But I knew what Hannah was doing; if she kept me busy enough, I couldn't think about Isaac. And if I had Ada, as opposed to standing at the stove stirring the large pot, I had to stay focused on what I was doing, and multi-task at the same time.
Hannah made this look easy.
By the time Ada finally went down to sleep, it was dinnertime. Not that I was particularly hungry, but Hannah put a plate in front of me anyway.
She certainly wasn't about to let me wallow. I pushed the food around my plate, but when Hannah gave me a none-too-pleased look, I managed a few mouthfuls. She was strictly a take-no-crap person, a trait I assumed came from years of looking after Isaac.
We ate at the back patio table again. It was, Hannah had said, where they ate most meals in the warmer months. Carlos took the empty plates inside and came back out with two beers. He handed me one, sat in his seat with a sigh, patted his belly and took a swig of his beer. "All I'm missing is the baseball on TV."
Hannah rolled her eyes and went inside, leaving Carlos and I alone to drink beer. It was either a deliberate move to give us some guy time, or to avoid listening to us talk crap.
We talked about baseball, which morphed into football, which turned into talk of childhood idols to movie stars, and the later it got, the more beer we drank, and the more shit we talked. I even laughed at his impersonation of 80’s big hair rock bands with his air guitar.
I knew it was a deliberate ploy for me to forget about things, if only for a little while. And it worked, kind of. Until long after we should have stopped drinking, but didn't, Carlos started talking again about Ada.
He talked of the wonders of creating life and how he never thought it was possible to love someone so much. He never expected the love, he said.
Even as drunk as I was, I knew I should say something. That's how conversations go; one person talks, then the second person responds.
But I couldn't.
I never expected the love, either.
"Carter…"
"It's okay, Carlos," I said. "You're allowed to talk about your baby girl and the wonders of kids and family and love. I'm not that fragile." He smiled sadly at me, so I added, "She's the most amazing smelling creature in the world, after all."
It was supposed to be funny, but the mere mention of something Isaac would frequently say, brought the weight of the last three days back with a dull thud.
Carlos sighed, knowing our conversation had just taken a nosedive. "I'm sorry," he said. "For what it's worth, I thought you'd make a good brother-in-law."
I took a deep breath, my heart squeezed tight in my chest. "I thought he was it for me," I admitted quietly. "I thought he was my family."
"Give him some time," Carlos said. "Wait until this Joshua douche leaves and maybe then Isaac will have some perspective."
I shook my head. "I went to the house the other day. When I picked up a few things? I figured it'd be better if he wasn't there."
Carlos stopped picking at the label of his beer and looked at me. "And?"
"And it was like I never lived there." I took a mouthful of beer. "Not a thing out of place, the bed was made. He'd even fed the cat."
Carlos stared at me, like what I said didn't make sense to him. "So?"
"It's just life as usual for him, like he doesn't even care," I explained. "And here I am, I can't even fucking function properly." I took another mouthful of beer. "You know what I've learned?"
"What's that?"
"I've learned a lot of things about myself in the last few days," I told him. "I've learned what I thought was being attentive and thoughtful, wanting to give him the world, as it turns out, is suffocating. So all this time I thought I was showing him how much I adored him, I was just pushing him a little bit further away."
Carlos looked at me for a long moment then he pointed his beer bottle at me. "You know what? I'm gonna tell you a story about Isaac." He drained his beer bottle and swallowed it down before he spoke again. "You see, when I first met Hannah, their dad had not long died, and she was doing everything she could to protect her brother. He was young and dealing with not only the death of his father, but also his training to be a teacher, being gay, then his guide dog Rosie died… It was a hard time for him.
But he had Hannah. She wasn't much older than him, you know. She'd been his caregiver for a long time. She was all he really had," Carlos said quietly. Then he smiled. "Things between me and Hannah got serious, and I can tell you, Isaac was not impressed."
I nodded. "I could imagine."
Carlos sighed. "God, he was an arrogant prick."
I snorted at that and Carlos smiled and shook his head. "Jesus, he wouldn't budge an inch. I was more than nice to him, I was obliging, cooperative, you name it, I did it. And he still hated me."
"He hated you?" I asked. "No, Isaac thinks the world of you."
