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“Finally,” my friend Molly says, picking up on the first ring. “I texted you a million times.”
I look both ways before I take a left out of the parking lot. “I couldn’t text. I couldn’t do anything. I’m already about to get fired.”
She laughs. “That can’t be true.”
Molly is the one person who knows everything about me. She knows who my dad is, she knows about Jeremy’s cheating and overall ugliness. But she is endlessly confident and competent, at least where work is concerned—as the only Black supervisor at a research lab, and one of only three females, the nonsense she hears is endless, so she’d have to be. I’m not sure she can even imagine getting fired because she’s too damned good at what she does for anyone to want her gone.
“My boss—there’s a whole story there too—basically toldme he needs me gone. He said he’s giving me a couple weeks to find another job and that’s it.”
“Shit,” she whispers. “Have you met with the divorce lawyer yet? You need child support if nothing else.”
The lawyer, who is booked out for weeks and wants five hundred for the first meeting. “It’s next month.”
“I still think we should just poison Jeremy. It would solve so many problems.”
I laugh wearily. “That’s a pretty bold plan coming from a woman who can’t even tell her boss she likes him.”
She hasn’t been on a single date during all the years I’ve known her. There was an ugly break-up in grad school, and ever since she started at her current job, it’s beenMichael, Michael, Michael—the boss she lusts after from afar.
“Here’s what we do: apple seeds,” she says, ignoring my point. “They contain arsenic. We crush them up and put them into his food. Nothing ever gets traced back to us.”
“Unless they test for arsenic and someone wonders why I recently bought ten bushels of apples. I’m not ready to turn to murderyet.” I pull into the parking lot of the twins’ school and let her go, as St. Ignatius doesn’t allow cell phones to be used on the premises, and it’s the kind of place where you follow the rules, because we need them more than they need us. I’m still not sure how Jeremy got the twins in when we’re pretty much the only parents here who didn’t attend St. Ignatius ourselves and couldn’t afford to build the school a new stadium if necessary. Jeremy comes from money, at least, but me? I spent my entire childhood moving from one guy’s trailer home to another guy’s apartment, and now—broke and soon-to-be-divorced—I don’t see myself fitting in any better.
Fortunately, the halls are empty this late. I rush back to the aftercare room, where Henry is waiting for me, sitting at a table alone. My heart pinches hard at the sight. He never plays with anyone but Sophie, and I’ve been hoping it would change, butthey’ve nearly got an entire year of kindergarten behind them and it hasn’t. One day, Sophie will move on—to new friends and college and a career. Who will Henry have then?
Both twins run when they see me but it’s Sophie, happily occupied at the play kitchen only a moment ago, who’s outraged. “Wherewereyou?” she demands. Like my mother, she’s never one to let the opportunity to complain pass quietly, but in her, it’s a good thing. No one pushes my mother around, and no one will ever push Sophie an inch either.
I offer an awkward smile to the teacher as I shepherd them out. “I had to work, sweetie. I told you.”
“I-D-L-T,” she announces.
It’s a game I made up last year, to help the twins learn the sounds letters make. ILY isI love you. TFB istime for bed. I created it mostly for Henry, who doesn’t have Sophie’s ease with words nor her love of stories, but it’s Sophie who uses it, mostly to express her disapproval. Today’s is easy to figure out because I hear some version of it quite a bit.
“I didn’t like this?” I guess.
“I didn’t,” she says. “I stilldon’t.”
If today had gone better, I’d probably laugh. But I just don’t have the capacity for laughter at present.
I wanted to give my children everything my mother did not give me. Now I’m worried I’ll be giving them even less.
THE PRESENTATION CONSUMED MOSTof my evening and I’ve only gotten two hours of sleep when it’s time to wake the twins the next morning. I felt sorry for Caleb when I saw his truck pull up late last night—I assume, based on his stress level, he was just getting home from work—but I feel sorrier for myself. When Sophie cries about how unfair it is that we have to get up so early, I want to agree.
I get through the school drop-off then rush past scowling Kayleigh the receptionist and work frantically until it’s time to go to the conference room.
When I arrive, it’s Caleb I notice first, sitting at the end of the table like a king. A lovely king, his tie askew, jaw still in need of a shave, offering me a forced, reluctant smile.
No, not a lovely king. A married one who wants to fire me and who may be furious in a minute.
And yet, even now, I can’t shake this lingering feeling from childhood, this certainty that he’s mine. I’d better figure out how to shake it soon.
“Welcome, Lucie,” Mark says, gesturing to a guy my age and an older female. “You’ve met Caleb, of course. Debbie is the head of HR and Hunter is our VP of sales. Our board members will be watching your presentation online, so we’re ready whenever you are.”
I take a deep breath as I move to the front of the room, doing my best to ignore the random sounds coming from the video attendees I can’t see. Sweat trickles down my back as they watch me fumble, trying to get my laptop to connect. I entered every beauty pageant that offered scholarship money as a teen, so parading in front of three people should be no big deal, but my dress feels too tight, my heels too high, and I’ve only used a smart board once in my life. The odds of this going well are diminishing by the second.
“It’s not…” I mumble, flushing, clicking theconnectbutton again and again.
Hunter walks over to help, thank God.
