from the dentist, whose appointment she had skipped, literally clear forgotten and skipped, scheduled for ten o’clock this morning! She religiously went with the girls every six months, all three of them keeping their oral hygiene in order, checking that box and moving on, and now, she had played hooky.
Would she like to reschedule for another day this week, they had asked. And she had experienced the strange thrill of saying no, she couldn’t, and she actually couldn’t reschedule at this time at all!
For the first time in her entire existence, her calendar did not contain a dentist appointment on it for the foreseeable future. She felt scared. She felt rebellious.
She felt freaking wonderful.
She took the bags from the trunk and, with a daughter on either side of her, managed to get everything to the ticket booth. “Three to the island,” she said.
“Round-trip?” When she didn’t respond immediately, the man inside the booth added, “Good for a week.”
“One way then,” she said, fighting back a wave of nausea as he handed her a long-term parking sticker for the car.
But it wasn’t until they were seated on the boat, her hands now gripping the bodies of her wiggling children so they wouldn’t slip and fall as the motor started and the boat began to slide over the smooth water of Lake Huron, that what she had done finally sank in.
She had done it. Done what she had said she would do. She hadn’t just muttered under her breath or gone to bed angry or passive aggressively left Evan’s dirty mug on the counter instead of placing it in the dishwasher with the others. She had packed up her girls, driven four hundred miles, and now she was on a boat, the wind in her hair, the air so fresh and clean that she could almost smell the island, and Chicago, and her life, was so far behind her that for one glorious moment, she nearly forgot it ever existed.
That moment ended quickly, when Rose tapped her on the leg, looked at her with round, scared eyes, and then vomited all her crackers, organic juice, and carrot sticks into Hope’s lap. Onto her white capris, technically.
Rose started to cry, and Victoria, seeing what had happened, started to scream.
And for a moment, just one moment, Hope began to wonder if this had been such a good idea, after all.
“Oh, let me.” A man was beside her, handing her a wad of napkins that bore the logo of a fast food chain she would never allow her girls to eat at, not on her watch. (Evan, she knew, had snuck them there the very few times he had “babysat” so she could attend a meeting at the preschool or, once, the neighborhood book club, that only lasted one session when it was clear no one wanted to actually read the book—well, Hope had read the book, and taken notes in the margin.)
“Thank you.” Flustered, Hope took the napkins, using them first to wipe Rose’s face and then attempt damage control on herself.
Rose’s face was chalk white now, and Hope was intensely afraid that she would throw up again, but by her calculation, there was probably nothing left in her.
She pulled her daughter down into her lap. “We’re almost there,” she said, as much to herself as to the girls. They were almost there. They’d actually done it. And once there, everything would be better. It always was.
“I have some…” The man, whom Hope finally looked at properly, pulled the sticks of what appeared to be a couple lollipops from his pocket. “I always grab a few when I stop by the bank.”
He was attractive, a few years older than she was, with kind hazel eyes and a rather amused smile, all things considered. Dressed in a white polo and khakis, it was hard to determine his reasons for travelling to the island. Hardly vacation attire, and he didn’t look familiar.
His grin quirked and she felt her shoulders relax. Normally, she never gave her girls high-fructose corn syrup, let alone red dye, but normally she didn’t feel a little flutter at the kindness of what she now realized was quite a handsome man, either.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“My pleasure,” he said, holding out the two lollipops for the girls, who glanced at her for approval before greedily yanking the candy from the man’s hands. He laughed and, seeming satisfied with that interaction, said, “Have a nice time.”
“You too,” she said wistfully. She watched him go,