Carlos laughed. "Now, maybe. But not then. God, every time Hannah and I had something planned, he'd call her up and tell her he needed her. It got to the point where Hannah told me she couldn't see me anymore, because it was her responsibility to look after Isaac."
I frowned. "What happened?"
"I paid Isaac a little visit and told him to grow the fuck up."
I scoffed out a laugh. "Really?"
Carlos nodded. "Yep. I told him it was unreasonable for him expect Hannah not to live her life because of him. I told him if he kept pushing, pushing, pushing for her to choose, that one day—maybe not then, but one day—maybe she wouldn't choose him, because he'd pushed too much. I told him I loved her and I wasn't going to go away just because he didn't like me." He smiled at me. "I told him if he thought by making it so difficult that I'd just give up, he was very wrong. I told him it was the opposite for me. I'd just fight harder for her."
"What did he say?" I asked.
Carlos smiled. "Not much he could say, really. But his attitude changed, that's for sure. He started being nice to me after that. He told me later that he knew I was an okay guy, because if I'd fallen at the first hurdle, then I wasn't the one for her."
I took another mouthful of my beer. I knew where he was going with this. I shook my head. "Isaac doesn't want me. I blew it."
"Have you spoken to him?" Carlos asked. "Have you asked him?"
"No. He won't take my calls."
"So that's it? You're just walking away without a fight?"
"I um… I…"
"Didn't think you were the quitting type."
"I didn't quit," I said weakly. "He asked me to leave."
"Let me tell you something about these bloody Brannigans, Carter," he said. "They're fucking stubborn. I should know, I married one. Tell him you're not going anywhere."
"See, Carlos, I can't," I told him. "I can't fight for him, I can't push him. He already thinks I smother him, suffocate him, so if walk back in there and tell him I'm not going anywhere, I'm just suffocating him even more."
Carlos shook his head. "That's bullshit and you know it. You've never suffocated him, ever. He's just being an ass because he knew he'd hurt you when he said that. So you're just gonna wait around until it all falls to shit and he realizes he was wrong?"
I nodded. "It's all I can do."
"And you die slowly of a broken heart while he takes his time being a stubborn ass, pretending to get on with life when he's too pigheaded to admit he's wrong?"
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Carlos put his empty bottle on the table and stood up. He clapped his hand on my shoulder before walking inside. "That's what I thought."
I sat there by myself, drunk and depressed for I don't know how long. I pulled out my phone to check the time. 11:27 pm. Fuck. I scrolled through my contact list, knowing I shouldn't be calling at this time, let alone drunk, but found the name I was after and hit dial.
"Carter?"
As soon as I heard his voice, my eyes pricked with tears. "Yeah, Mark," I said, sucking back a breath. "It's me."
It was around two o'clock in the morning by the time I got into bed. I spent over two hours on the phone to Mark. He listened while I told him what happened, how Isaac asked me if I was involved in pointing the finger at Joshua, how I couldn't lie to him.
I told him what Isaac had said, about me suffocating him, about how I must have suffocated Paul to make him cheat on me. Mark had threatened to walk to Boston to punch Isaac in the mouth for saying that, his voice was shaking with anger, but it was an empty threat.
I still defended Isaac, of course, reminding Mark that Isaac's method of self-preservation was to strike out with hurtful words. And that just pissed Mark off even more. I spent the entire conversation see-sawing between hurt and anger, wiping away tears with the hem of my shirt one minute, then speaking through clenched teeth the next.
Then I told him how Joshua was at Isaac's today, and how they had plans tonight. For all I knew he was still there. Maybe they were in bed, maybe Isaac was being un-suffocated by Joshua as we spoke.
Mark was quiet then as he listened to me cry.
I told him I was sick of the tears, I was sick of feeling lost. I loved Isaac, I loved him still. I probably always would. And then I told him, very profoundly, that having your heart broken sucked.
He asked me if I wanted him to come visit, he'd be there in the morning if I just said the word. But I explained to him that as much as I would love to have him here, I didn't exactly have a 'here' for him to stay at.
He told me to go to bed, that he loved me, that Isaac had lost his fucking mind, and that he'd call me tomorrow, or today rather, he corrected himself. It was a quarter to two.
