Bad Mommy

  An hour later I was sitting on the grass watching them … what was the word? Play? And what exactly was bothering me? The fact that he’d been talking shit about her in the car, and now he was acting like they were on a date? Or was it the uneasy feeling in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite identify? A scratch you couldn’t reach. I stretched my legs out on the grass and handed Mercy the shovel she was pointing to.

  “Words, little bean, no pointing.”

  “Fanks,” she said.

  “You have great manners. Has Mom told you that?”

  “Yes,” she said, without looking at me—too busy with sand. Too busy … looking at something else…

  My eyes quickly went back to them. Darius was pitching Fig a baseball. He wound his arm like they did on television, lifted his leg. She threw her head back and laughed. He’d insisted on bringing the damn bat so he could teach Mercy how to hit, though he hadn’t glanced her way once since we got out of the car. Their chemistry, it was strange. I watched Fig bend over holding the bat out from her body. She was smiling, which was rare. So was the air of lightness around her. I’d never actually watched a baseball game, but I was fairly certain the players didn’t wiggle their asses around like she was doing.

  “Oh, ew,” I said under my breath. “What’s even happening right now?” I wasn’t the jealous type. It bugged Darius. Sometimes I thought he wanted me to throw a fit about things. Like he did. Even the score, you know?

  “Oh, eeeeew.” Mercy wasn’t looking at me as she scooped sand into the bucket, repeating my words over and over until I laughed. If Darius heard Mercy he wouldn’t let me live it down. If he’d heard, which he hadn’t because he was too busy flirting with a woman he claimed to think was crazy. What was that he said about family day?

  And what did it all boil down to really? That Darius loved people who loved him? That he was like a needy puppy most of the time. He didn’t see that as a weakness, but I did. It was pathetic to watch him swoon over attention. People who he’d claim to hate five minutes before became his best friends once they expressed how smart and handsome he was. And his career choice, being the all-wise, all-knowing doctor who could see aptly into your soul. The patients worshipped him, and he sat in the burgundy wingback chair I bought for his office and relished it. Grow a pair, you know? Stick with your gut and don’t be groomed by a little attention.

  But, Fig—Fig was the smart one. She seemed to pick up on his need to be favored. She toyed with his loyalty to me by siding with him and painting me as the big, bad wolf. I was starting to wonder who was in control of our lives at this point. It most certainly didn’t feel like us.

  Darius caught my eye and waved me over.

  “Come play,” he called, making a funnel around his mouth with his hands. I grinned and shook my head, pointing to Mercy. Fig glanced over and I kept the smile on my face. I wouldn’t let her see me react to what she was doing. I wouldn’t show weakness. What the fuck? Family day, my ass. Did he want me to just leave her in the sandbox alone so I could join in for a threesome? I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. You’re overreacting, I told myself. But was I?

  “Avery doesn’t do sport,” I heard Fig say. That almost made me get up and march over, but I wasn’t in the business of proving myself to anyone. My heart ached painfully when Darius laughed at what she said. I was the butt of their joke. It made me sick. I was his team. You weren’t supposed to make your team the butt of your jokes.

  I was fighting off tears when I finally waved them over for lunch. How long had they been playing baseball together? Forty minutes? An hour? Fig looked like the cat that got the cream as she strolled over. I noticed how tight her top was, how her tiny little tits pushed against the fabric. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Was there more of a sway to her hips? I stewed over the details as I unpacked the picnic basket I’d brought, slamming containers onto the ground while pretending to be fine. No, this was not in my head. They had been laughing, touching, and exchanging looks. It was like they were on a date and I was the third wheel. They collapsed on the grass, their banter drawing the eyes of those in our vicinity. I couldn’t look at either of them, so I focused on feeding my daughter. I needed to speak to my friends, get some perspective. If I was blowing this up, making it something it wasn’t—they would tell me. I had questions. When had I become the third wheel? How long had they been fucking?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as soon as we were home.

