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By the time Charlie comes back to the kitchen, her steps heavy, I’m loading the dishwasher. I make sure to look like I’m completely absorbed in my task so that when she says, “I need help with math homework,” I jump, pretending I didn’t hear her come in.
“Oh, do you?” I wipe my hands on a tea towel. “Okay, well, let’s see what we can do.”
She makes it clear she’s not thrilled about the idea, but I don’t care. She stomps upstairs with me behind her, then turns away from me, her arms crossed over her chest and sits at her desk and sulks.
“Where’s your math book?”
“Why didn’t you want me to keep Tallulah?”
Good, I think. Let’s kick this pony right out of the park. I sit on the side of her bed. It would be so easy for me to tell her the truth, and I am so tempted I can taste the words forming in my mouth.Tallulah was never yours, baby, it was just a joke Mommy played on me.
“We don’t have the room,” I say. “Tallulah needs a big yard, lots and lots of space to run around.” Her little chin wobbles but she nods, she gets it. She loves animals. She too wants Tallulah to have lots of room to roam. But still a tear escapes and rolls down the side of her nose. I hug her and tell her we can get a dog instead, which is something Jack and I had discussed except that I don’t even know if Jack and I will be together much longer, but then I think screw it. Even if I’m not around, he can get a dog, surely. Bronwyn won’t like it, so that’s an extra bonus. And I know Charlie will love to look after it. She’ll walk it, wash it, feed it. Jack won’t have to do a thing.
“Really?” she says, face shiny with hope.
“Absolutely,” I say. “Consider it done. You and I will get a dog next weekend. From the pound. A rescue dog. Don’t call it Tallulah, though, that’s all I ask.”
She hugs me and my cup runneth over. We open the math book.
“I hate math,” she says.
“You love math. You just don’t know it yet.”
We find a video featuring a bunch of angry cats that need to be separated into equal groups, so we use that for the basics. Then we buy enough pretend ice cream scoops for the whole class and divide them by the number of kids. We play magic tricks (think of a number, now divide by two, is it ten? No?) and I love her so much it’s all I can do not to smother her. Then later, when it’s time for bed, Bronwyn says she’ll read her a story, and Charlie says can Laura do it, instead? And a rush of joy barrels through me, even with the tiny prick of disappointment at the use of my name, which is barely a toothpick’s worth in the scheme of things. We read a chapter fromTheMysteries of the Universe, then she tells me that Bronwyn doesn’t always read stories, sometimes she looks at her phone and waits for her to go to sleep but she takes too long so she has to go.
“You can always insist that she read a story, you know. I’m sure she’d do it,” I say, even though I’m sure of no such thing.
She shrugs, plays with a strand of my hair. “I don’t care. I just like it when she’s here.”
“Oh, okay.” Another little stab. More than a toothpick but less than a dagger. A sewing needle’s worth. “So, what if Mommy came back to live with you and Daddy?” I blurt. “Would you like that?” And only then do I remember that there are times when asking a question you don’t know the answer to, is about the dumbest thing you could possibly do.
“She already lives with me and Daddy.”
“I mean, forever.”
She looks up at me, eyes wide. “Mommy is going to live with you and me and Daddy forever?”
“Well, probably not with me,” I say, my heart splintering. “There’s not enough room for all of us, I’d be cramped in like Tallulah, so I would need to live somewhere else.”
“Somewhere where there’s more room?”
“Exactly.”
“But you would still see us?”
Us. Many years ago, I used to cut myself and hearing her say “us” like that, excluding me from her “us” felt exactly like that, like something just sliced through my skin. Instant burn.
“I would like to, from time to time, come and visit.” Whenever Bronwyn needed a free babysitter, most likely. “How would you feel about that?”
She shrugs. “Okay.”
And something fragile and delicate inside me dies.
TWENTY-TWO
I go to bed early, anger zigzagging inside me. I wish Jack would take my side, I wish he’d see what Bronwyn is doing, undermining me at every opportunity. I long for him to come to bed and spoon me, tell me he loves me, we’re getting married soon, she’ll sign the divorce papers and she’ll be on her way, and life will be better than ever.
But when he joins me, he falls heavily into bed, and I can smell the faint odor of Scotch on his breath, which I guess would explain why he’s dead asleep the moment his head hits the pillow.
