Chapter 9 – Angie
For the next two weeks,Brandon texts me every day.
is steak good or would you rather get crab
the guys say broyce has crabs.
did you hear that thunder last night
were gonna go all the way this year if the defense can get their heads out of their ass
That was after Thursday night football. I still don’t quite know how conversation between us works, so I reply with GIFs. Homer Simpson chowing down on a huge steak. A cartoon sheep giving two thumbs up. A prairie dog hiding in his hole. The donkey from Shrek, grinning.
I’m not a big talker. Madison can go for hours, but I run out of things to say, and it’s hard for me to get started. It was never a problem with Tyler. He liked having an audience, even if it was just me, but Brandon isn’t like that. Every day at work, I rack my brain for something to text him, but he always beats me to the punch.
what are you and the girls up to this weekend
this ship is killing me
did i say im going to drive next saturday? i am
respectfully
I think and think, and eventually, I give up and send a GIF. That takes me forever, too. Then, the day before our date, inspiration hits. I send him a GIF that says “good morning” with the sun smiling and drinking a cup of coffee. Literally three seconds after I send it, my phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” he says. It’s hard to hear him over the noise in the background. It sounds like he’s on a factory floor.
“Where are you?”
“Working a ship.”
“This early?”
“We had a six-thirty start.”
“That sucks.” It’s eight-fifteen, and I’m sitting in the parking garage at work. I like my job, but not enough to walk in early.
I wait for him to say why he called, my stomach knotting. He’s canceling. When I sent the GIF, he knew I was up, so he could call and let me know. My heart sinks toward the car floor.
In the background of the call, a loud horn blares and a walkie-talkie bleeps. “I can’t talk,” he says. “I just wanted to say that I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
In an instant, gravity reverses. All my insides float like the soda bubbles in Charlie’s chocolate factory.
“Me, too,” I say, softly.
“Pick you up at seven?”
“Yeah.” We’d already sorted that out by text.
“Okay.”
He’s not hanging up. Neither am I.
“I better go,” he finally says.
“All right.” I hit end, my cheeks flaming, and drop my head back against the headrest.
My heart pounds like I just rode a roller coaster, and I’m grinning like an idiot, sitting alone in a dank underground garage that smells like gasoline and pee. I pull myself together, but all day long, there’s a spring in my step, and all my patients end up getting where they’re going just a little bit faster than they usually would.
Tyler was supposedto get the girls yesterday evening, but he called a half hour after he was supposed to pick them up and said he has to work today. He asked if he could get them at six today instead.
Since Tyler was promoted to store manager, he’s never worked a Saturday shift, but I wasn’t about to argue. Each visitation weekend gets a little easier, but it still sucks.
I try to talk it up with the girls and act like it’s no big deal, but they’re always asking if next weekend is a daddy weekend, and how many days until daddy weekend, and is Daddy still coming or did he call? The closer it gets to Friday, the more they cling. They’re anxious, not excited. But then, when Tyler shows up, they run to him, giddy and hyper, and that sucks in a different way.
I had plans to spend Saturday afternoon treating myself to a mani, pedi, and eyebrow wax at the nail salon, but I have to cancel, so the girls and I do our nails together. Around four, I start a movie for them and hole up in the bathroom to take care of business.
First, I exfoliate and shave in the shower. Afterwards, I almost break my spine by twisting my torso in front of the full-length mirror to make sure I got all the hair behind my knees.
I shave my bush with an electric razor. After the diagnosis, I never got another Brazilian. You’re allowed to get one if you don’t have an active outbreak, but they say waxing can trigger a flare-up, and I haven’t had one since a few months after Ivy was born. I’m not courting trouble. Besides—I wouldn’t be comfortable with it.
When I’m as hairless as a Sphynx cat, I poke my head into the basement to make sure the girls are still absorbed in the movie. They’ve got their stuffies arranged around their blanket pile, and they’re in heaven, kneeling side by side, clutching their favorite animals, saucer-eyed with their mouths open.
I quietly close the door and run a bath with the water as hot as I can stand, adding a generous splash of the English pear and freesia bath oil that Madison bought me for my birthday.
The first few years after the positive test, I never felt really clean, not like I did before, but it’s better now. I don’t really remember how I felt in my body back then. I’ve got a new normal.
