It's Only Fair Ch. 05

"One minute!" he yelled from within and then came to the door. "Hey! Rick! Amber!" He opened the screen and shook my hand. "You, ok?"

"As good as can be expected."

"What the verdict? What's going on with Elle?"

I filled Stan in on only the highlights of last night and today, trying to keep the day's events to as few details as possible in order to speed the story along. Eventually I got around to my purpose, "Stan, between the police and Elle and some other things I had heard, it seems more obvious that Elle wasn't doing this handcuff and other stuff by herself."

"You don't say?" he looked past me at my house, eyes unfocused in thought.

"Yeah. Listen, bud. Really. Do you remember seeing anyone across the street? Anyone at all?"

"No, Rick. I mean, not that I noticed. I wasn't really looking, plus I have been working a couple days a week." He seemed pensive. "I guess there might have been a car or two now and again, but I didn't know I was supposed to be on the lookout for it."

"Shit," I groused, glancing at Amber and rolling my eyes. "Slipped out," I muttered.

Stan grinned, but said nothing.

"Ok. Thanks anyway, bud. If you can think of anything, anything at all, let me know."

"Will do, man."

I turned to go home and stopped. "Say, what were you doing walking so late last night?"

"Oh. Doctor's orders. Wants me exercising more. Lots of walking. Has me on aspirin too. Says my cholesterol is too high. So I take a walk down to Stanton Drive and back. Takes me about a half hour."

"Stanton Drive? By 231? Dude, that's too damned far. Take a car."

We both laughed and I wished him farewell, going home and eventually slumping on the couch. "What a day, dear," I told my daughter, letting her down to run around and work some of her energy off. It was already after 4 and I had little energy left myself.

I made a fast dinner for us, followed by a long bath and some play time. I called my mother and invited her over on Thursday, filling her in on some of the day's events. I went through my internal list and checked off things that needed to get done. I then spent about 20 minutes trying out various password combinations on Elle's email but getting nowhere.

Eventually I put Amber down to bed and followed it up with my own, finally falling asleep from sheer exhaustion.

Wednesday I woke up for the first time in a week somewhat refreshed. The morning progressed without issue. We were ready and out of the house early and even though it was drizzling out, there was only a smattering of traffic in our way. At Littletot's Daycare, check in was swift and Amber seemed thrilled to be back with the other children.

"Hi, Mr. Rick," Kerri greeted me after giving Amber a kiss on the cheek. "So, was yesterday a progressive day?"

I looked at her; I could tell she was concerned if I was still angry with her from Monday. "Yesterday was a good day, Kerri. And if I hadn't said it before, let me say it now. Thank you. Really."

She seemed to deflate, her eyes growing moist, her plush bottom lip quivering. "That's good, Mr. Rick. Didn't want you to be mad at me." She took a half step closer. "Would you like to go to lunch today and tell me what happened?

I looked around the room for some reason, uncomfortable with making eye contact. "I can't do anything today, I'm sure I'm swamped. But how about tomorrow. Would that be ok?"

She beamed. "Terrific. We'll do it then." She bent down, giving me a brief glimpse of her cleavage, picking up one of the boys crawling around the room. "Have a terrific day, Mr. Rick."

I left, driving away but not to work. I stopped at the Bank of America branch and spoke to one of the representatives there, cashing out one of the CD's and having it transferred to the checking account. As I left, heading to work, I thought, "Whoosh! Just like that, about half our savings gone on the lawyers."

My work day was busy, I had to make up Tuesday's work as well today's. I ate lunch at my desk, crunching the numbers and doing the daily analysis from the production floor as fast as I could. There were some missing data points that I had to get the floor supervisor to send to me, but by day's end I had last week finished and had this week started. Lenny called me after 4 to let me know the orders of protection had been filed that morning with the county clerk and that Elle was not allowed to have any contact with Amber and I. I thanked him, feeling like a dick in doing so, and returned to my work day, no longer able to focus.

I left work, picked up Amber, and went home alone.

Was this to be my life now? Was there anything good that was going to come of this? What was going to be next for Amber and I? And Elle, what about her? Assuming she would get better under the hospital's care, would that be enough? Would the care or cure be permanent or was this a temporary thing at best? I wasn't happy, but I was not going to live like I had been any more. So at this point, it was Elle that would need to change.

