Page 51 of Love & Rockets

Chapter 10

Darla’s Hello Kitty pajamas were warm and snuggly as ever, she had a bowl of popcorn she didn’t have to share, and command of the remote. She should be happy. But she wasn’t. Instead of feeling comfy and cozy, she had nervous knots in her stomach. No matter how many buttons she pushed, she felt completely out of control. Rather than digging into the fluffy kernels of corn she’d nuked, she was eating her heart out. Over a man.

She tried to tell herself she was happy her kid had the ‘most amazing’ time with Jake. If she kept her eyes glued to the TV, she could pretend she barely noticed Jake hadn’t come up to the apartment when he brought Grace home. It didn’t matter that her phone hadn’t rung, beeped, buzzed, or made the stupid space-agey chirp noise she’d assigned to his contact name.

They’d had their fun. Grace got her foot in the door with the It Is Rocket Science program. Jake got laid. And for a little while, she had Jake Dalton. The guy she daydreamed about for nearly half her life. They should all be happy.

Instead, she felt crushed.

“Mom?”

She jumped and a shower of popcorn rained onto the carpet. “Oh. Hey.” Darla righted the bowl before she dumped the rest and flashed a quick smile over her shoulder. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

Gracie slid into her usual spot. “I was working on some of the stuff Dr. Jake gave me for my report.”

Sitting up a little straighter, she stroked her daughter’s hair. The curls might not be as silky as they were when she was a toddler, but Darla found touching Grace irresistible. There’d never come a day when she wouldn’t marvel at this unexpected miracle in her life. “How’s the project looking? You got this one sewn up?”

Her baby curled up on the cushion like a kitten, a sly smile curving her lips. She looked like the proverbial cat who’d scored the dish of cream. “Yep.”

Darla laughed and gave Gracie’s pajama-clad bottom a playful swat. “That’s mama’s modest girl.” Setting the popcorn on the floor, she patted her leg in invitation. Without a word, Grace uncurled and rested her head in Darla’s lap.

The two of them lay quiet for a moment. On the screen a couple argued over which hideous fixture they should use to light the room they’d redecorated with an excess of cotton batting and palm fronds. On the Kennet sofa, someone heaved a heavy sigh, but Darla wasn’t exactly sure which one of them was the culprit. She twined her fingers in Gracie’s hair. “You okay?”

“Did you guys break up?”

The question struck with the force of a baseball bat to the knees. How was she supposed to answer? A simple yes or no would validate the terminology. Saying they were never really together would open up a whole other avenue of inquiry. One she wasn’t the least bit interested in negotiating. Not now. Not when she was feeling so confused about everything.

So she went with the old parenting standby: the bald-faced lie.

“Jake and I are okay with each other.”

Neither of them spoke as the quasi-decorators on the screen went toe-to-toe over swipes of different colored paints they slapped onto a wall like talentless graffiti artists.

“He didn’t seem okay,” Grace said at last.

Darla’s hand stilled, but she kept her gaze locked on the television. “What do you mean?”

Inhaling deeply, Gracie flipped onto her back and stared directly up at her. “He didn’t ask a single question about you.”

A giant fist closed around Darla’s heart. She forced a laugh, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. “Well, honey, why would he ask about me? He was taking you out to look through his super scope. It had nothing to do with me.”

“He always asks about you.” Grace’s mouth thinned. “We’re done with the project.”

Pushing down the knot of pain lodged in her chest, Darla focused all of her energy on keeping her smile in place. “Are you happy with how it turned out?”

Her daughter waited a beat too long to answer, making it clear she wasn’t fooled by one bit of Darla’s act. “It’s fine.”

“Fine?” Darla scoffed. “I practically sold my soul to get you your very own rocket scientist. If that doesn’t get you into Space Camp, well, we’ll have to go back to the whole sell-an-internal-organ-on-the-Internet plan, and I haven’t sharpened my manicure scissors lately.”

“Mom—”

“Maybe I can slip Mr. Dalton a piece of pie the next time he comes in for lunch.”

“I’m trying to—”

She held up a hand and wrinkled her nose. “Don’t make me suck up to Brian. I still remember the day he gave a thirty-minute presentation on tadpoles. I swear, we went in fifth graders but came out with our driver’s licenses.”

“Mom!”

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