It was time to start packing again.
I’d only been back for two weeks before I gave my job two
weeks notice and told my landlord I’d be leaving. Every evening after work, I
began quietly packing my things away after the baby was asleep. I kept the
shades drawn at all times, I walked quietly and purposefully across the wooden
floor, I inspected blemishes in the wall ... I felt like BD was always watching me.
I slept in hour, maybe two-hour increments, I just kept waking up, so I’d
schlep through the living room and check and double check the bolt on the door,
peering motionless out the peephole into the hallway, each time expecting to
see him staring back. I talked in a little more than an enunciated whisper on
the phone, afraid that somehow he would hear me, learn of my plan to run away
and God knows what he’d do. The walls were thin. I no longer put anything past
this man.
This evening, I’d started early and I’d gotten a lot done.
The place had already looked bare with BD’s stuff cleared out. But I’d
successfully filled four large U-Haul boxes with my own things, wall hangings,
summer clothes, shoes, clothes that were too small for the baby and I had a
couple of big trash bags brimming with stuff I should have been gotten rid of.
I felt accomplished, competent and for the first time since I’d decided I needed
to go for good, I felt like the daunting task ahead of me was doable. It was a
lot, but I’d made some major headway in only a few days.
The TV was on, some reality show rerun. Lights in each room
lit up the entire apartment as I was back and forth pulling things from here
and there to fold, wrap or otherwise pack away. The baby giggled gleefully in
his walker, racing around noisily across the creaky floor, from one wall to
another like bumper cars.
It was way past his bedtime and I needed to turn in too. I
had work the next day. Then the phone rang. I picked it up and glanced at the
ID. BD. What does he want? I let it go to voicemail. Two minutes later, it
rings again. What could he want? He hadn’t left a message. A few seconds and he’s
calling again. I’d think it were some kind of emergency, only, the only person
who’s health I’d be worried about was right there with me. So whatever it was,
it could wait.
Ten minutes past after the succession of phone calls and my
Treo hadn’t rung. Strange. He usually doesn’t give up so easily. Then I
remembered, my car was parked right outside. And as soon as the recollection
clicked, there was a knock at the door.
I think my heart stopped for a second. Wait. If it was my
landlord, he’d announce himself in a second. Another knock and my mind took off
running.
I have no idea how BD got past the front door. I’m stiff. I
have to move all the boxes to the back room quietly before the baby makes a
sound and gives our location away. I don’t have time and they’re too heavy to move
quickly and noiselessly. Too late to turn the lights off. My heart is pounding
out of my chest. I can’t not answer. It’s obvious
I’m home and if I refuse to answer the door it will spark suspicion. But I can’t
answer the door, either. He’ll want to step in and see the baby. Maybe if I
keep the chain on the door he’ll assume I have a man here and go away. No, then
he’ll really demand to see his son
and make his presence known. I can’t let him in. Shyt.
I grabbed the flaps of one half full box and began moving it
into the bedroom just as the baby let out a squeal, stomped his feet beneath
him and took off rolling across the floor again and into the TV cabinet.
And he knocked again.
“Who is it?” I yelled
over my shoulder, grabbing a second box and shuffling it into the bedroom with
the first.
“BD,” he responded.
“Gimme a second,” hauling a
third, then the fourth and finally the last box and closing the bedroom door
behind me.
I pulled a robe over my tank top and shorts like I was
coming out of the shower.
And finally, “What’s wrong?” I
asked almost breathlessly, as I cracked the door.
“Oh, here,” he said,
smiling. He’d been positioned like he was
just about to turn and walk away. I should’ve waited. He bent down and picked
up a brown paper bag sitting on the floor at his feet. “I was gonna leave this
for you. It’s for our son.”
Now he’s our son. He seemed half
pleasant. But I’d come to expect the highs and lows. I never knew what I was
gonna get with him. Like a box of chocolates. (Molded, bitter, nasty ones).
He’d picked up baby wipes, baby shampoo, diapers and a
couple of other things from the organic market. I hated that shyt. It didn’t
smell like a baby, the diapers were ugly and brown, made of recycled material
and they didn’t feel all that comfortable either. When we were together he’d
been insistent about these products.
I took them, “Thanks,”
but my baby wasn’t gonna see any of that crap.
“Is he awake?” BD asked.
As if on cue, the little guy rolled up in his walker, toys
swinging, beaming up at his dad. Perfect. He wouldn’t have to come all the way
in to see the baby. He stepped over the threshold to pick him up, but was
obviously concentrating more on what he might be able to glean by the
rearranged wall hangings and furniture … about what might be going on or what
might have gone on, in my apartment.
“Well, I’m gonna put him to bed,” I
said, after BD had thrown the baby in the air a couple of times, riling him up
nicely before I’d attempt to wind him down.
He gave the room a quick scan again, took inventory of each
corner in his strange little mind and left easily.
“I want to pick him up tomorrow and take him to my parents’
house,” he said.
“Okay, just pick him up form daycare tomorrow,” I said. I never denied him access to our child. That’s one thing amid a slew of other accusations that he’d try to say when this whole thing went to court.
I closed the door behind him and peered through the peephole
to watch BD descend down the stairs. I stood quietly waiting to hear the heavy
front door creak open and slam shut with the wind. And then, I exhaled. I
locked the door, clicked the bolt, pulled the knob and went through both
motions again before turning, leaning against the wood and sliding down to the
floor. I caught my breath.
Even without BD in the apartment, this was crazy. This was
no way to live. And though he could’ve caught somebody downstairs, going out
when he was coming in, he probably also had a key to the front door.
He’s watching for my comings and goings, calling me at all
hours and now, showing up unannounced. I don’t know what time I went to bed
that night. I dragged those filled boxes back out along with several more
broken down boxes and began building them and filling them in short order in
the living room.
I didn’t have two weeks to wait.
Originally posted on
March 20, 2008
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