Pregnant with My Roommate’s Dad by Sofia T Summers

3

Ian

The pipes should’ve been replaced a decade ago. I could tell by the look of the rusting metal that the girls were lucky to have survived this long. It took breaking through the ceiling to find some of the leaks, but the sheetrock was ruined anyway. I only felt bad about getting debris all over the girls’ things.

Crumbled and warped pieces of gypsum board were scattered around the living space. The bathroom had been an easier fix, but there was no mincing words about it. The once-subpar apartment was garbage now. I wouldn’t let raccoons live here, let alone my daughter. The water damage made an electrical accident only a matter of time.

That didn’t change the look on their faces when I broke the obvious news. Standing in the ruined kitchen, Brandy’s face fell into despair.

“What do you mean?” Brandy asked, her eyes searching for a solution that wasn’t there.

It wasn’t like I could just duct tape their apartment back together. A whole cleaning crew would have to remove the water. Floors and ceilings would need to be repaired or replaced. An electrician needed to check the safety of every water-logged wire. The list went on and on.

“I’m sorry, Angel, but you’ve got to find a new place to live,” I insisted. “I’m going to have to report this place to the authorities. It’s not even safe for pests.”

“But where are we going to find another apartment?” Brandy complained, her voice pitching up in anxiety. “All the good places are, like, rented or whatever. Everybody turns over their leases in the summer. It’s January!”

“There’s got to be something,” I tried to offer as cheap assurance.

“Maybe,” Brandy sighed.

I knew her roommate was still standing in the kitchen doorway behind me. She hadn’t said a word. Maxie Lawson was just . . . quiet. It was a rare thing from her. That girl had a razor-sharp tongue, and she wasn’t afraid to use it. Every time I saw her, she always managed to come up with some quip or snarky remark. This might’ve been the first time I’d ever heard her stay silent.

“I’m gonna clean up my tools,” I sighed. “You two can, um, talk about it.”

Picking my stuff up off the kitchen counter, I turned toward Maxie, who shifted to let me pass. The air around her lingered with gardenia perfume. With the water, the kitchen smelled like flowers in the rain. That wasn’t the worst of it, though.

I couldn’t get past the look in her eyes. Bright as a lighthouse, her green eyes were impossible to miss, and they were flashing with warning signs. The rest of her face remained unreadable. Her jaw clenched as her lips became a straight line. Her eyes, though . . . they looked like she was adding up some incalculable math.

Every time the problem didn’t add up, panic grew inside her. I wasn’t her biggest fan, but I wasn’t soulless. It was hard to stomach an expression like that. I wanted to help Brandy as much as I could, but they knew better than I did about rentals around the university. Heading to the bathroom, I could hear their voices floating down the tiny hall.

“Oh my God, Maxie!” Brandy fretted. “What are we going to do?”

In her lilting Appalachian accent, Maxie confessed, “I don’t know.”

“What?” Brandy squeaked.

“I–I’m sorry.” Maxie sighed. “I don't know what to do either.”

“But you always know!”

“Not this time.” Maxie sighed. “I mean, maybe one of your sorority sisters won’t mind us camping out in their living room for a few days? If I could take the weekend . . . maybe then, but there’s a chance we’re gonna lose a lot of money here, Brandy. I don’t have hundreds of dollars to lose. Do you? I certainly don’t have the money to make a quick deposit right now.”

“No,” Brandy answered sadly. “I just have my money from working as a summer lifeguard and babysitting over break, but Dad lives just outside of town. My bedroom is still just like I left it.”

“Yeah, your bedroom.”

“But I’ve got a trundle bed for sleepovers!” Brandy told her. “It could be like all the sleepovers I used to have as a kid.”

“He’s your father, Brandy. I’m not going to impose like that,” Maxie replied more quietly, as if she didn’t want me to overhear. “I think your childhood home might start feeling a little crowded if I tagged along.”

“The house is big enough,” Brandy insisted. “It’s got two bedrooms upstairs, and my Dad’s room is downstairs. If you wanted your own space, you could just use the guest room! Nobody ever uses it, and Dad hides out in his little woodworking shed most of the time he’s home. You really wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’m not going to impose, Brandy,” she repeated.

It wasn’t the house that was the problem. Maxie Lawson was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid. She had to notice how I felt. I’d never been good with subtleties, and there was a chance I wanted her to see my frustration. Brandy’s struggles were partially her fault. They were maybe all her fault.

“But Maxie . . .” Brandy pressed her, her voice growing worried, “where will you go?”

The girl sighed. “I’ll let you know once I know. Maybe I’ll, um, check into a hotel for a few days. It will be easier to think when I’m not standing in these puddles. Plus, we should probably call our renter’s insurance. God, I . . . I don’t even know how to explain all this to them, but they might be able to get us a temporary place.”

Her voice sounded wearier with every word. I heard the strain as each thought crossed her mind.

“Aww, Maxie,” Brandy lamented. “This sucks.”

“Yeah,” Maxie agreed. “It does.”

Guilt nagged my mind. She wasn’t going to tell Brandy why she refused to set foot in my house. No matter what Maxie had done, she didn’t deserve this. Whatever family she had was hundreds of miles away in North Carolina. Their insurance would help with living expenses for a couple of weeks, but what then? Where did this girl have to go?

I needed to do something for the both of them.

