“Hey,” Clara said harshly. “Molly? What did I say about that?”

Molly’s hand was clumsily gripping the maple syrup bottle, both of them suspended over a double stack of French toast.

“Molly?”

She lowered the bottle to the table, and Clara swooped in and grabbed it before it touched the table mat.

“Mommy pours the syrup. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, frowning. “But you never do enough.”

“Here,” Clara said, dripping a wide swath of amber goodness across Molly’s toast. It was more than she’d normally dole out, but much smaller than what Molly would have likely tried to get away with. “How’s that?” Clara asked, capping the bottle with a quiet plastic snapping sound.

Molly picked up a fork.

“Good?”

Molly smiled and began tearing a chunk of now-soggy French toast with her fork.

“You need help with that? Want me to cut it right?”

Molly shook her head.

“Careful. It’s dripping.”

The syrup dripped off her fork and glistened down Molly’s chin. Clara shook her head and then reached for her coffee. She needed a lot more of it to deal with this morning. She took a sip and with her other hand, she adjusted her bathrobe, tightening the belt. She’d just showered, but she still felt as stale as that old cigarette from last night.

“You need anything else?” she asked. “A napkin?”

Molly giggled yes and then went back to sawing another wet chunk of French toast.

“Don’t forget your eggs,” Clara said, standing up and walking over to the counter. She grabbed a small cloth napkin from a wire basket and brought it back to the table, and to Molly’s chin, rubbing off what was left of the syrup, and then rubbing where most of it had ended up—smeared across the back of Molly’s hand.

“We’ll have to give you another bath again,” Clara teased.

“Nooooo . . .”

Back at the counter, Clara reached into her purse and pulled out that damned pack of cigarettes. Parliament menthols. Long 100s. It grossed her out, thinking of all the chemicals needed for that strange, yet so satisfying cooling effect of menthol. It grossed her out even more thinking how she’d gone back to smoking at all. She had done so well for those three years of smoke sobriety.

Worst of all, there was no real reason for her going back to the dark side. Nothing at all. If she had some sort of excuse, maybe she’d be less hard on herself. But the ridiculousness of having gone back for no real reason. It was enough to infuriate her, and to cause her hand to close and squash the thin, green cigarette-box cardboard, collapsing it and the remaining cigarettes with a shaking hand.

“Mommy, do you like Bren?”

“Huh?” Clara tossed the flattened pack into the kitchen garbage and said, “Of course. Do you?”

“I do a lot.”

“That’s good. I was hoping you would.”

“Is she coming again tonight?”

The question made Clara’s mind lurch toward Sam with an almost frightening intensity. It had been a whole two days since she’d seen or even talked with him, and she wanted nothing more than another need for Bren’s babysitting. The days apart had made her hungry for him, any piece of him. It was a reaction, she was sure, from the unsettling news of her ex. The idea of Kurt, that smiley and slithering idea of Kurt and his recent need for contact, seemed to have sped up that clock inside her body. She had a new tempo for Sam, a need to beat the deadline of his inevitable departure from New Orleans. Clara just hoped that these new impulses wouldn’t sabotage things. It was fine to be eager. But desperate?

Is that what she was?

Clara checked her phone again. Nothing but an old message from Sam after their date.

She had read it twenty times. It was a lovely message.

But she was desperate for more than just a message.

“I’m not sure if Bren can come over tonight and play,” Clara said. “But would you ever want to meet my other friends?”

“The people from the . . . the poetry thing?”

“Uh . . . Sure?”

Molly took another bite, and with a full mouth, said, “Nahhh.”

Clara laughed. She felt the same way.

“And I don’t want anyone from court,” Molly said, sounding borderline brat-like.

“Well, I was thinking the judge could come.”

“Huh?”

“Remember Judge Steinhoffer? He could come over and nab you and then sentence you to ten years supermax.”

“Huh?”

“It was a joke.” Clara took a gulp of coffee.

“Yeah, but, huh?”

“I was joking that he’d put you in jail, Sweetie.”

“For what?” Molly asked, loudly dropping her fork. She picked it up and said, “What if I put you in jail?”

“Then you wouldn’t get any more French toast.”

“Aww . . .”

“Or syrup.”

“Aww!” Molly shoved another piece of toast in her mouth.

