And with that, I kissed Margo good-night and was out the door.
Margaret
After the night Mick took care of me in the kitchen, I woke up and decided to get a handle on my life.
Don’t misunderstand, I liked what happened in the kitchen, and blushed when I thought about wanting it to happen again. But it had been impulsive and maybe a little reckless. I was a newly single mom with an impressionable almost-teenage daughter.
So, I decided to keep the evening as a frequent memory until the dust settled, or whatever they called it.
That’s what I’d repeated to myself over the last few weeks.When the dust settles, I’ll get to do everything I’ve ever wanted.I’m not sure I believed this positive-vibes mantra, but it helped move me forward rather than spiraling aimlessly.
First, I concentrated on getting Priscilla back to school, to and from doctor appointments, and helping her to see her friends. Hosting all her friends became a goal I was going to die on a hill achieving. There were pizza nights, manicure parties, and movie marathons. Between playing hostess with the mostest and working on my new series, I dealt with the specifics of my separation.
In an effort to keep up human connections and do well at my job, I asked a few of the school parents at pickup if I could interview them. We met at coffee shops and in the library at the kids’ school.
Then there was Mick. I saw him, but we kept it to a quick lunch, just the two of us, or dinner with Priscilla. This was my doing, trying to reclaim a boundary that never existed. My stubborn daughter kept pushing for us to have a date, insisting she needed time away from me. Mick said it was up to me, but I was backpedaling, trying to turn back time and start our relationship over with harder limits.
“We need to do this the right way,” I told him over my mug of coffee, dirty blond the way I took it.
Mick and I were at Stephanie’s for lunch, and a group of businessmen had just walked out, reminding us of how we met. We laughed over our cliché bar meet cute, before I went and got serious.
“We’re doing it our way,” Mick insisted, right before the server dropped off our check.
But as Mick reached for it, I grabbed the bill. “This one’s on me. Let me do this. You know, our way,” I said, tossing his own words back at him.
He eyed me but didn’t argue.
“I’m making the big bucks now with this series,” I teased.
“That doesn’t mean you should spend it on me ... you should put it away. For Priscilla, for retirement, or shoes.”
“I’ll start doing that tomorrow. How’s that?”
Bottom line, Mick worried about my security, thinking he was the catalyst for the separation. I’d told him Tommy was holding true. We’d hired a mediator because we had to, mostly to discuss custody.
Good news was Tommy didn’t want much visitation, claiming teenage girls needed their mom. In reality, we both knew it was because she’d witnessed his absolute cruelty, and he didn’t want to explain that one. We went through the motions, pretending to discuss and duke out arrangements.
In the end, Tommy agreed to dinner twice a month with Priscilla after her cast was off and she didn’t need help in the bathroom ... and every other Christmas. Thanksgiving would be mine and Easter his, not that Priscilla even cared about the bunny or the holiday anymore. He could take her on vacation, which I knew he wouldn’t, even if she wanted to go, and he was welcome to watch any of her sports events, performances, or anything of the like.
“I found a therapist for Priscilla and me,” I said while we waited for my receipt. “I’m sure it’s a little odd how I’m sharing all this with you, but who else would I tell?”
Mick leaned in. “It’s not weird. You can tell me. You can tell Sheila. She cares.”
Mick had seen Sheila coming and going from my house a few times since the night at the hospital. She’d constantly gone on about his ass and forearms and back to his ass since then.
“Earth to Mar, where’d you go?”
“Uh ...” I didn’t know how to explain I’d been caught daydreaming about his ass.
“You’ve got a devilish smile going on, so I don’t think you were thinking about therapy.”
“I was thinking about you and Sheila.”
The server interrupted the moment, and I was hoping Mick would let it go as I signed my name.
“Sheila? Wrong woman for me,” he said when I looked up.
“Well, she was ... commenting on you and certain body parts.”