  I shook my head, carrying a sleeping Mercy into the house and fighting back tears. I’d given him the silent treatment all the way home, staring out the window and watching the cars drive by. Super mature, I know. When I walked into the kitchen he was waiting for me, leaning against the counter staring at his feet. He has small feet, I thought bitterly. I wanted to laugh at how childish my thoughts were. For instance, if Fig was fucking him, she could do a lot better … in length and width. And where the fuck was George anyway? Shouldn’t he be groveling by now?

  “What the fuck was that, Darius?” I yelled. I had meant to deal with this calmly, sit him down and have a marriage meeting. The type of thing mature adults did when conflict arose. Instead, I was red in the face and already yelling. Me—typical me. I pictured Fig lurking under one of the windows listening and softened my tone. God, how did it come to this? How did my life feel so invaded?

  “What?” He held out his hands, completely baffled.

  “You and Fig! All afternoon. You spent the entire day flirting with each other.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said. He knew, he knew I hated those words. It was a dig. I threw the water bottle I was holding at his head. He ducked out of the way and it missed him by an inch. Goddamn, I needed to work on my aim.

  “Don’t call me crazy. If you call me crazy I’ll cut off your dick while you’re sleeping and show you what crazy is.” His mouth gaped. “I’m not blind. What you did was completely inappropriate and disrespectful.”

  “What? Fucking around with the baseball? I asked you to play!”

  “And I didn’t want to. That didn’t mean you skip out on your family and spend the afternoon flirting with a woman you insist is a psycho.”

  His face blanched right before my eyes. He turned an awful green color. The color of a rotten, excuse-making pussy. “You’re right,” he said. “I got so caught up with playing baseball. I love baseball. I don’t get to hang like that very often.”

  I immediately softened. That was the thing about me—life was a microwave and I was a fucking stick of butter. “I’m sorry,” I rushed. “She was flirting with you. It’s just … some of the things in your past…”

  “I know,” he said. “But, I’d never hurt you. You’re my everything. I would never cheat on you, Jolene.”

  He put his arms around me and the guilt was so heavy I started to cry. What was wrong with me? Flying off the handle like that … accusing Darius?

  “You’re tired,” he said. “Overworked. I’m glad you’re almost finished with this book and can take a break.”

  Yes, he was right. I was tired.

  I was putting myself under too much strain. I needed to speak with my publisher, tell them that I had to take a break before the next book, take some time for my family. He rubbed my back until I stopped crying.

  “She’s falling for you, Darius,” I said. “If she’s not in love with you already.”

  “You don’t know how uncomfortable that makes me. I won’t text her anymore, Jo, I won’t. That’s it. I was trying to be nice … for you. Because you like her.”

  I knew that was true. He wasn’t much of a social butterfly. He made an effort for me, but at his core he was an introvert and a homebody. This wasn’t his fault; this was my fault. I always took on these projects and my family suffered.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “Don’t hurt her. Or make her feel abandoned. But yes, things have to change.” I wanted to tug the skin on my wrist, but I bit back the urge. I was a grownup. I would handle this without a security blan
ket. Darius let go of me, walking in the direction of our bedroom.

  “Do you think George knows?” I asked, but he was already gone, closing the door softly behind him.

  I put the coffee on then wandered over to where my MacBook sat on the kitchen counter. The clock I bought in London last summer ticked over the kitchen sink, a metronome. Think, Jolene. I glanced back at the computer. My screensaver of Mercy was bouncing around from top right to bottom left. I tapped on the mouse pad and Mercy disappeared, replaced by a slew of windows I’d left up that morning. I had work to do, but I’d never be able to concentrate. My brain was choked, working on overdrive, and yet … something wasn’t adding up. What was it?

  The music I was listening to that morning was still paused on my screen mid-song. I hit play then poured myself a mug. That’s when it occurred to me to click on Fig’s profile. We were friends, but I’d never looked. Did that make me self-centered or busy? Neither, I thought. You just don’t do that sort of thing. That was Darius’s thing—spying on Fig. I’d just been the ear in the room listening to all of his bitching. Her profile picture was the same one she had on Facebook, a Snapchat crown of golden flowers around her head, skin glowing like it was dusted in gold. She was playing a song even as I snooped around on her profile, my head propped in my hand, a coffee cooling at my elbow. Something by Barbra Streisand I didn’t recognize.

