laughed crazily.
âTheyâre just being boys,â Sylvia said.
None of the other women answered. They affected identical expressions of disapproval. The woman with the fur heels ran to the end of the slide and caught Josh by the arm. âDonât let him do that to you. If he pushes you, push him back.â
Sylvia raised her eyebrows, but Louise ignored her. Her stomach hurt, and it wasnât the smell of overspiced pepperoni coming from the party room. Max had been better about playing rough lately. She was terrified that he was relapsing and they would have to avoid all birthday parties and playgrounds for the foreseeable future. Sheâd been bullied herself as a child, so her child couldnât torment other kids. It was unthinkable.
The group of women resumed their discussion about the relative merits of different birthday party places. Louise had been planning to have Maxâs party at home, apparently only an acceptable option if you rented a bouncy house or hired a clown. She watched Max out of the corner of her eye. He clambered up one of the slides, following a girl in a pink dress. Louise prepared to intervene, but he didnât touch the girl, just slid down after her, laughing.
Sylviaâs phone binged. She handed Madeleine to Louise and fished it out of her purse. The baby stirred for a moment before falling back asleep. Louise kissed her head lightly.
Sylvia stared at her phone as though it had bitten her. âI just got fired. Over e-mail.â
After checking that Max was still behaving, Louise carried Madeleine back to the bleachers and sat down with Sylvia. They traded phone for baby, and Louise skimmed the e-mail. None of it made sense except for the line âtermination effective January 15.â Her whole body went numb. The worst had happened.
Zoe left her bouncy horse and perched next to Sylvia. As usual, she seemed to sense that something was wrong.
âDo you want to check your e-mail?â Sylvia said. âSee if you got the same message?â
âNot really. I canât imagine why I wouldnât have.â Louise hugged Zoe and brushed back the hair from her sweet face. She pulled away and returned to the horse.
Â
An hour later, Louise was sitting at Sylviaâs kitchen table. Her house was a scaled-down plantation home with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a parlor area that no one ever used. It was seventy years old, and remodeled in such a way as to retain what real estate agents like to call âcharacter.â One of the bedrooms was a permanent guest room, and another had been designated as Jakeâs office, where he could hide out from the kids. The house was luxurious, a giant step up from Louiseâs little ranch house. Sylvia said that it sometimes seemed too small.
Louise sipped her wine and admired the living room/kitchen area. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the landscaped backyard complete with pool and playscape. Built-in bookshelves and a flat-screen TV filled the other wall. Two couches with soft, inviting cushions were positioned around a coffee table crowded with books and toys.
Sylvia bounced Madeleine in the crook of her arm as she watched the boys playing with action figures. âRight now, deciding not to breast-feed doesnât seem like such a good idea.â
âI donât blame you. I donât understand the women who love nursing so much. All your clothes smell like sour milk, and youâre stuck in a chair while the older kid asks embarrassing questions and searches the house for matches.â Louise wouldnât have shared her ambivalence to one of the most cherished aspects of motherhood with just anyone. But Sylvia wasnât just anyone. Louise had known that the first time theyâd met. That day, Louise had been sitting at her new desk in her disappointingly run-down office, feeling more tired and lost than she ever had. She was doubting her ability to handle two small
Richard Matheson
Shelby C. Jacobs
Samantha Westlake
K. D. Carrillo
Aubrey Irons
Wayne Macauley
Karen Maitland
K.S. Adkins
Cs Jacobs
B.B. Wurge