CHAPTER SIX
The day is hard.
When I’m occupied, things are fine, but I’m used to a certain degree of chaos. The ability to juggle orders, customers, and crises, alongside Ed, Roxanne, and my actual friends at the Nosh Pit has trained me to handle ten things at once, but when I’m with Mackenzie, there’s really only one thing at a time. This is supposed to be a good thing, and mostly it is, but still I find my mind wandering because I’m not quite busy enough to make myself forget.
We make breakfast together, her seldom-asked but always-present inquiries about her father running laps in my head.
We take a morning walk down to the creek, where I come alone to think on the mornings Mackenzie is at school and I’m alone, and I wonder if I’m being realistic or pessimistic. He’ll never come back to us. He’ll never claim his daughter, scoop her up for a piggyback ride, tell her she’s pretty and worth having. Wondering makes me feel weak. Of course it’s over with him. Of course he’s good for nothing. Of course we’re on our own. Allowing doubt — and hopeful doubt, at that — makes me feel weak, pathetic, and sad.
We make cupcakes in the afternoon, and I find myself thinking of the good times. There were a few, before Mackenzie’s conception. Back when I was a girl, the world was full of promise. I was looking at a scholarship to a great school. I would have had a reason, with that scholarship, to finally leave Inferno. I don’t want to abandon my roots forever, but long to see more of the world than this tiny corner where my shackles were forged. I’ve always been a reader. I love stories of other places. And since I was small, I’ve wanted to see them. Grady left, supposedly to go and live that life for himself.
I hate him for leaving me when I needed him most.
I miss him so much, it hurts.
Before Grady, I wasn’t like this. I felt confident. I’d only had a few boyfriends, and the luck of the draw — or maybe good judgment — had made them all good guys. Grady was the best of them. We were together for years before I got pregnant, and during that time, he always stood by my side. Back then, I sneaked out at night so we could be together, but we were just dumb kids, fooling around in ways too mature for our years — but only with each other, and always with thoughts that some day, we’d share a future. Back in those naive daydreams, I imagined I’d be something: an architect, maybe, or a travel writer. I was rarely specific back then. With so many dreams, it didn’t matter which I picked.
We’d come to Reed Creek, where Mackenzie and I went this morning. We’d lie down together, my head in his lap, and talk about what came next. School for me, definitely not for Grady. He was never a rule follower, and his family was a shaky foundation even before his parents’ death. He wasn’t just handsome; he was cool in a way that set off the school’s stodgy alarms, like he was a loose end. He grew facial hair before any of the other guys and refused to shave it. Just one act of defiance in a chain.
Grady wanted to get out. But it worked because so did I. We’d get out together. I’d go to school; I’d get my dream job; we’d settle somewhere nice and travel when we could. Grady always had wanderlust. I caught it from him, from my books and dreams, like a virus.
But then Mackenzie happened.
And Grady left.
And everything evaporated. I knew my priorities had to shift, so I declined my scholarship and focused on making a more immediate living. My parents never threatened to disown me, but their disappointment was a lead apron. All at once, I went from having everyone behind me to having no one at all.
I came and went at home without speaking to Mom or Dad, both of whom were having the church pray for me, whispering in ways that weren’t much better than gossip. I moved out on my own as soon as I could. It was obvious I’d be a single mom, raising a kid without her father in the picture. Grady, always my rock, ran away and left me alone.
I haven’t always turned to sex for comfort. It didn’t used to be the compulsive, addictive need it’s become after a decade abandoned. I suppose I learned that you can’t count on anybody, so you get what you can, then you run. You run. Before anyone can run away from you.
In the afternoon, I smile with Mackenzie as we ride our bikes in Dalton Park — the fancy-pants park near Cherry Hill. We rack our bikes afterward, and I spring for one of the little remote control boats so Mackenzie can pilot it around the pond. I’m feeling like SuperMom, having checked off so many of the Good Mother boxes.
Never mind that I work too much for too little money and have been forced to abdicate raising my daughter to my parents, who I swore to never take charity from. Never mind that I’ve disappointed Mackenzie so many times that it’s now the norm, and keeping my promise is a rarity worth noting. And never mind that I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing even now, as my mind strays to the texts deleted this morning.
