FROM: Courtney Dunn
DATE: March 26
SUBJECT: check
TO: Nina Morgan Clarke
Dear Nina,
Don’t mean to bother you so close to your leaving, you must have a million things to tie up, but I too am running around like crazy before we head to Belize for spring break. Ben will be with his mother, so Daisy and I are headed off for a girls’ trip.
I spoke to my accountant yesterday, and he told me the check I wrote for Royal-Hawkins still hasn’t been cashed. It needs to be cashed ASAP, unless, of course, you’re holding out for more. Name the amount.
Jai,
Courtney
First of all, I’m not leaving, Courtney. I’m going on maternity leave, not fleeing the country. Second, did she just offer me a blank check? Winn must have called her after our run-in last night so now she’s on my back to get a check cashed to ensure spots for the twins.
Since ticking things off my to-do list is my immediate priority, avoiding Courtney is no longer an option.
FROM: Nina Morgan Clarke
DATE: March 26
SUBJECT: check
TO: Courtney Dunn
Courtney,
Your offer is overwhelming, but I would like to hear from you, specifically, how you imagine your contribution will be best used. Since time is of the essence, how about we sit down after the board meeting next week and we can discuss?
Yours in Community,
Nina Morgan Clarke
Head of School
Royal-Hawkins School
I don’t like to end my workdays on a down note, so I text Marisol for a quick check-in while tidying up my desk. Fitzroy invited Marisol over for dinner, and she jumped on the invitation, that’s one less lacrosse game she has to watch. He sold the dinner as his “last hurrah” with his two grown daughters before Xandra’s home for spring break, the baby’s born, and all talk and attention turn to feeding schedules, diaper changes, and sleep deprivation.
Nina 5:48 PM
Pack snacks in your purse. Other than Christmas Fitzroy’s skills in the kitchen have not improved.
Marisol 5:49 PM
I just had a burger. It’s my standard backup plan when Fitzroy’s cooking. See you in 20.
Sometimes I forget Marisol’s known my father almost as long as I have.
I arrive home well before dinner with Dad and Marisol and settle on my bed to book Xandra’s plane ticket for spring break. I really want some fizzy water from the fridge, but I’m not ready to witness the mess I’ll be cleaning up after Fitzroy’s attempt at Celia’s pot roast. He should have laid that recipe to rest along with my mother. Instead, our delicious Sunday night childhood memory of meat falling off the bone will be charred, literally. On my nightstand is a lukewarm half glass of water from last night. It’ll have to do. I chug it and return to my laptop.
Ring.
It’s Roan. In his hierarchy of communication, first comes text, next comes another text with exclamation points, then an email, and then a call as a last resort. Roan’s phone phobia is real.
“Well, this is a surprise.”
“Hello to you, too, lady. Check your email.”
Click.
The subject reads, Yeah, no.
Roan has begged, cajoled, and I don’t really want to know what else to get the twins’ current school to release their full transcripts and state-mandated test scores. Now Roan has released them to me. I read through every page once, twice, a third time not to miss one word, number, or grade. I toggle over to their online applications to reread the essays Winn surely wrote for them. I don’t know if I was expecting to see something vastly different from the school than what Carmel had prepped me for, or I was hoping Winn’s essays had miraculously changed for the better, but the expected truth of Dontrelle’s and Marcus’s qualifications for Royal-Hawkins still crushes me. I blow out a large breath, which for me only goes about boob deep, stopped short by the baby’s feet tap dancing on my rib cage. I pick up my phone to text Roan.
Nina 6:12 PM
Yeah, no.
Roan 6:12 PM
I know.
At the dinner table, Marisol’s done an excellent job pushing her mushy carrots and undercooked potatoes around her plate to look like she’s enjoyed much of Fitzroy’s meal while fueled by her burger appetizer. I’m still starving and wishing it were Christmas morning, the only meal Dad can handle.
“I have something I’d like to share with you girls,” Fitzroy starts in, palms firmly planted on the table. Marisol kicks me. We haven’t been girls in a quarter century.
“You going to shake things up a bit and go on a singles cruise? Papi, you’ve been taking good care of yourself. You shouldn’t keep all that on lockdown,” Marisol launches in, circling her finger at my dad.
Please, my dad on a singles cruise? I can hear my mother laughing in heaven.
“Sit on those lips, Chaco Taco, you talk too much.” I giggle like the girl Dad claims I am. “I invited you here tonight because I want you, too, to hear what I’m about to tell Nina. She may need your support.” Marisol’s face drops, and we look right to each other with the same thought, cancer.
“You two know it was tough on me when Celia died.” My father takes a linen handkerchief that used to be my mother’s out of his pocket and dabs at the corners of his eyes. Mine well up, too, seeing her initials embroidered in blue. “But the past year I’ve really been enjoying my time in Pasadena, set up a nice routine for myself here.”
“It shows, Fitzroy. Happiness is the best treatment money can’t buy,” Marisol chimes in on a subject she knows best, looking your best. It only took her thirty seconds to break my father’s gag order.
“Says the person hawking expensive treatments and potions to women all over Los Angeles,” Dad jokes back, placing one hand on top of Marisol’s and squeezing.
“Though I want to, I’m going to avoid responding to that comment for the bigger picture here. What gives, Fitzroy? What’s got you all high on life?”
Dad straightens up in his seat. One of his favorite childhood stories was when he crushed the competition in the eight-hundred-meter race at the all-island high school track championships. Maybe Dad’s been doing more than walking on a treadmill and waxing philosophical with his friends at the Y. Maybe he’s been training with a master’s track team and has his first competition coming up. Oh, I hope it’s over Xandra’s spring break, it would be so fun if we could all go together. I’m definitely getting shirts made. FITZROY’S FEET FLEET.
“I’m moving to Pasadena. My things will be arriving here in a few weeks,” Dad announces.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! In my mind I just committed to an afternoon at the track cheering on my father, not seventy years of life arriving at my front doorstep the same time as a baby. I’ve meant it every time I’ve invited my father to move out here, but he’s picked a hell of a time to finally agree. I know I’m not ready to have a newborn, Xandra, AND my dad all in my house. Four people under my roof and I’m still the only one who cooks. Or cooks well.
“And I’m getting married.”
“AY, DIOS MÍO!!” Marisol shouts.
“TO WHO?!” I yelp in shock. The man eats my food, works in the garden, goes to the Y, and plays endless dominoes. I’ve never once seen him with a woman outside the family since Mom died. This makes no sense.