“Cindy, he has a gun,” said Rosie.
“I know.” Cindy’s eyes were on her husband, something more than rueful but nowhere close to fear. That’s when Rosie became angry. Cindy knew her husband had a gun, but she’d left Rosie’s child with him anyway. Cindy knew her husband was a sexist, bigoted asshole, and yet she’d gone to get her nails done. Cindy’s desire to play nicely in order to convince a judge to give her more time with her own child had put Rosie’s in significant danger. Rosie briefly wondered which was stronger: Nick Sr.’s loyalty to the mother of his son or Nick Sr.’s anger toward the mother of his son and how he might feel about Rosie borrowing his gun and shooting off one of Cindy’s newly lavender toes.
Penn stood and brushed himself off. Rosie could think of not a single thing more to say. She turned, taking Penn’s hand as she did so, and headed back toward the van. She’d have to come back later for her car, but she could not imagine getting into it alone right now nor operating it, hard as she was shaking, nor watching her family head home without her. Cindy ushered her own family into her house.
“Why do you let our son play with faggots and assholes?” Rosie heard Nick say just before the door closed.
In the van, her phone buzzed almost instantly with an email from Cindy. The subject line said “Sorry:(”
Rosie deleted it without reading.
Shove
On the way home from the Calcuttis’, they stopped for ice cream. Much as Rosie and Penn both felt as unhungry, at least for food, as they ever had in their lives, Penn’s offer to get soft serve was greeted from the backseat with the relief of refugees. If Dad wants ice cream, it must not have been the big deal it looked like it was through the windows. If Mom is willing to stop for treats on the way home, what happened to Poppy can’t have been that terrible. If they’re hungry—and for sugar—the kids had been worrying over nothing.
The weather had turned finally. Winter had held on through the middle of May, but now, like an errant favorite uncle you forgave the moment he showed up, spring sunshine promised barbecues and fireflies and long days in the lake, and they could feel summer shimmering just in front of them. The warm wind meant a line at Se?or Scoops. How this place stayed in business through the long winter Penn did not know. The boys went and begged everyone around them, “Are you using that chair?” in order to stake out space enough for all of them in the courtyard. Cherry blossoms blew against their ice cream cones and stuck. The whole world smelled of sunshine and soil and sugar. Soft serve was as effective a numbing agent as Rosie knew.
She considered her husband. “That was very brave back there.”
“Cowering in fear?”
“That’s not what you did. You chose me. You chose us.”
“I wanted there to be blood.”
“I know.”
“His. But I’d have settled for mine.”
“I know.”
“Instead I did nothing.”
“Which was everything.” Rosie licked at the tendrils sprouting along her cone. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” said Penn.
A stranger from whom they’d snagged a chair winked at him. “Beautiful family.”
“Thanks.”
“Lotta boys.”
“Oh yeah.”
“She must feel pretty outgunned.” Penn looked puzzled so the stranger nodded at Poppy.
“Her and me both,” said Penn.
*
On the last night of school, Rosie was at work, and Penn was doing bedtime. Grumwald’s friends were over, helping him pack. Grumwald was leaving his parents’ house to go make his way in the world. It seemed silly to the king and queen that he should do so. Grumwald didn’t need to earn any money, for the castle was his to live in as long as he liked. He didn’t need a job, for prince was job enough already. He didn’t need a way in the world. He needed a way to stay out of the world, to stay home, to stay put. But Grumwald had secrets which meant he had to go. And it was time.
“How will you learn to be king if you go?” Grumwald’s father and mother pled.
“How will I learn to be king if I stay? I have to go.”
“Go where?” his parents moaned.
“Away.”
“But if you don’t have anywhere specific you need to be, why can’t you just be here?”