I’m SuperMom. I can do it all. I can ask about Brownie registration while baking and biking. And never mind that the entire time, thoughts of what my life has become are mixing into an internal stew, making me crave someone’s touch the way a person craves water in the desert. Almost anyone’s touch.
I catch myself, at the park, pulling my phone from my pocket to check the lock screen for new messages or texts.
I catch myself thinking of what might have happened last night, if I’d answered my phone instead of Chadd leaving a message.
Or what could, if I still had his number, happen right now.
The thought warms me. I remember how he looked at me. I imagine how he’d look at me again. His eyes were all over me last night because I encouraged him, because I made it obvious that his attention was wanted, craved, anticipated. I picture myself somewhere, with all that attention, making the world go away for a while. Transforming me for a while, from Maya the mother into Maya the woman. Killing my responsibilities for the duration of five thousand sweaty heartbeats.
I’m leaning over the railing, watching Mackenzie’s boat circle the pond, when I begin to plan.
It’s barely 2. I work at 5, and the drive to my parents’ and the drive to the diner are both just five minutes. We could stay here for another full hour, and I’d still have plenty of time to get Mac to my mother’s by 4, probably 3:30.
I’d have over an hour to myself, probably more.
And that’s if I spend another hour with Mackenzie. Another whole hour. I’ve been with her all day, and we’ve done all sorts of things that good mothers and daughters do together. I don’t have to spend every minute I have with her, right? I deserve a reprieve, don’t I?
But the good angel on my shoulder tells me I’m being horrible. I’ve finally managed a day with my daughter, and here I am plotting ways to get laid. Selfishly. While lying to everyone because I know I’d tell Mom I work at 4, not 5. And I’d tell Mackenzie the same thing.
My little girl out the door. And me through another. Or, shit, into a nook in an alleyway. The filthier, hurried, urgent scenarios are more appealing than the soft and quiet ones. I don’t want to be a good girl. That’s who I’ve been all day. I’m a responsible, take-charge kind of person who honors her obligations unlike some people. I’ve been a good girl for ten years. For almost a decade now, I’ve put someone else’s needs before mine.
I deserve this. I deserve to take what I have coming.
To take it up against a wall.
In a back room somewhere.
To wear a skirt with nothing beneath, to get lifted up, my legs parted with a strong torso between them.
I’ve been a good girl for too long. I want the freedom to be bad for a while. And with as hard as I work to keep food on the table, it’s only fair.
I’m still leaning over the railing, picturing scenarios vivid enough to feel hot breath on my neck, when Mackenzie comes rushing over, remote in hand.
“You want to try it, Mom?”
For a moment I don’t know where I am. I was lost in fantasy. Now I’m in a big park, with this little girl smiling below me, holding a metal-and-plastic contraption with an antenna on its top.
And just like that, I feel like a failure. A traitor. A selfish bitch. A horrible, horrible person. The kind of mother whose kids should be taken away because proper mothers would never consider what I’d been plotting out in my head.
“No thanks, Honey,” I manage to say.
“Come on! It’s really fun. I can steer it through that hoop. See it there, Mom!”
“Which one is yours again?”
“Number fifteen.”
I see the boat. It looks like responsibility. Like me going to work on time, at 5, and only dropping Mackenzie off just before I go.
“Show me,” I say.
On the cordoned-off section of the pond, I watch Mackenzie’s boat steer toward the upright hoop in a tight circle, fire toward it, and miss.
“Dang. Hang on, Mom. I can do it. Mom, are you watching?”
“Yes. You have my undivided attention.”
I watch her focus on the boat. I watch her thumbs operate the controls. I watch her tongue sneak out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates. Then she turns toward me, all wide blue eyes — a kid rather than the serious little woman she is too often.
“Did you see that, Mommy?”
She means the boat. I didn’t see what the boat did, but I saw the operator just fine.
“I saw it,” I say with a bittersweet smile.
She shoves the remote into my hands.
“You try it. And after this, can we play on the playground? And do we have time, after we get home, to frost the cupcakes from this morning?”
I look at my phone. There are no new messages, but I see that it’s now 2:15.
Of course we can do those things. We have until 5. SuperMom is on the case, and happy enough with what she has.