Every Other Saturday (13 page)

“Where are we going, Daddy?” Lyric asked late Sunday afternoon. She had been playing with her Hank Aaron bear in the backseat, singing and making him dance as they drove. “I thought you were taking me back to Mommy’s house.”

“I am.” Dave smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “It’s just such a pretty day, I thought we could drive a few extra minutes and look at the horses.”

“Like an adventure!” Lyric was delighted.

“Yep!” Dave smiled. He loved his little girl’s ability to find the joy in every situation. He wondered where it came from: he and Debbie were both control freaks when it came to change.

The truth was, he hadn’t set out to come this way. They had left the house a little too early to get to Debbie’s at five, and it drove her nuts if he showed up early without calling. So Dave had taken the long way, thinking they’d stop for gas or run an errand to kill a few minutes. How the truck had found its way to Moonshine Road was a mystery.

“Can I have horse riding lessons?” Lyric pointed at a chocolate quarter-horse eating grass in a nearby field.

“Sure. Probably. Maybe,” Dave said. Expensive hobby, and a little aristocratic—more Debbie’s taste than his own. But at least Lyric would wear boots and get muddy. Better than ballet.

“My birthday is in eight days…” Lyric sang charmingly. She had Debbie’s gift for getting what she wanted.

Dave smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “I know. Almost a five year old woman.”

Lyric giggled. They crested the next hill, and he could see Milton Iron and Feed in its snug little valley to the right. The store was closed on Sundays, and apparently so were the kennel and school on either side of it. With the parking lots empty and the sun fading against the buildings and the pretty meadow behind, Dave thought he could imagine what life was like when this part of the world was its own tiny community, rather than a withering extension of Atlanta’s affluent suburbs. He slowed as they passed, admiring the wood plank walls and sturdy porch. He wondered whether Julia kept the store in part because she imagined or remembered these things and treasured them. Or was it, as he was beginning to suspect, that she simply was too stubborn or too grieved to let her father’s dream go?

Dave was so lost in thought that he nearly ran the stop sign a half mile past the store. He slammed on the brakes as a shiny black SUV crept into the intersection, stopping with a few feet to spare. He waved apologetically at the driver, a woman with a blonde ponytail and a pink baseball cap. She gave him the finger and sped off, leaving him to gape at the pink monogrammed initials on her back windshield.

“Daddy? Okay?” There was a tremor of concern in Lyric’s little voice.

“Fine, sweetheart. Daddy just stopped paying attention for a second. No harm, no foul.”

“If it was a foul, would that lady get to take a free throw? Is that why she held up her finger?”

“Yes, she would,” Dave said. “She was wrong, though. She would get at least two of them for that.”

“It’s all about fundamentals,” Lyric said.

“Sure is, kiddo.”

Lyric didn’t worry long that her dad was the worst driver in suburban Atlanta, because soon she was back to singing “For the First Time in Forever,” complete with Broadway-style hand gestures, Hank Aaron flopping along at her command.

They pulled into Debbie’s driveway ten minutes later. She wasn’t taking care of the flower beds, Dave noticed. She had wanted those things put in so damn badly three years ago, when all their friends and family were invited to Lyric’s obscenely huge second birthday party. Debbie had used the party as an excuse to buy new living room furniture, and sent Dave out into the yard every weekend for months to create flower beds and rock walls. The fancy iron bench cost more than his first couch. Now the beds were being overtaken by weeds, and Lyric’s birthday party next weekend would be held on neutral ground at the jumpy place.

Lyric ran inside while Dave stooped to pull a bull thistle weed. He waited outside as Debbie greeted their daughter, anxious to get home to work on this week’s blog. This anxiety was quickly overtaken by confusion and then anger as Aaron’s battered Jeep pulled up to the curb. Aaron wore his crazy reflective sunglasses underneath his Georgia hat, but his bushy beard had been neatly trimmed.

