33. The Whole Story

33

THE WHOLE STORY

M ichael couldn’t remember feeling this shitty in a long time.

He hadn’t talked to Kelly since she’d walked out of his house on Saturday night.

He expected they both had some cooling down to do on Sunday but did think she’d reach out on Monday.

She hadn’t.

Not today either.

He got thinking maybe he should but didn’t want to do it via text.

He was on his way to drop Ty off at Electra’s and he was going to have a talk with his ex and then see if Kelly was home.

“When we get to your mother’s, can you go play in your room so that I can talk to her?”

“Yes,” Ty said. “Am I in trouble?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re mad right now.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Why would you ask that?”

“You were throwing things in the cart at the store,” Ty said. “You throw things when you’re mad.”

“I was in a hurry,” he said, lying.

He’d picked Ty up and ran to the store to get a few snacks and food to have there for his son.

Maybe he was enabling her. There was no reason she couldn’t buy a few things for their kid and that by him doing this now, she would never step up for Ty.

But the other side of it was, he would have to sometimes deal with Ty coming home hungry.

Ty wouldn’t starve or fade away in a few hours at his mother's. There was always bread and peanut butter. Maybe Kelly was right that he was doing way more than he needed to.

Which was why he only got milk, a few more frozen breakfast and dinner things. Nothing for Electra. Nothing over the top. Ty only.

There was no more conversation in the car on the ride there.

He parked and his son got out in the back. Michael grabbed the two bags of groceries and they made their way up the stairs.

“Hi, Tyson,” Electra said when she opened the door. She was smirking at him and that set him off.

He never thought she was a manipulative person before. Maybe he didn’t think she was smart enough to figure it out and that was on him.

The last thing he was going to do was let Electra know she caused a fight with him and Kelly and he hoped Ty didn’t say anything. But he wouldn’t put his son in the middle of it.

“Ty, can you give your mom and me a minute?” he asked.

“I’m going to do some of the activity books you got me,” Ty said and ran to his room and shut the door.

“Here is some food for Ty,” he said. “Do you think you can start figuring out how to get a few things in the future?”

Electra helped him unpack and put a pout on her face. “Don’t you have the money to help me out?”

“It’s not about the money,” he said. “I’d think that you’d want our son to know that you can care for him too. Do you want him to think I’m doing everything in his life? Then it makes you no more than a babysitter rather than a mother. He’s getting to an age where he’s questioning things more. Or maybe you’re okay with him having that opinion.”

“I don’t have the money that you do,” Electra said.

“You don’t,” he said. “But you’re still a parent.” He opened the fridge and saw a case of beer in there. She didn’t drink beer, so his guess was it was for a guy. He wasn’t going to assume she bought it. Maybe a guy brought it over.

He opened the freezer to put the rest of the food in there and saw a bunch of ice cream. Nothing that Ty would like, so she had money for those things. He went without for his kid early on. That was what a parent did.

She needed to start to be a little more responsible.

“You said you’d take care of it all,” Electra said.

“I did because I was mad that you had nothing here for him. I asked you to tell me if you needed things. You haven’t, but I’ve been bringing it. Now I want you to ask.”

She frowned. She didn’t like to ask. In the past, she said when she asked for things from her parents, they’d lecture her with it. They’d try to teach her or get her to see how she could provide for herself.

He didn’t want to be her parent, but he wanted her to at least take one step up on the staircase with Ty.

“You might say no,” Electra said, giggling.

He bit his tongue over the laughter. “I’ll never put Ty in jeopardy and you know that. I’m asking you to grow up some and provide some food for our child.” He crossed his arms. “Do you even want to spend time with him? Answer me that?”

“Sure,” Electra said. “He’s my son.”

“You’re not sounding convincing.”

“I’d think that you wouldn’t want him full time now that you’ve got a girlfriend.”

It was the smile again. “That has nothing to do with this conversation. I’m not sure why you’d bring it up. Kelly has no problem spending time with Ty as I’m sure you saw when she picked him up and how excited he was.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that because Electra had tears in her eyes. “He doesn’t get that excited when he sees me. Is she bribing him?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, she’s not bribing him. That isn’t her way. She spends time interacting with him.”

“It’s easy to do when she doesn’t see him much.”

He smirked. “You mean like the four hours you get weekly and the every other Saturday night? Not much time in the big picture, is it?”

This time her bottom lip trembled, but he wasn’t going to be swayed by tears. He never was in the past and had no intention of it now.

“It’s not easy,” Electra said.

“Parenting isn’t supposed to be easy. In the future, when Ty is with you, you can call if you have a problem. Or there is an issue. But I’m not going to rush over if it’s something minor like you’ve got cramps or a headache. I talked to Ty so I could get the whole story.”

Electra got a tissue and blew her nose. In the process of doing that, she turned her back on him and stuck her ass out in her barely there shorts. She even wiggled it and he hated that he noticed it.

Not that it turned him on, but that he was watching to see if she was doing exactly what she’d boasted to Kelly that she did.

He turned to look around the apartment so that when Electra looked at him, she’d see he wasn’t paying attention.

“What did he say?” Electra asked.

“He said that you were whining you had cramps and a headache. You asked him to watch a movie in his room and he was. When he came out to get a drink you asked him if he wanted to go home. He didn’t ask.”

“He said he wanted to go back to you,” Electra argued.

“Of course he’s going to say it if you ask him, but there was no reason for it. He said you took something and it wasn’t working fast enough. He was doing what he was told. You did what you had to just send him back because it was too much of a bother for you. How do you think that makes him feel that you can’t even suck it up for a few hours to be with him?”

“He’s four,” Electra said, waving her hand. “He has no idea what is going on.”

