Page 26 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Sort of.

She and Maisie both had a habit of peeling off layers of clothing and putting them back on at a whim, which left shirts strewn across the back of the large lounge chair. Books, usually kept on Maisie’s shelf in her room, were spread across the coffee table.

Monroe scooped up the clothing first and walked it back to the washer and dryer, which were in the bathroom.

So there was a little bit of a mess, but Monroe fastidiously made sure the dishes were washed every night, and she was even getting into a routine with the laundry.

There was nothing that she took more seriously these days than Maisie’s well-being, but the last couple of weeks had been a crash course in adjusting to the reality of being responsible for a five-year-old, who’d just lost her only parental figure in the world.

They were both just doing the best they could.

Suddenly, though, Monroe was seeing the house through someone else’s eyes, someone who’d be stepping inside and drawing judgments about Monroe’s parenting abilities based solely on what she would see.

She rolled her lips and threw in the detergent, willing away the feeling skittering through her rib cage that she was royally fucking everything up.

She’d been having that feeling a lot lately.

All that she could do was let it pass and push forward. Being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty and indecision didn’t help either one of them.

Once she started the laundry, she moved back to the living room and picked up the books. She put about half of the stories on the shelf in the living room, and she took the rest back to Maisie’s bedroom.

Monroe and her mom had designed this room together. The sage walls were calming, with little forest animals painted on top of the soft hue. She’d done those herself, thinking, at the time, that she hoped Maisie had a gentler, more forgiving childhood than she had.

Maybe, possibly soon, Maisie would want something else. Something more “grown-up,” that showcased her emerging interests as she became a fully-fledged person with hobbies and tastes.

The idea stopped Monroe short.

She hadn’t thought about the future, in any serious terms, since she’d come back. She’d hit the ground running, not thinking more than fifteen minutes ahead. Sure, she understood that staying meant that life would march on, but she had been so busy with the now of it all, trying to keep her head above water.

The doorbell told her that Blake was here, and she pushed an errant flyaway from her face, giving herself a once-over in the mirror.

So she looked a little tired. She didn’t hold that against herself.

And, finally, in the last few years, she’d given up on shrinking herself, trying to hide her almost five-ten frame. It was a fruitless endeavor anyway.

In her early twenties, she’d tried to keep up with the art world in terms of fashion and physique—it was crazy that she was expected to be beautiful on top of being a great artist—but finally, she’d tried to let go of that too.

Her natural figure had quickly come back once she’d stopped being so obsessed with optics, with breasts and hips and thighs that, on a good day, she liked to think looked like something out of a classical painting.

But they had never lived in the Texas heat, where all of her curves just felt like repositories for sweat to drip into.

“Now or never,” she told herself in the mirror, trying not to feel the slight jangle in her nerves as she walked to the front door.

Which was already open, Maisie having finally decided that she could be distracted from her ants on a log snack.

Monroe glanced at the doorknob to see if there was any peanut butter stuck to it, but she was too far away to tell.

More importantly, Blake was standing in the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her, bouncing back and forth from foot to foot.

“In my defense, I did use the doorbell this time.” Blake held up a bottle of wine. “I also brought libations.”

“Aunt Monroe says those bottles have yucky juice in them,” Maisie volunteered, to Monroe’s mortification.

“So that she doesn’t want to drink it—ever,” Monroe added quickly, seeing the uncertainty flicker across Blake’s features. She stepped forward, reaching out to take the bottle from Blake’s hands. “Thank you for bringing this. Do you want a glass?”

Blake looked around the living room before her eyes landed on Monroe. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

For a second, she considered opening the bottle of wine—she definitely would, if Blake wanted a glass—but an ice-cold beer that she could roll across her clavicle in between sips, especially if they were sitting outside, felt like a dream right now.