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"Cassius, wait, I can..." Michelle trailed off as she stood up.
"You can what? Explain? Go ahead then." She didn't answer. "Okay, then, how about I explain!" I strode past her and took hold of the man by the back of the neck, dragging him toward the door. "You brought this man into the home we share and had sex with him on our bedroom floor."
"Cassius! Don't!" Michelle tried to slow me down by clinging to my free arm, but I shook her off. At first the man resisted but he was no match for me, and soon he gave up and stumbled along. I paused at the bedroom door. "Are the keys to his car somewhere in this room?" I asked Michelle.
She looked around, and her eyes landed on a pair of pants on the floor. She looked guiltily back at me, but I just held out my hand, my face stone. She went to the pants and fished a set of keys out of the pocket, reaching to put them into my outstretched palm. "Why don't you put some clothes on!" I said to her, very much not as a question. She nodded silently, and I resumed marching the man out of my house.
"I don't know you," I said to him as we went down the stairs, "so, I'm going to do you the favor of assuming the best of you. I find it hard to believe you didn't know I existed, but maybe you were under the impression that I didn't care, or that the relationship was over and she was just waiting for me to move out." We hit the entryway, his bare feet slapping on the tile as I hurried him along. I barreled through the front door and shoved him toward his car. He stumbled forward and fell into the side of it but scrambled back to his feet. "If I ever see your face again, I might not assume the best anymore. Got it?" He nodded fervently, and I threw his keys on the ground at his feet. "Good. Now get far away from me."
I turned to go when I heard a tentative sound of protest from him. I looked back.
"What about... I mean... my clothes..." he stammered. I glared at him and then gave him the smallest, iciest smile.
"Should have thought about that before you fucked my girlfriend, huh?"
And I turned on my heel and went back inside to see what my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend had to say for herself.
FIVE
DEIRA
The first thing Makayla asked when I picked her up from school was the first thing Makayla asked every day.
"Mommy, how were the flowers today?" I smiled at her and said the same thing I said back to her every day.
"The flowers were beautiful, baby." Ever since I'd started my second job at the floral boutique, Makayla was obsessed with the flowers there. She wanted to know how they were doing, if they were growing, and who had come into the shop to buy them.
"So, nobody bought the whole shop today?"
I don't know why, but she was obsessed with the idea of someone buying the whole shop as a big romantic gesture. She must have seen it in a movie somewhere, probably one of Dani's beloved rom-coms that were far too mature for her to be watching. I'd explained to her frequently that it was really rare for that to happen in real life, but she liked to check every day, just in case.
I strapped her into her seat carefully before heading out on the road.
"Do you have work tonight, too?" she asked.
"Yeah, I do. I'm sorry. I wish I could stay home and hang out with you."
"I wish that, too. Am I going to Miss Carol's or Aunt Dani's?" Miss Carol was the elderly woman across the hall from us that adored Makayla.
"Aunt Dani's tonight. She said she's buying pizza. How does that sound?"
"Delicious!" Makayla proclaimed, though maybe with a little less enthusiasm than I expected. I glanced over at her, and she was staring out the window. Even though she was only five, she was such a pensive kid. I knew when she was staring out the window like that, she was mulling something over, and she'd eventually ask me about it.
Sure enough, a few blocks from Dani's place, she turned to me.
"Mommy?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it bad to only have a mom and not a dad?" The question hit me like a sledgehammer. I'd expected to have a talk like this with her someday, but not when she was this young.
"Of course, it isn't! What made you think that?"
Makayla just shrugged. "I heard some kids saying some stuff, that's all. They said there were things only a dad can teach you."
I pulled up in front of Dani's apartment complex and turned off the car.
"Doyouthink there's things that I don't know how to do?"