I didn't hear Hannah get up with Ada at midnight, and if she heard me talking to Mark or heard me crying, she never said. I staggered out of bed around nine in search of strong coffee, and Hannah just smiled and patted my arm. "I know you're about to apologize," she said. "You don't need to."
I smiled into the coffee cup as I sipped the hot drink. "Sorry."
She leaned against the kitchen counter. "So, what's on your agenda for today?"
"I need to shower," I started. "Because I stink. And then I need to take finding somewhere to live a little more seriously."
Her brow pinched. "What do you mean?"
I shrugged and inhaled the smell of coffee. "I guess I kind of hoped I wouldn't need to find somewhere. I hoped Isaac would…" I stopped short, and started again. "Considering he and Joshua are…" I put the coffee cup down. "I just need to find my own place."
"I'm really sorry," Hannah said quietly.
"Don't apologize for him. Please."
She huffed. "For what it's worth, I don't think there's anything going on between them. Isaac just said it because he's pissed off at both of us, and he knew I'd tell you." Then she sighed quietly. "Isaac loves you, Carter. Not Joshua. I know he does."
"I think he's shown us who he'd prefer, yes?"
Hannah shook her head. "No."
I didn't want to argue with Hannah. It was the last thing I wanted. "It doesn't really matter anymore." I tipped my coffee down the sink. "I'm gonna get showered, get organized. Busy day."
I spent the day, even a Sunday, checking out real estate office windows, looking at rental lists. I wrote down addresses, and drove past the houses, making notes of the ones that looked half decent.
I could have done most of the work from a computer, but figured the day out would do Missy and I the world of good. And when I got back to Hannah's, I took Missy for a long walk, trying to keep occupied and not sitting around thinking. And as a way to show my appreciation to Hannah and Carlos for giving me place to stay, I offered to babysit Ada while they had dinner out.
It'd been five weeks since they'd had a night off, or any kind of break, so it was the least I could do.
Hannah almost tackled me, jumping excitedly, and then ran down the hall to get ready. I guessed she thought it was a good idea. She gave instructions as they were walking out the door, but considering Ada had not long been fed and changed, I was confident we'd be just fine.
She started to fuss a little, so I picked her up and walked the floor with her. I told her, in the sweetest, softest voice, that her uncle was a wonderful man, that I loved him with every fiber of my body, and that he was a complete and utter ass.
I whispered that her uncle took my breath away, and that she'd grow up to know a remarkable man. He was brilliant, in everything he did, how he faced the world head on, how his blindness certainly wasn't his downfall. No, his downfall was his stubbornness, his spitefulness. That was his downfall.
The more I walked, rocking little Ada gently in my arms and the more I talked soothingly, the quieter she became. Soon enough she was sound asleep in my arms. I sat on the sofa with Ada cocooned on my chest and it wasn't long before Hannah was waking me up, taking her still-sleeping daughter and telling me softly to go to bed.
Monday morning was weird. I woke up, and for one split second, I woke up refreshed and even happy. But then I rolled over, and I was in a strange bed, in a strange room. And then I remembered.
I got to work and was met by Rani, who offered me coffee and a smile. And I somehow made it through the day. I forced myself to deal with people, with their pets. I didn't hide in the storeroom or in my office.
I needed to pull my shit together and deal with it.
I made some phone calls to real estate agents regarding the rentals I was interested in, and had made appointments to see them later in the week.
I cooked dinner for Hannah and Carlos, admittedly it was grilled meat and salad, but I told them I had three places to look at. It made it real, telling them, that it was actually happening.
I had no doubt Hannah had spoken to Isaac; they talked every day. But I didn't ask what was said, and she didn't say. I felt bad for putting her in the middle of this whole mess, she looked genuinely upset, as though I'd added more stress to her already stressed life.
I walked Missy until it was late, giving them some privacy, and avoiding Hannah's saddened face.
On Tuesday after work, I told them I'd go out for dinner and take Missy with me, and Hannah stopped me. "You don't have to distance yourself from us," she said. "You're very welcome here."
I smiled and rubbed her arm. "Thanks, Hannah. I really appreciate everything."
