Emma’s dragging a loaded grocery cart across the parking lot, trying unsuccessfully to steer with one hand while holding her phone in the other, as she’s made the dual mistake of dressing in a skirt without pockets and leaving her purse at home. Her back and shoulders tweak from the strain.
She bought biodegradable doggy bags. As soon as she gets home, she’ll leave them on Kent’s front porch with a keenly phrased note about his dog’s ongoing bathroom habits. She’d tried to speak in person with him again, but he didn’t answer the door. Even though his car was outside, and it was Sunday afternoon.
“Helloooo! Kent?” She rang the doorbell and stuck her face directly into the camera. “I need to talk to yoooou.” Then she tapped on the lens like a child terrorizing aquarium fish.
He was probably ignoring her.
When he ultimately failed to appear, she slid a polite note under his door. Still having trouble with your dog in my yard. Let’s discuss. Emma (the house on your left). This time she’ll be all business. Perhaps she’ll even say, You leave me no choice but to... What? Call the police? That would escalate the issue well out of proportion. Do they even have an animal-control division anymore?
Oh, to return to those heady days when dropping Devin’s name and firm got her out of nearly any pinch.
Out of the blue, a Tesla traveling too fast for any parking lot zooms past, nearly clipping her cart. “Watch it!” she hollers. The absolute last thing she plans to do today is die. Particularly while pushing a shopping cart bearing a jumbo box of panty liners for her perimenopausal bladder which, judging from the state of her underwear right now, she absolutely, positively needs.
What a humiliation this aging thing can be. She’d had her roots touched up last week and already her grays are peeking through. “It’s not the dye,” her stylist said when Emma called to complain. “It’s the hormones. Your body’s fighting back.”
Against what, she’d like to know. Because her body definitely isn’t fighting back against her perpetually dry skin or middle-aged acne. And by the way, how is it possible to have both?
“You are not defined by your appearance,” she says aloud to herself. Nearby, a couple still young enough to think they know everything steps out of their car. She doesn’t care if they hear.
Like Frogger successfully crossing the stream, she makes it to her car and is loading the trunk when her phone rings. It’s her darling Portia. “Hello, love!” She could not have chosen a better time to call.
“Hey, Mom. How’re you doing?”
“Other than nearly getting plowed by a Tesla just now, I’m fine!”
“What? Are you okay?”
“Yes, like I said, I’m fine.” Her therapist Nikki’s voice echoes in her head. Feel your feelings. Don’t stuff them away for other people’s comfort. “Actually.” Emma drops the last shopping bag into the trunk and closes it. “To be honest, I’m angry. That driver was exceptionally careless. But physically, I am unhurt.”
There. Score one for her evolving mental health habits.
“Well, I’m sorry that happened to you, but I am glad you’re okay. Anyway, Mom, I’m calling with sort of a sensitive question.”
Emma starts the ignition and sets the air-conditioning to blast. “I’m ready. Go ahead.”
“So, Daddy called me last night.”
Lord. She was not prepared for a Devin discussion.
“He asked if I would be okay with them using my cradle for the new baby.”
“HE WHAT?”
“I know, Mom, just hang on. That’s why I’m calling. To give you a say in the matter.”
Emma punches the horn, waaah-wa-waaaaah! It echoes across the parking lot.
“Are you driving?”
“No. I’m pissed.” Devin knows with 100 percent clarity that the cradle is not Portia’s to give. She may have slept in it, but the piece is a family heirloom passed down from Emma’s grandmother. Her mom slept in it, Emma slept in it, Portia slept in it. But Greta Magnussen’s bébé gigantesque will not so much as lay a hair between its delicate spindles. “You know that the cradle was handed down to me by my grandmother, right?”
“I do. And Dad says he’ll give it back. But he also claims he wants to create traditions for both his daughters to share. Like, sleeping in the same cradle.”
“His daughters? He’s having a girl?” Waaaah-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! The news kicks Emma almost as hard as learning that Greta was pregnant. Would he be asking for the cradle if he was expecting a son? No. Of course not. He’d be hiring a decorator to make the nursery look like the basketball court at a Lakers game.
“IT’S A GIRL?”
