Chapter 1

PRESENT DAY

 

If I were to murder my ex-husband, I don’t think I’d go to jail.

They would certainly arrest me—that part is unavoidable. There would have to be a trial and all that. I’d probably be convicted because I’ve never killed anyone before and I’d certainly be terrible at covering my tracks.

That said, when the sentencing came and the judge heard about the kind of person Theodore Duncan really is, I’d probably get a slap on the wrist. Maybe I’d be sentenced to community service—and that community service would have already been served by ridding the world of that man.

I’m joking, of course. I wouldn’t really kill Theo. I’m not the murdering type. But at this moment, watching our six-year-old daughter sitting on the steps of our apartment building in Fresh Meadows, her pink backpack tucked between her knees, her head perking up every time a car turns the corner before her face falls when she realizes it’s not her dad, I definitely want to commit an act of violence against him. If he’s going to make Lily suffer, he should suffer.

“Is it two o’clock yet, Mommy?” Lily asks me.

Theo was supposed to get here at two. It was two o’clock twenty minutes ago. But fortunately, Lily has the worst sense of time of anyone in the universe. If I tell her we’re going to the museum tomorrow, she will ask me every half hour if it’s tomorrow yet until I want to gouge out my eyes. So for the last half hour, I’ve been telling her it’s “almost two” and she’s somehow buying it. But considering she’s six years old, her patience will very likely wear thin in the immediate future.

“Not yet, sweetie,” I say.

Lily gives an exasperated sigh. A blue Kia rounds the corner and her eyes perk up, despite the fact that she knows her father drives a red Ford. When I see the disappointment in her blue eyes, I whip out my cell phone and angrily pull up Theo’s number.

I’m ready to leave an enraged cell phone message, but to my surprise, Theo picks up. His voice is breathless, which isn’t a surprise. Theo always sounds like he had to stop something really important so he could answer the phone. Possibly sex.

“Where are you?” I hiss into the phone. I glance over at Lily, who looks forlorn. I never even knew what the word “forlorn” really meant, but at this moment, Lily personifies “forlorn.” If you looked the word up in the dictionary, you’d find a photo of my daughter waiting for her ever-absent father.

“Where am I?” Theo repeats, parsing each word of my question as if he’s only first learning the English language.

“You said you’d be here at two!” I’m so angry, I’m practically spitting. “You’re supposed to take Lily to the movies.”

“No, I’m not,” he says. “That’s tomorrow.”

I am seething with anger. Once you finished looking up “forlorn” in the dictionary, you could look up “seething” and find a photo of me gripping my cell phone, my face bright red, the veins standing out in my neck.

“No, it was today,” I say through my teeth.

“I’m certain it was tomorrow,” Theo says with all the confidence of a man who hasn’t stood up his daughter on multiple occasions.

“Why on earth would we arrange for you to pick Lily up tomorrow at two?” I snap into the phone. “Tomorrow is Monday. She’ll be at school tomorrow at two.”

Theo is quiet for a minute before he finally says, “Tomorrow is Monday?”

Oh, for God’s sake.

“Look,” I say, “how soon can you get here? I’ll tell Lily you got hung up and you can catch the next showing of the movie.”

“Bailey, I can’t just drop everything I’m doing,” Theo says. “I’ve got a gig in a few hours.”

I groan. Theo is thirty-seven years old, and the starving musician bit is getting old. It’s amazing how the things that attract you to a man when you first meet him are the very things that make you hate him years later, when he skips multiple child support payments because he’s dead broke. It’s tempting to remind him I could have him thrown in jail for the fact that he hasn’t given Lily and me one red cent in over a year, but I’m trying not to morph into the stereotype of a bitter ex-wife. It’s not easy though.

“Can’t you cancel the gig?” I press him. Lily has just leaped off the stairs at the sight of a red BMW, which is about as far from Theo’s beat up old Ford as a red car could possibly be. She splashes into a puddle on the sidewalk, drenching her formerly pink sneakers that are now gray.

“No way,” Theo says. “I heard that record producers show up at this joint. This could be my big break.”

I guarantee this will not be Theo’s big break. I would take every cent I have in the bank and bet it on this not being Theo’s big break. Granted, we’re not talking about much money here. I’m a social worker—we don’t make the big bucks.

“You take her to the movies,” Theo tells me. “I’ll pay you back for the tickets.”

Ha.

“She’s going to be crushed, Theo,” I murmur into the phone.

“I’m sorry, Bailey.” I hear someone talking in the background. Someone female. Theo laughs loudly. “Listen, I gotta run. Tell Lily I’m sorry.”

Before I can even say goodbye, the phone is dead.

I shove my phone back into my purse, resisting the urge to hurl it to the ground. I can’t afford a new phone—I can barely afford the one I have, which already has a cracked screen. I force a smile and sit down next to Lily on the steps of our building. I put my arm around my daughter’s skinny shoulders.

“Lily,” I begin.

She looks up at me with those big blue eyes. They’re Theo’s eyes. She looks just like him, with her heart-shaped face and straight reddish-brown hair—even that tiny bump in her nose is his. It’s conflicting to feel so much love for someone who looks so much like someone I hate. I squeeze her tighter.

“Daddy had an emergency come up,” I say.

“Ugh!” Lily yelps. It’s a sound she makes whenever she’s disappointed, a habit I only recently realized she got from me. Lily makes me aware of all my bad habits by copying each and every one of them. “He’s supposed to take me to see Dogcat!”

Dogcat is the newest hot children’s movie, about a cat that becomes a dog, or a dog that becomes a cat, or something inane like that. I have been hearing about Dogcat for the last two weeks, but movies aren’t in my current budget. The amount it costs to go to the movies in Queens is nothing short of ridiculous. I’d rather spend the money on shelter and food. It would be lovely if I could save up enough money so that Lily and I didn’t have to share a one-bedroom apartment. It puts a crimp in my social life.

Actually, that’s not true. It doesn’t put a crimp in my social life. Sadly.

“I’ll take you to see Dogcat,” I tell her just as the first tear falls from her eyes. “We’ll go right now.”

“But it’s in 3-D,” Lily says. “That’s too ‘spensive.”

Ugh! If the movie is in 3-D, that means a three-dollar surcharge will be tacked onto each of our tickets in addition to the already exorbitant cost of the movie. “It’s okay.”

“And can we get popcorn?”

“Sure!” I say. “Why not?” This week can be an exercise to see how far I can stretch a box of spaghetti because that’s all I’m going to be able to afford to eat for dinner.

Lily snuggles happily against my chest. “Thanks, Mommy!”

I allow myself to smile. When Theo and I got divorced, I vowed Lily wouldn’t become one of those miserable kids I see as a social worker whose single mothers make them pay for the sins of their fathers. I will not be that. I’m going to make sure Lily has a good childhood, no matter what. Even if it means that I’m wearing the same jacket I’ve owned since college.