I was good, too, at doing hair. It came naturally, and working on other people’s strands felt therapeutic to me. Like I was a born hair stylist. After graduating with my license, I went through a couple of salons before landing at a very upscale, effortlessly cool hair studio where I could perform all kinds of techniques and make my own money.
And then, by some random act of chance, I met Shane in a bar in San Francisco one night and the rest is history. I gave it all up, falling so deep, so fast. I missed shifts at my salon, spinning so much of myself up in the man until one day, I just decided to quit my life for his. I stopped working, he proposed, and months later, we were moving from one coast to another. I left my family behind, everything I knew, and threw myself full-throttle into a relationship. Like an idiot, like a blinded fool. Looking back, I barely knew who Shane was then.
I hadn’t seen his true colors until it was already too late.
But now I have to stand on my own two feet again, provide a life for my girls. As it is, Shane has pulled his financial help, cutting off my credit cards and freezing me out of our bank accounts. When you’re the one bringing home the money, and your wife has no access to the passwords or decision making, you can do that sort of thing. I feel so goddamn stupid. I’m the exact picture of the wife they tell you never to be.
I quit my job. Made no money of my own. And not even didn’t make the money, but I neglected to be involved in it. I just stuck out my hand and took cash or cards for the grocery store, the girl’s clothes, our daily living expenses. But I had no knowledge of our accounts, how much was in there, and what belonged rightly to me.
My name isn’t even on the deed for our marital home. Aside from the marriage license, I have no real claim to anything.
Once the girls are out of earshot, Dahlia turns to me. She’s a younger, more vibrant version of me. With straight black hair to my curly mass, and a set of dimples that make her look more Marilyn Monroe than Shirley Temple, she is the knockout to my girl next door.
“Any luck with the job search?” She’s trying to steer the subject away from the girl’s visit right off the bat, but I’m not shying away.
I shake my head. “No openings, or I’m not qualified anymore. I did this to myself, so I can’t be angry. But I’m so angry. How … what did he say?”
My voice wobbles on the last question, and I feel the sweat break out between my boobs. Dahlia rolls her eyes, and I notice her fists clench on the basic Formica countertop.
“You’ll find something, I just know it. Karma is on your side. As for your ex,” she drops this referral as if I’ll agree that’s what he is to me, “he’s still a total piece of shit. Tried schmoozing me, acting as if I didn’t pick you up from the hospital with your face bandaged half to hell and two broken ribs. I wanted to pull the Mace out of my purse and spray him right there. But the girls were present, obviously, so I couldn’t. I don’t like the feeling of this, Han, not one bit. You need to start the divorce as soon as possible, sever all ties. Don’t ask him for a thing. Come back to California. Your family will take care of you. Be done with that monster and never look back.”
“You know it’s not that easy.” Everything in my being feels tired. Exhausted. Wrung out and spent.
I’d love to do what Dahlia is saying, but it isn’t that easy. Legally speaking, a divorce takes time. Custody battles are even lengthier. And if I know Shane, which I do, he’s going to go for the jugular. That is, if I file.
A taunting voice inside my head calls me weak in this exact moment.
“Then I’m staying,” my sister says, as if she wants no argument from me.
“I can’t ask you to do that, Dahl.” I bury my head in my hands.
“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t, and I’m just offering. I’m between gigs, it isn’t harvest season, and you need all the help and support you can get. Don’t fight me over this, you’ll lose. Just nod and say, ‘okay.’”
My sister was a bit of a free soul, bartending seven nights a week or not at all. Most years, she made her way back to Hawaii to help our relatives on the coffee farm during harvest season. I have no idea what her financials look like, but I can’t afford to add one more person to my docket when I am already someone else’s charity case.
The thing is, I need her more than I need to argue about this. If I find a job, I have to find a daytime care option for the girls. Letting them out of my sight nearly caused me to faint, given the situation I’ve just gone through. The thought of passing them off to strangers at a daycare is only slightly less nauseating. If Dahlia stays, they’ll be with family. With someone I can trust.
I’ve fought too many battles for one week, so I’m not even putting my dukes up for this one. “Fine. But I can’t look after you, too.”
Dahlia shoots me a stern look. “As if I’ve ever asked anyone but me to take care of me.”
Her words are like a gunshot through my heart, because us two sisters are so very opposite. Dahlia would never end up in the situation I am in now, and my expression must have betrayed that vulnerability.
“Shit, Han, I didn’t mean it like that.” She reaches out to hug me.
I back away, gun-shy of any kind of human contact, aside from my kids, even if I know that person is a safe place. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just … the girls need that bath. I’m going to apply to a few more jobs and then I’ll be in, okay?”
“Whatever you need.” Dahlia rubs my arm as she passes, and I hear laughter down the hall when she enters the bathroom.
Now that the girls are back under my roof, I can breathe a little easier.
But only a little. My life is still in shambles, I have no source of income, and I’m about to wage war against my husband, a celebrity in his own right.
If breathing easy means an entire stampede of elephants sitting on your chest, then that is me.
4
Walker
While the rest of the team is gathered down in the upscale steakhouse restaurant that VIPs typically occupy during games, I sneak up to the general manager’s office to try to pry some information out of Colleen’s desk.
It’s been three days since we won the World Series, the high of victory and adrenaline only lasting half that amount of time for me. Yes, it feels fucking incredible for a hard season’s worth of work to pay off. I feel like a god in some sense, to be able to add a second ring to my championship collection.
But now that it’s over, I’d expect my cousin to give me the details of where Hannah Giraldi is staying. It has been almost a month since I’ve seen her since that night in the hospital, and I’m like an addict. The itch to see her face agitates me every second of the day, the uncertainty of knowing if she’s all right taunts at my mind.
So, I’m taking things into my own hands. While my family, teammates, and all the hangers-on rub elbows downstairs and party at the expense of the team, I’m up in her office, snooping.
Colleen forgets that I’m much craftier than her. In high school, I was the one who facilitated the prank during my senior year, and I was also the guy who strung up the jock strap of the douchiest player on the college baseball team on the flag pole located in the center of campus. All without being caught, might I add.