“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 whenyou 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?” Shenodded 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, andgo 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.”
