I caught a peek into Tilly’s apartment the first time I was there, but seeing her so ill erased any observations I might have made. Odd for me. I’m used to taking in a lot of information instantly under the worst pressure. I have to find my wide receivers twenty yards down the field when a thousand pounds worth of angry dudes is trying to kill me, and I’ve got three seconds to commit to something.
And I usually do a great job committing. That’s how I landed myself in the NFL despite everything else.
But all that really registered with Tilly’s apartment wasmess, and I’m not one to judge on that. With it being just Gammy and me, I got used to cleaning growing up, but I’ve lived with lots of messy guys. That’s why we pay a maid.
We didn’t even lock the door when we left. I don’t know if we closed it, but someone did. They didn’t lock it either, so I’mable to get in without hunting down a landlord so I can explain what’s going on and why it’s not Tilly letting herself in.
I walk right in, and I pause.
I want to blame what I walk into on looters, but no. Nothing’s been taken unless they were the dumbest looters ever, and it’s not vandals, either. Nothing’s torn up, no drawers have been left open, nothing’s broken. There are plenty of items that would be easy to sell just sitting there. Hell, a ton of stuff is still in boxes that you could take right back to the store and get a refund with the claim you never opened it but you don’t have a receipt because it was a gift.
You know, like baby stuff. All the baby stuff. Stroller and crib, changing table and one of those saucers with wheels you put them in so they can roll themselves around. A car seat. A pump system for milk, I guess. A tower of diapers. Bags of clothes. And it’s all just in a corner.
“What the hell,” I whisper, trying to wrap my head around it, but it’s hard. The baby stuff is stacked neatly in its corner, at least, but everything else is a disaster. Clothes are strewn everywhere. All over the floor and the sofa, some items laid over the back like they were left there to dry but others balled up, clearly worn. The coffee table has stacks of books and bills and empty boxes. There are shelves in all directions, but there’s no organization to them. I think it’s mostly for her work — she has several mannequins and a giant work table that has an empty area surrounding the sewing machine that devolves into debris around the edges — but a lot of the stuff is still in shopping bags from craft stores.
I count eleven empty cups, some from the kitchen and some from fast food places. Water bottles, too. Plates that are thankfully empty, but I’m genuinely worried that they’re empty because of a horde of rats hiding in her unmade bed orbehind her ragged curtains. And because it’s a studio apartment, I’m not spared the sight of her kitchen, either. The sink is overflowing with dirty dishes, and her kitchen counters are even more cluttered than her coffee table. The only cleared spaces are the ones necessary to navigate the appliances, but even getting to her coffee pot looks like a round of the old Operation game that made that disgusting sound when the tweezers hit the sides.
The microwave door only opens halfway before it’ll bounce into a random jug of water.
There are dirty pots on the stovetop, too.
This is a nightmare.
She was planning to bring the baby back to this.
She was planning to bringmybaby back to this.
“What the hell,” I whisper again, trying to figure out how to handle this but feeling spun. I can’t bring Donovan here. He’s so small and can’t do much but swing his tiny arms and coo and squawk, but there’s nowhere to even put him down. I can’t take him back to my place, either, because I’d have to take Tilly too, and everyone would be thinking weird shit was going on.
Weirder than the truth? I don’t know. But I can’t let them know. I have to figure out a way to keep my son when everything with Tilly comes out, and right now? She’s going to get a lot of sympathy.
But I don’t understand what her plan was here. She seemed to care about Donovan in the hospital, but is he just a money ticket for her? Is she planning on using him to get more money out of me? Threaten me with this utter shitshow if I don’t pay up?
Well, I’ve got news for her: I’m fucking broke. She did that. Because every time she asked for more, she asked formore,and now she’s got enough money to live off for the rest of her life without a single stress in the world.
And I have no fucking clue what she’s doing with the money, because it’s obviously not here.
I had a list of things I came here to do. Seeing this mess has derailed me, but there are certain things I can’t lose sight of. So as much as it pains me to look past the disaster, I ignore it in favor of a collection of purses hanging on hooks by the door. I check each one for a wallet, but all I come up with is chap sticks, pens, receipts, and empty candy wrappers.
I scan the room once again, this time with a mind for what someone who isn’t organized would do as they walk into their apartment. It takes a couple passes before I decide that the thing people probably do the most of involves food. I check the collection of grocery bags on her dining room table, and in the bottom of one, I find a ragged denim wallet.
Inside it, I find no photo ID, but there are credit cards, membership cards, insurance cards, all for Natalie Carolina Washington, even a social security card. Not very smart there. There’s also a bunch more receipts, about twenty bucks in small bills, and loose change. I need to take this to the hospital, so I pocket it, but not before I give Andy a call.
“I have a name,” I tell him, reading everything off the social security card to him. I wait until he’s repeated everything back before I say, “And I . . .” I have to pause and steady myself before I speak the words that still seem so incredibly foreign. “I have a son.”
“Congratulations, man,” Andy says warmly. I’ve done great things so many times before. Those games that are life-changing. The awards. Some great sponsors. I’ve heard those two words from Andy more times than I can count.
But they’ve never sounded like that.
They’re so heavy I feel like I’m floating even as I sit down and whisper, more to myself than Andy, “I’m a father now.”
“Do you absolutely love him?”
“I’ll do anything for him. Everything. I’m gonna fuck this up so bad.”
Andy chuckles, and I get it. All new dads have this thought, probably. I can’t imagine that nine months could prepare anyone for this.
But it’s different for me.
