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  Sergei sent back dirty laundry. As if his mom wasn’t still washing all of his own clothes. Rachel balled up Hannah’s overalls and t-shirts and lobbed them at the hamper. No used diapers this time. What a victory. In fact, she found a drugstore bag with a torn-open package of diapers smushed at the bottom of the bag, under the sandals and storybooks. She passed the shoes to her girl to return to the cubbies by their front door, and carried the bag to the changing table.

  The crinkle of paper sent a jolt through her. The sound had smacked at her gut too many times. Washing Sergei’s jeans, hanging his jackets, pretending she needed to find something in his glove box because after the second or third or thirtieth time, it turned into a sick game. He ‘forgot’ to throw out incriminating receipts. She accumulated them, trying to read a web of certainty from their evidence. Blaming her dyslexia for her failure, calling on friends for backup. And when she brandished a fan of smoothed-out receipts, line items circled, asking what and who and why the brunch with two coffees, the boutique, the gas from a station eighteen miles away, he sneered. He reminded her how important he was. How it was just like her to be so pathetic. How he shouldn’t even expect her to understand all he had to put up with from her.

  Too many times.

  Doing her best to not read it, Rachel ran the receipt along the edge of the changing table to press out the wrinkles, snapped a picture, opened a text box.

  Rachel: Stop me if I don’t need to read this.

  Gillian: You already know the answer to that.

  Serena: Is this related to Sergei?

  Gillian: And YOU know the answer to that, too.

  Natalie: That unmitigated ass!

  Rachel let the first few replies flow up her screen so she could no longer see the photo she’d taken.

  Gillian: We all know he’s the mold on a pebble picked out from beneath a horse’s rear shoe, but that’s no reason for R to be looking at his receipts again.

  Natalie: Fine, sure, but why do you have it, Rachel?

  She explained about the diapers, and her case looked weak. Before anyone replied, she threw in Sergei’s springing Theo on her with no warning. A second later, Gillian phoned, incredulous.

  “He what?”

  Rachel double-checked Hannah was still turning all their pairs of shoes into a train. “I mean, Theo’s the owner—not the brewer, the other one—so Sergei knows him. Hannah seemed to like him.”

  “Do not make excuses for that man. He can’t hand your daughter off to any random lackey. She’s two!”

  “I’m not saying he can. I’m ... okay, maybe I am. And I don’t agree with what he did.” She dialed back her defensive tone, partially for Gillian, partially so Hannah’s ears wouldn’t prick up. “I don’t. I do not. I laid into the guy, but you’re going to help me write a no-wiggle-room letter to Sergei.”

  “And his lawyer.”

  “And both our lawyers. Anyway, what’s on the receipt?”

  Gillian’s silence stretched. Could be she was talking herself into accepting Rachel’s promise of delayed wrath. Could be she was zooming in on the picture to decipher it.

  Could be there was something gross Gill wasn’t sure how to interpret.

  The phone vibrated and she pulled it away to check the incoming text from Natalie: “Condoms, Lucky Charms, and something from Revlon.”

  “Wait,” she asked Gill. “Does that mean he bought someone else mascara, or that he sent someone else to buy diapers?”

  “Who cares? What impact does either scenario have on your life?”

  She sat with the question. Not an hour before, she’d been high-fiving herself for putting unsuspecting Theo in his place. Or, if not his own place, any place far from Hannah. Taking her pluck as proof she had her boots on the correct feet, as Aunt Johnston would say.

  And a maybe-not-even-Sergei’s receipt kicked her straight back into her swirl of anxiety.

  The hypothetical condom and makeup use no longer impacted her. Gillian was right; Rachel told her so.

  “Good.” Gill’s smile brightened her voice. “Put the receipt in the trash.”

  “Recycling,” she corrected, heading into her kitchen.

  “Trash. We are being symbolic here. That thing is toxic, and it’s not going to infect your apartment. Straight into the dumpster.”

  “We’re not wearing shoes.”

