Janie lost her desire to drink at all and looked at the door, half-hoping for a disgruntled client to burst into the bar and end them all. No one would mourn a roomful of dead lawyers.
“Howdidyou end up with Rosie Morgan as a pro bono client anyway?”
Janie sighed at Katherine’s persistence and the reminder of how she knew Rosie. “She’s a friend of a friend,” she said, knowing that, unlike with Austin, she really didn’t have the right to call Rosie or Shay a friend. But “my estranged wife’s best friend’s best friend’s current fuck buddy” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and it’d be far too much personal information to share with a vampire like Katherine.
“You need new friends.” Katherine scoffed and leaned in, far too close. “Seriously, you should stay away from her.”
Janie tried to tamp down her piqued curiosity. How had Katherine managed to twist events in her own mind that her ex-wife’s best friend was the enemy, someone to warn everyone about? “Funny, Rosie said a similar thing about you. She mentioned something about you cheating on your wife.”
Katherine recoiled slightly before recovering her arrogant air of composure. “Myex-wife was a dead fish in bed.” She shrugged and gave that stupid smile again. “And I’d be doing gay women city-wide a disservice if I kept my talents to myself.”
Janie had to look away but saw Austin mouth, “Oh my god,” as he wiped his hand over his mouth, clearly to stop himself from laughing in Katherine’s face. How had sweet Lori fallen for this schtick? She was so much better off with Gabe. “You’ve got a pretty high opinion of yourself,” Janie said, deciding to engage since it was taking her mind off other things.
Katherine looked smug. “Ask around. It’s not my opinion: it’s everyone else’s. You can always find out for yourself to be sure,” she said and winked. “You’re bound to get bored of looking after three little rug rats. Screaming, shitting nipple-suckers.” She laughed loudly and shook her head. “You’re way too sophisticated to end up being a tired old soccer mom.”
The words struck Janie’s heart like an electric shock. “What do you know about being a mother, you censorious cunt?”
Austin reached across the table, but Janie had alreadypushed her chair back and was standing over Katherine, barely controlling her desire to smash the glass of ninety-dollar wine in Katherine’s face.
“You should stick to chasing twenty-somethings looking for a sugar daddy, you sad little Peter Pan. Emphasis on thelittle,” Janie said, remembering something Lori had said about the size difference between her ex-wife and Gabe and knowing it was something Katherine tried to compensate for with elevator shoes. “You’re such a patriarchal cliché, clinging to your youth by fucking girls half your age. You should know they’re only doing it to climb the corporate ladder. They laugh about you in the break room, about how easy it is to seduce the desperate old mini butch into getting them a promotion or a salary bump.” The red mist began to clear a little, and the sad, almost frightened look in Katherine’s eyes made Janie hit pause on her diatribe. She glanced at Austin, who looked like he’d just seen Dr. Jekyll turn into Hyde, and beyond him, her colleagues and lawyers from other firms wore varying expressions of surprise, amusement, and disdain.
Janie gathered her phone and purse. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Austin,” she said.
“Wait,” he said and began to rise from his chair. “I’ll come with you.”
She shook her head. “There’s no need. I have to go,” she said and headed out of the bar with her back straight and her gaze focused on the door, ignoring the whisperings that would be winding their way across tomorrow’s grapevine.Have to go where?her inner voice taunted. She couldn’t go home. Home was where Hannah and the triplets were, and she couldn’t go back there, no matter how much she wanted to.
What were they doing right now? How was Hannah coping on her own?Just fine without you, obviously.The truth didn’t just hurt, it wounded and scarred. But better her than her children or her wife. Janie choked back the tears as she ordered a Lyft.Where are you going?the app asked. Her finger hovered overHomefor far too long, until she was able to draw it away and type in the name of the hotel apartment where she was staying. Home… She might never have a home again.
CHAPTER 7
Solo was hopingthat the scent of garlic in Janie’s signature tomato pasta sauce would bring her a sliver of peace, a familiar anchor in the swirling tempest of her new reality. It didn’t. Instead, it reinforced the devastating loss of her wife’s presence, of their old and beautiful reality. And the fragrance was powerless against the lingering aroma of whatever scientific experiment each of the triplets had somehow conducted in unison in their diapers earlier. The persistent tang hung in Solo’s nostrils like, well, like a bad smell.
