Grady came in first. Darcy was right behind him.
“Lainey’s home with a sitter,” Darcy said, as if that settled something.
She had my ladybug key hooked on one finger. She was spinning it in little circles. She’d taken it off Grady’s ring and kept it for herself.
Every time it went around, it flashed red.
“Before you start,” Darcy said, “Mom’s condo has black mold. It’s bad. Really bad. They’re doing remediation. Three months. Maybe four.”
“The condo in Yuba City,” I said.
“Where else would it be?”
I didn’t answer her. I looked at my son.
“You told me everything was quiet.”
“Mom, it’s one room.” Grady spread his hands out, palms up. It was exactly the way his father used to do it when he’d lost an argument and didn’t want to say so. “It’s the living room.”
Then he said the second sentence I would carry around for a month.
“You’re never home anyway.”
I let it sit in the air.
Nobody moved. Norine sipped her tea out of my mother’s cup. The metronome kept ticking on top of the piano, because nobody had thought to stop it.
“Eleven grand on a cruise,” Darcy said. “And my mother’s supposed to sleep on our couch? We have a six-year-old, Hillary. We have two bedrooms.”
“How long?” I asked.
“As long as it takes.”
Grady wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was looking at the piano, or at the wall behind it, or at nothing.
Darcy met my eyes just fine.
She had the calm of somebody who believed she’d already won. And she wanted me to see it.
I could have shouted.
I’ve watched a lot of people shout in my career. In hallways. In parking lots. In courtrooms, until the judge told them to sit down.
I have never once seen shouting move a piano.
“We’ll talk Friday,” I said. “All of us.”
Darcy smiled. She spun the key one more time. Red. Red. Red.
“Sure, Hillary. Friday.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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