It probably helped that so much about me changed from my pregnancies. I still have the brown freckles that showed up on my nipples with Tamblyn. When I stand for a long time, my left thigh goes numb now. And then there are the white stretch marks on my hips, and how my shoe size is still a half size bigger than it was before. Tyler didn’t like any of it, but I learned how to tune out his opinion. I can apply the skill to my own thoughts, too—most of the time.
I sink into the water slowly. The porcelain is cool against my shoulders. I’m so excited and nervous that my body is basically vibrating. My belly feels like I swallowed a beehive.
I don’t know if I can do any of this.
Dinner should be fine. We can talk about the food, and if it comes down to it, I can talk about the Ravens. I don’t have opinions about them, but Tyler sure did, so I know enough to keep a conversation going if I’ve had a beer or two.
Should I order drinks?
Definitely not beer. I don’t want beer breath. Will he think it’s stupid if I order an Orange Crush? That’s what girls drank in high school, and I never got to have a clubbing phase, so my order never evolved.
It’s Brandon. He’s not going to care what I drink. I don’t need to be this nervous. I know him.
But not like this.
What if after dinner, he wants to have sex? He probably will.
I do.
Do I?
I lower myself in the water. The steam makes my face sweat. I wiggle my hot pink toes. It’s such a childish color. I did let the girls pick.
How do I tell him my status? When? Before he kisses me? When he’s heading to second base? Third?
After the diagnosis, I didn’t want to have sex for a really long time. At first, I was postpartum, so Tyler couldn’t say anything, but eventually, he started to complain and make life hard.
I was so damn tired at the time. Ivy was not a good sleeper, and her ears were a problem almost from the beginning. I couldn’t deal with him and the girls, so I switched something off in my head. I don’t know how. If he wanted sex, that was fine, as long as he was quick enough to finish before I got so dry that it hurt. If he went too long, I’d finish him with my hand.
I know that’s messed up, and I’ve thought and thought about what I should have done instead, but all I can remember is being so exhausted that I’d break down into hysterics at the drop of a hat—in the car at the grocery store, in the laundry room, bent over and trying to fish a sock out from between the washer and dryer. Honestly, if I had national secrets, I’d have given them up for a nap, so a quickie was nothing.
I’ve beat myself up for being such a pushover for so long, not only after the wedding that didn’t happen, but before, every day, in the middle of being pushed over. I would be jerking Tyler off, disgusted with myself for giving in just to shut him up.
I’m tired of beating myself up. Criminals get sentences, and sentences end, and nothing I did was a crime.
I’m tired of being ashamed. I want to go out with Brandon, and I want him to gaze at me over a candlelit table the way he does now that he isn’t fixing his face around me anymore. He looks at me like I’ve never dirtied my hands a day in my life, never settled for crumbs, like my pretty feet have never actually touched the ground.
I want to let him convince me to go to his place. Kiss him until I forget I have anything to be worried about.
And then?
I have to disclose my status to him. That’s how it’s phrased. Disclose your status. Like it’s very official.
There’s a guy on social media who calls himself a herpes coach—he posts a video every day about how to tell someone you have HSV-2, which is wild. I try as hard as I can to forget that I’ve got it.
The guy talks about how common it is, and how since the standard STD panel generally doesn’t test for it, even folks who think they’ve got a clean bill of health might have it, so you could very well be disclosing to someone who’s also infected but doesn’t know.
He acts like people who react badly are just uneducated, and if they knew the facts, they’d be cool, but that’s not true. Even Tyler looked at me differently after I tested positive, and he gave it to me.
I follow a woman with herpes on the same app. She’s gorgeous, and she talks about dating and how some guys are cool with it, and some aren’t. The people in her comment section are brutal, though. It’s funny—the guy’s comments are filled with women saying how brave he is to speak up. Hers are a bunch of trolls calling her a disgusting slut who got what she deserved.
I know Brandon won’t call me names. He might not even reject me right away. He might try to make it work before he decides he can’t get over it. That would be worse. The hope and then the crushing.
I let my limbs float in the water, my stomach so tight that it’s cramping.
I’m not calling this date off. I’m not going to dread telling him the whole time. I’m going to have fun and order an Orange Crush and the steak-and-cake entrée like I’m a hot date and there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m going to fake it ’til I make it.
