Chapter 6 #4
“Thank you,” I choked out.
“Are you ok?” she asked again. I nodded.
“Come on, let’s get the kids.”
We slowly walked down the hallway to the pool.
“I threw up a lot when I was pregnant with Macdara,” Annie commented.
“I’m not pregnant,” I sighed wearily.
“Oh, that’s good!”
I turned to her. “I’m not some kind of tramp, Annie. I know what you think of me, but you’re wrong.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean? I don’t think that about you!”
“You think I’m a horrible person because I work in a bar. You think my sister is trying to seduce your brother or something. Your dad looks at me like I’m pond algae.”
Annie was shaking her head vigorously now. “I don’t think any of those things. I told you that Luke explained everything you do to take care of your family. I think it’s wonderful!”
The double doors opened and the swimmers started pouring out.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Annie asked me.
“Great,” I answered.
“Listen, I saw you hadn’t gotten tickets to the team dinner at my house this Sunday, so I got you some. My treat, ok?” she looked at me, eyes wide.
“Thank you,” I managed.
Charlie looked at me. “Em, are you sick?”
“I don’t feel so good, pal. Maybe I need to go home and lie down.”
So we did. After I took a hot shower (that didn’t even cheer me up), Charlie and I lay on his bed for a while and cuddled. Apparently we both needed it.
Cassie was in another strange mood that night at dinner. She came down and stayed at the table while Charlie finished his homework.
“Can you get me a new eyeliner?” she asked nonchalantly.
I eyed her as I picked up her plate. “You barely touched this.” We couldn’t afford to waste food, and she needed to eat.
“Did you hear what I said? Can you bring me a new eyeliner tomorrow?”
The cheap eyeliner at Perry’s Drugstore was only $1.29. She deserved a little treat. “Sure, brown?” She nodded. “Mind if I ask why?” I put in casually.
“Mike’s coming home.”
I froze. Charlie looked up, a huge smile blooming on his face. “Daddy’s coming home? Yay!” He jumped out of his chair and started running around the house, hooting. “Yay, yay, yay!”
“Make him shut up!” Cassie demanded.
“Charlie!” I yelled, way too sharply. “Be quiet and go upstairs.”
I heard his feet thumping towards his bedroom. I pulled out the chair next to Cassie’s and slid into it. It felt like my legs weren’t supporting me very well.
“When did you talk to him?”
“He texted. He’ll be here this weekend.” She preened a little. “I told you he would be back.”
This weekend. “You told me he wanted to come back when you were ‘back to normal.’”
“Well, I’m a lot better now. And I told him that, so he’s coming home.”
“To stay?”
Cassie didn’t answer me.
“To stay?” I repeated more loudly.
“Stop yelling at me! He’s coming this weekend, ok? So we need to get me ready. Do you think I should get a wig?”
I shook my head to clear it. “Cassie, can we talk about this? Why do you think you’re getting better? Did the doctor say that to you?”
Again, she didn’t respond. “Do you have any nice underwear I could borrow?” She studied me. “Never mind, I forgot who I was talking to.”
“He left you for almost seven months without even letting you know where he was, and now you’re going to pretend like nothing happened? You’re worried about sexy underwear? Come on!”
“He’s my husband, Emily. You don’t understand because you aren’t married.”
My temper leaped up. “Please don’t condescend to me. I think I understand this perfectly. He left you at the worst possible time in your life, and now you’ve lied to him and told him you’re cured or something. He has the moral fiber of an amoeba, and so do you.”
She was furious. “You want to lecture me about moral fiber when you’re screwing around with Luke Whitaker?” She nodded as I stared at her. “I heard you on the phone flirting with him, you little skank. Just remember you’re his sloppy seconds, ok?”
I bit my lip, trying to hold the angry words and tears in and feeling my face flood with heat.
Cassie wasn’t done. “This is my house, remember, Emily? Nana left it to me. If you’re going to be a total bitch to Mike, you can get out.”
My mouth dropped. She was right. It was her house—Nana’s will had left the house specifically to Cassie.
To the real, legitimate granddaughter. I closed my mouth, took a deep, steadying breath through my nose, and gripped the table.
It never worked to yell at her; she only dug in harder.
“Cassie, I’ll try to get along with Mike.
I’m just really angry at him for how he treated you.
You and Charlie.” And how he left me to deal with everything.