Getting my phone, I called up Lily Santiago, a real estate agent and the partner in my side business. We’d started flipping houses around town about five years ago. It kept my crew from having to go without work, and it gave Lily steady income from the commissions. The casual business relationship had slowly turned into a friendship over time. I knew she might indulge me with this one favor.

“Ian,” Lily chimed as she answered the call. “What can I do for you today?”

“Hey, Lily,” I greeted her. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.” I sighed in relief. “You know that foreclosure we’ve been working on over by Nichols Arboretum and the university?”

“Of course!” Lily exclaimed with her usual warmth. “It’s the darling little craftsman that’s gonna break all my buyers’ hearts. It will sell in a snap.”

“About that,” I began cautiously. “I know we planned to put it on the market in March, but what if we pushed it to May or June?”

There was a quiet consideration from Lily’s end.

“May I ask why?” she asked.

“Well, my daughter just got flooded out of her apartment,” I explained. “She and her roommate need a place to stay for the rest of the semester. I know holding off the sale can cut into our profits, but I can do some labor myself. We’ve already got the bathrooms installed. It’s mostly finishing touches and, well, the kitchen renovation. Still, it wouldn’t go over budget. It would just be longer than the original plan.”

“I don’t know,” Lily teased. “I’ve been looking forward to selling that house. If I agree to this, I hope you’ll make it up to me.”

“How?” I chuckled. “Can I buy your next stack of business cards or something?”

Lily giggled along. “No, I was thinking maybe about something that involved a good bottle of wine. We can celebrate my divorce, and you can tell me everything I need to know about getting back into the dating scene.

“Oh, Lily.” I laughed. “I am the wrong guy for that job.”

I hadn’t been on a date in two years. When I was still technically married, it seemed wrong to try and date, especially with a little girl running around the house. I’d tried dating for a couple of months when Brandy first left for college. One woman got me through my first winter alone, but by springtime I knew that dating wasn’t in the cards for me.

I’d had my chance at a relationship when I was young. Now, I was content with my work, my friends, and my daughter being my world. The bachelor life suited me just fine.

“Oh, it’s just a bit of fun, Ian,” Lily teased. “Where’s the harm in that?”

Heat crept up my neck. She’d always been an upbeat and charming sort of person. I’d chalked it up to her Latin roots giving her a passionate disposition, but ever since she chucked her wedding ring into the Huron River . . . Lily had changed.

These kinds of flirtatious questions were becoming more common, but I let it go. We were just friends, and Lily was looking to rebound. She wanted to prove that her ex-husband wasn’t the only one who could find a new partner. I wasn’t that guy, though. Anything between us would be a mistake that would only ruin our working relationship. As long as I kept her at arm’s length, some other man would be more than willing to fill the available role in Lily’s life.

“There’s no harm in dinner,” I told her. “But I don’t know when I’ll be free.”

“Well, let me know when you are,” she insisted.

“Okay.”

“Great!” Lily chimed in excitement. “We have a deal then. You can hold onto the house for your lovely Brandy, and I’ll take your raincheck on dinner. Oh, I’ve got a client calling.”

“Okay, then.” I sighed. “Bye, Lily.”

“Goodbye, Ian.”

When I walked back into the kitchen, Brandy and Maxie were propped up against the dingy kitchen counters whispering among themselves. They still looked like someone had died, but I hoped my news would resurrect their mood.

“Um, girls?” I began. “I think I’ve got a way I can help you out.”

I explained about the house while Brandy and Maxie listened intently. The stone-cold expression on Maxie’s face remained as immovable as a mountain. Brandy looked skeptical.

“How would that house be any better than this place?” Brandy asked.

“A tent would be better than this place, Brandy.” Maxie sighed, toying with a silver heart locked around her neck. “It’s a death trap.”

She wasn’t wrong. Water still seeped around switches and electrical outlets around the room. There was no electricity or water, and I wondered how the heating vents looked now. Hell, I didn’t even want to think about it while standing there. It made me want to grab Brandy and run.

“But all the places you buy are old and scary,” Brandy insisted. “I don’t want to live in a haunted house!”

“The exterior was updated before winter. There’s a new roof, a new bathroom with plumbing that won’t wash you out, and I promise there have been no ghosts sighted since my crew has been there.”

“Anything is better than this, Brandy,” Maxie replied, gesturing to the wrecked room where we all stood.

There might’ve been no ghosts, but Maxie’s eyes remained haunted. Her expression still had me on edge. I didn’t like problems I couldn’t fix. I hated more that my own misgivings about Maxie had now made her life harder.

Brandy then jumped in with another question, asking, “What would it cost?”

For Brandy, I was splitting the cost of her monthly rent anyway, as well as giving her money for food and school. It didn’t matter to her, but it did to Maxie. Her moss-colored gaze cut toward me with keen attention. Brandy asked the one question she’d been wondering herself.

“As long as you pay your own utilities, we’re fine. I won’t charge you any rent,” I assured them both.

All the panic slowly accumulating in Maxie’s body vanished in a soft exhale. Brandy didn’t even notice how relieved her friend looked, but I couldn’t miss it. The sigh escaping her lips seemed to blow around the room . . . around me. Her worried gaze hid behind a flutter of thick lashes as she stared down at her feet, frowning at the water collecting around her ankles.

Brandy was already weaving through the messy floors, bouncing around like the daughter I used to know. The skepticism Brandy just voiced seemed all but nonexistent. Her energetic mind had moved on to the next thing.

“Come on, Maxie!” Brandy exclaimed as she popped back into the kitchen. “Start packing your Jeep! We’re moving!”