My chest felt hot and tight. How dare he question my parenting! This was the same man who’d forgotten Madison’s birthday two years running. Who hadn’t sent child support in nine months. Who’d spent years telling Robbie he was too sensitive and needed to toughen up whenever his sensory issues made things hard. Who always—always—found a way to make everything my fault.
But what finally did it—what made me kick him out and change the locks—wasn’t the chronic unemployment or pot-smoking. It was the day he’d yelled at Robbie for having a meltdown over a fire drill at school. He’d called him dramatic and told him he was too old to act like a baby. Robbie was nine.
Something in me had broken. Or snapped might be the better word. Fortunately, instead of stabbing him with a kitchen knife, I’d kicked him out and filed for divorce the next day.
My hands were shaking so hard it was hard to type a message back to him.
Esme
Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. Just like I always have.
Jeff
Always the martyr. Some things never change.
I stared at the screen. My vision blurred.
“Esme, what did he say?” Grady’s voice was eerily calm, but I could hear the steel underneath.
I just handed him the phone and watched his jaw flex as he read the exchange. “This man doesn’t deserve that little girl. I’d love to break his arm in two places and see what he thinks about surgery then.”
Strangely enough, that made me laugh. A little hysterically but a laugh just the same. “I’m pretty sure that would change his mind about its importance.”
He leaned over, looking into my eyes. “You’re not a martyr. You’re a mother. A really good one. Don’t you let that idiot tell you otherwise.”
“Thank you. Thanks for being here. For me and for Madison.”
“Should you call Robbie and let him know what’s going on?” Grady asked, glancing at the clock on the far wall. “He should be out of school any minute, right?”
The question caught me off guard. I blinked. “Yes, I should text him. I’m not thinking straight.” Robbie would come home to an empty house and panic. He always did when routines changed without warning.
“Text your girlfriends too. You know they’ll be mad if you don’t.”
He was right about that. A lot had changed over the years. But one thing had remained the same. Those girls had my back, and I had theirs.
“You want me to go wait for Robbie at your place?” Grady asked. “I can bring him here or wait with him. Whatever you think is best.”
“Would you? Maybe fix him something to eat. You know what he likes.” Robbie had very particular opinions about what was edible and what was not. The blander the better.
“Whatever he needs, I’ll do.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder for just a second, letting myself absorb his warmth, knowing how cold it would be the moment he stepped into the elevator and left me alone in the waiting room.
A bit over an hour later,Madison was out of surgery and settled into a room with her arm in a cast and a stuffed bear the nurse had given her.
Grady had enlisted Gillian’s help to check in with Robbie and brought the promised strawberry ice cream for Madison and spooned it into her mouth while she giggled groggily.
Robbie arrived with Gillian and catalogued every detail of the procedure with clinical fascination. The doctors said she could go home in the morning.
Grady offered to stay but I sent him home with Robbie. Gillian squeezed my hand at the door and whispered, "Call me if you need anything. I mean it. Three a.m., I don't care." Then they were gone, and the room was quiet.
I settled into the recliner beside Madison's bed. The nurses had given me a thin blanket and a pillow that smelled likeindustrial detergent. The hallway outside hummed with the muffled sounds of a hospital at night—soft footsteps, a distant beep, someone's TV through the wall.
Madison's small chest rose and fell. The cast was enormous on her tiny arm. She looked so little in that bed. An IV line snaked from the back of her hand to a pole beside her, and every few minutes the monitor beeped softly, a mechanical heartbeat keeping watch alongside mine.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn't come. My mind did what it always did when everything was quiet and there was nothing left to fix. It turned on me.
The ten-thousand-dollar deductible. The maxed credit card. Jeff's empty promises. The shop barely breaking even. It all pressed down on me in the dark, heavy enough that I gripped the arms of the recliner just to feel something solid.