There’s a soft knock and the door creaks open an inch.
“Mama, Ivy sat on the remote, and the movie stopped!” Tamblyn hollers through the crack. Her mouth is pressed right up against it, but she’s technically following our privacy rules. She didn’t burst in like Kramer from Seinfeld, which is what she used to do before I laid down the law. We’re living in close quarters down here, and we need boundaries. I need boundaries.
“Okay, give me a minute.” I’m not too disappointed to cut the bath short. I wasn’t relaxing, anyway. I was just freaking myself out. I don’t need to tell Brandon anything tonight if I don’t want to. I never have to tell him if we don’t take this any further.
The thought makes my whole chest hurt. I’m already a goner for him.
An ugly voice in my head says Oh, yeah? Like you were a goner for Tyler? Six months ago, you were marrying him, but now you can’t live without Brandon? Cling much? You know what you call a woman who can’t live without a man? Weak.
I stand in the tub, wringing my hair dry like I wish I could wring that voice’s neck until it shuts up. I’m not doing this to myself anymore.
I’m not weak. For years, I lived with a man who might as well not have been there. Who took care of the girls? Who cooked? Who cleaned? Who mowed the lawn and took out the trash, and called the HVAC guy when the heater went up, and the roofer when that storm took those shingles off? Who got the squirrels out of the attic?
Nobody calls a man weak if he ends one relationship and gets into another.
Breaking up with Tyler was like opening the windows during spring cleaning and letting the wind blow out all the stale air. I could breathe again. My eyesight sharpened, and I looked up, and I saw Brandon. It felt like when you see an old picture from when you’re a kid, and you see a toy that you’d forgotten, and you remember all of a sudden how much it meant to you. It felt exactly like that sweet rush, that delight and comfort.
What if I lose that? Ruin it with my own mouth? I disclose my status, disgust flashes across his face, and then I get to be haunted by that look for the rest of my life?
My stomach churns. I grab a towel, dry off, wrap myself, and go figure out what Ivy did to the TV with her butt. Once the girls are settled again, I go back to the bathroom to do my face and blowout my hair.
My excitement is all gone, but the dread remains. I put on a matching pale pink bra and underwear, and a cute turtleneck knit dress in oatmeal that hits above the knee and clings to my boobs and hips in exactly the right way, but I don’t feel pretty. I feel like I’m getting ready for a job interview. Or court.
I finish well before Tyler is supposed to get here, and I make sure the girls are brushed and scrubbed and squeaky clean. He’s never done their hair, but he’ll have something to say if it’s tangled. Luckily, neither girl gets her feelings hurt easily. They think “rat’s nest” is hilarious.
At five-thirty, I herd them upstairs. Miss Dawn is already at the Seahorse Inn. They’re doing a bingo tonight where every MLM girlie donates a basket of product. Miss Dawn went down early to scout out the prizes. She’s hyped.
I’m too nervous to sit on the couch, so I take the girls out front and let them run around the yard while we wait. Dusk is falling fast, but the lights on the porch and the garage are strong enough for them to see where they’re going. They’re wearing their matching baby backpack purses that Grandma Carol bought them. If she sees them this weekend, I hope she takes it as a peace offering.
Six o’clock comes and goes. I’m not too worried. Tyler’s always a little late. Then, it’s six-fifteen.
Six thirty.
Six forty-five.
The sun has fully set, and it’s steadily growing colder. I didn’t put a jacket on, and I’m shivering, but I don’t want to bundle the girls back into the house just for Tyler to pull into the driveway.
I really don’t want Tyler and Brandon to cross paths. The girls were supposed to be gone by now. They know I’m going out tonight, but by some miracle, they didn’t ask where or who with, so I didn’t say. It’s a much bigger deal to them that it’s a daddy weekend.
I won’t lie to them, but I also don’t want them to feel bad or weird around Brandon if things don’t work out. I have no idea how they’ll react. They seem to take Tyler’s love life in stride. They talk about his girlfriend, and I was confused until I realized they’re talking about Emily Mather and at least one other woman. To them, “girlfriend” is like “date.”
How does Tyler disclose his status? Does he? If he does, I bet he says I gave it to him. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do.
