Another load of laundry, the weight of the final basket branding her forearms, she fell asleep in the mamasan chair she’d dragged into Drew’s room. To watch him.
She was dreaming when a sound woke her, dreaming of her hands digging into Hailey’s thick hair from behind and pulling it back to see Devon hunched beneath, teeth bared and pink, her feet like little claws.
Her eyes opened to Drew sitting bolt straight in bed, mouth open, a flash of crimson that looked like a flame.
“Someone’s here,” he lisped. “Someone with noisy shoes.”
Katie leaned over and looked out the window.
In the driveway, a familiar car gleamed like an oyster.
Reaching the bottom stair, laundry bag still in hand, she stopped in the foyer and took a breath.
There was Gwen, lodged firmly in the wing chair in the living room. It was the only fine piece of furniture they’d ever owned, a family heirloom presented, with tears and ceremony, by Eric’s mother for their tenth anniversary.
Katie could remember sitting on it only once. Or she and Eric had together, the herringbone beneath her palm as she pushed against his chest. A seized moment, Devon away at regionals, news of her triumph freshly arrived. The knife-pleat skirt tickling her swinging ankle, the skidding sound of its ball-and-claw feet on the floor—claw away, claw up the floor, mark it.
And there Gwen sat. Tangerine sheath dress just a shade too tight across her midriff, those tanned piston arms of hers bare because she was always warm. I run a few degrees shy of Hades, she told everyone, all the time, always have.
Fingers tapping on her phone.
And, now scraping along the wall-to-wall, were those noisy shoes. Pointy, soaring, python-skinned like they’d hiss.
“Look who woke up. I ran into Eric and Devon at Pancake Palace. They’re upstairs.”
“Thanks,” Katie said, looking at her watch. They’d been gone for four hours. “What can I do for you, Gwen?”
“It’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? Thank God that demented girl is under lock and key.”
“Yes,” Katie said, trying to smooth her sleep-rumpled hair. Trying to shove the detergent-speckled laundry bag behind her. “For now.”
“You should have seen Devon at practice yesterday, Katie.” Her eyes shone, python heels rasping on the carpet beneath her. “Amplitude, perfect body alignment, and the prettiest toe point I’ve ever seen. But, listen, Katie, that double-twist Yurchenko is not what it was two weeks ago. The stress of this is telling on her.”
“Worry about your own daughter,” Katie said, her eyes catching sight of Gwen’s car, the top of a girl’s buttercup head inside. “Who’s apparently imprisoned in your car like an overheated collie.”
Gwen sighed. “We got in some extra practice time today. She keeps saying to me, ‘Mom, I love gymnastics.’ But I tell her, ‘Just because you love it doesn’t mean you’ll be good at it. You have to put the hours in. There’s a whole gym out there of girls who love it and are useless at it.’”
“But why is she in the car, Gwen?”
“It’s hard enough to get her to practice without dosing her with scarlet fever too. And, circling back, Katie, to your question about why I’m here. I thought I’d extend the invitation to have Devon stay at my house a few nights. Until the quarantine has passed.”
“There’s no quarantine. He’s on antibiotics. He’ll be fine.”
“Katie, I know I’m prone to hyperbole. Or so my ex-husband said while he was raping me in the divorce proceedings. But, really, who gets scarlet fever these days? Between whatever criminal derangement has overtaken Hailey and the pestilence under your own roof…well, it’s getting pretty Greek here, isn’t it?”
Katie took a long, long breath.
I wish I had your balls, she once overheard a bourbon-brewed Jim Chu say to Gwen at a booster party, shooting pool. Gwen had smiled, rolling the eight ball between her fingers.
“I appreciate your concern,” Katie said, lifting the laundry bag, trying to signal an end to things, “but I’m not letting Devon out of my sight again.”
“Of course,” Gwen said, rising. “It’s a mother’s decision. Eric thought it was a good idea, but what do fathers know?”
“You two already talked about it?” Katie felt the bag slide off her narrow, toneless shoulder and catch in the cradle of her bent arm.
“He said he’d have to talk to you, but he’s up there now, helping her pack.”
Feet pounding up the stairs, laundry sack swinging wildly from her forearm, Katie called out both their names.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, pushing open the door to Devon’s room.
Both of them, backs to her, were leaning over Devon’s duffel bag.
When they turned around, their faces seemed to blur before her eyes, same deep-set eyes, same hewn cheekbones. The same grave expressions.