When I wake up the next morning, I get the surprise of my life: Elliot is cooking breakfast.
He’s scrambling some eggs in a frying pan. I didn’t know he was capable of such a thing. The other surprise is that Bobby is fully dressed and sitting at the kitchen table, eating the eggs. I feel like I’ve walked into an alternate dimension.
“Hi, honey.” Elliot lifts his spatula and waves at me. “I figured you might need to sleep in, so I got Bobby up and made breakfast.”
I get what he’s doing. He’s on his best behavior because he’s trying to get me to forgive him for what he did. Yeah, right.
“Well, thank you,” I say stiffly. I look over at the pan, where the eggs have turned slightly brown. But that’s okay. I think I might faint from shock if he cooked them perfectly.
“Also,” he adds, “I’m going to work from home today, so I’ll be around to watch Bobby when you go to your book club tonight.”
My book club. I forgot it was tonight, although I do have the date posted on the refrigerator. I even read the book for a change. But I can’t possibly go, given the circumstances.
Although…
I got an email yesterday about a meeting between the administration and the PTA leaders. The meeting is supposed to be tonight. That means Julie won’t be at the book club. Which means I’ll be there without her and have a chance to tell people my side of the story.
“Okay,” I say stiffly. “I appreciate that.”
He looks like he’s going to lean in to try to kiss me, but then he thinks better of it. Smart boy.
I do the drive-through drop off again with Bobby. I can’t even contemplate getting out of my car and standing by the entrance when Julie and Maria will be there. I can’t face either of them. So instead, I pull up beside the school, and say to Bobby, “Okay, time to get out.”
“How come you don’t walk me to the door anymore?” he asks.
The teacher facilitating the drop off is giving me a dirty look. “I think you’re old enough to do the drop off now.”
Bobby considers this for a moment. “How come Dad slept in the living room last night?”
Somebody leans into their horn behind me. For God’s sake… “Bobby, we’ll talk about this later, okay?”
Thank God he accepts that and gets out of the damn car. I speed away before the person behind me can honk again.
As I drive back home, I tick off all the reasons to try to keep my family together right now. But the reason I keep coming back to is Bobby. When I was growing up, it was just me and my mother. I want something better for Bobby. A mother and father in the same house. If I throw Elliot out, I’m taking that away from him.
I’ve got to find a way to make this work.
Tonight after book club, I’m going to sit down with Elliot and we’re going to figure out what to do next. We’ve got a really big problem, but there’s got to be a way out. We just have to figure it out.
But as I pull into our driveway, I get the surprise of my life. It’s Brianna.
On my street.
And she just came out of Maria’s house.
