Bad Mommy(49)

“Hey,” he said. “I’ll get dinner started while you two chat.” I nodded at him gratefully, and he winked.

Fig was already awake when I put the coffee on the next morning. I could hear the clacking computer keys and the muffled sound of music coming from her headphones. When the coffee was done, I took her a mug.

“Thanks,” she said. “Where’s your husband?”

“He should be up soon. How are you feeling?”

“Like sticking my head in an oven.” She grinned.

“Okay, Sylvia Plath.”

She pulled up her sleeve and showed me a tattoo I’d never noticed before. I had to tilt my head sideways to read it.

“I want.”

“Yes, she has a line in The Bell Jar—I am, I am. I am. Well, the thing that always pulled me through every situation was how much I had left to experience. I want to travel, I want to taste foods I’ve never tasted, I want to kiss beautiful men, and I want to buy beautiful clothes. I want to live because I still want things.”

I smiled faintly, thinking of all the times Darius had commented on Fig wanting my life.

“Hey, come with us to the park,” I said. “It’s beautiful outside.” To illustrate my point, I ripped the curtain aside, letting sunlight stream into the living room. Fig flinched away, pretending that the light was burning her.

“You can’t burn a bitch so early in the morning.” As she crawled away her shirt lifted. I could count the knobs on her spine. How much weight had she lost? I tried to remember what she looked like when she first moved in.

“But, first breakfast,” I said, stepping toward the kitchen. With lots of butter, bacon, and sour cream. Mercy came barreling down the hall in her pajamas and I set her to work washing the fruit.

She hesitated, but only for a moment before nodding happily.



I used to take Mercy to the train park when Darius worked late. A little place at the base of a hill with trees all around it. Mercy Moo was too little to play on the monkey bars or to climb onto the brightly colored structures like the other children. One day. For now, we liked to roll down the hill amongst the weeds and soft grass. And there was a glorious sand pit she could spend hours in—mostly eating the sand or rubbing it in her eyes and then screaming. It was our sacred place, Mercy’s and mine. We’d found closer parks since, but the train park was our favorite. It was the first time I was taking Darius there, and I was excited for him to see it. In retrospect I’m not sure what I wanted from him that day. A love for the park he had no history with? A reaction? Maybe I thought we’d all bond there together, in which case I never should have taken Fig.

“Twain park,” Mercy said, from the back seat. I flinched. Trains held a whole new meaning for me since Fig had moved in. I’d never be able to look at them the same way.

“It was nice of you to invite her.” Darius gave me the side eye, his finger tapping on the steering wheel to whatever was playing on the radio.

“But…” I said.

“Well, it’s family day. I thought we were supposed to spend time being with our family. Not crazy people who want to steal your family?”

“What the fuck, Darius?” I slapped his chest with the back of my hand and he laughed. Was he serious or had this become our running joke?

“She’s not that bad, I guess.” He glanced out the back window to make sure Fig was still following us in her SUV, white and bright, a sore thumb on the highway.

“She’s a little intrusive,” I admitted.

“Has no social boundaries, is an obsessive over-thinker…”

“Hey, okay,” I said. “But she cares. She has a good heart.”

“What’s your definition of a good heart?”

“Come on. Aren’t you supposed to be the one who sees through people’s bullshit? Finds the humanity?”

“Yes, but all she does is wear masks. You could search for years and you still won’t be able to know who that woman is, because she doesn’t know herself. And that’s exactly why she’s obsessed with you.”

Darius always said that women were drawn to me because I knew who I was and they wanted in on that. Like I had a secret recipe I could just impart to them. It was true, I knew who I was, but that didn’t necessarily mean I knew who they were.

“Okay,” I said. “I can accept that. But, I don’t care either way. She needs something from me. I’d like to try to help.”

He reached out and squeezed my knee. “You’re the only good person left on the planet.”

“Hardly,” I said, in return. But, I was buzzing from the compliment.

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…