All This Time Page 3

  I managed to get the number for Neiland’s Garage. Someone there would get in contact with Della for me.

  It rang three times before one of the guys answered.

  “Neiland’s.”

  “Brady?”

  “That’d be me.”

  “It’s Liv.”

  “Liv? Jesus, where are you?”

  “Um. Tampa.”

  “You ran off to Tampa?” He asks skeptically. “I thought you’d go further at least.”

  “I probably would have, but my car broke down. How’d you know I left?”

  “Every one knows.”

  No good would come from my next question, but I ask it anyway.

  “What do they know?”

  “About you and Luke hooking up in the fields.”

  “Wh-what! That’s not…”

  “Della went on a war path.”

  “No, no, no, no. It wasn’t like that. We didn’t hook up.”

  “My brother, Liv, really?” Brady’s condescending tone grated my hysterical nerves.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I repeat. “Brady, I need you to get Della’s number for me. I broke my phone, and there’s no back up on that piece of crap.”

  “I don’t have her number.”

  “Then give her a message to call me. I need to explain. Maybe I should just come back.”

  “Her boyfriend just shipped out, Liv. Maybe give her some space.”

  Space never was resolved. I never returned to Calusa. Never called the garage again, or spoke with Della or Luke. Brady came up to Tampa where I decided to settle and helped me move in to an apartment when I hit the waddling stage of my pregnancy.

  Defeat took up a permanent residence in my bones, but I didn’t allow it to consume me. Not even when Brady started dodging my calls more and more.

  I did learn from him that Luke moved out of state and onto a base, taking Della with him. They were going to get married. He said she refused to take my new phone number every time he offered it up. Somehow she could forgive Luke enough to move away with him, but not even the littlest bit for me to hear my side.

  Brady fed me things I wanted to hear. Stuff like the possibility of him moving to Tampa now that his brother was gone. Shipping me baby necessities and helping build a crib.

  Then the trips stopped. The calls were left ignored.

  A baby was born, and I was left to raise her alone.

  And that’s my story. I don’t get a happy ending. The end.

  Chapter One

  Present day…

  Hey, look, my story got picked up. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

  Which is good hear, because I could really use some good news. I’ve had to pull out my mom voice a few times today already. And it wasn’t even directed at my child, or any child. At my job, it’s my secret superpower. It’s how I tame the egotistical businessmen. After all, their grown-up tantrums could battle a toddler.

  When hired on four years ago, the husband and wife co-owners of our small company changed my world. They brought me in, took me under their wings, and gave me an education I’ll never be able to repay. This job turned my life around.

  Being a single mom was a constant struggle. The first two years after I had my daughter, Brielle, were the most difficult times in my twenty six years. There were things I had to do, difficult decisions that had to be made, that I once told myself I would never do as parent. Situations that competed with my own lacking parents. But there’s a fine line between negligence and necessity. Surviving for the two of us involved tough choices that I would make again and again as long as Brielle has a happy life.

  As all moms will likely do at one point or another, I lost pieces of myself along the way. When you have to give a hundred and ten percent of yourself to the little vampires—because they suck everything; time, energy, and money out of you—we raise, there is not much left for you to claim as your own. So new identities have to be created.

  I found the woman I wanted to become, and I’d do nothing different.

  Well, maybe there’s one choice I would change…

  “Hey, Liv.” His dark head pops into the doorway of my small office. Part of my superpower is also pretending indifference. That’s why I keep tapping away at the computer only acknowledging his arrival with the tilt of my chin. “Randy and his crew from Global will be here two weeks from now for their order. I want you to be in on it since you were the main reason Randy went with us to begin with.”

  “In on what?”

  “Meetings, lunches, dinners, whatever Randy wants to do. He’ll be here for three days. I plan on kissing his ass.”

  “Considering how much money he spent on that order, I think that is very wise,” I say, finally looking up at him. His adorable smile flashes back at me, bringing out the craggy wrinkles near his eyes.

  Connor took over the company at the beginning of the year when his parents decided to retire. He’s been groomed for the role as president his entire life, and proved his capability in a matter of weeks. The man is all business. To a fault. The woman who ends up with Connor better be prepared for him to never differentiate business and pleasure.

  I knew from experience.

  Ten years older than me, he used kindness to persuade me on a date. Astonishingly patient, as I haven’t given him much clout in this…whatever we were. I agreed to dating him before he became owner, and my boss. The dates have been few and far between over the last year, because I’m a mom twenty-four-seven. I liked him. Until his company hat became the owner’s hat and then never. Came. Off.

  I don’t know about everyone else, but when I leave work, I don’t want to discuss what happens during business hours.

  But this momma had needs. Back when I was working two jobs to keep us afloat I set my personal impulses aside to focus only on raising my daughter. Time passed unbelievably fast, and when Connor made his advance I realized I buried my sex drive under motherhood.

  All it took were some small gestures to get that engine going again.

