Page 15 of The New Guy
It’s a nice offer, except that Reggie is useless in the kitchen. “Do you know how to prep potatoes for baking?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t judge me. I can learn.”
“Okay, start by running cold water over them and scrubbing them with the potato brush.”
“The what?”
I love my sister, but how does she get through the day? When I travel for work—my contract specifies three road trips with the team, to give Henry a break—she and Jordyn are going to have to eat take-out food for lunch and dinner. Cold cereal is about as fancy as Reggie’s cooking gets.
As I instruct her on the finer points of washing and scoring potatoes with a fork, my phone trills again, though.
“Might as well just deal with her,” Reggie whispers. “She’ll probably keep calling.”
She’s right, so I swipe to answer. “Hello Eustace. How are you this fine evening?” This is part of my strategy for dealing with her—always be pleasant, but then stick to my guns. In other words—smile while putting my foot down.
“I’m great! And how is thebestlittle girl in the world?” Eddie’s mother gushes.
I'm great too, thanks for asking. “Jordyn is doing well. Her bedroom is shaping up. Would you like to speak to her?”
“In a moment. First, I wanted to tell you something wonderful.”
I brace myself, because Eustace has used this strategy against me before—she claims to have good news even as she arm-twists me into doing her bidding. “We're coming to New York for a visit at the end of the month!”
Already?I’d hoped for more of a reprieve. “That’s lovely. I’m sure Jordyn will be excited to see you.”
“Of course she will. And the best part is that we’ll be apartment hunting in Manhattan.”
My stomach drops suddenly, as if I’m on a roller coaster entering a sudden dive. “Is that so?” I manage to ask. But I really just want to throw my phone at the wall.
“We’re looking at two-bedroom condos in new buildings. Jordyn can have her own room, for when she visits with us!”
I take a deep, calming breath. “That sounds like a very big expense for the occasional weekend visit,” I say carefully.
“Well, you know Chad can work anywhere,” she says. Her husband is the CEO of a medical equipment company. And a multimillionaire. “Our plan would be to spend most of our weekends in the city with Jordyn.”
Another deep breath. “I’m sure Jordyn would enjoy spending time with you in Manhattan. But it can’t possibly be every weekend. She’ll have her own friends and activities in Brooklyn.”And me!I want to scream.She’ll have me.
But that’s not the way to win an argument with Eustace. There has never been a day when she accepted me as Jordyn’s father. To her, it’s just a legal accident that I became Jordyn’s custodial parent after Eddie’s death.
In fact, she didn’t even wait for the funeral flowers to wilt before she asked me to relinquish custody. “Jordyn needs a stable home with two parents who love her. Chad and I are her best chance.”
At that moment, standing in the kitchen of my dead husband’s home, making a peanut butter sandwich for a five-year-old who’d spent the last seventy-two hours crying, I didn’t even yell. I was too shell-shocked to yell. I just said “She’s my child. End of story.”
But Eustace is savvy. She never outright asked again about custody. Still, I know she thinks I’m not Jordyn’s real dad, and everything she does feels like territorial warfare.
That first year after Eddie’s death, I was in shock, and needed her help just to get through the day with a grieving kindergartner. After a few months, though, I pulled myself together and stopped leaning on her. I got grief therapy for both Jordyn and myself. I planned outings, even if I wasn’t in the mood. I took pictures. I celebrated holidays with my child, like a normal person.
Since Jordyn is now in school for thirty-five hours a week, I realized I needed to get back into the workforce. I took on some private clients. But I didn’t have the bandwidth to run my own business, so I started looking around for jobs.
That’s when I saw the posting for the Brooklyn Bruisers. And when I showed it to my sister, she said: “Come to Brooklyn. Start a new chapter. I’ll help.”
On a whim, I applied to exactly one job, and landed it.
And then Eustacefreaked. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen her get red with anger. “Jordyn is my only link to Eddie! You can’t tear her away from my bosom.”
She actually used those words. I still cringe when I remember it.
But I’d rehearsed this. I calmly explained that Jordyn had an aunt who also loved her. And that I’d gotten a very good job with excellent health benefits and a retirement plan. I even said I couldn’t “live off Eddie forever,” which was exactly a thing she’d accused me of doing when Eddie was still alive.