Usually, this was easy. She cooked as Janie watched their babies. But preparing dinner this evening was like climbing Everest, while her three tiny human tornadoes had been unleashed on her dad in the living room. He’d had the best of intentions when he’d offered to come live with her and help look after the triplets. He’d arrived with his impeccably neat life packed into two suitcases, leaving behind sunny Florida for the relentless demands of his three granddaughters. Three days of grandparent boot camp later, and she was sure he’d rather have stayed put, waiting for the early death he’d predicted for himself.
Still, it was unusually quiet down the hall, and silence, where her girls were concerned, was rarely golden. This week in particular, it had been an ominous prelude to some disaster or another. Monday saw glitter glue all around Griff’s neck and head as they’d tried to secure bright orange pom poms to give him a lion’s mane. She’d known that’s what they were attempting when she’d seen theHow Do Lions Say I Love You?picture book on the floor alongside their long-suffering dog. Tuesday evening ended with wet coffee grounds distributed in an impressivelyeven pattern all across the pristine white carpet in Janie’s office. Neither she nor her dad had figured out how they’d gotten to the coffee or how they’d secured access to the office.
“They’re being super quiet, Dad,” Solo called down the hallway, hope and suspicion battling for supremacy. “You haven’t slipped some whiskey in their milk, have you?”
“Of course not. I’m just…admiring their artwork, honey.” His voice, usually a booming baritone that filled any room with ease, was an octave higher and laced with a small hint of panic.
Solo identified his strained reply as “granddad attempting to herd feral cats with a limp pool noodle” but decided to let it go. Ignorance could be bliss, at least for a little while longer. She drained the pasta into the sink, and she could almost hear Janie’s voice warning her not to burn herself on the steam. It rose around her like a suffocating blanket, reminding her she was alone. The void Janie had left in the house pulsed with unanswered questions, and her gut twisted with phantom pain she couldn’t find the source of.
The beautiful sound of Tia’s giggle penetrated the bubble of self-pity Solo had slipped into. That laughter and the chaotic beauty of the past few evenings were both her salvation and a painful reminder of what she’d lost. But she was determined to win Janie back and convince her their little family was worth fighting for, just like Gabe kept saying it was.
“Dad, just make sure they’re not eating the crayons this time,” Solo called out. One panicked phone call to 911 after Chloe had snacked on a purple crayon had assured Solo they were non-toxic, and that her little girl would likely only have a mild case of diarrhea. Chloe’s digestive systemhadbeen surprisingly creative and what she’d produced could’ve easily been mistaken for a missing Jackson Pollack masterpiece.
“Nope, not eating them. They’re being?—”
A grunt stopped his response, and she heard a series of soft thumps. No doubt that would be Tia playing Tarzan on her pop pop’s chest. “Everything’s fine,” she told herself out loud. She putthe pasta in a serving dish and poured the tomato sauce on top. Just as she lifted the pot to carry it to the table, a high-pitched, triumphant squeal soared down the corridor into the kitchen.
Tia. Always Tia, the girls’ ringleader and the tiny anarchist who seemed to view Solo’s rules as suggestions and parental authority as a challenge to be overcome. That’d been fine when it was directed at Janie, but now that it was Solo’s turn, it wasn’t quite as amusing.
She placed the pot on the trivet, took a deep breath, and headed into the living room, trying to prepare herself for whatever chaos lay in her future. But she couldn’t have imagined the scene in front of her when she crossed the threshold. Her dad stood in the center of the room, with Chloe under one arm and his other hand grasping Luna’s diaper, since she’d apparently shed the rest of her clothes. A quick scan of the room indicated that the triplets had had a little success trying to dress Griff in Luna’s bright green tutu. Her dad’s normally immaculate silver hair was disheveled, and his cheeks were smeared with red and blue crayon. Buthewasn’t the masterpiece…
The living room wall, once a calming shade of pale pistachio, was now a vibrant swirling mural of color. Tia clutched a crayon in each fist like she was warring with her canvas, and she was currently adding a bright yellow sun to her creation, though it could just as easily have been an angry lemon character from some animated movie. Her tongue was poking out in super-focused concentration, and her eyes gleamed like a mad scientist’s.
She met Solo’s gaze and offered a giant smile. Solo couldn’t decipher whether or not Tia was conscious of the havoc she’d caused. Or maybe she was just proud of it.