Just as my stomach gets queasy again, Tyler’s truck rumbles up. He pulls over in front of the house, driving half up onto Miss Dawn’s lawn, and honks. The girls run for the truck, their little sparkly backpacks bouncing, and leap for the door handle. I grab the reusable grocery bag that I’m using until I can get their overnight bag back and follow.
The girls climb into the backseat, chattering happily. Tyler rolls down the passenger window, gives me a once-over, and snorts. “Don’t need to ask what you’re doing tonight.”
The back of my neck heats, and my skin crawls.
“Here are their things.” I hold up the grocery bag. He raises an eyebrow like I’ve asked him to do something literally impossible. He can’t be expected to reach over and take his daughters’ stuff.
I hoist myself onto the running board to drop it through the window, and then I inch to the back to say goodbye to the girls.
“Some free advice, Ang,” he says over his shoulder. “If you think your tits distract from that roll of flubber around your middle, they don’t. I’d change if I were you. Unless the dude’s a chubby chaser.” He smirks, and as Tamblyn’s eyes find mine through the back window, the truck jerks forward, like his foot slipped off the clutch.
Startled, I jump down, barely sticking the landing. The heels of my low boots sink into the lawn. It’s been rainy.
“Oops. My bad,” he says. “Wave bye to Mommy.”
Tamblyn’s mouth rounds, and Tyler roars off. I stare after his tail lights, fists clenched, my pink nails digging into my palms.
I could get in my car right now and catch up with him. He’s going to the house. He won’t take them out if he’s the one who has to watch them. I could take them back. They’re mine. I grew them in my body. I love them more than he does. More than he’s capable of.
I force myself to breathe, the cold air making my teeth ache, and recite all the reasons I can’t go after them in my head.
He’s their father. They have a right to know him. I don’t want them to grow up feeling unworthy. I don’t want them so desperate for affection that they’ll mistake any small kindness or scrap of attention for love. The lawyer said I had to let him take his parenting time.
I stand by the curb, stare down the empty street, and it claws at my chest—the indecision and regret, the emptiness, the fury and hurt and loneliness.
Miss Dawn fronted me the money to talk to a lawyer a few months ago. The lady said that she saw no reason a judge wouldn’t award Tyler visitation, and that he could make a strong argument for fifty-fifty custody, or even primary physical custody, since he had a house and an involved extended family, and I didn’t. She said the state was moving away from the every-other-weekend-for-dads default.
And I know if I fight him or make a scene, he’ll go scorched earth. He always does.
This is the way things have to be right now. I have a plan. The CNA classes begin in six weeks. I just need to pull myself together. Pop my heels out of the dirt. Scrape the mud off on the sidewalk. Go sit on the front porch and don’t think about the chub around my middle or Tamblyn’s face through the window or absent fathers or the hundred horrible things that can happen to children if you don’t watch them like a hawk.
I’m staring into the middle distance, having a silent, frozen meltdown, when Brandon turns into the driveway. He parks all the way up by the garage.
My eyes burn. I am not bursting into tears. He didn’t do anything to deserve this.
He hops right out of the cab and strolls over. I firm my chin, straighten my spine, and suck in my stomach.
He’s wearing a blue plaid button-up shirt and a dark pair of sturdy pants, the kind that could be for hunting or a nice dinner out, depending on if they’re clean or not. He’s hatless for once, and he’s got his right hand hidden behind his back.
His smile fades when he sees my face. “Hi,” he says softly.
“I’m not going to cry,” I say. Tears leak down my cheeks.
“I see that,” he says. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket with his free hand and sits next to me on the top step. He keeps his other hand behind his back.
“Tyler came for the girls, and it’s just hard,” I explain, wiping my nose. The tears have already stopped. They just wanted me to know that I’m not the boss of them.
“I get that,” he says. He knocks his knee against mine. “Want to do a rain check?”
“No. I’m good. I promise.” Now that he’s here, I can breathe again. He feels like a rush of oxygen, like surfacing in the pool when you’ve tried to stay under as long as you can.
He smiles, and it’s so bright and wide and relieved that it bowls me over. Something inside me tumbles ass over teakettle. He likes me.
“Here,” he says. He takes the hand from behind his back. He’s got a single red rose in a plastic tube for a vase.
“Oh.” I take it and give it a sniff since that’s what you’re supposed to do. It kind of smells like burnt coffee.