Dave said the words aloud, in spite of himself. “What. The. Fuck.
”

Aaron’s hands gripped the wheel at ten and two, shoulders slumped visibly. He inhaled deeply, as though gathering himself to face a firing squad. Worse, a job interview. He stepped out of the Jeep onto the pavement. From where Dave stood, he could see that Aaron had ironed his khakis, but was still wearing his beat-up white tennis shoes. Debbie didn’t even
own
tennis shoes. She had four-hundred-dollar cross trainers in custom colors to match her workout clothes. But plain old stinky white tennis shoes with scuffs on the toes and twelve kinds of mud on the bottom? Dave would be surprised if Debbie even let those past her threshold, much less on the white carpets inside.

He stood stiffly and waited for Aaron to approach, as though guarding his castle against an intruder. Not that it was his to guard anymore. Aaron greeted him with a quick jut of the chin.

“Dave.”

“Aaron.”

Before they could find out how long the awkward testosterone silence would go between them, Debbie opened the front door and stepped out. Lyric trailed behind her, still holding Hank Aaron by one grubby pink paw. Even Debbie seem to waver in her usual grace. “Well,” she said. “I guess this was inevitable.”

“What’s ineggable?” Lyric piped up below them.

“It’s just a grown-up word,” Dave said.

“Don’t say that to her,” Debbie said. “Honey,
inevitable
is something that was bound to happen. So, for example, if Uncle Aaron bought you a chocolate ice cream, it’s inevitable that you would eat it.”

Dave snorted. “Maybe you should skip applying for that job as a vocabulary teacher.”

“At least I am
trying
to help our child understand the world and be prepared to be an adult. At least I don’t try to hide everything from her. You can’t protect her from reality forever.”

“Are we still talking about the word inevitable here?”

“Yes, Dave, we are. I think we all need a lesson in dealing with things that are inevitable.” On this last word, she widened her eyes significantly.

Subtle, Deb.

Wisely, Aaron crossed to Lyric and crouched down. “I don’t know about you, sweetie, but I’ve had enough vocabulary for today. Sounds like we need to go get that chocolate ice cream your mom just promised I would give you.”

Debbie reddened. Rookie mistake. Even Aaron knew you couldn’t mention chocolate ice cream in front of a kid and not follow through. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Aaron, with a sheepish smile. Dave hadn’t seen that smile in years.

Aaron shrugged and grinned back at her. “At least you didn’t promise her a trip to Disney or something.”

“Disney?” Lyric shrieked.

Aaron and Debbie laughed, sparkling at each other. It was nauseating. “I don’t effing believe this,” Dave muttered. The words sounded bitterer than he intended in front of Lyric.

“So, anyway.” Debbie put her hand on Lyric’s shoulder and steered her inside. “If Uncle Aaron is going to take you for ice cream, we’d better get some dinner in you first. I’m sure you’ve been eating nothing but junk with Daddy.”

Before he could argue, they were inside. Aaron, however, was rooted to the front stoop. “Why don’t you join us, man? I’m sure Debbie made a ton of stir-fried tofu or whatever it is.”

When Dave didn’t respond, Aaron smirked. “I’ll even buy you an ice cream.”

“Seriously?” Dave spat. “It’s bad enough you’re doing that condescending crap with my four-year-old.”

“Shit, Dave. What do you want from me? I’m doing the best I can here.”

“It seems to me that you’re doing my wife the best you can.”

Aaron threw up his hands and turned around, pacing into the yard through the weeds and back. He came back with his hands on his hips. “Ex-wife. She’s your ex-wife. And I get that you’re upset. We both do. But you’re not even letting me talk to you.”

“I don’t see what there is to talk about, Aaron.”

“How about the fact that it’s time for us to face this situation like grownups? How about that Debbie and I might have real feelings for each other?”

Dave felt his hands ball into fists at his sides.
This is my best friend
, he reminded himself.
The kid is a wall away. Keep it together.

