My cell phone rang as I stuffed the last of the goodie bags. My mother’s name flashed on the screen, and I considered not picking up. Zach was running circles through the kitchen, his diaper hanging low, a ribbon of orange streamer hanging from the crack of his butt like a tail. Delia and her friends chased after him, ordering him to “sit” and “stay.”
“Hi, Mom. It’s kind of a bad time.” I wedged the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I poured bags of pretzels and Goldfish crackers into serving bowls. My house was already crawling with kids. I just hoped Vero made it home with the pizzas soon.
“I won’t keep you. Your father and I are having cocktails on the Promenade Deck at five. I’ve always wanted to say that.” She tittered. My parents were celebrating their fortieth anniversary on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean. “Let me talk to the birthday girl.”
I grabbed Delia by the back of the shirt as she scurried by. The doorbell rang. I pressed the phone to my chest and counted heads.All the girls Delia had invited were already here. I’d been expecting Steven nearly an hour ago, but he never bothered to announce himself; he usually just barged in.
The doorbell rang again. My feet were rooted in place. What if it was the police? What if they came to arrest me during my daughter’s birthday party? Or worse, what if it was Andrei and Feliks?
“Aren’t you going to answer the door, Mommy?” Delia asked.
I thrust my cell in her hands. “Here, talk to Grandma. She called to wish you happy birthday.”
Wiping Goldfish cracker crumbs on my jeans, I crept to the door and peered around the curtain just as the boy on the other side stood on his tiptoes and reached for the bell a third time. Relief washed over me. I threw open the door and flung a hand over the buzzer, my nerves fried. “Hi, Toby. What are you doing here?” Toby’s dad was a friend of Steven’s, but Toby and Delia weren’t close. He hadn’t been on the guest list, which had consisted entirely of girls.
Toby shrugged. A gift bag dangled from one hand, and he swiped at his snotty nose with the other. He gestured down the street toward his father’s house. “My dad heard Delia was having a party. He dropped me off. He had somewhere to go.” Toby walked under my arm into the foyer. “He said I could eat lunch here.” Toby spent weekends with his dad. And his dad spent most of those weekends stealing time with his new girlfriend, pawning Toby off on his neighbors and friends. I didn’t have the heart to turn him away.
“The pizza and cake will be here soon. But there are crackers and pretzels in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”
“I’m gluten-intolerant,” he said, dropping Delia’s present on the floor and helping himself to the bag of party favors I’d been stuffing.
“Of course you are.” I felt a headache coming on. I turned to shut the door and slammed face-first into a brightly colored box. Ibacked up to make room as Steven carried it into the house, his face obscured by the huge pink bow on top. Theresa followed him, her heels clacking on the hardwood, her outfit decidedly dressy for a five-year-old’s birthday party. “What’s this?” I asked Steven.
“It’s Delia’s present,” he said, loud enough to draw her attention as he set it on the floor beside Toby’s gift bag. Delia whirled, thrusting my phone at me as she sprinted across the kitchen into his arms. I uttered a quick good-bye to my mother and disconnected. Steven brushed back Delia’s spikes, kissing her forehead before setting her down. My headache sharpened when Delia ran to hug Theresa next.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, determined to take the higher road, even though he was almost an hour late. It could be worse. He could have chosen not to come at all.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said. Theresa looped her arm around Steven’s. She smiled tightly at the balloons and streamers, her disapproving gaze landing everywhere but my face.
“And thanks for letting us have her party here.” My gratitude stuck in my throat. Having the party here had been Theresa’s idea. The kids technically belonged to Steven on the weekends, but she didn’t dare risk having a horde of feral five-year-olds trash her tidy house, and Steven had balked at the rental fees to have it someplace else. I pasted on a pleasant smile. “Is Aunt Amy coming? Delia was hoping she’d be here.”
“No,” Theresa said without looking at me. “Amy was busy.”
“We can’t stay,” Steven said. “We’re having lunch with a developer in Leesburg. We’ll swing by on our way home to pick up Delia and Zach. I just wanted to bring her present. I thought maybe she could open it now before we go.”
Before I could open my mouth to argue, Steven had wrangled Delia and her friends, assembling an audience in front of the gaudybox that took up the breadth of my foyer. Theresa and I stood awkwardly beside each other in the small envelope of space that was left. She made a show of checking her messages on her phone, her fat diamond engagement ring on full display as she scrolled. We’d exchanged hardly more than a few words since the Panera incident. Unless you counted our testimony in court about the Play-Doh incident a few months ago.
“Delia sees right through you,” I said. “She’s five, not stupid.”
Theresa raised an eyebrow. “I guess her powers of perception didn’t come from her mother.”
“Nice.”
“If the shoe fits.” She glanced down at my sneakers as if she’d never be caught dead wearing the same ones.
“You can’t buy Delia’s loyalty.”
“Maybe not,” she said, examining her nails, “but I can buy her a decent haircut.”
Theresa hadn’t looked at me once since she’d walked into my house. Maybe it was guilt, but I doubted it. She’d looked me dead in the eyes the day Steven told me he was moving out, hungry to record the precise moment of my emotional demise. She’d practically gloated the day he put that ring on her finger. Shame wasn’t a color that existed in Theresa’s wardrobe. So what was she hiding now? “Why are you doing this? You don’t even like children.”
“Because having the children with us will make Steven happy.” Her red lips pressed into a tight, thin line. So that was it. Steven wasn’t happy. And that bothered her, enough to sacrifice her pristine white carpets and her bustling social life. This was the dark mess in her closet, the secret she was hiding from their families and friends.
“Taking my kids won’t fix your relationship. But why stop with my husband, right?” Theresa shifted on her designer heels. Shechecked the time on her phone, pretending she hadn’t heard me. “You know, I was willing to let Steven go without a fight, but not my children.”
“Why don’t you have your attorney call mine. Oh, wait,” she said, thoughtfully tapping a nail to her chin. “I forgot. You don’t have one.”
The blow hit low. Vero was right. I needed a lawyer who could compete with Guy. An old lawyer. A rich lawyer. I needed a fifty-thousand-dollar lawyer. “I won’t make this easy for you.”