“I got it from the gas station,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t gonna tell you that. I was going to throw that plastic shit away, but I forgot, so I figured the jig was up, you know?”
Is Brandon Kaczmarek running off at the mouth? I’d never thought I’d see the day. Even his voice is weirdly gravelly. He’s nervous.
“It smells like coffee.” I don’t know what I’m saying. He’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and there’s only inches between us. I don’t know what’s happening in my body. I feel like a shaken snow globe.
“Yeah, I had to pay a premium for that.”
“You did?”
“They get you coming and going down at the Gas-n-Go.”
“That they do.” We smile together at our dumb joke, and the pieces flying around inside me feel less frantic. His eyes are so pretty. They’re not girly in the least—he’s got the crinkles that all the men do around here who work outside—but still, pretty is the only word for them.
“Can I take you to Broyce’s and buy you a wagyu filet with a lobster tail?”
“What’s wagyu?”
“The most expensive thing on their menu.”
“Are you trying to make me forget that you brought me a gas station rose?” I hold it to my nose and bat my eyes. His crinkles deepen.
“You better press that rose in your diary when you get home tonight,” he says.
“I don’t have a diary.”
“You better get one.” His eyes dance. I drop the rose to my lap. He leans closer. Tires peel. Someone takes the turn into the cul-de-sac real fast.
I startle. Tyler’s truck roars up the street, screeching to a halt in front of the house. The driver’s door slams. I jump to my feet. Tyler storms around the bed and throws open the back door. The girls are crying. I run.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Tyler’s shouting. “Out! Out!”
Tamblyn tumbles out, crying, Ivy following after. I crouch, and they fling themselves into my arms. Tyler pitches one sparkly backpack purse onto the lawn after the other. He’s got the light on in the cab, and he’s cursing a blue streak.
“What happened?” I ask the girls. Tamblyn’s crying too hard to answer, and Ivy’s buried her face in my armpit.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Tyler booms from the truck’s second row, a microfiber rag in his hand. “The juice you gave them exploded all over the fucking backseat! It’s seeping into the floor mats. Is it fucking fruit punch? Goddamn it, Angie!”
He throws a silver foil packet at me. It lands in the grass at my feet.
“That’s enough.” Brandon steps in front of us.
It’s like someone hit Tyler’s pause button. He stops cursing, his jaw drops, and the hand with the rag falls to his side. He didn’t expect Brandon.
I watch the realization sweep over him. He notices what Brandon’s wearing. He glances over our heads and sees the rose on the step where we were sitting. His lip peels back in a sneer, and his pale blue eyes narrow.
Something inside me that’s been trained like a dog cowers. I feel dirty and small and pathetic. I don’t want Brandon to see this play out. Or the girls. I want to throw myself on this nasty, sneering man like a hero on a live grenade—to save us all.
I don’t want his nastiness to touch any of them.
I don’t want Brandon to see what he dishes out with perfect entitlement because I’ve taken it for years. I don’t want the girls to see it yet again.
“This isn’t your business, Kaczmarek,” Tyler says.
It isn’t. It’s mine. My fault. My responsibility. I climb back to my feet, hiking Ivy onto my hip. Brandon seems reluctant, but he steps aside so he’s standing next to me rather than blocking us. He makes me feel safe and ashamed. Like I’m not alone for once. But also, I’ve got a real man now to witness how beatdown I am.
“Are you gonna pay for the detailing, Angie?” Tyler asks like Brandon isn’t even here. “Because this shit isn’t coming out of the mats.”
“I didn’t give them juice.”
“So it just appeared out of nowhere?”
I can feel Brandon’s muscles tensing tighter by the second. Except for an occasional sniffle from Tamblyn, the girls have gone quiet. I have to diffuse this before it gets even uglier.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I’m not. It’s not my fault. His mother buys those juice packs. I can’t afford them. I bet it was in one of their backpacks from when they went to church with her.
I’m not sorry at all, but that’s what I say when he’s angry, and I’m stuck in another stupid standoff, and sorry never works, but maybe it will this time, and what else can I do that won’t make it worse?
“Is ‘sorry’ gonna clean this interior?” Tyler shoots back.
Brandon catches my eye. His jaw is clenched so hard that there’s a muscle popped that I’ve never seen before. He’s furious. The back of my neck prickles. What is he going to do? I can’t manage them both.