Aaron made no such effort. His face was set hard in anger. He looked ten years older than the last time Dave had seen him. “How about the fact,” his voice rose, “that your marriage has been over for two years and you’re still acting like it’s some kind of temporary vacation?”

It happened before Dave even realized it, much less had any control to stop it. His next awareness was the sensation that someone had jerked his right arm upward and the knuckles were connecting with the flesh of Aaron’s face. There was a sickening crack and Aaron’s eyes went wide with surprise just before the blood spurt down the front of his shirt.

“Jesus,” Aaron cried. “Fuck, Dave. You broke my nose.”

Behind him, Dave heard Debbie gasp. He turned to see her shuttling Lyric back inside. How much had they seen? Numb, Dave made his way to the neglected garden bench and sank down, head in his hands. Aaron had both hands over his nose, muttering thick-sounding curses through the bubbles of blood. What had he done?

Debbie re-emerged from the house with a towel and a bag of frozen peas, not looking at Dave as she crossed to tend to Aaron. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry, Aaron. Really.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” Aaron burbled.

They were both on their knees in the yard, blaming themselves for something Dave had done with his own fist. Shame crept over him, an icy chill in the warm evening. He stood slowly. There were no real choices. He could try to repair what he’d done, or…everything else was too awful to consider.

Dave went to them quietly, looking at his friend’s swollen nose and the spots where the blood had run into his beard, darkening it grotesquely. His own voice was thick in his ears. “He needs to go to the hospital. I’ll take him.”

Debbie turned to him, her face pale and disbelieving. “Are you kidding me right now? You just assaulted your best friend in the middle of my front yard and now you’re going to take him to the hospital?”

“If he’ll let me drive him, yes.”

Aaron muttered something unintelligible and stood, nodding.

Debbie’s mouth hung open stupidly, one of her few expressions that was not the slightest bit attractive. “It will be okay,” Dave said to her, only half sure this was true.

# # #

They were silent for the ten-minute drive to the urgent care center. Dave pulled the truck into a parking space out front and squinted at the hours on the door. “Open until six. Five forty-nine now,” he said, as though he and Aaron were running some ordinary errand.

Aaron, who had his head tilted back against the seat and one hand holding both the bloody towel and the frozen peas on his face, said nothing.

Dave sighed. “Why don’t I go in and see if they’ll take you this late, or if we should drive down to the Northside ER?”

Aaron was silent. Dave supposed that would have to pass for assent. A heavyset nurse in embroidered hot pink scrubs met him at the check-in window. “Can I help you?”

“I have my friend in the car. He’s been…injured. Broken nose, I think. I didn’t know if you were still taking patients or not.”

“We’re here until six,” she said.

“Yeah. It’s ten ’til now, so…”

She stared at him blankly, one brow raised.

“So I’ll just bring him in, then?”

“We can’t treat him in the car,” she said flatly.

“Okay, then,” Dave said, reminding himself that there was no room for him to be indignant today.

He returned to the truck and opened the passenger door for Aaron, who didn’t look at Dave as he shuffled inside to a chair in the waiting room. His nose was still oozing blood, darker and thick with coagulation and snot. Dave got the clipboard from the hot pink nurse and brought it to Aaron, who stared down at it and then glared sideways at Dave.

“Do they have speech recognition software on that clipboard?” Aaron said, deadpan.

“Want me to fill it out for you?”

“It’s the least you can do.” Aaron’s tone was unreadable. He was either kidding or so pissed he would never speak to Dave again. Maybe both.

Dave filled in the information, realizing that he knew Aaron’s birthday, his middle name, and most of his phone numbers. “What’s your work cell?”

“I don’t know it by heart,” Aaron said. “It’s on my business cards.”

“Hang on,” Dave said. “It’s in my phone. But get your wallet out anyway. I need your insurance information.”

They both shuffled around awkwardly, reaching into their pockets, balancing the clipboard and the frozen peas. Aaron groaned as he moved and a dribble of blood leaked from his right nostril.