  Sparks started creeping to the surface when he offered domestic help. I would turn him down on a date, then he countered by coming to our apartment to fix a shelf I broke. He asked me to meet for coffee, I spent the entire time venting about the damn ceiling fan in Brielle’s room that maintenance kept putting off to repair.

  He got the fan working, he hung that shelf by simply adding anchors I didn’t know it needed, and well, you get the gist of if. I was turned on by the small things.

  Connor is a good man. He’s just a little…boring outside of work.

  “What days will Randy be here?” I ask, opening the calendar on my desktop.

  “Arrives the 15th and leaves the 17th.”

  Scrolling to next month, I frown at the input already in the slots for the second week of March. The same entry would be on his computer as well.

  “Connor, I’m off that week.”

  Unfazed, he says simply, “I really need you here.”

  “Brielle will be out for Spring Break. I can’t cancel on her.”

  “Do you already have plans made?”

  Very ballsy, Connor.

  He knows we haven’t made permanent plans.

  I can’t plan far ahead when we’re on a tight budget. She’s asked me to take her to the beach, and there’s nothing I want more than a vacation on the white sand under the sun.

  “Not yet,” I answer with reluctance.

  He steps further inside my office, tucking his hands in the pockets of his crisp gray slacks. “How about I approve Brielle coming to work with you? I can get Meg to watch her if we go into a meeting, or out for lunch.”

  Yeah, that’s what every kid would rather be doing than going to the beach—going to work with their mom. Super fun.

  As usual, business above all else with him.

  Nothing against Meg, Connor’s sister in accounting, but she’s younger than I am, and has no children. I don’t pawn my daughter off on just anyone. He knows that.

&nbs
p; “I’m not making any promises, Connor.”

  “I think Randy would prefer having you sit in on the deal.”

  “Then Randy can change his dates. Spring Break is for only one week.”

  I hold his gaze, standing my ground. I learned awhile ago if I gave in even one time, management thought it meant I would willingly concede every time.

  “I’ll see what I can do, then.”

  Randy liked to flirt with me on the phone, and Connor’s too intimidated to deal with him alone. I imagine I’ll be hearing something sooner rather than later about the dates changing.

  He turns to leave, but pauses in the doorway.

  “Oh. Dinner Saturday night? My mom says she’ll watch Brielle for us.”

  “Okay.” I nod, smiling despite my sour mood.

  Connor grins, then walks off.

  I roll my eyes and get back to what I had been working on when he came in.

  I hold this company as a high obligation. A way of giving back for all the opportunities Mr. and Mrs. Valdez offered me. So much obligation that there are times I have felt taken advantage of. They know I’ll give my all, but they go beyond just accepting. They always want something else to take. This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked to cancel vacation days for an important account needing my presence.

  Except, this time I wasn’t giving up my personal time.

  And now he and I have another date to go on.

  I was beginning to look forward to our dates less and less. The last time he asked me out, I made excuses why Brielle had to tag along with us. Even my five year old didn’t want to date him. She begged to never be dragged out again.

  I didn’t fear by dumping him there would be repercussions with my position at work. He needed me too much in order to do his own job. And like I’ve mentioned, the company comes first with him.

  His mother, Mrs. Valdez, is fantastic. She loves visits with Brielle, and vice versa. Our break up would upset her more than Connor.

  My work day flies by like normal. At five o’clock I say my goodbyes and clock out.

  Brielle’s elementary school is ten miles from my job. She goes to an after school program across the street.

  Winter is supposed to be fading into Spring, but a quick cold front appeared yesterday. Dropping to the fifties and sixties is about as cold as a cold front gets in Florida.

  I check her out of daycare, gripping tightly to the opening of my coat at the base of my throat as we re-enter the swift, biting breeze.

  She hops in the back seat, buckling herself in.

  When I found our new apartment I mainly chose it for the convenient distance to my job and Brielle’s school. Maybe it’s the small town life imbedded in me, but moving to Tampa was a drastic change with the high volume traffic alone. The destination may be ten miles apart, but the time it takes to get there is doubled. And I was not about to drive an hour to work like some of my coworkers do.

  “How was school today?” I ask, glancing back at her through my rear view mirror.

  “We started a new project.” Brielle stares out the window, watching the grid lock traffic blocking us in.

  “Oh, yeah. What about?”

  “Genealogy.”

  My eyes bulk. They taught genealogy in kindergarten?

  “That’s the technical term. The teachers are just calling it a family tree.”

  Well, okay, smarty pants.

  And she is. Brielle soaked everything up like a sponge early on. She was reading her bed time stories back to me by four years old, asking to download apps on her tablet for spelling and math over games, and became fascinated with the technical terms to everything from plants to animals, and to lineage, apparently.

  She can pull up Google faster than I could.

  Often times I had to remind myself I had a five year old, not a ten year old.

  “So is our homework tonight about genealogy?”

  I say “our” because I sit at the table with her in case she needs my help. For the most part, she schools me.

  “Sorta.” Her response is mumbled.