  There were playlists she’d made, at least a dozen of them. I clicked on a few of the recent ones—ones she’d made since she moved by us—and scrolled through the songs. Kelly Clarkson! Was she still a thing? I thought she was happy now—marriage and chubby babies. Aside from Barbra, she was a pop junkie, whiny girl voices on top of synthetic beats. I had to look up some of the lyrics, songs I was unfamiliar with because they weren’t my style. I was getting tired of it when a couple of lyrics caught my attention. The naive fog lifted, and something clicked into place in my brain. It was like a Rubik’s Cube when the last color aligns and all of a sudden all of the colors are where they should be. Each song bore exactly the same theme. A theme that didn’t sit well with me.

  I’m in love with you

  I don’t know what to do since you belong to someone else.

  Leave her, be with me

  My heart is breaking watching you with her

  Maybe in another life…

  Etcetera, etcetera-etfuckingcetera. I slammed my MacBook shut and picked up my cold coffee, holding it to my lips but not sipping. I imagined my eyes were wide, vacant like the empty windows of a building. That’s how I’d write them into a book in that oh shit moment. I was downloading information into my brain that I wasn’t sure I wanted, puzzle pieces clipping quietly into place. I’d watched her around him, hadn’t I?

  Women told a story with their eyes. And if you watched closely enough you could translate: the shimmer, or the blank deadness, the slow blinks, and the fast ones. A story … a screen of emotion. A person’s eyes rubbed you the right way, or the wrong way. What had Darius said about Fig’s eyes? You ever watched a psychopath fall in love? It’s a lot of idealism, drunken emotion, and them seeing what they want to see. I studied the way she watched, and spoke, and laughed when she knew he was looking. It was more than a crush, but it was less than love—an obsession. I felt guilty, Fig had told me how lucky I was. I could see the earnestness in her eyes when she said it, like she really needed to reach me with the news. It bothered me that I had something she didn’t—love … an attentive spouse. Hadn’t she said countless times that George was … I don’t know … detached? I didn’t want to rub my good fortune in her face. I wouldn’t even touch Darius when she was around and watching us like a hawk. My own husband. I didn’t want to hurt her—pour salt in the wound. People couldn’t control who they fell in love with. I know what you’re thinking and I don’t blame you sort of thing.

  Did I tell George? No, I didn’t know him well enough. He never came around even when we asked him to, and I had no idea what his reaction to something like this would be. Fig hardly spoke about him, and if you brought him up she’d quickly change the subject. Sometimes I got the feeling she was trying to keep things separate. And at any rate, this was between Darius and me. Yes, I was being the wife with the overactive imagination. I laughed out loud at myself. Eyes. You couldn’t learn someone’s true history from their eyes. Could you…?

  I felt bad about my reaction at the park. Darius had been different with her. When she came over, he left the room. In terms of their relationship, he’d ignored my advice and had cut things off with her cold turkey. She’d outright asked me one day if she’d done something to offend him.

  “No,” I’d said. “He’s under a lot of stress. He’s so used to unburdening people he doesn’t know how to unburden himself.”

  I didn’t want her to feel alone. I wished he’d been more strategic about the whole thing. In truth, Fig needed to learn to rely on her own people. Not mine.

  It was a Thursday morning when Fig invited me over for tea. Tea! Like proper British folk. Mercy had started a half-day program at a little private school in Queen Anne and I was finishing up edits on my new novel. I’d never been to her house and I was curious. I shrugged on my favorite cardigan, a grey wool that reached my knees, and headed out the back door. I was grateful for the distraction. I felt like I was sitting around waiting for a call to come about my dad, who’d been deteriorating rapidly the last few weeks. I’d been repeating his words to me over and over, hoping to gain some comfort from them. All men die. Death was part of life, something everyone faced.

