Cutting Teeth(72)
The graze of his fingers is so light on her calf it could almost be an accident. But Mary Beth’s whole body wakes up—zip, hello—finding that she’s been transported into a scene from her dreams, one in which she indulged a small fantasy that had involved This. Exact. Scenario. She sighs a long, deep sigh. That was a good dream. She’ll miss it. Because in reality, it turns out, Pastor Ben is kind of a creep.
THIRTY-ONE
Darby absolutely, positively does not feel like herself. She wants to call out sick from work, but, of course, you can’t really call out sick when you work from home. It’s like an unwritten rule.
It’s her husband, Griff. He’s given her an illness. An awful, soggy malaise. This morning, she relied heavily on inertia—an object in motion stays in motion—to combat the problem, buzzing around the kitchen, packing lunches and getting kids dressed and applying sunscreen like the house was on fire and she needed to get the family out, out, out the door. Sorry, no time to chat, she tried to telegraph to him.
“Everything okay?” Griff asked as he poured his first cup of coffee. “Need a hand?”
Under different circumstances, she might have replied something like “Ha!” Because that did sound like her when she got into a mood with him.
“Someone’s stompy this morning.” The crack of the refrigerator door sounded somewhere behind her.
“Busy morning,” she told him. “You know. Like always.” Her muscles were sore from the workout with Cannon, which should have been satisfying, but instead kept annoying her each time she bent down for a sippy cup or reached into a cabinet overhead.
It was a relief when Griff finally left for work and she no longer had to go to the trouble of avoiding him. She never avoids her husband, not even when it comes to sex, which she knows is a thing wives do, at least according to TV, but not Darby.
It’s just, no matter how she slices it, Griff lied to her. And he’s acting as though the special rules for surprise parties apply when they definitely don’t, do they? She could maybe understand that he wanted privacy around going to therapy. She could reluctantly concede that. And maybe the therapist suggested the improv and then … and then she gets turned around in her own logic the way she has so many times over the last twenty-four hours. Because if Griff could lie to her once, what’s stopping him from doing it again?
By the end of the day, she still hasn’t managed to kick the Griff-induced sickness.
“I missed you,” he says when he returns home. He’s got this new way about him. Self-confidence or something. She’s not sure whether she likes it.
She lets him kiss her on the cheek. “I need to take a quick shower,” she says. “I feel gross. Can you watch the kids?”
Both children have plastered themselves to a Netflix show about rainbow unicorn puppies. They look so happy, their little necks arched out, exposing their throats, colors bouncing off their faces. She doesn’t have the heart to turn it off and insist they do something that won’t turn their brains to mush. Like crafts. They should do more crafts.
She doesn’t really have any intention of taking a quick shower; she lied. See, two can tango.
She locks the door and turns the water to extra hot so the steam billows and the glass clouds and her lungs loosen.
Lola hadn’t asked to be fed today, hadn’t requested a single bite or sip of blood. Darby thinks this is a good sign. Some of the other children are greedier than ever. Bex is up to something like 500 milliliters a day. George’s mom looked horrified by that tidbit and Darby is inclined to agree, it’s a little too much information. But today, nothing. A sign, maybe, that this whole parasitical, leechlike behavior is drawing to a close. Just a phase! Just like old Dr. Meckler had said.
From inside the shower, she hears the doorbell ring—Who could that be? She freezes, soapy fingertips dug hard into her scalp. Unable to hear anything else, she returns to scrubbing. Just an Amazon delivery. Let Griff get it.
“Darby!” There’s a rattle on the locked door. “Darby!” Another rattle, then silence.
She switches off the shower and pulls the not-fresh towel from where it hangs over the top of the glass. Scrunching her sopping-wet hair in the towel, she hears voices in the living room.
Darby finishes drying off and grabs the first items of clothing she finds cast slipshod on the bathroom counter—a loose pair of gym shorts and one of Griff’s big college tees.
“Griff?” she calls as she pads into the family area to investigate. She’s always being called to referee things between the kids. “Griff—oh.” She hesitates, trying to process the scene as she comes across it in her living room. “I’m sorry.” She steps back, sinking toward the door to her master bedroom. “I’ll just be—”
“Stay. Please, Mrs. Morton.”
Darby’s eyes flick to the two bulky pairs of tactical zip boots digging dirt into her rug.
“Is everything okay?” She directs the question not to the two police officers—one male, one female—but to Griff, whose hand rests firmly on Lola’s shoulder. The TV is off, happy little faces no more. Lola loops a strand of hair between her teeth and chews while Jack scoots toy cars around the foyer on his knees.
The first officer—Princep, according to the name tag—isn’t more handsome than her Griff, but he’s up there. “We just had a few follow-up questions for your daughter related to the incident at school.”