Page 9 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Her experience with children was limited to, well, honestly Maisie, on the occasions, once every year or two, that she saw her. Children weren’t centric to the art world; Sylvia didn’t have children, and no one in their circle who did made their kids the focal points of their lives.

Finally, Maisie answered her, looking at Monroe in the mirror. “I guess so.”

Monroe made sure to keep her frustrated sigh on the inside. Maisie was mercurial, to put it nicely, but it wasn’t like Monroe could blame her for that. The only stability she’d had in her young life had been stripped away less than two weeks ago.

Kendra Lockhart had been a lot of things. The mother of two kids, one of whom was currently serving a twenty-year prison sentence. A former addict, who’d developed a dependence on opiates after a workplace fall when Monroe and Dean had been young. She’d struggled for a couple of years before finally entering into treatment and getting and staying clean for the rest of their lives.

For the rest of her mom’s life, she corrected herself, a thought that caused a hollow ache to spread through Monroe’s chest.

After a stint in jail, of course, when her mom had been arrested with pills and no prescription for them. Monroe was still angry about it.

Because of course, her mom had needed to be punished instead of helped before she was redeemable in the eyes of society.

Above all else, she was the woman who had stepped up to raise Maisie after Dean had gone to prison. Maisie’s mom had been long gone by that point.

When Monroe sold her first few pieces and got some commercially produced traction with her work, much to Sylvia’s chagrin—the first thing she’d done was buy her mom this house. Maisie had been two years old, and Dean had just gotten his sentence handed down.

It was one of the few times that she’d come home when it wasn’t a holiday, so that she could help her mom move in.

They’d painted Maisie’s room sage green, a color that still greeted Monroe whenever she stepped into the bedroom across the hall from the bathroom where they were currently getting ready.

Monroe hadn’t been able to bring herself to remove any of her mom’s stuff from the house. The bathroom where she and Maisie were currently getting ready had all of her mom’s toiletries in it, tucked neatly on one side of the vanity. Her baby powder. A hairbrush that had graying strands woven through the bristles. A bottle of perfume that Monroe knew would make her cry if she sprayed it and inhaled the familiar scent.

A lump formed in Monroe’s throat, and she swallowed it down, looking at Maisie in the mirror again. Her ponytail was slightly lopsided, but she’d hopefully be running around anyway and no one would notice.

A town like Cypress Falls had a lot of ideas about how things should be done, and they were hardest on women by a wide mile about it. Especially when it came to raising daughters of their own.

She ran her hands along Maisie’s small, bony shoulders, hoping that the touch was soothing. “Will any of your friends be there today?”

After looking through things in the house, talking to Maisie, and what she remembered her mom saying on the phone when they’d talk, she knew that Maisie was in daycare while Kendra worked a cleaning job, even if Maisie hadn’t gone back there since Kendra had passed.

“Maybe.” Maisie’s voice was unsure, and she looked around the bathroom, like she was hoping something in it would give her the answer.

It was almost uncomfortable how much she reminded Monroe of her own adolescent self. Shy. Unsure. Looking for her place in the world by triangulating everything that her big, blue eyes were taking in.

Apparently, the Lockhart genes were strong as hell. Monroe didn’t see any of Maisie’s biological mother in her, and she was fine with that.

Monroe slid her hands back up Maisie’s shoulders before cupping her hands around the girl’s tiny ears. She tugged gently and made a funny face in the mirror. Her mom had always done that with her, and it was soothing to repeat the action, though it also made her feel like she’d just been punched in the stomach to do the same for Maisie.

But it got her a smile from Maisie, and that was enough for today.

Ten minutes later and she was loading her mom’s old SUV with Maisie and whatever Monroe could think of that would be helpful to bring—courtesy of a Google search, she’d been doing a lot of those—for their day out at the park.

Now, she just had to brave the people of Cypress Falls, which was maybe the most daunting challenge of all.

Monroe’s plan to arrive early to grab a parking spot relatively close to the festival’s entrance had been in vain. She’d underestimated how much the town loved one of its festival days. And, maybe she was misremembering, but it seemed like the production value of Wild West Fest had grown significantly.

When she’d been a kid, it was, like, one pony in a ring that kids could take turns riding, a couple of squirt guns, a stage set up with various musical acts throughout the day, and and the requisite beer tent that was littered with men in cowboy boots and hats who stayed out of the sun while the women kept a watchful eye on their kids.

What she was looking at now was a bonafide festival, rivaling a professionally produced event.

She held Maisie’s hand as they walked the two blocks from where they’d finally nabbed a parking spot, meandering through the people flocking toward the large, grassy area that had been completely transformed.

“I’ve got you,” she reminded Maisie when she felt her hand squeeze tight against Monroe’s own.

Apparently, she should have brought a collapsible wagon, which seemed to be the item du jour of families today. Unfortunately, she was stuck with a backpack that she’d found in a closet at the house that could barely contain a blanket, some extra sunscreen, and a few bottles of water that were probably already warm.

Yeah, she was killing it at this whole being responsible for a tiny human thing.