The Words We Leave Unspoken(16)

“Aunt Charley?” Max’s voice pulls me back from the past as I look at his face and realize that I was exactly his age when my father left.

“Yeah,” I whisper, suddenly breathless from the thought of Gwen leaving Max. Or leaving me for that matter.

“Can we go look at that big boat over there?” he asks, pointing to a huge cabin cruiser at the end of the dock.

“Sure.” I stand up, glancing at my initials one last time before taking Max’s hand as he leads us toward the big boat that caught his eye.

When we have seen nearly every boat docked in the harbor, I take the kids home. We decide on a movie and settle down on the big couch in the family room. Halfway through the movie, I receive a text from Grey. How’s it going, Aunt Charley? Surviving? I smile at his playful words. He’s been calling and texting more and more lately. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like it, but it also unnerved me. The lines are beginning to blur as they inevitably do, but I’m not ready to end whatever this is between Grey and I. I text him back.

Surviving. The hours are dragging by. What are you doing?

I wait for his response as I try to sift through what I’m feeling.

Just hanging out. Missing you. Counting the hours (yes they are dragging) until I can see you!

I stare at my phone, reading his words over and over again as fear settles into the pit of my stomach. I don’t even know how to respond to that. My phone chimes again with a new message.

Too much?

I smile, thinking that he knows me too well. I decide to be playful and not read too much into it.

Depends?

On what?

What part of me you miss...

Every. Single. Part.

His words send a chill over me as I imagine him saying them as his breath teases the bare skin just below my ear. He throws me completely off balance. I suddenly miss him too, although I’m not sure exactly what it is that I miss. I most certainly just got caught up in the moment. And I miss sex. I miss sex with Grey.

I miss parts of you too. See you soon. I stand and pocket my phone, ending this conversation before it gets out of my control.

“Time for lunch,” I call out and make my way into the kitchen.

I make peanut butter sandwiches, a suggestion from Gwen’s list.

“I’m not hungry,” Max says. I bribe him with a chocolate chip cookie as a reward if he eats all his lunch. But he doesn’t budge.

“My tummy hurts,” he whines. And before I can ask him what’s wrong, he throws up all over the kitchen floor. It all happens in slow motion and the sudden smell of sour milk assaults my senses. Great. This is not happening.

“Gross, Max,” Olivia yells, snapping me into motion. I grab the trashcan just as he starts to heave again. He’s crying and I feel terrible for him, wishing Gwen was here. Gwen would know what to do. I try to console him, while I lead him to the couch with the trashcan perched in front of him.

“I want my mommy,” he cries.

Shit.

I can’t call her. Gwen needs this weekend. I can do this.

“It’s okay Max. Mommy will be home soon enough,” I say, trying to console the both of us. I rub slow circles on his back as Olivia plops down on the other end of the couch and unpauses the movie.

After a while, Max starts to drift off to sleep and I feel like the vomiting has stopped, for now. When the movie ends Olivia retreats to her room after uttering, “Gross,” nearly fifty times. I don’t blame her; my mind is screaming the same thing, although I don’t say it out loud. I clean the kitchen floor, the whole time wondering how Gwen does this kind of stuff every day.

When Max starts moaning, I go to him. I’m poised and ready with the trashcan and when I place my hand on his back, I realize that he’s burning up. He definitely has a fever. I’m suddenly scared. What if he’s having an appendicitis attack? What if something is really wrong? I can’t let Gwen down. Nothing can go wrong this time, not on my watch. I run to the stack of papers Gwen left and call the pediatrician’s office, only to speak to an after-hours operator for Seaport Pediatrics who refers me to an Urgent Care Clinic where the on-call pediatrician is on staff. I bundle Max, call Olivia to come downstairs and take Max to the car with the trashcan in hand.

We drive to the clinic and wait in the waiting room for nearly an hour while Max sleeps on my lap. His little fevered body heating me like a space heater as my anxiety swells and what little patience I have grows thinner by the minute.

When a nurse finally calls Max’s name and we are led back into an exam room, Max wakes up and starts to vomit again, although hardly anything is coming up. Poor little thing, I think to myself as we settle into the exam room and he falls limp in my lap again. As the nurse takes Max’s blood pressure and checks his temperature, I am trying hard to stay calm but inside I’m freaking out, worried sick about Max and what Gwen is going to think. The nurse leaves the three of us alone in the quiet room, waiting for the doctor. I hold Max in my lap while Olivia silently reads her book and with nothing else to do, I watch the minutes tick by on the clock.

After what seems like an eternity, the exam room door opens and I look up, slammed hard with recognition as I stare into the piercing, transparent eyes of someone I haven’t seen in years. I know him though, those brooding blue eyes full of mystery that dare to draw you in. And I also know that when he laughs, gone is the mystery and like a window to his soul, those eyes let you in and swallow you whole. Snapshots of my youth flash through my mind, one at a time, as I see the girl that I once was, falling for a boy with complete and reckless abandon. My heart begins to drum in my chest as I take in his face. He still looks young and kind, like the boy next door that I remember. Like the boy that I once loved. It’s like staring into the face of a ghost, one that has haunted me over the years.