Chapter Ten
I drag the girls to school an hour early the next morning, which is particularly difficult after staying up late with Gran, eating chocolate cake until we felt sick, then sneaking her back to her room.
She lost lucidity about twenty minutes in, and on my way out, I asked a nurse’s aide if she could please have the director call me.
My grandmother breaking into the kitchen is fun so long as it’s for cake, but if she got ahold of one of those knives, it would be a different story. They need to keep a better eye on her.
“But Mommy—” Eliza’s shrill whine makes me clench my teeth as I put the car in park. At this rate, I’m going to need that night guard the dentist recommended.
“Honey, I know, I’m sorry. But Mommy is in the PTA, and I have to—”
“Mama, I eat cookie?” Evie waves a giant cookie around in the back of the van, then laughs—and farts—squeezing the pastry into bits all over the backseat.
“Oh, honey…”
Fuck, I mouth, which is the actual word that comes to mind.
“Eliza, can you close the box of cookies? Evie, honey, you shouldn’t have—” The words that much sugar die on my tongue as she shoves a handful of snickerdoodle in her mouth.
“Okay.” I exhale, wish to god I’d spiked my coffee, and push the door open to retrieve the girls from the back.
Ten minutes later, we’re inside—all three of us, complete with their backpacks and four bakery boxes full of pastries.
“You’re here!” Megan croons as we enter the school’s foyer. It’s a big, stately room, with a high ceiling, paned windows, and heavy curtains, not unlike a university’s. The school has very high aspirations for teaching children under the age of twelve.
“Hello,” I manage through my still-clenched teeth. Megan’s cheerful demeanor is both calming and annoying—how can she be so happy this early?—but she immediately stoops down and greets the girls, distracting them long enough that I can set everything on the card tables she’s erected.
“Maybe we can do taco and margarita night next time,” I say, thinking seven p.m. sounds better than seven a.m. Not to mention, tequila.
“Right, like Mrs. Brown would allow that.” Megan laughs. “But we can certainly go. This weekend? Girls’ night?”
I open my mouth to deflect, my automatic reaction whenever anyone suggests we do anything that involves leaving the house and not killing someone, but my phone blares to life, saving me from having to respond. Three texts come in rapid-fire.
“Sorry, Megan, one sec.”
Brian: I just found out I have to leave town.
Brian: Headed home to pack up.
Brian: I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, hopefully no longer than a few days.
Reading the messages, I can’t help but feel smug. This is exactly what I meant last night—it’s easy for him to say we should have another child because he’s not the one on duty 24/7. He can leave town at the drop of a hat—meanwhile, I’m left behind, parenting by myself.
Okay, I type back. Love you.
Across the staff lounge, Evie’s high on her cookie, spinning in circles and giggling. Eliza whispers to Megan’s daughter, Zoey, and they grin like they’ve just shared a very sneaky secret.
“Let’s do this,” I say to Megan, ready to fulfill my duty as a PTA mom and check off one more task that casts me as normal and average and good in the eyes of the other parents.
We get busy, arranging cookies and scones and muffins on platters.
In the kitchen of the staff lounge, I start one pot of coffee after another.
It’s staff appreciation week, and apparently the PTA always hosts a little event for them.
Teachers trickle through, and in between socially awkward pleasantries, I glance at my phones—my regular one, to see if Brian’s texted again, and my work one, to see if there are any updates from John.
“You okay?” Megan asks at one point.
“Oh, I’m fine. My husband just told me he has to leave town for work and—” I shrug, letting her assume what she will.
“That’s hard. I hate when Rodney leaves. It’s so lonely.”
I blink at her and wisely keep my thoughts to myself.
I’ve learned the hard way that other women don’t feel the same way I do about their spouse being away.
I do miss Brian when he’s gone, but I also love my job.
When he’s out of town, I have more time in the evenings to focus on it.
I don’t really get lonely. Megan works part-time, but many of the other PTA moms don’t, and I often wonder how they are possibly happy.
Their entire lives wrapped around their children.
Have they lost themselves, lost sight of the things that used to give them joy?
Or doting on their children, is that the thing that allows them to feel fulfilled?
Maybe I’m the one doing it wrong. But what happens when their kids leave home?
I don’t quite understand it. I feel like the balance I have with work and family, with Brian, is ideal, and I can’t imagine anything else.
Then again, I also kill people for a living, so maybe I shouldn’t be judging anyone.
Megan must mistake my silence for sadness, and she nods at the pastries. “You should have one. The cinnamon rolls are divine. They’ll make you feel better, I promise.”
“Split one?”
“Absolutely. We need fresh coffee though.”
“I’ll get the coffee,” I say. “You pick out a cinnamon roll.”
I follow the corridors back to the staff lounge, and on the way, a teacher’s aide in slacks and a white polo with the school logo stops me.
“Eliza’s mom, right?”
I pause, hand heavy with a carafe, one foot in the door of the kitchen area.
“Yes?” I smile politely, professionally. Because that’s what private school moms do.
“Here you go.” She hands me a regular white envelope, my name scrawled across the front. Before I can thank her—or ask what this is about—she disappears down the hall.
After a beat, it occurs to me that I didn’t notice what she looked like, if she had a name tag like the other staff members.
I tuck the envelope into my leggings pocket—probably an update on Eliza’s grades, or she is being tested for the gifted program—maybe results from that.
I start a new pot and carry the freshly brewed one out front, dreaming about an Americano with an extra shot of espresso, maybe a dollop of whipped cream…
It’s only when Megan hands over my half of a cinnamon roll and I bite into it—my mouth filling with sweet, warm, cinnamony goo—that I realize how odd it was that a random aide tracked me down before school started.
That I didn’t recognize her, that I didn’t catch her name, that, hell, she didn’t introduce herself as the overly formal and polite staff tend to do.
For that matter, that she knew I’d be here.
It’s at that moment I realize what I have in my pocket.