“She’s finishing high school, Dal.”
“She’s eighteen, not eight. Stop treating her like a princess,” he’d snap.
Every jab arrived suddenly, and I kept quiet, setting the sharp thing aside without looking at it too closely.
Every jab arrived suddenly, and I kept quiet.
I remembered a Sunday dinner months back. Piper had slid an open bank statement across the table toward me, voice careful. “Mom, about the account Grandpa left me, I wanted to ask—”
“Not at the table, kiddo. Your mother’s exhausted,” Dalton had laughed, scooping the document up along with the dirty plates. He turned to me. “Speaking of exhausted, how’s that boss of yours? Still riding you about the quarterly close?”
I’d thanked him that night for saving me from one more conversation I didn’t have the energy for.
Franny glanced at me at a red light. “You’re doing the thing again. The staring.”
“Sorry.”
“Delia. Is Dalton good to her?”
“He pays the mortgage.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“My husband isn’t cruel,” I said, and hated how badly I needed the sentence to be true. “He’s just tired. Piper’s quiet. They rub each other the wrong way.”
I hated how badly I needed the sentence to be true.
“Okay,” Franny said, not pushing further. She never did. “If that ever changes, you know how to reach me.”
“My dad left something for my daughter, you know. For college. Dalton manages it too. And it’s fine.”
“I’m sure it is,” Franny said, in exactly the same tone I’d used about Dalton being a good provider.
Two women pretending together.
Part Two: The Empty Room
The house was too quiet when I stepped inside. I set my bag down in the hallway. “Piper? Dal? I’m home.”
Nothing answered but the hum of the refrigerator.
I walked toward Piper’s room, my feet slowing on their own before I got there. Her door stood open. That door was never open when she wasn’t in it. Inside, the closet gaped empty, a row of bare wire hangers knocking softly together in the draft from the vent, ticking like a clock I hadn’t noticed starting.
Ticking like a clock I hadn’t noticed starting.
From the kitchen, I heard movement. “Where is she?” I called.
Dalton sat at the counter, calmly buttering a slice of bread, not looking up. “She left.”
“She left?”
“I told her to.”
My suitcase slid from my fingers and hit the tile with a crack too loud for the quiet house. I braced a hand on the counter because my knees felt weak. “You did WHAT?”
“She’s eighteen, Delia. She’s an adult. I got tired of her sitting around, eating our food, living off my paycheck.”
I screamed until my throat burned. Grabbed the plate right out from under his knife and threw it against the wall behind him. Ceramic sprayed across the floor. He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t flinch.
“Where did she GO?”
“How would I know? She’s grown.”
“She’s my DAUGHTER.”
“And this,” he said, finally lifting his eyes to mine, “is my house. Try to remember that before you break anything else.”
I didn’t sleep that night. Sat on the edge of Piper’s bed calling and calling, listening to the same recorded voice tell me her mailbox was full. I thought about leaving him. I really did. Then I thought about the mortgage in his name, the checking account he’d opened “for both of us” that only he could actually access, my small paycheck that barely covered groceries and wouldn’t cover a security deposit on a studio anywhere in this town.
