to make it without the man who’s taken care of her for so long, that being single at fifty-four will make for a tough and lonely life. But courage itches in Lena’s right ear, and she will not scratch it away.
Randall paces, diverts to the kitchen, splashes more wine into his glass. He sips, looking at Lena over the top of the clear rim. “I don’t want some thirty-year-old therapist telling me how terribleI am.”
The clock on the mantle intrudes on his words. Tick. Tick. Tick. No time. No time. Sixty ticks mark the minute, change their lives.
She wonders why he doesn’t think the therapist would tell him how terrible they are. “Would it make a difference if he were older?”
“No.” No tears, ’cause this man don’t cry. But Randall’s eyebrows fall down, and wrinkles gather on his brow and his mouth and the corners of his wide eyes. His answer resonates above the crackle of the fire, above the rain’s patter, above the knock of Lena’s heart. Lena wonders why so much now. It could have been put to better use when Camille screamed at her, when that damned cat stunk up the house, when Kendrick snipped at her for not being the same ole mom, when Lynne spoke like Lena was nothing in her own house, when Sharon flirted with him right in front of his wife.
Lena stands and tugs at the space where her ring used to be. She steps toward Randall, but his eyes are dull and flat and have shut her out. The last words of love that she wants to speak do not fall from her mouth. If she knew then—that he would never come home again—she would have stolen a last hug. One long kiss goodbye, so that her imagination would not have to fill the places he no longer is. So that her Thursday chores would have left old sheets on her bed, or towels in the bathroom, his shirts in the hamper so that his smell would stay with her, and she could breathe deep his cinnamon scent for just one more night.
The mistake she makes that night is leaving him in control, but old habits are hard to break: the prompt hers, the decision his. By the time she gets home, Randall will have called Kendrick and Camille. Daughter and son will call her traitor; cite her tough love, her insistence on rules, and recent inattention as reasons to side with their father. They will comfort themselves in their father’s temporary attention, so that when she gets home, forty-two miles in forty-two minutes, and gazes upon her children’s faces, they will no longer be hers. Kendrick will be a turtle hidden in the shell of his twenty-year-old body; Camille, like her cat, claws extended and ready to fight.
And from this day on nothing will be the same. She will clean for one, not four. And eat for one, not four, and cry for one, not four.
The freeway signs say exit.
And her heart is broken, too.
Chapter 12
Still woozy with the morning-after haze of sleeping pills, Lena busies herself in the kitchen: chop, mix, sauté. Despite the intentional clatter of pots and pans, Kendrick and Camille have not gotten the hint, not smelled the vanilla, melted butter, and thick chunks of milk- and cinnamon-soaked bread simmering on the griddle. Hope rises with the clomp of Kendrick’s heavy shoes on the stairs; perhaps the smells have lured them after all. Kendrick bolts into the kitchen, his backpack sagging between his shoulder blades. Camille, dressed in flannel pajamas, thick leg-warmers, and a hooded sweater, strolls behind her big brother.
“I want to talk to you both about me and your dad.” Lena sets a medium-sized platter with four slices of French toast on the table, then sprinkles them with confectioner’s sugar. These thick, fluffy pieces of cooked bread are Camille and Kendrick’s first choice for breakfast food. The memory of six-year-old Kendrick gobbling the spiced bread by the mouthful, syrup on his cheeks and greedy hands, and a much younger Camille dipping her pieces into the tangy berry compote Lena concocted flashes in her head. Lena nods toward the table and prays Kendrick and Camille understand: food as love.
“I can’t be late. I’ll grab a breakfast burrito from 7-Eleven.” Kendrick leans against the back door, the eagerness to get to his part-time job obvious in his shuffling from one foot to the other. He refuses to look at Lena. Camille edges, sinewy like Kimchee, toward