Cutting Teeth(40)

Lola’s look unexpectedly darkens. She tucks her chin into her chest and glares out from behind her curtain of hair, mood changing as if by an unseasonable gale. “Daddy, go away,” she says.

“That’s not very nice, Lola,” Darby chides. “We don’t tell people to go away.” Not that Lola’s harsh words are altogether a surprise, since Lola does this, shifts her alliances, her temperament, her favorite ice-cream flavor, with no warning. But it can still sting. “You’re late,” Darby says.

Griff takes off his backpack and shoves it onto the kitchen counter. “I know, I know, and I’m only home for a minute, sorry. I have to get back to the salt mines.” As though he’s a 1940s movie star. “I came to say hi and bye.”

She pulls a face. “Why come home at all?” They follow Griff back into the master bedroom, a parade of Mortons.

“Why the third degree?” His belt buckle clinks as he slips out of his pants. “I wanted to change into more comfortable clothes and I wanted to see you all.” She gives him a look. Sometimes she feels like his mother, too. Or maybe not just sometimes. “Nobody’s going to be in the office this late at night.”

Griff crosses the room to the dresser and Lola hisses when he gets too close while Jack claps—people, like art, really are subjective.

“What’s gotten into her?” Griff wrestles his arms and head through a T-shirt. “Has she been fed?”

“We ate dinner before you got home. It’s in the fridge.” Darby’s a terrible cook; Griff’s much better.

He glowers without any real heat behind it. He looks like Lola. “That’s not what I mean.”

Lola’s eyes flit between her parents.

“No,” Darby says coolly.

“No?”

“No. I’m not a vending machine. And it’s not like it’s life or death—Why are you doing hair pomade if no one’s going to be at the office?—she’ll be fine.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t want things to run smoothly.”

“I do,” Darby protests. “I just have different ideas about how to get there.”

The bulb of understanding lights up in Lola’s eyes. “I’m thirsty, Mommy. Please. Please, I’m thirsty now.”

“Fantastic.” Darby smacks her thigh. “If you just hadn’t mentioned it, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Griff even smells good. He checks his watch. “We can’t just starve her.”

“Starve her? I thought we agreed we were going to be more strict with her, stick to the rules?” Though she’s not sure they’ve been able to reach any agreement at all when it comes to Lola. Still. They’re at least supposed to pretend to be on the same page. She would have liked to hear Rhea’s answer to her question. What would Rhea do if Marcus went behind her back about Bodhi?

“I—” His eyes flick up as if she’s taking a long time to understand a simple concept. “You know how it is. Sometimes there’s no good answer. We’re quick to give her an iPad on the airplane. I’ve seen you give her a cookie before dinner just to keep the peace. We’ve gone months with you letting her sleep in our room even when it was driving me insane.”

“I see someone’s been burning up the dad text chain again.”

“They have wives, Darby. It’s not like they’re unilaterally making all the decisions in their households. I’m just saying—”

“I’m thirsty!” Lola has the floor and she knows it. Jack does, too, which is why he climbs up from his knees, using Darby’s waist to sway unsteadily on his porky little feet. “Please!” Lola shrieks—not a five-alarm bell, but certainly the smoke alarm is starting to beep. “I said please!”

Everything was not terrible just a few minutes ago, right? That was this house? She’s not mistaken?

“You brought it up, you deal with it,” she says, disappearing only to return moments later to her unruly brood.

She shoves the cardboard box of supplies recommended by Megan the nurse into his arms. She’s used them twice, but both times gave her a serious case of the creeps.

“I don’t know how to use these.”

She rolls her eyes and digs through the box until she has her assortment of instruments laid out.

He waits in his short-sleeved T-shirt, his forearm facing upward. “Hold still.” She should put her reading glasses on for this, but her reading glasses have been abandoned upstairs and does anyone understand how unappealing it is to have to retrieve things from all the way upstairs? She cleans the surface and unsheathes the needle. Then—

“That was violent.” Griff’s upper lip curls on one side.

“I have no medical training,” she says. “And yet somehow everyone thinks this is still a great idea. The best.” Fucking Rhea and her attachment parenting. Wielding words with positive connotations: empathy and compassion and secure connection. Darby feels as if she is giving so much of herself, her body, her mind, and yet the frightening thing is, everyone else seems to be giving more. It scares her. Literally horrifies her. She wants to scream.

She pokes him again and the most she notices is a clench of his abdominals; like, where is this sudden stoicism when he comes down with a cold, hm?