The thought has been prickling the back of her mind since lunch. It seems like she and Griff agree less and less about the best way to parent their daughter with each passing day, but he wouldn’t go behind her back. Would he?
He thumbs through his phone, a terrible habit they share equally. “No. Why?”
“Never mind.” She shakes her head. “That’s what I thought.”
And that, she reminds herself, is one of the many perks to being married to Griff: She never has to worry.
FOUR
“I’m hungry.” Bodhi is already wearing his coat, the hood pulled up over his curly black hair.
By evening, Rhea’s managed to climb back into her skin. She’s applied honey and garlic to the bruised area across Bodhi’s collarbone and told him not to try licking it off unless he wants to have nasty monster breath. He pulled one of his scary faces and made her laugh from deep down in her belly, despite herself. That’s the magic of Bodhi, her alchemist. Takes a bad situation and, just like that, turns it around in ways big and small, the same way he did with her whole life.
“Your father will be here any minute.” She dumps the crumbled ash from her incense plate into the sink and checks the clock. Marcus is ten minutes late.
She keeps busy, running a cloth over a few plates and adding them to the drying rack. As soon as he walks in, she’ll tell him about the conversation with Miss Ollie and it’ll be no big deal, just wait, she’ll see. Marcus trusts her instincts as a mother. He’s always let her take the lead, never stepped on her toes, not once. As a father, he’s both present and enthusiastic, but not overly confident.
Rhea’s own father was a wet blanket of a man, not mean or cruel or temperamental, but he chewed up dreams in the same plodding manner that he chewed his breakfast cereal. He liked to dispense life advice like Lower your expectations and you won’t be disappointed, and You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl, which was the closest she ever heard him come to making a joke. Her mother was kind but busy. She worked as a call center agent, long hours, lining somebody else’s pocket, leaving Rhea to fend for herself, surviving off Chef Boyardee and Ritz crackers. So, yeah, everything Rhea knows, she learned from her parents.
“Can I have a snack, please?”
Rhea smiles at her son’s impeccable manners, another sign she’s doing a good job. Take that, Miss Ollie.
Rhea still breastfeeds Bodhi before bed, but only when he asks. His diet is whole-food-centric, no gluten, GMO-free, and she avoids as many over-the-counter drugs as she possibly can. Does this make her life harder on occasion? Yes. But how could she forgive herself if she didn’t offer her child the best, the healthiest, the free-est? The last thing she needs is anyone looking at Bodhi sideways, feeling sorry that he got stuck with a single mother. And so she can’t just be good; she has to be superior.
“He’ll be here any minute,” she repeats. But the minutes are ticking slowly, slowly by, as they always do in the span before Marcus’s arrival.
The doorbell to her duplex rings. “What’d I tell you?” She cuts through the living room, which has been transformed into a fulfillment center—boxes, packaging labels, tissue paper—piled high with her jars of oils and special blends. Tea tree oil helps with acne and athlete’s foot. Peppermint supports digestion and relieves headaches. Lemon oil kills bacteria and reduces anxiety. Orange for pain. Rosemary for joint inflammation. Bergamot to lower blood pressure. Rhea feels like a witch, mixing and matching, finding just the right recipes to create unique potions for her customers’ particular ailments.
“Sorry I’m late.” Marcus rubs the soles of his shoes on the doormat. Rhea’s tall, but Marcus is taller. Deep brown skin and broad shoulders and a groomed beard. Rhea’s got good taste in men, always has, but it’s a gift that’s mostly wasted on her.
“You’re not that late.”
He gets that stupid dimple in his left cheek like he knows she’s giving him a free pass. He must not have a girlfriend at the moment. She can always tell.
“How’s the walking wounded?” Marcus teases. Kneeling down in front of his son, he gently peels back the bandage Rhea freshly placed. “Oh, it’s not that bad.” He grins up at her. “I think he’ll live.”
Rhea doesn’t see what’s so funny. “He was bleeding.” Is Marcus blind? Why is everyone minimizing this? Her son—their son—was attacked. Viciously attacked. At school. He cried out for her.
“Kids bite.” Marcus palms their son’s sweet head. “It happens. Can’t roll him up in bubble wrap.” As if that’s what she’s implying.
“You weren’t there,” she says.
“You were?” He frowns, surprised. “Why?”
“I—” It’s not actually that hard to lie once you’ve had a bit of practice, and Rhea has had some. “I was just dropping off some supplies.”
It hangs there between them. Fix it, she thinks. Explain. Tell him what Miss Ollie told her and let him offer his two cents. He pays his child support, on time—usually a few days early, if she’s being honest—every month, without fail; this is the deal. The moment balloons.
“Where y’all headed?” Her breath spills out. She kneels to tie Bodhi’s shoe and looks down at the floor, brushes the whole thing off.
“Fresa’s.”
She gives Marcus a look. “No flour tortillas, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” He cranes his neck to peer into her living room, all nosy. “Looks like you’re running Grand Central Station. How many orders are you sending out these days?”
Her cheeks plump as she tries not to look too pleased with herself. “About two hundred a day.” It’s been five whole months since she put in her notice at the property management company where she was working as an executive assistant to the owner, her latest in a long stream of meaningless jobs.
“I hear you’re looking for investors, Rhea,” he says, putting his hand on Bodhi’s shoulder.
“I don’t need your money.” She folds an olive-colored dish towel and hangs it on the oven handle out of habit. She keeps her duplex cozy but neat. A macramé fruit hammock hangs from a nail in the low popcorn ceiling. She likes the feeling of the clean wood-grain tile beneath her bare feet and the butcher-block countertop under her palms when she prepares fresh food.
“Maybe I want to give it.”
“I’m not looking for gifts. I’ve got a prospectus and everything.”
“A prospectus?”
She sighs, half wondering what happened to that law student he was dating. Laurie, was it? “Yeah. Investor literature. I went and got a business accountant.”
Marcus whistles low. “Okay, I see how it is.” He winks. “We got a girlboss here.” For the record, Rhea hates that term. “Well, come on, Bode-Man. We better get out of here. Oh, hey, you catch that email from the school?” He turns halfway out the door. “What’s that about?”
“What email?” she asks.
“You gotta check your emails, Rhea.” Jesus, she knows, she knows. Marcus treats every email from the school like it’s mission critical. “The one sent about half an hour ago.” He starts to pull out his phone to show her.