I put the car in Park and take the keys out of the ignition. She stands up and looks at me as I step out of the car. “Who are you?” she asks.
Wow, an A plus for manners, I think. “I’m Annie’s mother,” I reply crisply. “You must be, what is it, Raincloud?”
“Sunshine,” she corrects.
“Ah, of course,” I say. “Is Rob in?”
She tosses her ponytail over her right shoulder and then her left. “Yeah,” she says finally. “He’s, like, inside.”
Well, she talks like a twelve-year-old. No wonder she feels as if she has to compete with my daughter; they’re obviously at the same maturity level. I sigh and head for the door.
“Aren’t you even going to say thank you?” she calls after me.
I turn and smile at her. “No. No, I’m not.”
I ring the doorbell, and Rob comes to the door a moment later, wearing only a pair of swim trunks. What is this, naked day? Do they not realize the temperatures are dipping into the low forties tonight? To his credit, he looks somewhat flustered when he realizes it’s me.
“Oh, hey, Hope,” he says. He takes a few steps back and grabs a T-shirt from the basket of laundry that sits beside the laundry room off the front hall. He pulls it on quickly. “I wasn’t expecting you. How’s, uh, your grandmother?”
His concern, feigned or otherwise, surprises me momentarily. “She’s fine,” I say quickly. Then I shake my head. “No, she’s not. I don’t know why I just said that. She’s still in a coma.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rob says.
“Thanks,” I say.
We stand there for a moment, staring at each other, before Rob remembers his manners. “Sorry, you want to come in?”
I nod and he steps aside to let me pass. Walking into my old house feels like entering a Twilight Zone version of my former life. Everything’s the same, but different. Same view of the bay out the back picture windows, but different curtains hanging from the windows. Same curving staircase up to the second floor, but another woman’s purse sitting on the landing. I shake my head and follow him into the kitchen.
“Want some iced tea or a soda or something?” he offers.
“No, thanks.” I shake my head. “I’m not staying. I need to go see Mamie. I just need to talk to you about something first.”
Rob sighs and scratches his head. “Look, is this about the makeup again? I think you’re overreacting, but I’ve been trying to be strict about it, okay? She came home the other day with lipstick on, and I made her wipe it off and give me the tube.”
“I appreciate that,” I say. “But that’s not what this is about.”
“Then what?” he asks, spreading his arms wide. We stand there for a moment and stare at each other, neither of us making a move to sit down or relax.
“Sunshine,” I say flatly.
He blinks a few times, and I know, just from that simple reaction, that he realizes what I’m about to say, and he knows I’m right. It’s funny how spending a dozen years with a person lets you learn all their tells.
He laughs uneasily. “Hope, c’mon, it’s over between me and you,” he says. “You can’t be jealous that I’ve moved on.”
I just stare at him. “Rob, seriously? That’s what you think I’m here about?”
He smirks at me for a moment, but when I don’t drop my gaze, the smarmy expression falls from his face and he shrugs. “I don’t know. What are you here about?”
“Look,” I say, “I don’t care who you date. But when it impacts Annie negatively, that’s when I get involved. And you’re dating a woman who apparently feels like she has to compete with Annie for your affections.”
“They’re not competing for my affections,” Rob says, but from the tiny upturn of his mouth at the corners, I wonder for a moment whether, in fact, he’s completely aware of what’s going on and is getting some sort of sick egotistical rush out of it. I wish for the zillionth time that I’d realized in my early twenties that having a baby with a selfish man meant that my child would always have to deal with that selfishness too. I’d been too naive to realize then that you can’t change a man. And my daughter is paying for that mistake.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to summon some patience. “Annie told me about the silver necklace,” I say, “which she found sitting out on the counter in her bathroom, where Sunshine obviously left it—along with your note—to rub it in Annie’s face that you’re choosing her.”