All right, I didn’t always communicate what was on my mind. But seriously, where do you even begin to bring up something like that? Oh, I’ve been thinking, and I want a permanent bind to this baby. A legal one, to be specific.
Sure, I’d been here for the first year of her existence. And yeah, I’d spent a ton of time with her.
It wasn’t like she’d actually remember me if I were to disappear. Babies changed nannies all the time, and as far as I knew, it had no negative effect on them. They just went on their merry little way, eating and crying and pooping as if nothing had ever changed. If anything were to happen to this relationship, it’d be me missing Gretchen, not the other way around.
Faye flipped through her camera roll. “Let’s pick the best picture and print it for the scrapbook.”
“Sure. Sounds great.”
The little hole in my heart was growing a little every day.
And Faye was completely oblivious.
* * *
At our meeting, Dr. O’Neill was full of suggestions on how to polish my thesis. I thanked him profusely as I packed up my things and slid them into my backpack.
He’d been more than understanding of the extra time it was taking me to finish. Theoretically I would’ve been done last spring. Now it’d been almost a year since I’d started, which meant I wouldn’t be able to defend the thesis until the end of the fall term.
I tried not to be too hard on myself about it. I’d basically been working two jobs, and there simply hadn’t been time. If anything, Faye was more disappointed about the delay than I was. She said her expert help should’ve had me finished in less time than usual rather than more.
Of course, that ignored the fact that her “expert help” always ended up with us falling into bed together.
I drove home to find Faye slumped on the couch, phone in hand. Gretchen was crawling around on the floor, so I thought at first that she was taping her. She wasn’t.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, scratching Gretchen on the head as I passed.
“Oh. It’s just a stupid message from my ex. Here.”
>BRENDA: I miss you. How are you?
My jaw clenched as I read further up the history. There was a series of messages like that, sometimes days apart, sometimes weeks or months. I scrolled up to the time our relationship had began. Faye had never responded.
“Why don’t you tell this chick to go fuck herself?”
“Jaz!” Faye gestured at Gretchen. “She’s learning to talk, remember?”
The baby fell onto her heels and giggled at us. “F-f-f…”
“Oh, dammit.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Seriously, why haven’t you told her to get bent?”
“I used to.” Faye tossed the phone onto the coffee table. “I gave her a piece of my mind, several times, and it didn’t do a thing to stop her. Eventually I figured I was better off ignoring her, and that she’d take a hint eventually.”
I grabbed the phone and checked the dates again. Brenda’s last message had come almost three months earlier. Apparently this girl was never going to take a hint.
“You haven’t had any more issues with Craigslist people, have you?”
Faye winced. “There was one time when you were out with your friends…”
“All right, fuck this. Sorry, Gretchen.” The baby flopped onto her stomach, and I continued. “I’m going to tell this person off for you. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.”
>ME: Hi, Brenda. I’m great. I’m in a loving, happy relationship of nearly a year. Needless to say, I have no intentions of getting back with you, now or ever, nor do I plan on being in touch with you. As you may have noticed, I haven’t been replying to your messages for months. Please stop contacting me and stop sending strangers to my home, or I’ll be forced to take this to the authorities and pursue a restraining order.
I showed the message to Faye for her approval. She nodded, and I hit send.
“I feel like such a fool for ever caring about that woman,” she mumbled. “How did I not realize what a piece of shit she was?”
“Hey, we all make mistakes. Hopefully she’ll get the picture now.”