I could almost picture his face, the way he’d stand in the doorway and size up the threat, the way he’d talk her down with the too-calm voice that radio DJs used after midnight. But I hadn’t. Because I was Billie Bliss, Professional Problem Solver, and if there was ever a time to regret that, it was now.
“Stacy, you don’t have to do this.” My arms were shaking so badly I had to lower them and hold onto the sink to keep from tipping over. My entire body was trembling, actually, every muscle a live wire. “I don’t want your husband.” I said it with as much steadiness as I could manage, which was basically zero, but I tried anyway.
She let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, the barrel of the gun bobbing with the motion. “You moved in with Adam, isn’t he enough for you? Why can’t you leave my husband alone?” Her voice cracked. “Why can’t youalljust leave my husband alone?””
Why wasn’t I better with people? Birdie or Bailey would be able to calm her down. I was just pissing her off.
I tried again, more quietly. “I am with Adam. We’re married. I don’t want your husband.”
She twisted the gun’s grip, like she was wringing the neck of a chicken. “So you’re a cheater, too?!” she shrieked, and thumbed off the safety, the click as loud as a gunshot to my ears.
Yep. Definitely saying the wrong things here.
She advanced two more steps, close enough that I could smell her lotion or shampoo, maybe perfume. It was floral mixed with vanilla and had undertones of musk. The gun was now inside the bathroom with me. It was a foot away from my head. “You’re all cheaters!”
I saw the look in her eyes, and in that moment, I knew she was going to pull the trigger. This wasn’t about me. The man had clearly been cheating on her with a buffet of women and that’s who she saw when she looked at me. I was just the unlucky one who’d been the last straw.
If I was going to die tonight, I figured fuck it, I might as well ask her what I wanted to know. She clearly loved her son. Jeremiah was a good kid, and he talked highly about his mom. He loved her but he was sad that she’d been sad lately. How did someone who was a good mom get here? Was it the same as Adam’s mom?
Was this why my dad left? Or did he just not love us and was lazy?
I took a breath, which mostly tasted like my own fear and the sharp tang of cleaning alcohol, and asked: “Did you always wantto be a mom?” I didn’t know why I said it, but the words tumbled out, raw and unfiltered.
Stacy jerked her head, confusion flickering for a moment. “What? Why are you asking me that? What?”
Tears started to fill my eyes, but I wasn’t crying for me. Maybe for how absolutely doomed we both were, because in that moment, I did feel sorry for her. “I was, um, I never wanted kids, because I had to raise my sisters and it sort of fucked me up, but my dad left, and Adam’s mom left, so I was just wondering did you always know you wanted to be a mom?”
Her chin started to wobble, and her lip began to quiver. For a second, her face softened. Like she’d been hit in the stomach, and all the air went out. “Yes,” she whispered. It wasn’t an answer, just a confession.
“Why?” I asked, following the thread even though it made zero sense.
“Why what?”
“Why did you want kids?” My voice was thin as tissue. I didn’t even know if I was buying time, or if some perverse part of me thought I could save her from herself.
Her mouth flapped open, then closed. The gun was still pointed at me, but her grip was so weak I thought I might be able to turn and knock it out of her hand, if I wasn’t rooted to the floor by some weird need to see this through.
“What are you doing?” Stacy’s voice went sharp, a whip crack in the air. “This isn’t about Jerem—” She caught herself, the syllable splintering in her mouth. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, you bitch,” she snapped. “I’m not the crazy one here. I’m not.”
She blinked hard, and for a moment, she looked less like a villain and more like a woman who’d been awake for three days, living on Red Bull and revenge fantasies. Her knees buckled alittle, just enough that I thought she might collapse, but she caught herself on the doorframe.
I watched the gun, the way it trembled in her hand, the way her finger hovered near the trigger but never quite settled. If she pulled it now, it would probably hit the window above my head, or ricochet off the glass shower doors and take out one of my fake plants.
She stumbled backwards. Her shoulders slumping. I had a feeling she didn’t want to shoot anyone she just wanted someone to listen.
So, I listened.
“I did everything right,” Stacy said, the words bursting out of her in a single exhale. “I did everything you’re supposed to do. I went to church, I volunteered, I made dinners, the lunches and the school projects and the fucking Halloween costumes.” Her voice was rising now, climbing a staircase of pain. “And you know what I got? I got a husband who screws every desperate, pathetic woman he meets at work and on those fucking apps. I got a son who thinks I’m the bad guy because I’m sad and yell too much and his dad’s a superhero because he’s always gone and only shows up for the fun stuff. I got nothing.” She dropped to the edge of the bed and slammed the side of the gun against her thigh, a dull, meaty thunk, but she raised it again.
“You can leave him? You don’t have to stay.”
She laughed, but it was the sound of shattering glass. “Leave him?! And do what? I quit my job to have Jeremiah and then I had post-partum and Tanner said he’d take care of us. He promised me I’d never have to work. He promised me I’d be safe.”
The gun wavered. The story snapped into focus for me. She was stuck. She was alone. She was angry and she was drowning. She wasn’t well. She needed help.
Something in me broke, just a little. “Okay, but you still have Jeremiah.”
Her head snapped up, eyes wild. “You don’t get it!” she screamed. “He worships his dad. He thinks he’s a superhero. He misses him and he thinks he doesn’t come home because I’m mean.”