"But?"
"But I need to get my shit together," I told her. "I need to move on."
Her eyes welled with tears. "From me?"
I gave her a hug. "No, Hannah, not from you, or Carlos, or gorgeous little Ada."
"From Isaac," she said softly.
I gave her a small nod. "I've left messages on his phone, Hannah. He doesn't reply. I think it's pretty clear he doesn't want me."
"But he loves you."
I shook my head and swallowed hard. "No, he doesn't." I took Missy's lead and walked out the front door. I didn't even cry.
It was Wednesday afternoon, after work, and I was looking through the second place on my rental list when my cell phone rang.
Isaac's name flashed on the screen, and I froze. The realtor looked at me, looking at the ringing phone in my hand, and smiled. "Are you going to answer?"
"Um…" I wasn't prepared for this. But the shrill sound of the phone cut through me, and I took the call. "Hello?"
There was a long beat of silence. "Carter…"
"Isaac…"
I swear I could hear him breathe. "Hannah called me," he said quietly. "She said you were looking for a place…"
"I can't stay with her forever," I answered just as softly. There was more silence, so I asked, "Isaac, are you okay?"
He was quiet for a moment, and then he whispered, "Sure."
I don't know what on earth possessed me to say it, maybe it was morbid curiosity, maybe I just needed to hear it from him directly. "So, does Joshua treat you well?"
"What?"
"I was just curious, that's all," I said, trying to sound casual. "Hannah said you told her that you and Joshua had plans, or a date, or something." I couldn't keep the sting out of my voice. "You didn't wait long. What was it? Two days?"
His voice was louder now. "Is that what you think?"
"It's what you said." Then something occurred to me, and I swallowed thickly. "Unless you were with him while we were still together." I pushed down the sudden urge to vomit. "Oh, Jesus… were you?"
"Carter, I…" and he stopped talking. "You know what? Never mind," he said coldly. And the line clicked off in my ear.
I ran my hands through my hair, took some deep breaths and ignored the nauseous feeling in my stomach.
"Uh…" the real estate lady's voice broke the silence.
I turned to her, and taking a last look around at the empty room, I shrugged and could barely form the words. "I guess I'll take it."
I told Hannah I'd agreed to take on a lease for the house and to say she was less than pleased was an understatement. She was royally pissed. Not at me, but at her brother.
"He told me he was going to call you!" she cried. "I went and saw him. He said he would."
"He did call me."
"No," she clarified. "To sort out this godforsaken mess."
"Look, Hannah, I appreciate everything," I told her again. "But you should probably be mad at me. I was the one who got angry on the phone."
"Don't worry," she said with pursed lips. "I'm mad at you too.
"Well, I'm mad too," I told her. "I'm really pissed off, actually."
"Good," she said back at me. "Then call him back and let him have it."
I laughed at the ridiculousness of this conversation. "Hannah…"
She sighed dramatically. "What is it with you freakin' men? You're freakin' hopeless."
Carlos walked into the kitchen where we were, and kissed her cheek. "It's in our DNA, darling."
She grumbled at him, but eventually smiled. "I just wish you and Isaac would talk. I swear, he's not with that douche bag Joshua. He's not." She folded her arms and huffed. "That man… he either sneers or smiles too fake. Ugh. He's a slimebag."
I nodded. "So… Joshua was there again?"
Her shoulders fell and she sighed. "Carter…"
Well, that answered that. Of course he was there. "Anyway," I said, changing the subject. "The house is kinda nice. Big yard, Missy will love it. It's not too far away. Close to work."
We didn't talk about Isaac again that night, but when I finished work on Thursday, Hannah was rather upset. She'd called Isaac like usual, but this time they fought.
She told him, apparently, he was making the biggest mistake of his life and if he thought for one moment Joshua's intentions were good, he was very, very wrong. She told him he was a fool for letting me walk away, for pushing me away.
Then he told her, apparently, to mind her own fucking business. That he could live his life how he wanted to. He blamed her for siding with me, that we were against him, that we wanted him blind. He told her we had no idea how much he wanted to see.
"Do you believe that?" Hannah asked. She was still upset. "Can you believe he still thinks that?"
