And One Last Thing... by Molly Harper Page B

the answer.
    “Oh, honey, no!” Mama laughed, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. Unfortunately, she had the batter ladle in her hand and there was now unfinished chocolate chip pancake dripping down my back. “No, I never had to worry about this with Daddy. Haven’t you ever wondered why I le Daddy drag me along with him on these silly fraternity trips?’
    I nodded. “Every time you go.”
    “Well, if I learned anything from my mama, it was that if you don’t want to be with your man, there will always be another woman willing to take your place,” she said. “So I go on these trips and I watch your daddy make a complete fool of himself, because, for one thing, it’s funny, and because there are plenty of miserable Phi Rho wives there who would be more than happy to upgrade to your daddy if they had the chance. I’ve said the thought of having an affair probably wouldn’t occur to Daddy, but I really don’t give him a chance to think of it.”
    “So this is my fault?” I asked. “I should have seen this coming?”
    “No! Well, of course, you did miss a lot of signs.” Mama said, flipping the pancakes onto a plate and coating them in butter and syrup. “But you didn’t know what to look for. Mike probably saw this growing up.”
    “You knew about Mike’s daddy and the other women?”
    Mama snorted. “Wynnie doesn’t suffer in silence nearly as well as she thinks she does,” she said. “I’m sorry your marriage turned out the way it did. You deserved better. I’m proud that you stood up for yourself, proud that you refused to just roll over and die. Though you could have done it a little less spectacularly.
    “For now, I want you to focus on something besides getting back at Mike. I don’t want you to become one of the bitter women in my bridge club, counting every alimony penny as if making Mike suffer will make your life better.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said. She sprinkled powdered sugar over my plate. “Oh, good, because I was just thinking, this isn’t sweet enough.”
    She nudged the plate toward me. “Lacey, eat.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said again, now dutifully forking a bite of pancakes. My stomach roiled at the thought of putting it in my mouth.
    “Good girl,” she said, giving my forehead a smacking kiss. When she turned her back to wash the griddle, I wrapped several bites into a paper napkin and tossed them into the trash.
    There was a knock at the door. My eyes widened. ‘Don’t answer it. It will be my mother-in-law with a tranq gun and two tickets to Cancün.”
    Mama rolled her eyes and opened the door to find a well-dressed young man with an envelope in his hand.
    “Lacey Terwilliger?” he asked, looking past Mama to me. He placed the envelope in my hand and slunk back out of striking range. “You’ve been served.”
    Mama snatched the envelope out of my hand and tore it open. I padded back into the kitchen. “It’s probably his divorce countersuit, Mama. It’s nothing to get excited over.”
    Mama exclaimed, “Lacey, he’s suing you for character defamation and libel!”
    “Well, I can’t really say I’m surprised,” I snorted, taking the papers out of her hand.
    “I can’t believe he’s actually suing you,” Mama said. “It’s just so… tacky.”
    “Oh, let him,” I snorted. “Let him try to prove it’s not true.”
    Holding up Mike’s countersuit, Mama deadpanned, “And look, he got a two-for-one deal with the process server. His lawsuit and the divorce papers. His grounds for divorce are abandonment!”
    “Abandonment?” I said, taking the papers from her. “Oh, what fresh hell is this?”
    “Well, you did leave the marital home without warning or taking half of what you deserve,” Mama said. “Honey, you might just want to calm down and reassess your situation. You don’t want to get into a big legal battle here. Mike’s like a cat.”
    “Emotionally unavailable and fond of licking himself?” I asked.
    “I was going