She stood up and weaved a little. I automatically put my hand on her arm to steady her and she shook me off.
“If I forgive him, you have to also. Like I said, you just can’t understand.” She turned and started to shuffle toward the stairs. Wordlessly, I took her arm again and helped her up to her bedroom.
∞
That night as I settled Charlie in before I left for work, I tried to casually broach Mike’s possible imminent arrival. “What do you think about your dad coming back?” I asked, as I laid out his clothes for the next day.
Charlie was messing with a pile of Legos. “I think it’s awesome! We’ll have so much fun! We’ll go fishing together, and go to the beach, and he’ll come to my meets, and we’ll read together.”
Mike had never, ever, done even one of those things. “Charlie, I don’t want you…” He looked up at me with big brown eyes. It was breaking my heart. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much, ok? Maybe he won’t come this weekend.”
“Mommy said he was.”
“Yeah, but sometimes…maybe it won’t work out like she thinks.”
“My mom said he was coming, and that she feels better.” He had been listening on the stairs. I didn’t want to think about what else he had heard. “Are you going to fight with him?” he asked.
“No,” I told him. “But I can’t help it that I’m angry. Do you understand that?”
“Because he left us and my mom’s dying,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Oh, holy Mother. “I won’t fight with him,” I told Charlie.
“Good,” he said, turning back to his Legos. “Daddy gets really mad when he fights.”
I watched him for a moment.
“Maybe with Daddy here you won’t have to work at that place anymore,” he mentioned. I knew he didn’t mean the NGS.
“Maybe,” I whispered. I had to go, and I hated leaving Charlie even more than usual that night.
I felt physically sick leaving him. I hugged him, and kissed his head, and hugged him again so tightly he squeaked.
I went to the car crying, trying get control of myself, wiping the tears and snot from my face before I went into Roy’s.
As bad as I thought it had been when Mike left, the thought of him being back in the house, ignoring Charlie and being rude to Cassie and kicking her when she was down, picking on me and hating me because he thought I acted like a snob because I went to college—that was worse. Much worse.
To his credit, Roy didn’t ask why my eyes were bloodshot, and my face was blotchy. He just looked at me and told me to straighten up the storeroom for a few minutes. He probably thought I would scare away the customers.
I checked my phone obsessively, hoping to hear from Charlie that he was fine, and frightened to hear from Charlie that Mike had arrived earlier than expected. The entire night I was sick to my stomach.
When I got out to the Bronco, my phone finally dinged and I was so tightly wound that I almost dropped it. I jumped into the car and slammed the door and locked it before checking my message.
Luke Text me when you get home.
I started to cry again.
Me I’m in the parking lot at Roy’s. I’m just leaving.
Tears were dripping onto my phone. I took a breath and told myself to stop being a baby.
I was still crying when I texted him that I was in Nana’s driveway, and he responded.
Luke I’m coming home on Saturday.
Instead of going right inside, I pulled off my I Drink at Roys shirt from under my sweatshirt and threw it on the porch. Then I went and sat on Nana’s bench in the moon garden, closed my eyes, and imagined.
∞
By the time Saturday rolled around, Cassie was in a frenzy.
I had tried to ask her if she had heard from Mike again, but she refused to answer me.
It was like talking to a wall, or an amoeba with no moral fiber.
She spent hours sitting on the coach with Nana’s old hand mirror propped up on some pillows, staring at one side of her face then the other, twisting her thin hair into various knots and braids, putting on makeup, lotion, perfume, and pretty much every beauty product we had left in the house.
And even though I know the reason for it, I was still glad to see her up and animated.
It had been a long time since I had seen her so, well, engaged.
Friday had been another rough day for Charlie at school.
At least, that was what I was assuming, as he jumped into the Bronco and slammed the door, and took his snack from me without saying a word.
“You’re welcome,” I reminded him, but his face was stony.
Tara had offered to drive but I decided to go watch the practice so that Coach Sean would see how important the team was to our family.
After it was over, I went to him and offered to help with team emails, or make fundraising calls, or take the tents to the next meet. I would do anything.
Saturday morning I got up early and fixed my hair, causing Cassie to eye me suspiciously when I brought her the breakfast tray. As if I would gussy up for Mike. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. “Text me if he gets here,” I remarked as I put down her tea.
“When he gets here,” she corrected me.