“And good fucking luck, babe.”
1
THAT IDIOT RAT BASTARD YOU MARRIED
DELILAH
Double-check Sadie’s weekend bag for extra undies and the waterproof sheets. Grab the box of clean mason jars from Dad’s garage. Don’t forget to ask Mom if she can drop the bag of costume feathers off to Miss Jodie at the school before?—
“Mama, I can’t hear the song when you do that!”
Dammit. I was to-do listing out loud again. It’s days like today that I really wish I lived in a city with those creepy self-driving cars so I can get where I need to go without having to pay attention to the road. It’s impossible for me to keep my list of tasks in my head, but I learned the hard way that I shouldn’t jot down lists while driving.
It’s not safe to hold a napkin to my steering wheeland scribble all over it while trying to keep my eyes on the road. Mrs. Johansson down the block still hasn’t forgiven me for clipping her mailbox with my Volkswagen Beetle almost twenty years ago. I was trying to organize my prom day schedule while coasting down the street—stupid, I know. In my defense, I’d been riding the brake, and my prefrontal cortex wasn’t fully developed yet.
Now that I’m grown, I wouldn’t dare risk unsafe driving ever, let alone with my eight-year-old daughter in the backseat.
“Sorry, Lollipop,” I mutter as I hit the volume button up a notch. Sadie picks up right where she left off, singing gloriously out-of-tune about a man who doesn’t impress her much right along with Shania Twain.
Thankfully, my girl cut me off right before I got to the next points on my to-do list—figure out if I am emotionally unavailable and therefore wholly unlovable?andGoogle‘How to dismember and get rid of a human body without getting caught (in incognito mode)’.
At one of only three red lights in town, Itake a quick glance in my rearview mirror and catch Sadie doing something I’ve asked her not to do a thousand times.
“Sadie.” I say in my sternest Mom Voice. I neveryell at my kid, but sometimes you've gotta let your voice get a little tough-sounding.
“What is the matter with you today, Mama?”
“Nothing is the matter with me. I just don’t want you wiping your boogers on the seats of my car.”
And our lives will never be the same after today, but you don’t need to know that.
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat, careful to keep my thoughts in my head and my eyes on the road as I turn down my parents’ street and pull into their driveway. I slow to a stop behind the Hudson Family Construction branded pickup truck my dad has been driving for as long as I can remember.
Sadie is out of her booster seat and bolting across the yard before I can even kill the engine on my Toyota SUV, knowing damn well that she’s supposed to wait for me to unbuckle her but doing it herself, anyway.
I watch as she darts across the grass and launches herself at my dad, who waits for Sadie on the worn, craftsman style wrap-around porch. He hoists her off the ground and tosses her over his shoulder, waving in my direction as Sadie’s laughter permeates the quiet, sleepy street. Everything is just as it should be.
Except it’s not. Today is the day that everything changed. Or maybe nothing changed; I just finallyopened my eyes to the truth that’s been right in front of me the whole damn time.
Was it only an hour ago? It feels like a lifetime.
Like every other Friday afternoon, I drive to the outskirts of Fox Hole, where my favorite local farmer is waiting for me on his property. I load up my trunk with fresh strawberries and then swing by the market for a metric ton of sugar, ready to lock in for a weekend of cooking and canning my soon-to-be-world-famous strawberry jam.
I chat on the phone with my soon-to-be sister-in-law Dottie, listening intently while she catches me up on the ins and outs of her life with my brother in San Francisco and all the planning she’s been doing for their backyard ceremony next summer. I pop into the library to pick up the pile of beginner chapter books Sadie placed on hold throughout the week, and then I stop into Miss Pattie’s bakery down the block for my Friday afternoon quad-shot shaken espresso and a sugar cookie.
But, unlike every other Friday, I find myself with an hour to kill between my caffeine kick and the end of the school day. Just enough time to head home and unload my jam supplies before waiting in the pickup line for Sadie to come running out of school, her backpack slung over one shoulder and the braid I meticulously wove into her hair spilling out and frizzy from a day of learning and playing.I pull into my driveway behind one of my husband’s flashy cars that we can’t quite afford, and I know.
To the naked eye, nothing appears wrong. Everything looks the same.
Still,I know that something is different.
The Earl is home in the middle of the day—the Earl is never home in the middle of the day.
I find my front door unlocked—it’s never unlocked. I know for a fact I checked it twice before leaving this morning.
A bright red midi skirt is discarded on the stairs—I don’t own a bright red midi skirt.
Moans of theatrical pleasure emanate from my bedroom—I might have thought it was an adult film if she weren’t screaming, “Oh, the Earl! The Earl fucks me so good!” at such a rhythmic, practiced pace. An answer to a question I know my husband likes to ask when he has sex, a lie I’ve told a hundred times over the course of my marriage.
