Bad Mommy(46)

I still loved him. Deeply. How can you love someone who, in their essence, was a miserable, destructive wretch? We love ourselves, don’t we? We’re obsessed with ourselves, in fact. No? What you hate you also value. If you ever doubt me, time your self-hate. You spend ninety percent of your time finding new things to hate yourself for. Obsession.

Moving on…

I borrowed ideas on how to bring him back to me: date nights, home cooked meals (gluten free) a firmer body, a pussy waxed raw and always wet. None of these things took away the distant look in his eyes. So, I started asking a lot of fucking questions.

“Why did you cheat on Dani? Was it her or you?”

“Did you feel guilty?”

“Have you ever been tempted to cheat on me?”

He managed to never answer a single question. That’s when it hit me. He was hiding something. Was it last week that I’d taken his phone from him to see something, and he’d taken it right back … tugging till I let go? If I had his phone, his hands were right there hovering.

Well, well, well.

But, I was bored.

Darius brought me flowers—once a week, at least. A romantic gesture, not a sacrifice. And on Thursdays he cooked—he had to eat anyway. Sometimes he’d leave little cards in my purse. I’d be looking, rifling around for the pack of wipes I kept in there, or reaching for my wallet, and I’d find it—a bright pink or green card. Something cheesy on the outside—a toddler couple holding hands, or a fabric heart with an arrow through it. On the inside, he’d write his version of love notes. Before you I was wandering around life lost. You are the only woman I see. You are the one I want to grow old with. You are the fire in my soul. I thought my mother was the standard for a perfect woman until I met you. Beautiful, but words.

I wondered if someone who had fire in their soul would have smoke coming out of their mouth.

I didn’t believe his cards, didn’t buy into the words he wrote in them, or the flowers that wilted and died in the vases, sprinkling their petals on countertops. I’d pick up the velvet scraps turned crisp and hold them in my hand, wondering what happened to us. None of the gestures reached his eyes. I wanted his eyes back on me. I didn’t want his flowers, or his bright pink cards, or his scallops over quinoa. He was bullshitting and we both knew it.



“Have I ever told you about the strangler fig?” Darius asked.

I made a face. Darius was forever telling me facts about random things. Last week I got a full run down on geese. Geese! It was actually really fascinating, much more so than the week before when he was going on and on about the papal.

“Go on,” I said. “I’m half listening.”

He smacked me on the butt, then leaned in and kissed me softly on the back of the neck while his arms circled around me.

“They are called ‘stranglers’ because they grow on host trees, which they slowly choke to death.” He squeezed a little and I winced. “Living proof that clever opportunists get along just fine, human or plant. By the time the host tree is dead, the strangler fig is large and strong enough to stand on its own, usually encircling the lifeless, often hollow body of the host tree.”

My eyes were closed and I was leaning into him, liking the feel of his warmth.

“What exactly is the point of this lesson?” I asked.

“They say a person lives up to their name.” His voice was muffled against my neck.

“Got it,” I said. “Fig crazy, Fig strangles the life out of me. Fig…”

He was fucking obsessed with Fig Coxbury. Warning me about her, watching the odd things she did. Don’t think I don’t know who you are, Darius. I know you get hard for crazy.

The following week I tried to steer clear of our newish neighbor. I wasn’t used to having a friend live so close, close enough to where I felt obligated to invite her in if she was lurking around the rose bushes looking sad. I didn’t mind her as much as everyone else seemed to, but I was getting tired of hearing it—the constant cautioning. What was it exactly that they were seeing and I was not? I liked people, I wanted to help them, but not at the expense of my relationships. They were right about some things—she’d moved in six months ago and she was starting to resemble me more and more. She’d even dyed her hair black like mine. I’d not have thought anything of it, except the following week when I went to the salon, my stylist told me that Fig had come in and asked for the exact color formula he used on me. Distance, that’s what I needed. It was oppressive to have someone watching your every move, be it through their blinds or right on the street corner. And then I got the call. My dad wasn’t doing well. I booked my ticket, all thoughts removed from Fig, and Darius, and strangler trees.

My father was dying. He’d been dying for two years now, I’d lost count of the times I’d said goodbye. I flew to Phoenix, renting a car at the airport and driving the rest of the way to the hospital in Mesa. Cancer is the most awful thing, a slow eating monster. What was once a man is now a shadow. A hard thing for a child to behold.

On the first day there, he grabbed my hand between fitful sleep, then all of a sudden, his eyes opened and he said, “Darius is wrong. Bad.”

I balked. My father had always loved Darius. I chalked it up to a nightmare. But, when your mind was already having tremors of doubt, something like that stayed … seemed prophetic. I asked him about it when he was feeling better and letting me spoon soup into his mouth.