I would help and support her if I could, but I couldn't help her fix her own internal issues. I understood the 'in sickness and in health' part of the vows. If she had cancer, it would be a no brainer on my being with her. If she had any disease, I wouldn't think about leaving. But this was different. It was a behavioral issue and it was physically driving me away.

And in doing so, did she break the 'forsaking all others' part of the vows? How can I be held to my end of the wedding vows but she not be held to hers? That was a double standard and ultimately not fair.

Not fair.

It's only fair, isn't that what you said, Elle? Is this fair? Is it?

Thursday was a repeat for Amber and I with three notable exceptions. First, I did meet Kerri for lunch, this time we went to a deli close by. We ate in companionable silence at an outside table, I spent the majority of the time telling her of what had occurred and some of my thoughts on the matter. She proved herself to be an avid listener and even though I know she had her own agenda and opinions, she kept them fairly close to her chest.

"So, are you going to take her back in 30 days when this all over?"

"I don't know. It depends on so many things, things that I don't have the answers to. Only time will tell."

She sipped her soda. "Well, whatever you decide, make sure it's for the right reasons, Rick."

When I dropped her off there was an inordinate amount of her workmates hanging outside who made it their business to wish me a good day in loud and smirking voices. Kerri leaned over at the last moment and gave me a brief hug, slipping from the vehicle amidst shrieks of laughter and toothy smiles.

The second, my mother and Elle's mother came over for dinner where they kept up a constant litany about what was going on, neither one backing down from each other as they tossed verbal volleys back and forth.

"Elle was looking terrible today when I went to see her," Jan offered.

"Well, my son is looking terrible after months of being mom and dad and no one gave a fuck about that."

"Of course we care. Elle cares too."

"Yeah. She cared enough to give him a black eye."

"She wasn't in her right mind."

"When is she ever? What's it been 3 years now?"

"She's getting help."

"Big fucking deal. What about Rick, who's helping him?"

"They got her on some stuff I don't know, Depacote? Some other stuff as well, it's supposed to help even her out."

"Yeah, that's what she needs. Drugs. That'll fix the problem. Something wrong? Give them some drugs. Feeling down? Drugs. Feeling up? Drugs."

"Her counselor said that she's responding well."

"Come off of it, Jan. Hippy bullshit. You ever hear of this sort of crap when we were our kids age? No. You know why? Because it's made up bullshit, that's why. Our parents never needed therapy or this sort of happy horse crap. They did like we did, they fixed their fucking problems and got their head on straight."

It was a joyous visit. I kept my opinions to myself and tried to not piss either of them off. At least Amber had a good time.

And that led to the third item of interest. As the two grandmothers were sniping at each other, the door bell rang and I opened it to see a severe looking woman in her late 30's standing there in a navy pants suit and holding a clip board. The image that came to mind was some drill sergeant or maybe Nurse Ratchet from Nicholson's Cuckoo's Nest. "Can I help you?"

She looked at me like I was some bug she happened to step on. "I am Ms. Marribaum from Child Protective Services and I'm here to observe and evaluate Amber and yourself in her home environment. May I come in?"

I let her in, she noticed my mother and mother-in-law sitting at the table, Amber in her highchair and the two of them playing with her. Introductions were made and I had to take Ms. Marribaum to Amber's room where she, I swear to god, actually ran her hand over Amber's shelves and the top of the picture frames like some 19^th century manor house butler. From there I took her around the house where she checked safety locks, hinges, outlet covers, and the cabinets.

After 15 minutes of this though, my mother finally asked her "what the fuck she was looking for" and that the problem parent "was not here." Jan joined in with her own comments about how "there is no way Amber is in any danger with Rick. He's a good boy, a great son, and a terrific father."

Ms. Marribaum recoiled from the dual assault, trying to diffuse the situation but was overmatched by the two older women and their strong personalities. Each point she tried to raise and each issue she attempted to address was assaulted and hacked apart. After a half hour though she did come around and the three women were talking like fast friends while Amber and I played in the living room.

At the end of the hour the CPS caseworker thanked me for my time and patience and told me, "You have some good support, Mr. Masters. I suggest you remember that and lean on them as you need in the coming weeks. I'll see you in a month or less."

