The Wrong Family(57)

Winnie opened the fridge. “Want to take a walk around the lake after lunch?” Her hand tightened on the handle as she waited for his possible rejection.

Samuel looked up from his phone, unaware that his mother was holding her breath. He shrugged and followed with a weak, “Sure.”

Winnie was relieved. Small victories. That was what her therapist had wanted her to focus on, small victories—not the giant, looming issues that chewed incessantly at her mind. She hid her smile and nonchalantly made her French-press coffee.

But all too soon, he left the kitchen. She cleaned up his empty bowl and the splashes of milk on the counter, wiping aimlessly until the kitchen was spotless. She felt disarmed by Samuel per usual; given favor one minute and having it taken the next. Being a mother was by far the hardest job Winnie had ever taken on, and she had roughly five years left before Samuel went to college.

Nigel often made fun of her for referring to parenting as a contract, but it was. The most unbreakable contract, excruciatingly unrewarding...and yet...it was the thing that most drove her in life, the thing that she simultaneously hated and loved at the same time. No—that’s wrong, thought Winnie. She didn’t hate being a mother, she hated parenting—being the enforcer, the teacher, and most often, the bad guy. Today was her day to be the good guy, to remind her son of the unbreakable bond they shared. She intended to make the most of these last years of his youth; it felt like Samuel was slipping fast from her grasp. He was solemn and slow to laugh, and he regarded both her and Nigel with suspicion. Winnie couldn’t make sense of it. Lately she’d been thinking that perhaps they’d spoiled him. That was a thing with only children; she knew this because Nigel was one. There was an entitlement etched quietly into their minds, a sense that things needed to go their way. They had no one to contend with but doting parents—no siblings to scream in their face, no hair-pulling, kicking, or having to share. The world was their oyster. And on that rare occasion when things didn’t go their way—well, that was when they sulked. These were all the things she told herself were going on with her son. The alternative...well, that she didn’t want to think about.

What does Samuel know?

Winnie placed the washed and dried cereal bowl back into the cabinet harder than she intended. The mugs rattled as she slammed the door closed. It was then she stopped dead in her tracks, spotting the empty Froot Loops container propping open the lid of the recycling bin. Where had he got the Froot Loops from? Winnie had been so distracted by her thoughts that she hadn’t asked herself this until now. There was no way Nigel would buy them for him after the last fight they had about it, and Winnie certainly hadn’t. Unless Samuel bought them for himself. Was that possible? Winnie rode him so much about what he ate, maybe he was purchasing food on his own dime. Sometimes he was home alone after school before one of them got to him, though it had never been for longer than thirty minutes. Would that be enough time for him to walk to the Safeway and back? She put the box on top of the bin, took a photo of it, and sent it to Nigel. His message came back right away.

Where did he get those?

Winnie was relieved by his response.

I don’t know??? She texted back. Nigel sent back an emoji scratching its head. Winnie set her phone down. She stared toward the stairs, wondering if she should say anything at all; it was just cereal. Maybe he got it from one of his friends—that seemed more likely—Subomi or Angelo. But Winnie knew both of their mothers, and they were of the Kashi, antigluten variety. It’s just cereal, she told herself firmly before heading upstairs. But why did it have to be that cereal?

Their walk around the lake after lunch was unsurprisingly awful. Winnie tried to lure Samuel into conversation but was met with the cold indifference that he seemed to specialize in lately.

In her heyday she’d been the most popular person in any room, and that confidence, still ingrained in her personality, took a blow every time her son rejected her. When Samuel walked ahead to distance himself from her, she gave up, pulling her phone from her pocket. Manda had tried to call and then had resorted to texting. She kept half an eye on Samuel as she read the texts, her mood plummeting. Nigel had been right in his prediction: Manda was refusing to let Dakota back, her newfound spine made of steel.

As she was getting ready to text back, her phone rang, Manda’s name popping up on the screen.

“Hey, I was just texting you back,” Winnie said. She watched Samuel bend down to pet a fat bulldog up ahead.

“He’s making threats.” Dakota’s normally timid wife sounded angry. “He’s saying that someone is putting these thoughts in my head because he’s never known me to be an unforgiving person. Can you believe the actual level of gaslighting he’s using?”

She could tell that her sister-in-law was pacing; she’d seen her do it often when she was on the phone, her feet getting tangled in the skirts of the long dresses she wore. Manda claimed that the dresses were a souvenir from her Pentecostal upbringing.

“Wait, wait,” said Winnie. “Threatening you how?”

“How do you think, Winnie? God, I know how you guys worship your brother, but he’s not been right for a while. No one wants to acknowledge that.”

Winnie took a deep breath as Manda called out to her boys. “Lincoln, ask your brother, all right? Go...right now. Go!”

“I’ll acknowledge it.” Winnie was tired of making excuses for Dakota; she had her own problems to worry about now. “What do you think he needs?”