I stroke Tamblyn’s head. She’s plastered it to my side.
Brandon’s nostrils flare. His chest rises. I hold my breath. He exhales. The muscle at the hinge of his jaw relaxes. He’s never looked grimmer.
“What do you want to do?” he asks me, holding my gaze as firmly as Ivy’s got her arms wound around my neck.
What do I want to do? Disappear. Reverse time. Cry. Shut Tyler’s mouth with my fist. Torch that stupid truck, mats, interior, and all. Wave a wand so my girls never heard or saw it. Any of it.
These are not choices I have, so I do the only thing I can. “I’m taking the girls inside,” I tell him.
This has probably ruined everything between us, but I know, without question, Brandon will have my back for now. This time, Tyler hasn’t got me totally trapped.
I turn and head for the house, Ivy in my arms and Tamblyn plastered to my leg.
“Hey!” Tyler snarls. “Get back here!”
Brandon says something, but it’s so deep and quiet, I can’t make it out.
I get the girls inside and shut the door. They stand in the foyer, blinking up at me. Tamblyn is beet red, and there’s a sheen of snot from her nose to her chin.
“Come here,” I say and wipe her face with my sleeve. “It’s okay. It was an accident.”
“It just came out the straw. I didn’t even squeeze,” she wails, her face crumbling as she dissolves into tears again.
“I know.” I desperately smooth her hair. “Those pouches do that all the time. It’s not your fault.”
“It is!” she cries.
I drop to my knees and grab her arms. “No, it isn’t. It was an accident. It could happen to anyone. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
She looks me straight in the eye, her hair wild like mine was when I was little, her nose a miniature version of mine, the same exact shape, her wide mouth, identical to mine, trembling, and she says, “But you said sorry.”
Oh, God.
I did.
I’ve apologized for hundreds of things I didn’t do. And she’s watched me.
“I take it back,” I say, urgency making my voice shake. “I’m not sorry.”
“There’s no eating or drinking in the truck,” she says quietly, watchfully.
“Yes, but there’s no throwing things or cussing, either.”
She narrows her puffy eyes. We both know that’s not actually true.
“I’m sorry I spilled, Mama,” she finally says. “I’m sorry to you.”
“Thank you,” I say, the knot in my stomach loosening the smallest bit. “Let’s go to the living room and take a minute to calm down.”
“Kitty videos?” Ivy suggests.
“Definitely,” I say.
The girls shuffle off like sad little zombies, and before I follow, I peek out the narrow window beside the door.
Tyler has gotten down from the truck, and he’s standing face-to-face with Brandon. He’s running his mouth, but I can’t hear anything through the glass. Brandon has his back to me, so I can’t see his expression. He’s tense, but his arms are at his sides. He must not be speaking because Tyler isn’t pausing for a breath.
There’s a rock in my stomach. I didn’t mean to leave Brandon to fight my battle for me. Should I go back out? I should.
I reach for the knob and Tyler finishes whatever he’s saying. He spits on the ground, smug self-satisfaction giving his face that piggy look.
Brandon’s fist swings so fast that I don’t see it. All I see is Tyler sail backward and land on his ass in the soggy grass. Tyler’s hand flies up to his jaw. For a moment, he just blinks up at Brandon in absolute shock. He’s not from the same neighborhood as Brandon and me. He’s from one of the nice houses on the waterfront. He scraps, but only when his boys are there to back him up.
He’s running his mouth again by the time he picks himself up off the ground, gesturing wildly with his left hand as he cradles his cheek with his right. His face is so red and mottled it looks seconds from exploding into meaty bits. He doesn’t take a single step toward Brandon, though.
Brandon calmly raises his arms to his sides, offering Tyler a clear shot, and holds them there like he’s got all the time in the world.
Tyler says something else and spits on the asphalt again. It’s clearly meant to show contempt and save face, but it doesn’t work. Tyler looks like a feral possum that got whacked by a broom as he skirts Brandon and scurries back toward his truck, talking shit the whole time. Brandon just stands there with his arms open, daring Tyler to take a shot.
I can’t tell whether Brandon’s saying anything back, but I bet he’s not. He wouldn’t waste his breath. They might as well be two different species—a hissing possum and a tough old bear who doesn’t need to make himself feel big. That’s how Brandon hit Tyler, like a bear swiping with his paw, like you’d swat a gnat.
