“Can you put your daddy back on the phone?”
“‘K, bye, Mama.”
“See, I told you he was fine.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I growled into the phone, my fear quickly replaced by anger. “Why did you pick him up from school? Why didn’t you call me? Are you at your office?”
“I need a reason to see my son?”
I sighed. If I could crawl through the phone and throttle him I swear I would’ve. If thoughts alone could kill, Gabriel would’ve already been cold to the touch, and buried six feet under.
“How about I tell you all about my reasons when you arrive at my office. I’ll tell my assistant to be expecting you. I’m sure you remember the location.” And with that, the opposite end of the phone went dead. He’d hung up.
Within seconds, I was out of my office and pushing past Natio’s desk in a hurry. “I have to go. There’s, uh, been an incident at Diego’s school,” I lied. “Please tell Nancy.”
“Of course,” Natoi replied, a concerned expression on her face.
I didn’t slow down as I breezed out the glass door and punched the down elevator with my knuckles. The fear, anxiety, and anger pushed me forward. I didn’t see anything in front of me. Not on the elevator ride down, not as I retrieved my car in the building’s elevator, and not as I drove the twenty-five minutes to get from one part of downtown Williamsport to the other end to arrive at Williams & Brodsky. I didn’t even think twice of parking in a red zone and hopping out of my car to run inside the building. I grew even angrier when I had to stop at the front receptionist desk to show my I.D., and the security guard had to call up to Gabriel’s office to grant me permission upstairs. I’m sure he was having a fucking field day just thinking of how he was able to so easily manipulate my emotions.
I’m sure it took only a few minutes to get from the lobby to Gabriel’s floor, but it felt like forever.
“Ms. Clarke, Mr. Garcia is in his office. Right this way,” a woman I didn’t recognize but was apparently Gabriel’s secretary instructed me as I entered the door. She led me down the long hallway and knocked on the door of the corner office, that had Gabriel’s name on it.
“Come in.”
His voice alone had my anger flaring again. I entered behind the woman to see Gabriel sitting, smiling proudly behind his desk, perched directly in front of his huge floor-to-ceiling windows. My eyes breezed past him, looking about the office until I reached the leather couch off to the right where Diego sat, playing one of his handheld video games, headphones in his ears.
“Diego!” I shrilled, moving past the secretary to get to my son.
“Hi, Mama.” He smiled his toothless grin.
“Thank you, Rebecca. Ms. Clarke and I need to discuss her case now. Close the door behind you,” he stated rather dismissively.
My eyes were on Diego, quietly inspecting him, when I heard the door close. When I assured myself that he was unharmed, I rose. “Continue playing your game, sweetheart, while your … father and I talk.” I patted Diego as he shrugged and turned his gaze back to the game.
I pivoted and moved closer to Gabriel’s desk. “What was this about?” I whispered, looking to Diego out of the corner of my eye. I cut my eyes back to a smirking Gabriel.
“You don’t know?”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead with my fingers, trying my best to ease the tension that was developing there. Gabriel loved playing games. Enjoyed the pleasure he got from stringing people along. I’d known him for all of my adult life, and he’d always been this way. I was just too young and dumb to realize it back then. Before I brought an innocent life into all of this.
“I enjoy reading the newspaper each morning. You know, most of these millennials,” he scoffed, “they get their news from news feeds on their phones. Not me, I still embrace the feel of an actual newspaper between my fingers as I turn the pages. I guess I’m still old school.” He shrugged.
I rolled my eyes, sighing, but remained silent. Gabriel wouldn’t be rushed to get to the point. And my insisting that he would, would only prolong him.
“Each morning I come in the office early just to read the paper alone before I start my day. Most of the time I skip the sports pages. It’s a lot of gossip these days that I don’t care to read about. But today …” he paused, his dark brown eyes pinning me, “today, I decided to take a look. Imagine my surprise when I turned to read about the Williamsport Panthers and their training camp’s Family Day to find a picture of my very own son’s mother, smiling with one of Tyler Townsend’s brothers as he played catch with my son!” The last part of his statement was spat out viciously, as he stood abruptly from his chair.
Unconsciously, I took a step back when he tossed the very paper he was talking about in my direction. I didn’t move to pick it up from the edge of his desk. I didn’t need to pick it up to see the picture he referenced. Large as day was an image snapped by one of the photographers that had been on the field that day. Tyler’s in the background tossing a soft nerf ball to Diego who sat high on Carter’s shoulders. The three are smiling and laughing as I stand a few feet from Carter, clapping as I watch him. I can see the joy in my own eyes and in that instant I know that’s what has Gabriel pissed off the most. How dare I find happiness with someone else?
The caption underneath the picture says it all. It describes me as Carter’s girlfriend but doesn’t give my or Diego’s name. Of course, Gabriel doesn’t need to see our names in black and white, the image being enough.
My gaze slowly rises to a now fuming Gabriel as if he’s been waiting for me to say something.
“Don’t look at him!” he demands when I glance over at Diego. “I told you what would happen? Told you what I would do? Did I not?” he seethes.
My stomach twists in knots. “Gabriel, it’s not what it looks like,” I lied, trying for anything.
“You think I’m a fucking idiot?”