  I glance back once again. She’s still looking out beyond the window.

  Typically, she’s a very bubbly child. The only time she’s intense is when researching something new she’s learned. Once she has all the new facts down, she’s back to her regular spunk.

  For now, I let it go. I’ll see how she responds when we sit at the table later.

  I have a nagging feeling her mood is based on something from school.

  Traffic never let up, but we made it home within twenty minutes.

  She barrels up the steps ahead of me to our second floor apartment. After turning the key, we step inside our tidy space. Brielle runs off to her room to change out of her uniform, while I kick off my heels just inside the door. Keys, purse, and mail land on the entry shelf to my left.

  It’s a fairly small two bedroom apartment, but considering what we moved here from, this is a palace.

  Our last apartment, a six hundred square foot, one bedroom, with molding walls, was the first place I lived after moving out here. Brielle’s father, when he was still slightly interested in us, helped me find it. That dump was a rotting mess, like him.

  At the time it was all I could afford. I held tightly to the cash my father sent me off with, worked more hours than presumed healthy for a pregnant girl, and pinched every penny until I was larger than the trays of food I would serve a family of ten. I thought all the money I put away would be enough for us to float on a couple of months after Brielle was born. It wasn’t, and I jumped back into work three weeks postpartum.

  My elderly neighbor across the hall was a lifesaver back then. She was the first and only person I trusted with my newborn. It all went to shit when she passed away when Brielle was five months old.

  Crossing the short distance from the door to the kitchen, I pull out ingredients for dinner.

  “How’s spaghetti and meat balls sound for tonight, Brielle?”

  “Great, Mommy,” she answers, standing at the dining room table with her book bag open.

  I gather up the three key ingredients, setting a pot of water on the stove to boil, a pan for the sauce, and another pan to cook the frozen meatballs.

  I actually love to cook, but during the week I pick the simplest, most quick recipes to pull together. I’m not about to come home from work to make my own meat balls and sauce.

  While I wait for the water to boil, I set the sauce on simmer. Brielle took a seat at the table. I walk over, kiss the top of her head, and peer down at the sheets she’s laid out before her.

  One paper has a giant tree taking up the entire page. Small, empty boxes fan out across the limbs.

  “Is this the homework?”

  “Yeah,” she replies in a meager voice. “I can do it, Mommy.”

  “Okay.” I run my hand over her hair, waiting to see if she will say any more. But she tilts her head back to smile up at me.

  After I made dinner, she put her school work away, we ate, and went on to a normal night in.

  Brielle bounced around the house, playing with toys, watched TV, bathed, and went to bed. I saw the brief funk she was in, but she snapped out it so I didn’t question her on it.

  Then I learned the next evening after work and school, I should have followed my gut.

  She was quiet once again in the car, and I asked if her day went well. At home, she pulled the same sheet of paper from her bag and set in on the table.

  “Wasn’t that last nights homework?” I ask, standing over her.

  She nods. “Ms. Taylor asked me to take it home again. I didn’t complete it.”

  “Brielle, you told me you could do it on your own.”

  “I did. It’s just…the other kids papers were filled out more than mine and…and Ms. Taylor said I needed to ask you to help me fill in as many names as we can.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I told her I don’t have any family except you. This is pointless.”

&n
bsp; Her words hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  “And this is for the project you’re doing in class?”

  “Mm-hm.” She nods, clasping her hands in her lap.

  “Well, I can help. I remember names up to my grandparents, so that’s great-grandparents to you. What else are you going to be doing for this project?”

  “We’re drawing a tree.” Her downcast eyes worry me.

  “Brielle, be honest with me so I can help. What are you having trouble with?” I ask these questions with vigilant patience.

  “Ms. Taylor has us drawing and decorating our trees this week. We’re going to fill in the names at the end, but when I showed her my homework from last night she asked why it was empty. I told her it’s just me and you, and some of the kids laughed at me.” Those little assholes. “I think she felt bad, so she asked if I could at least get their names.”

  “Sweetie, why didn’t you ask me last night?” I pull out the chair nearest to her and sit down. “If you would have asked, I would have helped you fill it in.”

  “But we don’t have family. I don’t have a dad, or grandparents like the other kids at school.”

  I felt a heavy weight of guilt in that moment. Our circumstances were my fault. Who’s to say Brady wouldn’t have stuck around had I not left town? Or that my own father wouldn’t have come around to the idea of having a granddaughter? If I stayed, she would’ve had an uncle. Luke was a loyal guy, at least when I knew him, and if Brielle had been in his life, he wouldn’t have left her out.

  My dad is the one person I think of on a constant basis. Brady is the person I want to forget. Luke, however, hasn’t crossed my mind in a very long time.

  “No, we don’t have family,” I say to her, smiling through my own hurt feelings. “But we have relatives, and even though we don’t speak to them, we can fill in their names. I’m sorry I haven’t discussed any of this with you, Bri. That’s Mommy’s fault.”