I turn the TV on low and let it drone as I flip channels through infomercials and bland Sunday-morning news broadcasts, bleary-eyed reporters talking about the same things they were yesterday or things not important enough to wait until later.
Eventually I warm a bowl of oatmeal and grudgingly eat it.
“You should put some brown sugar on top.”
I jump out of my skin at the sound of Karen’s voice.
“You’re up early.”
“I went to bed early,” she says, but yawns anyway.
She sits on the far side of the couch, crosses her legs, and plucks at her grippy sock with her fingers.
“So, he’s gone.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s not going to come back, is he?”
“No, sweetie.”
She’s quiet for a while, then, “Why?”
“Nothing to do with us. He couldn’t really stay. It was only for a little while. Some things can be good without lasting forever.”
“But they’re better if they do,” Karen adds.
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“Are we going to have to go live with Dad?”
“I hope not.”
“I don’t want to. They can’t make me if I don’t want to, right? I’m almost an adult, don’t I get to say where I go?”
“I wish it was that simple, honey.”
“All that stuff he said about you neglecting us, that wasn’t true.”
I sigh again, harder, and let my head flop against the couch. “I know, hon, but the judge might not see it that way. It’s all about how your dad presents it, and if he knows the judge.”
“That’s not fair. If Quentin came back, he could—”
“He’s not. He did what he could to help us, but he’s gone and we have to accept that.” My words come out with more force than I’d like.
Karen shrinks back. “I’m sorry. I miss him, too.”
She hugs her knees to her chest. “Is that what it feels like to have a dad? What it was like when he was here.”
I can’t answer her. My chest seizes up and I almost drop the oatmeal. I slap it on the table and walk to the window, hoping that if I pinch the bridge of my nose hard enough I won’t start crying.
Nope, that doesn’t work.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not yours either.”
I nod, trying to stop crying. I don’t want Karen to see me crying, not like this. Karen brings me a tissue, and I wipe myself up and try to think of what we can do today. I don’t want to sit around the house. The block party is over.
There must be something.
When Kelly eventually wakes up her first target is the cupboards and a bowl of disgusting sugary cereal I shouldn’t let her eat. Karen makes eggs, and somehow manages it without ruining and blackening them or undercooking them. She must have been studying Quentin.
Damn it, there he is again.
Once the girls eat and dress, I invite them on a walk with me.
That means we have to walk in the street until we’re out of the neighborhood. Whoever designed the place didn’t want pedestrians, only vehicles three model years old or newer or whatever.
I look back at Quentin’s house as we leave. It’s clearly empty, light shining through the windows. The car is gone, everything is locked up, and the place looks just as uninhabited as it did a week ago.
A week, can this have been one week of my life? It feels like it was ten years.
Kelly holds my hand as we walk. Karen doesn’t. Once we pass the gate there’s an actual sidewalk.
“Where are we going?” Kelly asks.
“Somewhere,” I tell her.
The answer is anywhere but here. I really want to just keep walking. It’s maybe a mile to the park and by then Kelly has to stop on her little legs and rest, so we sit on a bench for a while. I wish I’d brought something for the girls to feed the squirrels. They used to love feeding the squirrels. An especially chubby one almost comes up to our feet.
“Sorry,” Karen tells the squirrel, “we don’t have any food for you.”
The little creature scampers off into the trees, but I swear he looks annoyed before he spirals up around a trunk and disappears.
We walk some more. Kelly swings on the swing set and Karen joins her while I stand and stare past them at nothing, at distant trees and late-summer haze. It shouldn’t be this hot. Sweat beads down my back.
I want to go home, but it’s not back at that house.
After a few hours we’re done walking the park. It’s not that big. It doesn’t even have a name. It’s a just a gap between more of these shitty developments, held by the county to keep more houses off of it. Keep it open.
We all hold hands walking back. I need to look at the papers Russ gave me. Last night I just shoved them into the mail sorter when I came in the door and never touched them again. Then I need to write bills. My stomach grows sour thinking about all the things I have to do. Little things that don’t feel like they should matter anymore, and of course tomorrow I have to go to work.
I’m looking forward to that. Burt is about the last person I want to see, even if he did turn into Mr. Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol.
Quentin, I realize, probably had something to do with that, too. I sigh. Is there nothing he hasn’t touched?