“Oh, Ivy. How is our Delilah doing?” Miss Pattie asks, pressing a flour-spotted hand over her heart. Pity for my friend drips from her tone, and while I know the old baker means well, it still doesn’t sit right with me.
“Is something wrong with Mama?” Sadie asks, looking up at me with concerned eyes. I fight to hide my grimace. I’m not in the business of lying to Sadie, but I’m also not her mother. I’m just Vee Vee, and I need to let Delilah tell her the full truth about what is happening in their lives in her own time.
“No, nothing is wrong with Mama. Do you think we should get some croissants and make egg sandwiches for dinner?”
“I’ll tell you, I always knew that Earl was no good, ever since he was a punk kid. He was in here yesterday and I’ll tell you something, I had to bite my damn tongue to keep from giving him a piece of my mind. I gave him the day-olds when he asked for hisdamn onion bagels, though. Serves the boy right for what he did.”
“Miss Pattie,” I hiss between my teeth, shooting daggers at the woman with my eyes. For fuck’s sake. She might be right, but the woman needs to realize that there is a time and place for gossip, and in front of the subject’s child is not it. She glances down at Sadie, then mimes zipping her lips.
“Why does my dad want to be called the Earl when his name is just Earl? That seems kind of stupid. Would you want people to call youtheIvy even though your name is just Ivy? I wouldn’t want them to call metheSadie.”
An unnerving mixture of disappointment and relief swirls in my gut at her question. I’m bummed that the kid isn’t surprised to hear someone call her dad no good, but I am proud that even she knows how fucking ridiculous it is that the man chooses to be referred to by some outdated, meaningless British moniker.
She didn’t even ask why she and Delilah weren’t going to be living with him anymore. He’s a complete non-issue in her life, and even though I wish nothing but perpetual diarrhea and ingrown toenails on the Earl, it breaks my heart anyway.
“You know what? I’m feeling a little wild this afternoon. I know we said strawberry and jellydonuts, but what if we get some chocolate creme-filled, too? Really go all out today, huh? What do you say, Sadie Girl? Think we need a little sugar rush for our Vee Vee and Sadie day?” My diversion works, and Sadie is too busy bouncing on her tiptoes and pointing through the glass case at the pastries she wants to notice the abrupt change in subject.
Bless the sugar gods for easing the ache of dealing with children for millennia.
Miss Pattie boxes up the donuts as well as the eclairs and tarts, and Sadie and I cut through the tree line behind the bakery to get home through Grandma Millie’s backyard.
“Wow, no homework?” I say, flipping through Sadie’s take-home folder. There’s some already-graded worksheets, a few drawings from her art class, and a permission slip for summer soccer camp that I leave out for Delilah to sign, but nothing that needs to be completed and turned in tomorrow. Sitting at Grandma Millie’s kitchen table and looking through a kid’s backpack is a real role-reversal that I can’t say I ever saw coming. Once upon a time, I was the kid bursting at the seams with energy after school, just waiting to be set free from the adult going through my backpack so I could play.
Though unlike Grandma Millie, I would never chain-smoke cigarettes while doing homework withSadie. I don’t judge the woman for risking giving me lung cancer with her secondhand smoke. It was a different time, and I wasn’t half as good a kid as Sadie is. Millie needed something to take the edge off multiplication and Magic Tree House books, I’m sure.
“Nope,” Sadie says, dipping her eleventh baby carrot in ranch and chomping it between her teeth. “Since second grade is almost over, my teacher says we can finish all our work in class.”
“Mouth closed when you’re chewing, Sadie Girl,” I say when orange carrot spittle hits the counter. Manners are one thing, but I don’t need the kid choking on my watch. She makes a big show of chewing, swallowing, then showing me her empty mouth.
“You’re gross, kid,” I snort, leaning across the table to pinch her little chipmunk cheek. She giggles and swats me away.
“Vee Vee, how come we’re sleeping here and not at my house?” Sadie asks. My heart clenches in my chest. Of course she asks this question when Delilah isn’t around to field it.
“Remember what Mama told you? She and your daddy need some time apart, so we’re having a girls’ retreat here.”
“Are Mama and Daddy going to get divorced? My friend Ava’s mom and dad are divorced, and thatmeans they don’t live together anymore and they aren’t married. And now we don’t live with my dad anymore, so…” Sadie trails off, and while I hear curiosity and maybe some confusion in her tone, I don’t detect disappointment. Still, I tread carefully.
“If Mama and your dad were going to get divorced, how would that make you feel?”
She pauses, pursing her lips while thinking about her answer.
“If Mama and my dad get divorced, I will be happy. Mama smiles more when Daddy isn’t around, so if they didn’t have to live together and be married, she’d probably smile a lot. That would make me very happy.”
My leg bounces under the table, and I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back the emotions swelling up inside of me.
“I’m happy when your mama smiles too, Sadie Girl.”
“That must be why you’re so happy all the time! Mama smiles the most when you’re here. And me too. I always smile when you’re here, Vee Vee. Cause I love you and you love me.”
Sadie punctuates her point with another crunch of her carrot, and I do my best to pretend like she didn’t just knock me upside the head with her words.
That invisible fist around my heart squeezes tight,threatening to spill a thousand emotions and feelings I’ve spent my life forcing to the deepest depths of that beating organ. Things I have no business thinking or feeling ever, but especially not now when Delilah, Sadie, and Little Bean need me the most. So I grab a strawberry donut from the pink bakery box and a napkin and slide it over to my girl.
“C’mon, Sadie. Let’s go pick a movie.”
6
THE EARL HAS TO DIE
