“Speaking of exhausted, how’s that boss of yours? Still riding you about the quarterly close?”
I’d thanked him that night for saving me from one more conversation I didn’t have the energy for.
***
Lola glanced at me at a red light.
“You’re doing the thing again. The staring.”
“Sorry.”
I’d thanked him that night.
“Maureen. Is Kevin good to her?”
“He pays the mortgage.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“My husband isn’t cruel,” I said, and hated how much I needed the sentence to be true. “He’s just tired. Sarah’s quiet. They rub each other the wrong way.”
“Okay,” Lola didn’t push. She never did. “If that ever changes, you know how to contact me.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“My dad left something for my daughter, you know, for college. Kevin manages it, too. And it’s fine.”
“I’m sure it is.”
My co-worker said it the way I’d said, “Kevin’s a good provider.”
Two women pretending together.
***
The truth is, I love my daughter more than life itself. I love my husband, too.
“Kevin manages it.”
But as Sarah grew older, something between them turned bitter.
Kevin criticized everything: her clothes, friends, even the way she laughed.
***
The house was too quiet when I stepped inside. I set my bag down in the hallway and called out.
“Sarah? Kev? I’m home.”
Nothing answered but the hum of the fridge.
Kevin criticized everything.
I walked past the kitchen toward Sarah’s room, and my feet slowed on their own before I got there.
My daughter’s door stood open. That door was never open when she wasn’t in it.
Inside, her closet gaped empty, and a row of bare wire hangers knocked softly against each other in the draft from the vent, ticking like a clock I hadn’t noticed starting.
From the kitchen behind me, I heard movement.
My feet slowed on their own.
“Where is she?” I asked.