  The latch to the gate that led from Fig’s garden to mine had rusted badly. I gave it a good shove before it creaked open. Fig’s back door was glass, and for a second before she spotted me, I saw her leaning against the counter, her arms crossed and her eyes huge and unmoving as they stared at the ground. I had the fleeting thought that she wasn’t actually human, but some kind of alien posing as one, and then laughed at myself. Darius was getting to me with all of his anti-Fig propaganda. It was Darius who pointed out that every time she was around me she studied me with unnaturally wide, unblinking eyes. I’d not noticed it until he pointed it out, now it sort of gave me the creeps, like she was downloading information into her brain. It was mean of us to talk about her behind her back, make fun. I liked her, but Darius made some pretty funny and true observations. She probably didn’t know she was being weird, but maybe she did. You could never tell with her.

  “Hey, hey,” she said, opening the door. “Creeping through the backyard like a stalker.”

  I laughed, because … well…

  Her kitchen was warm. I was taking off my sweater before she even closed the door behind me, slinging it over the back of a chair. There were two sets of breakfast things in the sink, mugs, and plates, and silverware.

  “George?” I asked.

  “Vegas. Work again.” Her words were clipped. I decided to leave it alone. I liked listening to people talk about things they loved. George was the sorest of spots for her. She sort of just pretended like her husband didn’t exist. Darius did too come to think of it. Anytime I brought him up they’d give me this blank stare like they didn’t know who I was talking about. Poor George, he really seemed to be a very nice person.

  I was about to ask her about the websites she was working on for some of my friends when I froze. It was only a split second, but Fig was perceptive. Fig could sniff change in the wind like a fucking fox. Her eyes grew large and she fumbled with the milk jug she was holding.

  “What kind of tea are we having?” I asked cheerfully, turning around to look at her. Her sharp little shoulders tensed up as her eyes shifted around my face. I let it go. I smiled and complimented her kitchen table, which was thankfully on the opposite end of the room away from…

  My striped canister, and my Thug Life cookbook, and the three little flower jars with a single pink daisy in each one. A coincidence? Ha! My heart was pounding, but I nodded as Fig offered to give me a tour. The tour went something like this:


  My kitschy Space Needle in her living room.

  My cow print chair in her foyer.

  My stone flower skull on her bookshelf.

  My wire basket with blankets spilling out.

  My cream fur throw over a chair.

  My lamp.

  My bed.

  My living room artwork on her wall.

  When our tour reached her spare bathroom I just about threw up. Darius had been right about the paint. Her bathroom wall was painted a metallic teal, the same color as the fake-out Instagram picture he posted to my wall. Could it be a coincidence? Well, how many times could you chalk it up to coincidence before it wasn’t one? It wasn’t until we reached the master bathroom, having walked through her bedroom to reach it, that the final blow came. First I saw her shower curtain, an exact replica of mine. I’d had it custom-made, and as far as I knew, there were no others like it. The blow of the whale floating beneath the surface of water, about to swallow a ship, was only softened by Darius’s cologne on her bathroom counter. That took my breath. She saw my eyes, saw my face pale, and I swear I could feel her thoughts in that moment, spiraling out of control. I waited for a lie, for a cover-up—for anything—but Fig chose to remain silent instead, leading me out of the bedroom, through the hallway and back toward the kitchen where the kettle was boiling. I lingered at the island, not knowing what to do. Should I fake illness? Stay and try to pretend everything was normal? Call her out right here and now? I felt so confused.

  She was busy on the opposite side of the kitchen, her head bent over tea bags and cups. I listened to the clinking of the china for a moment before I spoke. “Fig,” I said. “What is Darius’s cologne doing in your bathroom?”

  She stilled, her hand hovering over the kettle. When she turned around, there was a smile plastered on her face.

  “Darius’s cologne?”

  “Yeah, the bottle of 212 I saw up there.”

  She turned back to her tea making. “Oh, it belongs to George. I found it under the sink. We were at Nordstrom a while back and someone was giving out samples. He loved it, bought it right away. I didn’t know Darius wore that too.” She turned back to her tea making while I pondered her words. I knew for a fact that Nordstrom didn’t sell that cologne. In fact, I ordered it for Darius from an online website that shipped from Europe. She was lying. Why?