Which only pissed him off more. His son was more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

“He does know what is going on. If you spent more time talking to him, you’d know that. And just so you know, he does say he has fun here when you play with him. I think he looks forward to it. Maybe if you ask him things or do more than send him to his room, you’ll know that. But if you decide that this is all too much for you, maybe we need to sit down with our lawyers again and do what’s best for Ty. I thought having his mother in his life was, but I could be wrong.”

Electra started to cry. “It’s so hard. I work all day and some nights. I don’t make as much money. I’ve got two Saturday nights I can’t go out on dates or with my friends and I miss out on things.”

Not once did she say anything that had to do with their son.

“Figure out what you want, Electra. I’m over forcing something that might not be the best for anyone. If you push him away now, I doubt he’ll want anything to do with you when he’s older. Just remember that.”

“I said I’d be ready at some point. I’m not sure I am.”

“That was four years ago,” he said softly. “It looks as if not much has changed or that you’ve made any attempt for it to happen.”

He left after that. It’d give her something to think about.

It’s not what he’d thought he’d say to her and wasn’t sure it was the best timing.

He needed to talk to Kelly and now he was going to end up telling her he might have Ty full time. He hadn’t thought she had a problem with him being a single father, but this past weekend proved he was wrong.

It was best to know now though if it was going to change.

He texted Kelly when he got in his SUV and asked if he could stop over to talk.

She replied quickly that she was home. That was something. She wasn’t ignoring him.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me,” she said when they got into her apartment. She’d come down to get him when he hit the buzzer but didn’t say a word.

“You’re the one that walked out,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”

Her head went back and forth. “I guess you’ve got a point.”

“How long would you have waited to reach out if I didn’t tonight?” he asked.

“I would have texted you tonight when I knew you were home alone,” she said. “I left work early because I hoped we could talk and I needed to think.”

He hadn’t expected her to say to come over now. He figured it’d be after he was done working. Since she could talk now, he wasn’t going to return to work and let them know to call or text if they needed anything.

“Where do we start?”

“I think you owe me an apology for what you said. That was very hurtful. You learn a lot from people when they fight, and if you feel that way about me, I should know.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it. It slipped. My back was up because you were criticizing me.”

“I was stating facts and my feelings about what was going on. You were yelling. You were taking it as criticism.”

“Ty was waiting for me when I went upstairs on Saturday. He heard me yelling. I realized that you were being considerate by keeping your voice down and I wasn’t.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I was putting Ty first. I didn’t want him to know or be upset. You make it sound as if that is a bad thing. That I put other people’s happiness first. I only do that when I love them. That’s the difference. And I don’t do it all the time. Maybe I need to stop if it’s causing me unhappiness.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to cause you to be unhappy. I want to say this is new to me.”

“It’s been a few months,” she said. “Don’t use that as an excuse. Not once have I had one issue with Electra.”

“Not one that you’ve said, but you said enough on Saturday.”

“I think it needed to be said. All you did was verify what my thought was. And it was upsetting to know that I was right and you were allowing it to happen. Whether you meant for that to happen or not isn’t the point. If you just realized it, we could have talked. But you got defensive and went on the attack that I was trying to tell you how to parent your child.”

Nothing he hadn’t thought of for days.

“You’re right. I’m wrong. I had that coming.”

She frowned and walked over to sit on the couch. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

“Yesterday I might not have said it. But I’ve had a few days to think it through. Then I talked to Ty on Saturday and Electra just now.”

“Anything you want to share?”

“I want to be transparent with you. I owe you that much. I hope you’ll be the same way.”

“I do think we have to be,” she said. “Why don’t you start?”

“Ty admitted to me that he isn’t happy all the time. That he gets sad and angry and that he knows I do too.”

“Everyone does,” she said. “Kids are smarter than we think.”

“I didn’t see it. He’s growing up before my eyes. He said I was mad today when I stopped at the store to pick things up because I was throwing stuff in the cart.”

She nodded her head. “Actions often tell more than words. Why were you mad?”

“I’ll get to that,” he said. “First, I realized that Electra has ups and downs like we all do and he’s witnessed them and he has survived. It’s not a big deal. He also admitted that he did have fun with her sometimes even if she tells him to go to his room to play.”

“That’s a nice thing to hear. Did it make you feel better?” she asked.

“No. Yes. I’ll explain. I bought a few food items for Ty only, nothing for Electra. She has to grow up. I dropped Ty off and asked him to go to his room and Electra and I talked. There was beer in the fridge and tons of ice cream in the freezer that Ty didn’t like. She buys herself clothing all the time and nothing for Ty. You’re right. I enable her. She’s nothing more than a babysitter for him. She buys him nothing.”

“That’s sad,” she said.

“It is and I can’t change it. I asked her when she was going to step up. Not be like me, but just step up a little. That Ty is getting older and he sees things.”

“Did she get upset?” she asked.

“She did. She tried to play me like she always does. Not with sex, but emotions. I didn’t buy it today any more than I have in the past. She whined that Ty is never happy to see her like he was you.”

“So she’s jealous and that is probably what caused her to say what she had?” she asked.

“I think so. She wanted to know if you bribed Ty and I told her you interacted. Then she made some comment about how it’s easy when you don’t see him much.”

“I see him more than she does,” she said.

“Which I pointed out. I walked out saying that I needed her to figure out if she wanted Ty in her life. That I can’t force something and won’t anymore. She has to make that decision. Four years ago she said she wasn’t ready and I believed it, but she’s not made any attempt in all this time. I am enabling her and didn’t see it.”

“It’s hard for you to admit that, isn’t it?”

“Fuck yeah,” he said. “No one likes admitting they are wrong.”