Five
Mary Ayers looked into the rear-view mirror. Peter was staring out the window, watching storefronts whip by at forty miles an hour as her car stood still. He hated that booster seat. But the law was the law, and it was that way for a reason. She wasn’t going to flaunt it and then get Pete hurt or killed just because she’d wanted to trust a seven-year-old’s mild discomfort over a bunch of experts’ safety tips.
She put her eyes back on the road, reached down, and picked up the to-go cup that she’d taken from the coffee place. It was still hot. And apparently, so was Roman Townsend, even after a long time. She pursed her lips.
She’d learned her lesson with him a long time ago. But he didn’t exactly make it easy to stick to her guns, did he? Every little thing he did made her feel more at ease. And every bit of relaxation that she fell into felt worse, because she was supposed to know better.
Mary set the coffee back down. “Pete.”
His face turned to face the mirror. She shouldn’t be watching him in it. But she had an eye on the road, too. So it was probably fine.
“You want to do anything today?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.” He went back to watching stuff. It made him look a little sad, but Mary thought, or at least suspected, that it kept him entertained well enough. And if he was a little bored or a little sad, then that was okay. It wasn’t a problem to be a little bored or a little sad.
People who thought it wasn’t okay, they fell into the sort of traps that Mary had fallen into. Out of high school, she was never bored, and never sad. Because the minute that she thought she might be, she found something else to keep her interested. And it had worked, in a sense.
She wasn’t bored. She was a single mother, with a vague sense that at any point she could just start asking around and get a bump within a matter of hours, and fall right down the rabbit hole. It was the same feeling that she had when she thought about Roman.
It would be so easy to fall down again. There was no advantage to doing it, but there was a temptation. And the temptation would be so easy to give into that she didn’t even have to convince herself she could.
She was a different person than she’d been in high school. But in another very real sense, that girl was still in there. Still ready to drop to her knees without a second word and get to work making somebody appreciate having her around. She just had to be careful to make sure that she didn’t let that girl out. She’d managed to make it eight years without falling into that trap.
She only fell into the other traps a few times, for that matter. All told, she had an easy detox compared to some people. And all she had to do was make sure that she didn’t fall back into that toxic pit again.
The next morning was the same as every morning. Check her messages. Nothing that was important enough to demand an immediate response. She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. It would be easy. Just stay focused a little while.
She sat down in front of her computer and stared at the blank page. There was a lot that needed to go down. She’d done it all before at this point. Something gnawed at her, though. She knew the feeling. Something was wrong. Something that she couldn’t place.
So she did what she always did when she felt it. She got to work doing something else. The list of things that needed to be done before Pete left for school was as long as her arm. If she could get five hundred words down before she had to start, then the day was off to a good start.
But she couldn’t afford to wait on a good start. There were two possibilities. Forcing herself to write, something that she had done more than a few times, especially before he started school, worked.
But it was slow going, when she had to force it out. Which meant that she wasn’t going to get her targets before Pete had to go, and that would mean having to give him money for a school lunch. Which wasn’t the end of the world, Mary admitted. But it wasn’t great.
So she turned on the television, and started working to get breakfast ready while Matt Lauer read through the news from the day before in a self-sure voice that came across well on the television. Mary tuned it out. The talking made a good white noise when she wasn’t working. But the content was never interesting enough to keep her interested, which was key to making sure that she didn’t get off-track.
She turned the stove on and put a skillet down to heat up. Then she started on lunch, pulling a loaf of bread down from on top of the fridge and pulling the plastic tag off.
Two slices out, tag back on. Butter from the fridge, drop a tablespoon or so into the pan, and then move it around with a spatula.
It was a normal day. Eggs and sausage for breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly for lunch, with a baggie of baby carrots that she wasn’t absolutely certain Pete actually ate. It made her feel better to imagine that he did, so she did it. The cookies she dropped into his lunch pail last.
There were dozens of experts out there claiming that cookies were bad, and it was better never to get your kids eating them. Car safety, Mary trusted them for. Dietary advice, on the other hand? She’d trust her gut.
She broke two eggs into the pan and broke the eggs with the rubber spatula tip. The TV droned in the background. Roman Townsend finished his tour with his traditional Detroit show. That wasn’t a surprise. There were rumors of work on an album. Rumors he denied.
Then she heard something that made her stop without finishing scrambling the eggs in the pan.
He’d been out, they said. TMZ had exclusive footage of a mystery woman and her son. They were speculating that it was a romantic thing. Mary looked up in time to watch the little bit of anonymity that she enjoyed, keeping her work life and private life separate, slip away as she sipped a mocha frappuccino on the screen.