Life and Other Inconveniences(104)

“I like hurt,” she said happily, rubbing the paper towels on her face.

“In the trash, Tess,” Miller said.

She complied.

It was good that he was trying to make her take responsibility for the mess, but this wasn’t a job a three-year-old could do. After a few token paper towels, I said, “Great job, Tess. Why don’t I finish, and Daddy can give you a bath?”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah. No problem,” I lied. If I got this cleaned up, and Tess went to bed, maybe Miller and I could . . . I don’t know. Sit on the porch and talk. Maybe kiss a little more, because that kiss had been really, really nice.

Thus motivated, I got to work. It immediately became apparent that there weren’t enough paper towels in the world to do the trick. I tried sprinkling the floor with salt, but there was only about a quarter cup left. Ditto the baking soda. Too bad it wasn’t corn oil they were short on.

Half an hour later, I’d gone through an entire roll of paper towels and yesterday’s newspaper and still hadn’t made a lot of progress.

“Hi.” Tess, dressed in clean pajamas, stood in the doorway, looking deceptively like an angel.

“Hello.”

“I help you.”

“No, honey, you stay there. I’m almost done, and you’re nice and clean.” My jeans were soaked from knee to ankle with corn oil.

“I have to find Luigi,” Miller said. “He’s probably miserable.”

“He shiny now,” Tess said, sitting down on the living room floor to watch me.

“Tess,” Miller said, “we talked about putting things on Luigi. He doesn’t like it. It’s not nice.”

“He like it.”

“No, Tess! He doesn’t. You have to be gentle with him. He’s old.” Miller looked at me. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“It’s really okay,” I said. “The toddler years can be really frustrating.” No shit, Sherlock, said my inner critic. But hey. Validating feelings was one of the things we therapists did best.

Miller gave a little nod. “Tess,” he said, “you stay here. Right here. Don’t go anywhere else, okay?”

“You can make sure I’m doing a good job, Tess,” I said, so she’d have a reason to stay put.

Miller went to find his cat.

“It’s fun to make messes, isn’t it?” I asked Tess.

“Yes. It fun.”

“They can be hard to clean up, though. Maybe next time, you can make a mess in the bathtub or the sink. Or outside.”

“No. I make messes here.”

I opted not to argue and got back to wiping. The corn oil smeared rather than absorbed. Once I got it all up, I’d have to wash the floor. Maybe I should use kitty litter or something. I could Google how to clean up corn oil, but I didn’t want to touch my phone. I glanced at Tess, who was scootching in a circle but still technically obeying her dad.

This kitchen was adorable—true to the arts and crafts nature of the house, with plain white-painted cabinets and soapstone counters. Miller had nice taste. Or Miller and Ashley did, as the case probably was. There was a picture of them on the fridge, arms around each other, back when Miller’s hair was completely black.

I’d forgotten how pretty Ashley was. Tess looked so much like her. They looked so . . . content. So certain of their love. My throat tightened. I liked you, Ashley. Thanks for being nice to me.

Then I gathered up another wad of newspaper, turned to throw it out, knelt down and got back to work.

Tess wasn’t sitting in the doorway. Shit! Before I could finish the thought, I heard a mechanical whine, and my head was jerked back as my hair was pulled mercilessly tight. “Ow!” I yelled, jerking away. I slipped on the greasy floor, sprawling, hitting my chin. The noise stopped. What the hell? I reached back and felt metal.

“I make you hair pretty,” Tess said.

Oh, no. No. No.

The kid had put the beaters in my hair. It was tangled so tightly I had tears in my eyes, and the mixer, which I’d unplugged when I fell, hung heavily. I tried to move it, but my hair was wound right to my scalp.

“You look funny,” Tess said, and she began to laugh. Then she slid and fell to her tummy and started licking the floor.

Fuck. “Miller?” I called. “Um . . . we have a problem here!”

He came running.

“Slow down,” I said. “The floor’s slippery.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit!” Tess echoed.

“Tess, what did you do? Is that the mixer? Oh, God, Emma, I’m so sorry.” He came into the kitchen, sliding on the floor, and helped me up as Tess swam around the floor, flipping onto her back. So much for her bath.

“Here. Let me at least pop out the beaters.” I heard a click, and some of the weight was relieved.

“Maybe I can get them out,” I said, taking baby steps toward the bathroom. I slipped and grabbed the counter, my foot grazing Tess’s leg as she scooted under the chairs.

“No kicking!” she shouted. “No kicking me!”

Yeah, she was a handful, all right.

The bathroom mirror showed me smeared in corn oil, red-faced from the pain of my neck hairs being pulled, and two metal beaters jammed against the base of my skull. My hair was wrapped around every part of the beater that I could see. I touched one, then yelped a little. God, that hurt! The entire back of my head throbbed with pain. This was what happened when you didn’t wear a ponytail.