* * *

She couldn’t take it anymore. After Clara had dropped Molly off at school, she was instantly reaching for her phone, checking, and then deliberating. Should she call him?

Clara pulled into the narrow parking lot of a strip-mall coffee shop and then cut the engine. The radio continued playing, so she reached for it and turned the volume all the way down so that her only sounds were the muffled wash of morning commuter traffic. Sitting there with the phone, she took a deep breath and then scrolled for his name in her contacts.

What the hell was she so nervous about?

She would sound different. Clara would call him, and right away he would notice the change in her. Her voice. Her desperation, her insanity, creeping over the digital signal. He had been so good at uncovering her real intent, her real emotions. How would it end up today if she’d sounded like an over-caffeinated stalker?

Even worse, a single mom using an infatuation to help get over her nicotine withdrawals.

That’s what it was. The damn nicotine. That’s why she felt so creepy and crawly and unsettled. Nothing to do with Kurt.

In the strip mall was a small, independent smoke shop. Discount Smokes. The yellow sign was faded, and one window pane had flattened cardboard taped over it. There was a man, a street person sitting against its front wall near the doorway. And still, the place looked so damned alluring. She wanted to be inside. She wanted to open the door and get that first waft of cheap tobacco. She wanted her menthol 100s, Goddamn it.

Clara looked at her car’s door handle. She imagined her hand moving there and opening the release, and opening the door. Could she just do that?

Her arm felt light and ready for action, ready to lift up to the door handle and do her bidding. And then her phone vibrated in her lap, sending shock waves of panic through her body. But shock turned to excitement, to an opportunity. That same hand that was about to open the door was clutching the phone, turning it over and exposing the lit-up screen, and the wonderful glowing name of . . . State Corrections.

Fuck!

She let it ring and ring, her hand almost feeling sick with the vibrations. It was as if he’d been touching her, himself. Tainting her. A sick feeling. A sick man.

A sick man who wasn’t going to go away until she answered the damn phone.

“Hi,” she said coldly. There was a pause. “Hello?” This time with a little more sass. If it wasn’t Kurt, it was still someone interrupting her from her cigarettes.

“Hey,” came a groggy-sounding voice. “It’s Kurt.”

“Kurt . . .”

“Yeah. Clara?”

“Yeah?”

Another long pause. She imagined him leaning against the glass in some dirty calling booth.

“Hey,” he said.

“Yeah, hi.” She sighed. “Hi, Kurt.”

“Did you get my message?”

“I did.”

“Oh, okay, good. How are you?”

“What do you want?”

“Just . . . like . . .” He cleared his throat, and then began a hacking cough. He was a smoker, too. Apparently he’d kept it up in prison. He could afford smokes but not child support. “Is this an okay time?” he asked.

“To be quite honest with you, Kurt, I don’t think any time will be okay.”

“I know you feel that way.”

“What? Yes, I damn well feel that way.”

“I know, but, I just think it’s important.”

“I know you think it’s important.”

“It’s important that we at least, try, you know, just to be civil. I’ve changed a lot.”

“I bet.”

“I really . . .” he sighed into the phone. “I’ve really done a lot of thinking. So much thinking. It’s all you can really do here.”

“Why couldn’t you do any of that before?”

“You’re allowed to bring up the past.”

“Of course I’m fucking allowed.”

“I mean, as part of the process, you should bring up anything that hurt you and—”

“No. No, Kurt. You should bring it up. With all that thinking, you should be able to figure out the whens, whys, and hows of just how badly you fucked everything up. That’s your responsibility. To apologize. Aside from that, I have nothing to say to you.”

“You’re totally allowed to feel like that.”

Clara looked at the door handle again, “You’re right, I am. I’m totally allowed.”

There was another long pause.

“I have nothing to talk to you about,” Clara said. “And I don’t owe you any updates on Molly.”

The next pause was filled with a tiny whimpering sound on Kurt’s end. And then a sniffle. He was crying. And it made no difference to how Clara felt.

“But more importantly,” she said. “I’m fucking busy right now. If you want to talk, email me. They taught you that in prison, right? They taught you to type?” She held the phone away for a second, needing to take some deep breaths before she spewed more of the same. It wasn’t helpful, even in this circumstance.

“Kurt, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.”

She ended the call and looked back to her panacea, a discount smoke shop.