Bad Mommy(52)

Did I tell George? No, I didn’t know him well enough. He never came around even when we asked him to, and I had no idea what his reaction to something like this would be. Fig hardly spoke about him, and if you brought him up she’d quickly change the subject. Sometimes I got the feeling she was trying to keep things separate. And at any rate, this was between Darius and me. Yes, I was being the wife with the overactive imagination. I laughed out loud at myself. Eyes. You couldn’t learn someone’s true history from their eyes. Could you…?



I felt bad about my reaction at the park. Darius had been different with her. When she came over, he left the room. In terms of their relationship, he’d ignored my advice and had cut things off with her cold turkey. She’d outright asked me one day if she’d done something to offend him.

“No,” I’d said. “He’s under a lot of stress. He’s so used to unburdening people he doesn’t know how to unburden himself.”

I didn’t want her to feel alone. I wished he’d been more strategic about the whole thing. In truth, Fig needed to learn to rely on her own people. Not mine.

It was a Thursday morning when Fig invited me over for tea. Tea! Like proper British folk. Mercy had started a half-day program at a little private school in Queen Anne and I was finishing up edits on my new novel. I’d never been to her house and I was curious. I shrugged on my favorite cardigan, a grey wool that reached my knees, and headed out the back door. I was grateful for the distraction. I felt like I was sitting around waiting for a call to come about my dad, who’d been deteriorating rapidly the last few weeks. I’d been repeating his words to me over and over, hoping to gain some comfort from them. All men die. Death was part of life, something everyone faced.

The latch to the gate that led from Fig’s garden to mine had rusted badly. I gave it a good shove before it creaked open. Fig’s back door was glass, and for a second before she spotted me, I saw her leaning against the counter, her arms crossed and her eyes huge and unmoving as they stared at the ground. I had the fleeting thought that she wasn’t actually human, but some kind of alien posing as one, and then laughed at myself. Darius was getting to me with all of his anti-Fig propaganda. It was Darius who pointed out that every time she was around me she studied me with unnaturally wide, unblinking eyes. I’d not noticed it until he pointed it out, now it sort of gave me the creeps, like she was downloading information into her brain. It was mean of us to talk about her behind her back, make fun. I liked her, but Darius made some pretty funny and true observations. She probably didn’t know she was being weird, but maybe she did. You could never tell with her.

“Hey, hey,” she said, opening the door. “Creeping through the backyard like a stalker.”

I laughed, because … well…

Her kitchen was warm. I was taking off my sweater before she even closed the door behind me, slinging it over the back of a chair. There were two sets of breakfast things in the sink, mugs, and plates, and silverware.

“George?” I asked.

“Vegas. Work again.” Her words were clipped. I decided to leave it alone. I liked listening to people talk about things they loved. George was the sorest of spots for her. She sort of just pretended like her husband didn’t exist. Darius did too come to think of it. Anytime I brought him up they’d give me this blank stare like they didn’t know who I was talking about. Poor George, he really seemed to be a very nice person.

I was about to ask her about the websites she was working on for some of my friends when I froze. It was only a split second, but Fig was perceptive. Fig could sniff change in the wind like a fucking fox. Her eyes grew large and she fumbled with the milk jug she was holding.

“What kind of tea are we having?” I asked cheerfully, turning around to look at her. Her sharp little shoulders tensed up as her eyes shifted around my face. I let it go. I smiled and complimented her kitchen table, which was thankfully on the opposite end of the room away from…

My striped canister, and my Thug Life cookbook, and the three little flower jars with a single pink daisy in each one. A coincidence? Ha! My heart was pounding, but I nodded as Fig offered to give me a tour. The tour went something like this:

My kitschy Space Needle in her living room.

My cow print chair in her foyer.

My stone flower skull on her bookshelf.

My wire basket with blankets spilling out.

My cream fur throw over a chair.

My lamp.

My bed.

My living room artwork on her wall.

When our tour reached her spare bathroom I just about threw up. Darius had been right about the paint. Her bathroom wall was painted a metallic teal, the same color as the fake-out Instagram picture he posted to my wall. Could it be a coincidence? Well, how many times could you chalk it up to coincidence before it wasn’t one? It wasn’t until we reached the master bathroom, having walked through her bedroom to reach it, that the final blow came. First I saw her shower curtain, an exact replica of mine. I’d had it custom-made, and as far as I knew, there were no others like it. The blow of the whale floating beneath the surface of water, about to swallow a ship, was only softened by Darius’s cologne on her bathroom counter. That took my breath. She saw my eyes, saw my face pale, and I swear I could feel her thoughts in that moment, spiraling out of control. I waited for a lie, for a cover-up—for anything—but Fig chose to remain silent instead, leading me out of the bedroom, through the hallway and back toward the kitchen where the kettle was boiling. I lingered at the island, not knowing what to do. Should I fake illness? Stay and try to pretend everything was normal? Call her out right here and now? I felt so confused.