Before long Friday had come and the week was over. As I drove home that night I reflected back on what I had gone through, more at ease with my situation even if I had no more answers. We entered the house and I noticed there was a message on the answering machine. I pressed play and heard, "Hey, Elle. It's Billy Thompson at Monochange. I've tried to reach you on your cell but you haven't answered. We didn't get the last three jobs from you and we want to know what happened. Give me a call."

Crap. I never got in touch with her job to tell her what happened. I called Billy and left a message on his service that he should call me on my cell.

I made hot dogs and fries for dinner, dressing up the salad I still had with a few pepper slices from the drawer. Amber ate a kid's version of mac and cheese and gnawed on a couple pieces of hot dog I had made. She had no interest in my salad except to pluck out the tomato pieces and eat them as messily as she could.

After dinner was completed I went to the DVD cabinet and pulled out a copy of Bambi, putting it on and sitting Amber on my lap. We watched it together; she was attentive at some points, disinterested at others. But while the classic Disney flick played on and Bambi eventually had to run through the forest fire, I wondered if this was a glimpse of what my life was going to become.

My cell phone rang, drawing me out of my reverie. I reached over and looked at the screen. Thompson, W. "Hello, Rick speaking."

"Rick! Billy T at Monochange. Thanks for calling me. What happened to Elle's phone, she lose it again?" He laughed at this. Billy was about our age and his company had contract work with dozens of other stores in the malls and markets across Suffolk and Nassau.

"No, Billy. Elle's been having some problems, and she's getting some help. she'll be out of commission for a month."

"Crap. Crap, Rick. I wish she'd have told me."

"It wasn't done on purpose, Billy. Trust me on that."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Sucks though. I was counting on her getting the W-240 jobs finished." I could hear him chewing gum or something like it over the line. "Say, Rick. You do me a favor and see if she's got them done? Even if they aren't, anything she's got finished on them will only help me out. I'll make sure she's paid for it."

"Sure, Billy, hang on." I got up from the couch and helped Amber down to the floor where she could play without danger of falling. I went to the office and sat down at Elle's computer, waking it up from sleep mode. The Gmail login screen was once again staring at me, but I minimized Chrome and navigated to Elle's work folder. "Ok, I'm here. What's the job number again?"

"W-240. There should be 15 files, each one about 6 to 8 meg."

I scanned her documents until I came upon a subfolder marked as Billy said. Double clicking on it, it held over a dozen files, less than half of them marked with a '-e' suffix. "Got it. Looks like she finished seven of them."

"Aw man, that's great! Can you Dropbox them to me?"

"Sure, hang on." I went to her bookmarks and clicked on Dropbox. "Username and password?"

"I told her to set it up to remember. Username and password is the same as her email account: Ellemonoc and Cmock7."

"Got it." I dragged the folder to the "in" box and watched as it uploaded to the site. "Ok, Billy. It's on its way. Estimated time is 5 minutes."

"Fantastic. Listen, Rick. Tell Elle to get better and give me a call when she's able to work again."

"You got it, Billy. Be well."

We hung up and I watched the screen until the bar filled up and the system chimed, indicating it was finished. I shut down her Dropbox account and the next Chrome tab became visible - her Gmail sign on screen.

I clicked on her work email, and entered the password Cmock7.

And I was in.

She had a variety of work emails, job requests, proofs, design notes - just about anything and everything one would expect. I scanned backwards about seven months and saw nothing that was outside the norm.

Logging out of her work email, I then looked at the other two. Oh, yeah...

"Amber, time for bed Sunshine."

I hastened through the good night ritual, my mind back in the office and at Elle's computer. Once Amber was snuggled down and her synthesizer playing its lullaby, I went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water and a package of Oreos from the cabinet. I checked the front door, making sure it was locked and turned down all the lights in the house. Except for the office lamp.

I sat at her desk, peeling an Oreo cookie open and eating the cream side. "She can't be that stupid, Rick." I popped the plain side into my mouth and crunched down, the sweet texture and taste of the cookie turning to mash across the top of my tongue. "No one's that stupid."

I clicked on her personal email and entered the same password. And I was then inside her account. I scanned it quickly. The odd joke, recipes, some back and forth with a few friends she used to know - fairly innocent stuff. I closed out of it and then clicked on the last one: Lacycuffs.

For the third time I typed in her password.

And her last email account opened up.

"Fuck me."