Megan Hart - Lovely Wild

Instead, her mom got up and disappeared for a moment, returning with a crinkling package she opened. She handed Kendra a pack of chocolate snack cakes from her secret stash without a word. Kendra stared at it for a moment, then took a bite. It wasn’t very good, but she ate it, anyway.

Her mom at last said quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

That was the last thing Kendra wanted to do, yet she opened her mouth and spilled out her guts, anyway. “...And I know she says he likes me, Mom, but he doesn’t. Not like that. He must like Sammy.”

“Why? Because he fooled around with her?”

“Well. Yeah.” Kendra swiped at her face.

Mom laughed softly. “Kiki...I know you don’t need me to tell you that boys will take chances when they get them. It doesn’t mean they love the girl they take them with. Or even like her all that much, sometimes. And even if he did, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t also like you.”

“She’s my friend,” Kendra said miserably.

“He’s your friend, too. Both of them have been for a long time.”

Kendra looked at her mother. “Is that supposed to make it better?”

“I don’t know. Does it make it worse?”

“No.” Kendra took a deep breath, considering what her mom had said. “Not worse. But not better.”

“Maybe it won’t get better,” her mom said, “for a while.”

They sat in silence for a minute or so. Kendra’s mom took her hand, squeezing the fingers. Kendra squeezed back.

“Did you ever like a boy who didn’t like you back?” Kendra asked.

Her mom coughed a little. “Umm...no.”

“Because you were pretty,” Kendra said sourly, looking at her mom’s thick dark hair and vivid blue eyes. In her wedding picture, she looked like a movie star. Kendra’s own hair had been blond and curly as a kid, but now it was just straight and plain and sort of brown.

Her mother looked surprised, eyes wide, mouth dropping. “Pretty, me? No. Oh, Kiki.”

“Ugh, Mom, you were so pretty.” Kendra scowled.

“Not when I was younger.”

“When you married Daddy you were pretty,” Kendra said.

Her mom nodded after a moment. “I guess so. He thought so, anyway. And your dad’s the only boyfriend I ever had.”

Kendra wasn’t surprised. She’d known this, even though knowing it and really believing it weren’t the same thing. “Really?”

Her mom looked uncomfortable, which made Kendra wish she hadn’t asked. “Yes. Really.”

“Wow,” Kendra said when the silence between them grew too big. “That’s...”

“It’s what it is,” her mom said firmly and stood, clapping her hands together. “Dinner is almost ready. Let’s set the table. And after dinner, I need to run to the mall. We can look at those sneakers you wanted.”

It felt a little bit like bribery, but if so, Kendra didn’t mind. It was what some parents did when their kids felt bad about something. Bought them stuff. It was what some of them did to distract their kids from asking questions, too. Whatever her mom’s reasons, a new pair of shoes couldn’t take away the sting of realizing Sammy and Logan had been together.

But it helped.

TEN

THE FIRST DAYS of summer vacation are the best. The kids haven’t had time to get bored, they still have their annual trip to the beach to look forward to and sleeping in is still a luxury and not yet a habit that will need to be broken when school starts again. It’s only been a week, though, and they haven’t yet settled into any routine. Now Mari’s not sure they will.

Because this year, Ryan’s home.

This is bad for several reasons. One is because Ryan isn’t used to the way things are in the house when he’s not there. He snaps at the kids for watching too much television and manufactures chores for them to do in the name of “helping” her, though Mari has the house utterly under control. She neither needs nor wants her children scrubbing toilets and changing sheets, no matter how little she cares for the tasks herself. She’s told him this before, when Ryan says the kids need more responsibility and she says, let them be kids. Teaching them to take care of themselves and turning them into their personal maid service isn’t the same thing. He’s either forgotten their previous conversations or doesn’t care. Or maybe, she thinks, listening to the muffled sound of Ryan lecturing Kendra on something Mari knows their daughter will ignore, Ryan simply believes himself to be the better parent.

On another day, another time, this thought would slip away from her with no more than a blink and wink of effort. Today, with her husband still home after a week and a half, Mari’s patience is worn to transparency. They rarely argue. The house and the kids have always been her domain. Now without the respite of Ryan leaving for work, Mari finds herself chafing under his constant suggestions and advice. Never mind that he’s never cleaned a toilet, scrubbed a floor or folded a basket of laundry in his life, now he knows just how it should be done. She hasn’t quite snapped at him. Not yet. It will surprise him if she does, and she’d rather not.

There’s another reason it’s bad that Ryan is constantly home. It means something has changed in their lives. It’s been a long time since she felt this way—uncertain of what is coming next or how to handle it.

There is a way to relieve the sting of this anxiety. Mari stretches high, fingertips searching the back of the cabinet, behind the special Thanksgiving table decorations she usually forgets to use on the table. There. She snags a package of snack cakes, chocolate, shaped like hearts. The wrapping is gone in seconds, the sweet creamy cake clutched in her fist.

They gave her hot, wet mess in a bowl, she dug her fingers into it, it burned, she tossed it down. They came with yelling hands and faces, open mouths. When she told them what happened, they took her hands and held them tight so she could not speak. They gave her a spoon, instead.

They made her normal.

Mari stops herself from shoving the cake into her mouth. Her jaw aches. Her throat closes, making it hard to swallow. She finally manages to throw the cake into the trash, then has to drink from the faucet to wash away the taste of her own desperation.

She’s never without her secret stock of snack cakes, but it’s the first time in a long, long time that she’s wanted to eat one that way. Gobbling and desperate. Mari closes her eyes for a moment, then shakes off the desperation.

Rough time, she thinks fleetingly before focusing on the cupboards in front of her. Tea, coffee, spices. Containers of candy sprinkles and cake decorations from Kendra’s fascination a year or so ago with making fancy cupcakes. Luxuries, not necessities, and at seeing this, the excess, calm should wash over her, but it doesn’t. Nobody should be able to survive very long on rainbow jimmies and silver marzipan buttons. But it’s surprising what people can survive on.

Kendra stomps into the kitchen, scowling. “Mom. Can’t you talk to Dad? God!”

Mari turns from her silent contemplation of the bounty in her cabinets. Kendra sees this and sighs. Her arms fold across breasts larger than her mother’s (the result of better childhood nutrition or genetics, who knows?). For a second, Mari sees a woman in front of her instead of a girl and she’s more ashamed by how threatened she feels by this than the fact Kendra’s embarrassed by her kitchen quirks.

“Mom! Hello!”

If Mari has her way, Kendra will never know what it feels like to want for anything, much less a meal. She doesn’t explain herself, though. She and Ryan have never talked to the kids about the way Mari grew up. Ryan, she thinks, is happy not to be reminded, and Mari is certain she wouldn’t be able to package her life into a shape her children could possibly understand.