It's One of Us(19)

“Scarlett?” she calls. “Are you okay?”

There is a shuffle, and Darby’s mom radar goes off. Scarlett is up to no good.

Please don’t let some random kid come down the stairs with rumpled hair and a sheepish smile. Please, not yet.

“I’m up here, Mom. Just running late. No big.”

“You won’t be as sanguine when you have Saturday school. I’m not calling you in. You’ll have to take the tardy.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Darby has not been impressed with Scarlett’s attitude lately. She knows it’s just teenage rebellion brought about by hormones, but Scarlett’s favorite phrase is suddenly “yeah, whatever,” and it’s like waving a red flag in front of Darby’s eyes. She is the bull, Scarlett the inept but enthusiastic matador. Guess who wins?

“Get down here, young lady. Right now.”

Scarlett comes flying down the stairs like a startled cat, school uniform skirt askew, Dr. Martens unlaced, thick, curly hair spilling out of its sloppy bun. She holds her laptop like a shield, eyes huge in her lovely elfin face.

“Pull yourself together, child,” Darby says, fighting back a laugh despite herself.

“Mom. Did you hear they found Beverly Cooke?”

Ah. That explains it.

“I did. Have you been upstairs reading the news sites again? I thought we talked about that.”

“Well, it’s everywhere. I could hardly miss it. I mean, aren’t you freaked out? They’re saying she was murdered. Oh, are those donuts?”

Darby shakes the bag. “I was going to surprise you when you got home from school.”

“You’re the best mom ever. I’d be happy to be surprised now.”

“You need to get to school. I’ll save one for you.”

“Mom.” How her child has learned to inject a single-syllable word with four layers of inflection is beyond her. Her own fault, probably, letting Scarlett stream Schitt’s Creek again. She’d been in Alexis mode for weeks the first go-round.

“Fine. Here.” Darby hands over the bag, and Scarlett eases out the small brown box reverentially.

“Oh, my kingdom for a donut.”

“You have no kingdom, Richard. Eat, and scat. Drink some milk, too. You need the calcium.”

“Ugh.” But she pours a glass and downs it. Scarlett’s been hanging around with the other Bromley girls at Starbucks lately and insists she’s too old for milk. She wants coffee in the mornings now, God save us all.

A quick, missed, peck on the cheek and she’s out the door, flying to the car. Thank God she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. Darby doesn’t have her parental walls up yet; she would have broken down in front of her daughter and scared them both.

“Drive carefully,” Darby calls, heart swelling with love despite being annoyed as hell. Kids. Mixed emotions weren’t the half of it. At least they hadn’t had a fight. That happens more often than not these days. Donuts working their magic. Sugar and spice and everything nice.

Darby makes herself a cup of coffee, takes another donut because damn it, she’s having a bad morning and she deserves the treat, and sits down at her tiny desk in the corner of the kitchen. She ignores the tall stack of bills sitting neatly on the ledge just at eye level and brings up Facebook. Sees the burgeoning fight in her donor group, logs out. She can’t do this, not now. She has bigger problems.

Humiliation streaming through her, she pulls the unemployment papers from her bag and navigates to the website to file her claim.

Later, fortified with coffee, sugar, and a nap, Darby logs into Facebook again. She is met with a knotty philosophical discussion among the moms about whether they need to tell the police what they know in case there’s something related to the donor that might shed light on Beverly’s death.

On this, she has many feelings, and now she’s willing to share.

Our privacy is sacred, Darby types. It’s all we have. If we expose Beverly, we expose all of us. We will never have peace. The police, then the media, will hound us and we will be a part of this story. Our group will become the story. Tempers are high. Fear does that. We should stay out of it, at least for now.

The moderators chime in, suggesting we all take the night to think it over, and convene in the morning to vote on our course of action. Darby tries once more, already sensing this is a moot point.

Their lives are already ruined, she types. Dan’s, and the baby’s. What do we gain by tearing them apart? What do we gain from Dan learning his son probably isn’t his? That his wife was hiding such a huge secret from him? Because that’s what we need to think about today. It’s one thing to pull back the curtain and expose ourselves. The baby is innocent, and the baby will suffer. Dan might not want him anymore. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen.

Trust me.

A flurry of responses, some agreeing, some not. The Nots are vociferous. It’s amazing how quickly friends turn on each other. The moderator pops in again.

Ladies, seriously. We need to cool off. I’m closing this thread to comments.
Darby’s private message notification lights up immediately, but she logs out. No sense bickering. She needs to make dinner, and she might as well do some laundry since she’ll be home tonight to put it in the dryer. She’s superstitious about putting clothes in overnight and going to work with the dryer running. House fires are all too common.