Lovely Wild by Megan Hart Page A

another time, this thought would slip away from her with no more than a blink and wink of effort. Today, with her husband still home after a week and a half, Mari’s patience is worn to transparency. They rarely argue. The house and the kids have always been her domain. Now without the respite of Ryan leaving for work, Mari finds herself chafing under his constant suggestions and advice. Never mind that he’s never cleaned a toilet, scrubbed a floor or folded a basket of laundry in his life, now he knows just how it should be done. She hasn’t quite snapped at him. Not yet. It will surprise him if she does, and she’d rather not.
    There’s another reason it’s bad that Ryan is constantly home. It means something has changed in their lives. It’s been a long time since she felt this way—uncertain of what is coming next or how to handle it.
    There is a way to relieve the sting of this anxiety. Mari stretches high, fingertips searching the back of the cabinet, behind the special Thanksgiving table decorations she usually forgets to use on the table. There. She snags a package of snack cakes, chocolate, shaped like hearts. The wrapping is gone in seconds, the sweet creamy cake clutched in her fist.
    They gave her hot, wet mess in a bowl, she dug her fingers into it, it burned, she tossed it down. They came with yelling hands and faces, open mouths. When she told them what happened, they took her hands and held them tight so she could not speak. They gave her a spoon, instead.
    They made her normal.
    Mari stops herself from shoving the cake into her mouth. Her jaw aches. Her throat closes, making it hard to swallow. She finally manages to throw the cake into the trash, then has to drink from the faucet to wash away the taste of her own desperation.
    She’s never without her secret stock of snack cakes, but it’s the first time in a long, long time that she’s wanted to eat one that way. Gobbling and desperate. Mari closes her eyes for a moment, then shakes off the desperation.
    Rough time,
she thinks fleetingly before focusing on the cupboards in front of her. Tea, coffee, spices. Containers of candy sprinkles and cake decorations from Kendra’s fascination a year or so ago with making fancy cupcakes. Luxuries, not necessities, and at seeing this, the excess, calm should wash over her, but it doesn’t. Nobody should be able to survive very long on rainbow jimmies and silver marzipan buttons. But it’s surprising what people can survive on.
    Kendra stomps into the kitchen, scowling. “Mom. Can’t you talk to Dad? God!”
    Mari turns from her silent contemplation of the bounty in her cabinets. Kendra sees this and sighs. Her arms fold across breasts larger than her mother’s (the result of better childhood nutrition or genetics, who knows?). For a second, Mari sees a woman in front of her instead of a girl and she’s more ashamed by how threatened she feels by this than the fact Kendra’s embarrassed by her kitchen quirks.
    “Mom! Hello!”
    If Mari has her way, Kendra will never know what it feels like to want for anything, much less a meal. She doesn’t explain herself, though. She and Ryan have never talked to the kids about the way Mari grew up. Ryan, she thinks, is happy not to be reminded, and Mari is certain she wouldn’t be able to package her life into a shape her children could possibly understand.
    “What do you want me to talk to him about?”
    “He’s just... Gah!” Kendra throws her arms wide, infuriated in the way only teen girls can manage. “He’s all over me about my room. And being on the phone! He said I had to get off my computer, too. That I had to find something to do. Well, Mom, being on my computer
is
doing something.”
    Mari looks to the ceiling. Silence from upstairs. “Your dad’s under some stress right now, Kiki.”
    Kendra bites her lower lip. “His job.”
    “Yeah. His job. So let’s try to give your dad a break, huh?”
    “What happened?”
    Ryan is experienced at