"Yeah, I can," I told her. "God only knows what that asshole Joshua has told him."
Hannah started to cry. "That guy would have no idea what Isaac's been through."
Carlos hugged his wife. "He's going soon, isn't he?" he asked. "Then this will all be over?"
I nodded. But seeing Hannah upset over this, over me and Isaac, just broke my heart. It wasn't fair. I walked out the back door, and took out my phone. I called Isaac's cell phone, but of course he didn't answer.
So, I left message after message after message.
I told him he could be mad at me all he fucking wanted. He could yell and rant at me, hate me if he wanted, but he couldn't do that to Hannah.
He might think he doesn't need anyone, but if he pulled his head out of his ass long enough, he'd realize that Hannah needed him. He could say all the hurtful things he wanted to me, but he had no right to treat his sister that way. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.
But by the time I'd waited for his phone to ring out and voicemail to kick in on the fourth time, the fight in me was gone. All that was left, was a very raw hurt. I took a couple of breaths to stop any more tears, and I exhaled shakily into the phone. Before the message cut off, I said the only thing that was left to say.
"Isaac… I love you. Please."
Friday morning was busy, and I told Rani I had to go out after lunch to sign the lease for my new place. So when I collected my phone and keys from my office before I left, I saw I had one missed call, one message.
Isaac.
I almost didn't listen to it. I almost hit delete. My thumb hovered over the delete button, but the masochist in me had to know. So I pressed the message to listen to it, and lifted the phone to my ear.
His voice was quiet. Sad. "Carter… this whole mess, this whole thing… I never meant to hurt you, or Hannah…" his voice trailed away. "Anyway, I'm going away for a week or so. I need some time away to think and I can't do that here, my house is just... But when I come back, I'll be different, you'll see. Can you just give me that? Please? Because this is all for nothing without you."
Rani opened my office door. "I thought you were going?"
I was sitting at my desk and must have listened to Isaac's message four or five times. "Here, listen to this," I said to her. "Tell me what you think of it."
Rani sat down across from me, took my phone, and listened to Isaac's message. She frowned and handed it back to me. "What does that mean?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
"You don't think he'd do something stupid, do you?"
I almost laughed. "Isaac? Of course he would."
"No," she said. "I mean, with his eyesight. He said he was going away for a while and when he came back he'd be different."
"I think he was speaking metaphorically. That he'd be in a different headspace," I said. "We told him that half concocted surgery wouldn't work." I realized as I said the words, like a penny dropping. "He's not that stupid, is he?"
Rani raised one eyebrow. "Stupid, no. Desperate, yes."
I pressed his number and listened to it ring out in my ear. So I pressed it again, my knee bouncing. "Come on, Isaac. Answer your damn phone." The call clicked over to voicemail, again, but I didn't leave a message. I just hit redial. Nothing.
"Fuck."
Rani looked at her watch. "Call his work. He's still there, yeah?"
It was twelve-thirty. "Today's the last day before summer break," I said, scrolling through my contact list. I found Hawkins, and hit call.
I asked for Isaac, and was put on hold. But when the line picked up, it wasn't Isaac at all. It was Marianna, his boss. I'd met her quite a few times, and it was clear she adored Isaac.
"Marianna? It's Carter. Can I speak to Isaac, or if he's in class, could you pass on a message to him for me?" I was met with silence. "Marianna?"
"Yes, Carter, it's just that…" her voice faded away. "I'm confused. Isaac's not here. I thought he was with you."
"What?"
"He only had an end of year party on with his students this morning, and he said he needed to leave early today. He said he was going on vacation. With you."
With me?
On vacation?
Oh, Jesus.
"Marianna, did he say where we were going?"
"Carter, is something wrong?"
"Marianna, I'll explain everything later, but right now I need to know where he said he was going?"
"He said you were taking him on some hiking tour," she said. "He's always talking about how you both go hiking."
"Where?" I asked, a little too loudly. "Marianna, I need to know. Please."
"You're starting to scare me, Carter."
"Please," I begged. "Where did he say he was going?"
"Carter, I—"
"Marianna! Please. Where? Where did he say he was going?"
Her voice was distant. Her answer stopped my heart.
"Argentina. He said he was going to Argentina."