“Ugh, Mom. I’m so sorry.” Portia sounds more exhausted than apologetic. “I should have said no as soon as he asked. I wasn’t thinking.”
Emma groans, rubbing her eyes, even though you’re not supposed to do that for fear of wrinkles. But what does she care? She’s ready to buy a dozen cats and never leave the house again.
When she’s steady, she says, “Portia, it’s not your fault. Your father should not have asked you about my property. He put you in the middle.”
“But now I feel terrible for upsetting you.”
“Which is why he did it. To play on your tender heart. I’ll bet he was probably surprised you decided to ask me at all. If I know your father, he likely assumed you’d say yes simply to avoid having to broach the subject with me.”
“He’s not that manipulative, Mom.”
Emma’s jaw drops. This, from the same young woman who refused to let Queen Doris Fluke get the best of her. But, just as Emma once did, Portia has a giant blind spot when it comes to Devin. Thanks to his charm. His ease. His bountiful affection for “his girls.”
“Look,” she says, “I’m not going to nitpick your relationship with your dad. Heck, now I even feel bad for making you feel bad. But I am going to encourage you to take a minute, when you’re calm, and think about what he asked of you. How did you feel when he asked you, and how do you feel now?”
“I’m going to call him back right this second and tell him no.” Portia’s ire is up; Emma can hear her breath tightening.
“No. I’m going to call him. My cradle, my issue.”
After they hang up, Emma sits in the cooling car debating whether to call Devin now or wait until she gets home. She’s so riled up that if she tries to drive, she might go right off the road. Then again, talking to Devin may make her angrier, and then what will she do?
“I’ll walk around the block to cool down,” she says aloud. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll march back into the store, buy a dozen eggs, and smash them in the parking lot.”
She dials.
Devin picks up just as it’s about to go to voicemail. “Hey, Ems.”
The nickname rankles; he lost the right to it eighteen months ago on a Xerox machine.
“Why did you ask Portia for my family’s cradle? You know damn well it’s not hers to give.”
“I do not, in fact, know that.” He’s put on his smooth “nothing ruffles me” voice. “In fact, you said many times that you were giving it to her, for her babies.”
“Exactly!” Spit flies from her lips onto the steering wheel. “For Portia’s babies. Not your pollywog’s!”
“My what?”
“Your—” She catches herself. “Never mind. What I’m saying is that the bed is Portia’s. Not yours.”
Now he sighs, all good-naturedly and genial, the same way he did when Portia broke into such blubbering tears as a child and neither of them could make sense of her words.
“Don’t you sigh at me, Devin!”
“Well, which is it, Emma? First you say the cradle isn’t Portia’s, and now you say it is.”
“I didn’t say that. I said it will be.”
“Actually, you said, ‘The bed is Portia’s. Not yours.’”
“Quit doing that lawyer thing.”
“Quoting you?”
“Twisting words. Placing blame where it doesn’t belong.” What’s that term everyone uses these days? She can’t think of it. Devin has once again twisted her into knots. “GASLIGHTING! You’re gaslighting me.”
“Emma.” He’s Stern Dad now. The one with his hands on his hips, declaring, Quit it with this nonsense. “I called Portia to ask for temporary use of what you’ve long said is her cradle. I’m trying to do something meaningful, keep a family tradition going. I did not ask her to call you.”
Something’s burning deep inside her. A fire licking at the edge of Emma’s being, of who she is at her very core. Nice Emma Johnson. The maternal, patient one. The teacher of all children. Not just the easy ones, but also the ones who need all the extra care and attention they can get. Emma Johnson, the girl who never ever turned her back on a person in need, and who grew into a woman compelled to carry the burdens, worries, misfortunes, and toils of the less fortunate. Because she can. Because she ought to. Because it’s right.
Little Emma Johnson is aflame. Her image of herself, a conflagration. Emma May reborn as ash and smoke.
“The cradle is up in the attic.” The fire inside her is out, its fuel spent. And it’s changed this body that she inhabits. As if her bones are lighter. The oxygen entering her lungs purer. She smiles. “Come over to get it, Devin...and when you do, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Emma!—”
She hangs up, delighting in the sound of his indignation.
She taps gingerly at the skin beneath her eyes, recycling the beads of sweat as moisturizer. “Well. That was fun.”