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“Will you call me?” she asks. “Later?”
I walk up to her slowly and look into her eyes. “Thank you for going on this trip with me. You were so much help. The kids loved you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’re welcome,” she says quietly.
“I love you,” I say, as I pull her against me. Her arms wrap around my waist and she holds me tight until I unwind her and pull back.
“Why do I feel like you’re telling me goodbye?” she asks.
I kiss her forehead, lingering there long enough to fill my nose with the scent of her shampoo.
Then I let her go and walk away. I have to. I see her swipe a tear from her cheek as I close the door of the taxi, and my heart breaks.
But it’s the right thing to do. It really is.
She took the fucking pill. She doesn’t want me the way that I want her.
Wren
After a long, sleepless night, I wake up to find my four sisters sitting in my living room. I stumble to the coffee pot as they lie in wait, like a pack of hyenas waiting to pick my bones and chat on my couches. In my head, I can still see the couch cushions on the floor as Mick and I played the lava game with the kids. Now, they hold my favorite people in the world, who just happen to also be the four people I want to see the least right now.
“Don’t you all have homes to go to?” I ask over a yawn as I stumble into the kitchen.
“This is home, bitch,” Finny says.
“Um…I’m pretty sure you live somewhere else now,” I remind her. “So why don’t you all go back there?”
“Someone’s grumpy when she wakes up,” Star mutters.
“Don’t you have a child you should be taking care of?” I ask, as I get my coffee and go flop on the chair that’s not occupied. I tuck a blanket around my legs.
“Marta” is the only word she says.
Finny nods. “They have mine too. Emilio is taking him to the park.” Benji might not have come from her body, but he’s her son, and Emilio is fiercely in love with him. Finny lays her hand on her belly when she feels a kick. “I’ll be glad when this one’s out so he can take her too.”
“Her?” I ask.
She smiles. “Her.”
“I get to buy pretty dresses to go along with the Tonka trucks she’ll have to have. And baseball caps to go with the tiaras.” I smile, but I don’t feel like smi
ling. My life is shit, and I don’t know what to do about it. “Why are you all here?” I ask, covering my mouth as another yawn escapes.
“Well,” Finny starts, a mischievous grin on her face, “we want to know how big Mick’s dick really is. Inquiring minds want to know, and all that.”
I set my coffee cup on the table.
Lark reaches over and covers Finny’s mouth. “We do not want to know that.”
Finny pretends to struggle. “You know you do,” Finny says from behind Lark’s palm.
Lark lifts her hand and rocks her head back and forth like a metronome. “Okay, so we kind of do, but that’s not the most important thing. How was the trip?”
“Fine.” I pick my coffee back up.
“Fine?” Peck says. Peck is the one who has been married the longest. She’s also the quietest. It used to be because she had a fierce stutter, but now it’s because she chooses her words with care. “D-define fine,” she says.
“The kids were great. The trip was tiring. The ride was exhausting.”
