“Can you put a mother’s love in the microwave?” she demanded. “Is that what we can do?”
“You can at least put microwave oatmeal in your stomach,” Dory said as she threw her hands up. She was still dressed for work, in hot pants and boots, with an old sweater thrown on over the top for the drive home. “Which is more than can be said for that bit of black gravel you made. And that’s nice, Mom. Real nice. Don’t even try and deny he’s your favorite.”
Susie started to clear the table. Bowls rattled against each other as she stacked them up next to the sink.
“I don’t need to dignify that with a denial,” she said. “I love both of my children equally, and Cody’s my favorite.”
“Yeah, but I pushed him out of me,” Dory said, “so I should get some credit for that. What’s Grade ever given you? Except piles.”
“Hold on,” Grade said. “How did I get involved in this?”
Dory turned and gave him a scathing look. “You’d know,” she said, “if you weren’t a dirty stop-out. Are those even your clothes?”
They weren’t. Grade glared at Dory anyhow, because she knew whose clothes they were, and that wasnota conversation that Grade wanted to have with his mom. Not yet. Not ever.
“I was working,” he said.
Dory narrowed her eyes, gold mascara patchy on her lashes, at him. “Doing what?”
“Uber Eats.”
Frustration creased Dory’s whole face, and she stamped her foot. “Oh my God,” she said. “That is such a shit lie! You’re a shit liar and a shit brother, yet here you are—God’s gift.”
She burst into tears and stormed out of the room. She slammed the kitchen door behind her and then, a second later, shoved it back open again.
“I’m not fucking sad!” she said. “I’m mad. So leave me the fuck alone.”
Susie waved a finger at her. “Language!”
“I’m a fucking adult!”
“In my house.”
Dory laughed and spread her arms. “Oh, and there we are,” she said. “Your house. Thanks. Thanks for the reminder my life is just shit and I got nothing.”
She slammed out of the room again.
Susie sniffed and pushed her sleeves up to her elbows. She grabbed a pot scrubber and shoved both hands into the hot water.
“Well?” she asked. “Do you want to do the school or the laundry run?”
“What was that about?” Grade asked.
Instead of an answer, Susie just started to scrub more aggressively at the pan, until she suddenly stopped. She pulled her hands out of the sink—bubbles flipped everywhere—and in a burst of frustration hauled the pot over to the trash bin, stamped on the lever to pop the lid, and threw the whole thing in.
“Mom?” Grade prodded. “What happened?”
“If you—” Susie stopped whatever she’d been going to say, which meant it had been mean. That was OK. Grade could probably fill that in from there for himself. She looked around for a dish towel, and when she couldn’t find one, she dried her hands on the hem of her T-shirt. “I don’t know. She’s just in one of her moods. Again. Still. She’ll get through it. We’ll get through it.”
She sniffed and wiped under her eyes with a still damp hand. Grade knew better than to comment on that.
“Anyhow,” Susie said briskly. “What is it? Laundry run or school?”
“Laundry,” Grade said after a second.
Susie nodded and rolled her sleeves back down. “Right,” she said. “I’d better go and get Cody. He had a sleepover, so I said we’d pick both of them up this morning.”
She got her coat on and Cody’s lunch from the fridge. Then she grabbed her keys from the hook and paused as she looked Grade up and down. Her eyebrows rose at the jeans, which exposed a bit more ankle than usual.