I wish I was strong like him. What does it make me if I run scared of a raggedy possum?
The shame burns, but it doesn’t stop me from replaying the moment when Tyler lands on his ass, over and over, a small, mean seed of satisfaction warming my belly. And then I look over to the girls huddled together on the couch. They haven’t even bothered to turn the TV on.
Why aren’t I strong enough to be a mama bear for them? I’d die for them. Why can’t I raise my voice to their father?
I turn away from the window. Tyler’s truck roars off. What do I do now? Play kittens on my phone for the girls and slap a Band-Aid over it like usual? Daddy’s just mad. Let him cool off. He loves you. Everything’s going to be fine. How many times have I said it? How many times did I hear my mama say the same thing before she didn’t bother covering up for him anymore?
Why is life a fucking carousel?
I’m not riding this shit around one more time.
“Come on, girls.” I tug my dress straight. We’re not moping around the house. We’re not letting a single minute more of our lives get ruined if we have a choice, and we do.
The girls crawl off the couch and trudge over. Their eyes are dull, and their faces are tear streaked. They’ve been through the wringer. They blink up at me, waiting for me to say the thing that’ll let us all keep going like everything’s okay. Guilt is a worm in my chest.
There’s a soft knock at the door. Tamblyn tenses. Ivy peers through the sidelight. “It’s Brandon,” she says, darting forward to let him in.
He steps tentatively across the threshold, a question in his eyes, his right hand shoved in his pocket. I bet the knuckles are swollen.
“Hey,” he says to the girls. “You want these, or should I make them disappear?” He holds up the sparkly backpacks with his free hand.
Tamblyn immediately reaches for hers. Ivy furrows her forehead. “How would you make them disappear?”
“Shove ’em in the back of the coat closet, I guess,” he says.
Ivy’s head bobs as she considers. “No, I’ll take it.” She holds out her hand. He hands the bag over with his trademark seriousness.
The girls gaze up at him, and I realize they’re waiting for him now. They trust him. They know him. And all of a sudden, it isn’t me and my girls and him, it’s the four of us, crowded into the foyer, unsure and off-kilter but together.
Brandon clears his throat. “Well, I, for one, am hungry. Who wants endless soup, salad, and breadsticks?”
Who would’ve guessed those were the magic words? The girls whoop. Then Tamblyn needs the bathroom. Then Ivy does. Then they need to change their outfits, and I figure I might as well put jeans on, too, and when we come back upstairs, Brandon’s put the game on, and we let him watch the last five minutes of the quarter while the girls have me French braid their hair.
It’s almost eight when we pile into my car since it’s got the car seats. Brandon insists on driving. Tamblyn insists on picking the radio station. It’s fifteen minutes to the restaurant, and the entire ride is filled with chatter and singing and giggling from the backseat.
After a few miles, Brandon’s tension eases, and he rests his right hand on the console between us. His knuckles are swollen and red. He sees me noticing and frowns. He flexes the hand and moves it to his thigh and then to the steering wheel, eyes on the road, his face somber while his cheeks color.
I take the hand and move it to my lap, gently covering his knuckles with my palm, keeping my eyes straight ahead, too.
In the back, the girls sing along to a Taylor Swift song at the top of their lungs. Tamblyn knows some of the words and makes up the rest. Ivy repeats what Tamblyn sings on a two-second delay, and the end result is somehow both gibberish and sweet as peaches at the same time.
Brandon’s lips soften. He’s nearly too big for the seat. He has to hunch his shoulders so his hair doesn’t get mussed by the headliner. His seat is as far back as it goes, but his knees are still bent at a ninety-degree angle. He looks like someone origami-ed him up in order to make him fit. He looks happy.
He wants to be here. With us.
It’s a mess—this day, this situation, this life. It’s the one we’ve got, though.
It might all end in disaster and heartbreak. Lord knows it has before. But not tonight.
By some happy accident, Tamblyn and Ivy belt, “Ooo, oh, whoa” in unison before once again devolving into their individual, incomprehensible variations of the song they’re drowning out.
Brandon looks over at me and grins. His eyes crinkle. My heart soars.
It feels terrifying and new.
And at the same time, it feels like in another world, it’s the way it’s been all along.