  Hannah slotted her feet into Rachel’s sandals. Time to change the subject before her daughter used her exploding vocabulary to parrot Rachel’s attitude. She had enough trouble shutting down her inner voice, and didn’t need an external chorus.

  But as she crumpled up the receipt to shove it deep into the garbage, it crinkled again. So before she asked Gillian how her grading was going, she said, “And if he’s been feeding her sugary cereals again, I’m going to spill spaghetti sauce all over that ugly dress his mom sent and make sure she’s wearing it for his next weekend.”

  Chapter Three

  Mary Lynn’s distinctive rap on her door brought Rachel and Hannah both from the kitchen.

  “I’ve got baked spaghetti in the oven,” she said. “Will you stay to eat?” It was Mary Lynn’s recipe, one she’d convinced Rachel to try when Hannah was in one of her cheese-and-apples-only phases, and it had fast become a staple.

  “Thanks, love, but not today. I’m picking up a shift tonight.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Mary Lynn hated working Saturday nights, despite the higher turnover and bigger tips. She disliked crowds, so slow weekday afternoons and the occasional Sunday after brunch were her preferred schedule at the steakhouse where she worked. She always said it gave her a sufficiency, and the cash she earned babysitting Hannah was for all of her indulgences.

  Mary Lynn flapped a wrist at her before snugging Hannah into her lap. “You hush. I have my reasons. And I have my Xanax, so I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. Do you want us to drive you?”

  “Would you? That suits me well. I’ll have someone drop me home after.”

  “No worries. We’re happy to.”

  Her friend told Hannah to bring out some puzzles from her room, and let her round features settle into seriousness once the girl was off her lap. “I’m moving.”

  Rachel threw herself involuntarily against the back of the sofa. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought it was best to blurt it out while the coast is clear. None of this ‘I have good news! But it’s bad news for you!’ hedging. So. Yes. I’m moving to Brenham.”

  “Brenham?” She liked the town fine, but it was over seventy miles away. Mary Lynn had knocked on her door the day after she moved into the apartment, and started filling in as babysitter a couple of weeks later. The occasional nights out when Hannah wasn’t with Sergei, and a few hours in the morning if Hannah was too sick to go to daycare but Rachel couldn’t reschedule all her clients. Sometimes she would wander over from next door and announce that she needed some baby time, hand Rachel her own grocery list, and send her to the store where she could wander the aisles without wrangling and placating and negotiating with her cart-bound child. Mary Lynn was a central pole of the tent that sheltered Rachel’s life as a working mother.

  “Brenham.”

  “Okay. I’ve taken a deep breath. Fill me in.”

  “You remember Goldberg?”

  “The caterer?” He sometimes hired waiters from the steakhouse to cover large events.

  “That’s the one. He’s been—don’t look scandalized at me, young lady—he’s been paying me calls. And he’s a rascal. And I love him. And he’s selling the business, and we are retiring to his land outside Brenham, and living in flagrant s-i-n and my mother’s ashes are positively spinning into a tornado inside their urn.”

  Rachel’s hand was insufficient to contain her laughter, which was fine. Hannah thought she’d made a joke by putting the train puzzle piece in the space for the tractor, and filled the room with her belly laugh.

  The women turned from watching her to smiling
at each other. Rachel pushed back all her thoughts about how much more comforting it was to sink into the arms of this woman she’d known for not even two years than it was to hug her own mother. How much bigger a gap Mary Lynn’s moving would leave in Hannah’s life than did the remote grandparenting she got from her family of origin. She sniffed.

  “So I’m working extra shifts, because I want to pad my nest egg. Goldberg says he’ll always take care of me, but I’m an independent woman, right? You’ve taught me all about self-reliance.” Her cherubic expression twinkled diabolically. “I’m bringing feminism to the farm.”

  Rachel squeezed her hand. “Poor Goldberg won’t know what hit him.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “I approve.”

  Mary Lynn shifted to lean over the coffee table and help Hannah rotate the airplane piece so it would slot into place. Her voice quavered when she asked, “You’ll bring my girl up to visit, right?”

