I close the door as softly as I can and head back to the living room where I dumped her bags. It only takes a few minutes to set her shoes out by the front door and stuff some paper towels inside to help them dry out. Another minute to take out the coffee cup, travel mug, water bottle, and what I’m guessing are containers she uses to take food to work and put them all away in my kitchen.
It’s funny how adding just a few extra things makes the cupboards seem a lot less bare. Not that they were empty before, but having stuff for more than one person in there is just different, somehow.
Then I survey the bags of her clothes and personal items. It feels wrong to go through them without herconsent, but wouldn’t it also be wrong to leave it all soaking wet?
I take the bag of toiletries and set it on the counter in the spare bathroom. Back in the living room, I cross my arms and once again stare at the bags of clothes.
“C’mon Dixon, it’s not the first time you’ve done a girl’s laundry,” I whisper to myself. Sure, that girl was my sister, and I only did her laundry when she was sick, but still. I can do this for Sage.
Then I open the bag closest to me, and of course, right on top is a pair of lacy purple underwear.
“Fuck.”
I could just dump the whole bag into the washing machine without touching a thing, but then I hear Blair’s voice in my head, yelling at me the one time I didn’t separate her “delicates.”
Gritting my teeth, I take the bag and the suitcase that I know has the rest of her clothes over to the closet containing the washer and dryer. Trying not to think about the intimate pieces of clothing I’m touching, or what they might look like on Sage’s body, I do my best to sort through the soaked clothes and get a load started in the washer.
Once that’s done, I abandon the rest of it in a heap on the floor, and stride over to the refrigerator where I pull out a beer, crack it open, and drain half of it in one go.
I’m so screwed. If something as stupid and mundane as touching her clothes has me all hot and bothered, how the hell am I going to handle living with her? Knowing she’s asleep just down the hall, or naked in the shower, or…
Yeah. I’m screwed.
“I really appreciate you coming with me,” Sage says the next afternoon as I pull up in front of the first apartment building she wants to look at.
“No problem,” I reply.
Except it is a big problem. This is the last thing I want to be doing on one of my rare days off. Driving Sage around town in the pouring rain, looking at apartments so she can move out of mine. I'd rather run suicides for an hour straight.
But when she emerged from the guest room this morning, she announced her intention of looking at some rentals today. And I’ll be damned if I was gonna let her look at them without me. At least this way I can see for myself that she’s somewhere safe.
“Okay, well, this place is the closest to the hospital, so it’ll be easy to walk to work. And it’s in my budget and furnished,” she says brightly as we walk up a crumbling pathway to the front door.
Over my dead body will she be walking through this neighbourhood at night… But I keep that thought to myself for now.
Sage rings the buzzer and we wait for the building manager to let us in. It’s not easy, but I manage to hide my fully negative observations of the place from her. The plants outside the building are all overgrown and judging by the green and brown stains all over the supposedly white paint, it's obvious the exterior hasn'tbeen washed in a very long time. Even the letters on the glass front doors are chipped and peeling.
Eventually, an older woman shuffles up to the door, her hair unkempt and ratty slippers on her feet. In my head, I've already ruled this place out. Not a chance I'm letting the mother of my child stay here.
But again, I keep my mouth shut for now. It would be a lot better if Sage came to that conclusion on her own.
Once inside, Sage greets the manager as if they’re old friends and starts asking some questions. I follow behind silently. It's impossible to miss the lingering smell of smoke and mildew in the air. Another big mark against the place. A pregnant woman has no business in a building that smells like this.
We step inside the studio-sized apartment, and things here are no better than the rest of the building. The furniture looks like it should all be marked as a biohazard, and the ceiling is full of cracks and stains. Sage peers around, but I see her shoulders droop.
Maybe I shouldn't be relieved, not when it’s clear she's disappointed. But thank God she's not going to try and move into this place.
“Right, well, thanks for showing us. I'll be in touch,” she says to the manager, who only grunts in reply before shuffling back down the hall to what I assume is her suite.
Once we reach the car, Sage opens her door, gets in, and slams it shut. When I slide into my seat, she’s slumped down, her arms folded across her chest. “Don’t say it, that place was a dump.”
I stay silent.
Somehow, the next place is even worse. And my patience is wearing thin. As soon as we get back into the car, I turn in my seat and stare at her.
“You’re not moving into a place with only one window and mysterious brown stains on the carpet.”
Sage covers her face with her hands and huffs with exasperation. “Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It's not like I'll be there for that long, and don't you want your apartment back? I can't stay there forever.”
