Chapter 2
Monique reached for the bags instead.
“I brought food home,” she said.
Malik looked at the container beside his elbow. He had already eaten his dinner alone.
I pulled out the chair next to him.
“Sit down, Monique.”
She remained by the counter.
“We can discuss this later.”
“We can discuss the details later. You can answer Malik now.”
Ava quietly set her phone face down.
Monique gave my son a strained look.
“I’m sorry you felt left out.”
Malik nodded because he was polite, even when someone hurt him.
I had taught him to be polite. At that moment, I wished I had spent more time teaching him that he could say when an apology wasn’t enough.
“I told you I wanted to go,” he said.
Monique glanced at me.
“I heard you,” she told him.
He waited. When nothing else came, he pushed his chair back.
“Can I go upstairs?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll come up in a minute.”
Ava moved aside so he could pass. She whispered his name, but he kept walking.
I listened until his bedroom door closed.
Then I turned to Monique.
“Tell me what happened.”
“We’d booked a table for two.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“You knew you planned to leave him here last week?”
“Ava and I needed time together.”
“You can spend time with your daughter. Why tell Malik there wasn’t room in the car?”
She rubbed her forehead.
“Because he would have been upset if I said the dinner was just for us.”
“He was upset anyway.”
Ava spoke from the doorway.
“I thought Malik was going to his friend’s house.”
Monique turned sharply.
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Ava.”
“I’m explaining what you told me.”
I looked at Ava. She was fifteen, and she looked miserable. I didn’t want to make her choose between her mother and the truth.
“Thank you,” I said. “You can go upstairs.”
She hesitated, then left.
Monique pulled out a chair.
“I handled it badly,” she said. “I know that.”
“How many times have you gone out without him?”
“I don’t count every dinner.”
“Malik does.”
She looked away.
I thought back over the last few months. I had taken extra evening shifts to help cover repairs to the house. Monique usually finished work earlier and picked up both children. I asked how their days had gone when I got home, sometimes after Malik was asleep.
I had trusted that if something was wrong, one of them would tell me.
Malik had tried. I remembered him asking if I could pick him up on Fridays. I’d said I would look at my schedule.
I hadn’t.
“I’m going to talk to him,” I said.
Upstairs, I found Malik sitting on his bed with a book open on his lap. He hadn’t turned a page.
“Can I come in?”
He nodded.
I sat on the floor beside the bed, where we used to sit when he was little and built towers out of blocks.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You didn’t go to dinner.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know how your evenings were going.”
He traced a line on the book cover.
“You’ve been busy.”
“I have. I still want you to tell me when something hurts.”
“I didn’t want you and Monique to fight.”
“That’s for us to handle.”
He looked at the door.
“She gets annoyed when I make things difficult.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does she say?”
“Sometimes she says I complain too much.”
“How often?”
He shrugged.
I wanted to ask every question at once. His face told me to slow down.
“Has she left you home alone before?”
“Just when she takes Ava somewhere.”
“Do you have a way to call me?”
“My phone. But she says only to use it if it’s a real emergency.”
I held his gaze.
“If you need me, call me. You don’t have to decide whether it’s important enough.”
He nodded, though I could see he was still unsure.
I asked whether he wanted me to stay while he read. He scooted over, and I sat beside him until he fell asleep against my arm.
Downstairs, Monique had put the takeout away. Ava sat alone at the table.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“He’s hurt.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I didn’t know he’d be here tonight.”
“I believe you.”
“There were other times when Mom said he had plans.”
I pulled out a chair.
“What plans?”
“I don’t know. I should’ve asked him.”
“You can talk to him tomorrow.”
She nodded. Before I stood, she said, “Last Friday, when I got home from practice, he was sitting outside with his backpack. Mom hadn’t come back yet.”
“How long?”
“About an hour, I think. She said her meeting ran late.”
Monique had told me she picked him up from school that day.
I thanked Ava and went to the kitchen. Monique was there, closing the dishwasher.
“Ava told me about Friday,” I said.
May you like
She kept her hand on the dishwasher door.
For the second time that night, I watched her search for an answer.