  It hurt, suppressing the tears so her daughter wouldn’t fret. “All the time.”

  “I hope so. Goldberg promised to replace the old mattress in the spare room, so you two can stay over. And his son baby proofed the place already, but I’ll check it all, since his grandkids are older. You never know what’s been let slip.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Don’t fuss. You sound too sad, and this is a happy thing. Such a happy thing.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going.”

  “I can’t believe you were seeing Goldberg behind my back.”

  “Well.” She blushed and turned her head.

  “Mary Lynn!”

  She patted her salt-and-paprika curls into place and played at being demure. “Like you said, it’s a happy thing.”

  “Well, good job, Goldberg. I’m glad he’s worthy of you.” Rachel glanced at the clock and stood. “I’ll turn off the oven. The spaghetti can sit while we drop you off. Are you ready?”

  “As soon as my girl and I are done with this puzzle, right, Hannah?”

  Hannah pointed at the jungle and the dinosaur and the alphabet boards. “And this puzzles and this puzzles.”

  “You negotiate. I’ll grab my keys.” Rachel left them to it, not contemplating all the ways her life was easier because there was someone just next door who she trusted to keep her daughter safe and loved.

  “Theo? What’s with that table full of kids?”

  He glanced up from the tax report. Sergei was leaning against the threshold, pulling one of his quizzical faces. “No school today,” he said.

  “So people are sending their kids to the bar instead?”

  He sorted. “Sure, it’s the new fad.”

  “Seems like that would be against our licensing.”

  Theo grinned. “Look at you, remembering we have regulations.”

  “Funny.”

  “The kids belong to Marti and Shawna and Pat.”

  “So now we’re free daycare?”

  Theo clicked his pen closed and slid back in the chair. “Are they causing any problems?”

  “They don’t hold much appeal for the normal lunch crowd.”

  “Well, the option was let them bring the kids, or lose half the shift on a busy holiday. Marti said no one had backup care, so I told them if their kids would stay at the table and stay calm, they could bring them in.”

  “Generous of you.”

  “If they’re not disruptive, and the wait staff are getting their work done, it’s better than us covering their shifts.”

  Sergei’s cheeks bulged and he blew a huff of air. “Sure, fine. Your call. I guess next time people will schedule themselves to work whenever their schools are closed, so they can let you feed and entertain the kids and pay them at the same time.”

  The guy brought Hannah in for dinner most every Wednesday night. And palmed her off on the staff if Depy wasn’t around when he got busy. “Not everyone has grandma available for fill-in childcare you know.”

  “Behind you.” Marti was trying to pass with a tray of drinks.

  Sergei glanced her way, but didn’t shift over. “That for the kiddos?” he asked.

  She nodded, shooting a glance Theo’s way but not losing her wary expression.

  Sergei reached to take the drinks. “Let me deliver them. I want to meet everyone.” He nodded his head towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you grab them a couple of baskets of fries, too? And some spanakopita.”

  Marti’s eyes widened and she said, “You got it. They’ll love that, thanks.”

  Before he sauntered off to interrogate the kids about their names and the games they were playing and their summer plans, Sergei shook his head at Theo. “Try and warn me next time this place is going to become rugrat central, okay?”

  Rachel coasted to a stop at the gate to the complex, walking the bike forward a step so Hannah could reach the keypad. Her girl remembered her promise, looking to Rachel for permission before stretching her fist out and extending both pointer and thumb in that not quite dexterous way she had. She knew the first number was two and pressed it before letting Rachel guide her finger to the rest of the entry code. With a squeak, the gate began to swing open, and Hannah squeaked at it in return.

  “Good one, Banana. Do you want to walk to the door, or ride?”

  “Walk!”

  Once they were in and the gate closed, she checked for traffic and propped the bike against her hip as she unbuckled the straps keeping Hannah in her seat. “Hat off now or inside?”

  Hannah clamped her hands to her puppy-festooned bike helmet, which left Rachel maneuvering her arms one at a time through the straps. Lifting her daughter to the ground, she turned her towards the staircase and navigated the bike to a rack by the mailboxes. She kept an eye on the toddler mounting the steps as she locked the bike, fetched her mail, and shrugged their backpacks onto her shoulders. Hannah was getting faster. She’d planted her feet on the fourth step by the time Rachel got to her. It wasn’t a handholding day, it seemed, so she stayed behind Hannah, ready in case she was needed. As always.

  “Dinosaurs and trees for dinner,” she said, but Hannah was too focused on the lights flashing on her sandals to answer. Rachel flipped through the mail. Mostly ads; very little to distract her from the padded envelope she’d stuck at the bottom of the stack.

  She didn’t need the glimpse of black-spider writing on the front or the profusion of sickly dessert stickers on the back to tell her it was another offering from Yia Yia Depy. Since moving out, every hand-addressed package she’d received had originated with her former mother-in-law. Her sister and parents followed a schedule of generosity. Hannah had several gifts from them each birthday and Christmas. They even paid for the companies they ordered from to gift-wrap everything. Her friend Natalie had once called the resulting pile of matching colorful rectangles antiseptic, but Rachel disagreed. She preferred the computer-generated gift notes to the randomly arriving and faintly intrusive packages from Depy.

  Each one reminded her that Depy had her address. For good reason, yes, but Rachel did not want Sergei finding it. Did Depy keep the info in her battered old floral-fabric-covered notebook under the living room phone cradle? On the legal pad under her keyboard which listed all her passwords and social security number? Slipped into her overstuffed wallet with all the receipts and coupons and pictures of Hannah from every stage of her life? She’d lived with Depy too long, those newborn months post-divorce when she had nowhere better to turn. She knew the woman’s habits as well as Sergei did. And she knew it was because he understood exactly where to find her address that he’d capitulated when she refused to tell him where she was moving.

  Depy would do nothing to prevent her precious perfect asshole of a son from finding the address if he wanted it.

  So every package the woman mailed hit her like a veiled threat: here’s an over-embellished dress, and also a reminder that Sergei could be yelling through your closed and locked and chained door within minutes.

  She let Hannah yank on the envelope’s red pull-tab once
they were inside the apartment. Dusty grey padding fibers flew everywhere, like airborne contaminants infecting the security of her home. She would ask Depy to use bubble wrap instead, but that was tantamount to admitting that the shredding envelopes bothered her. And Rachel was not in the business of admitting that anything the Matsouka family did bothered her.

  Hannah, true to her toddler nature, ignored the enclosed outfit—bismuth pink coveralls with lace ruffles on the seat and a coordinating pink tee emblazoned with ‘PRETTY GIRL’ in black bubble letters—in favor of picking at the stickers on the envelope. Rachel tossed the clothes in the basket she kept by the door with things ready to pack for her daughter’s next overnight with Sergei. Handing Hannah a red marker so she could deface the envelope, she sank into the sofa cushions and opened the envelope Depy had labeled with her name.

  No note, unless the scrawled ‘Hannah’ on the memo line counted.

  The list of things she could do with two hundred dollars unfurled in her imagination. It was an old-fashioned scroll, closely written, and spread across the room, out the door, down the stairs. Cars in the parking lot left tread marks across the scripted rows of options. Phone bills and student loan payments and a kid wardrobe that Depy had no hand in and a decent haircut and a comfortable saddle for her bike and flowers for the daycare teachers and a motel room at the beach and a bedroom fan and at the top of the list and the bottom of the list and on every other line of the list, savings towards someplace she and Hannah could live without factoring in Sergei’s child support excuses.

  It was past time to start dinner. Rachel countersigned the check and opened the bank app on her phone. Navigating to the remote deposit screen, she tapped all the right places until Depy’s check was lodged in the account she’d nicknamed ‘H’s College Money.’

  “Let’s go chop up dinosaur trees,” she said, and waited while Hannah maneuvered the cap onto the marker. Her girl bounced up and took her hand, tugging her into the kitchen while singing her version of her favorite dinosaur song.