Page 1 of Sunshine & Sinful

ONE

With my phone propped against a tin of tea on my kitchen island, I separate and crumble various dried leaves and flowers and place them into bowls. Despite the annoyance with his mother, the handsome face scowling on the screen through FaceTime is a sight for sore eyes.

“Mom, can’t you… ya know.” He waves his hand. “Call him?” Tarek asks for the literal tenth time, referring to his father.

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I shake my head. It’s not my job to call anyone. It’s also not my job to forgive or forget. It’s been four months since I’ve spoken to my ex-husband or his father. On the bathroom floor of the hotel, when I broke, truly broke, I meant what I said—that I never want to speak to or see them ever again. It hasn’t been easy. When we left the hotel the following morning, I rented a car and drove home after I slept on a thin towel on the dingy, too-small-to-spread-out bathroom floor. It took me four days driving alone and sleeping at rest stops along the way. Oh, they tried to stop me. They begged,but broken things can’t listen. They can’t smile, forgive, or function like they should. They’re pieces, a collection of once was, never to be the same.

As far back as I can remember, my mother collected broken things. I always found it charming when she acted like it was her purpose to give life to something no longer loved—an orange cardigan at a thrift shop with a hole in the back. Her favorite mug found outside of a run-down gas station in the middle of nowhere. It looked like someone had tossed it out the window into a pile of weeds as they drove away. But she picked it up, washed it, and kept it, despite the chips and small crack down its side that somehow never leaked.

She always said it was her version of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pieces of pottery with gold. Though she didn’t need to fix the items to love them. They mattered to her all the same.

I wonder what she’d think of me now—her only child.

Her late-in-life miracle …now a fragment of what I once was.

Nobody understands what I’m feeling or going through, not that I’ve given them a chance to. I haven’t told a soul what I learned, not Till, Sugar, my sons, and definitely not my quasi-boyfriend.

Surprise!

Yes, I have one of those now, too.

He’s a normal man, average in all ways, and I like him. There’s no hot or cold, no love or hate. Everything about our budding relationship is lukewarm, and I like the lukewarm. Lukewarm is safe. It’s comforting. It’s nice. He was a customer at the bar, and for once, I broke my ruleof not dating customers to go on a date with him. Because he’s not a biker, a criminal, or a cheater, at least as far as I can tell. He’s sweet in his own way, stutters when he’s nervous, and has a charming smile. Sex is always satisfactory, and he doesn’t complain when Lily stays the night or lose his temper when I call off a date because I’m having another moment.

I have a lot of those now.

Moments.

That happens in grief.

And that’s what this is.

I’m mourning the death of a life I once knew. Of love and friendship, I thought, stupid me, was important.

But it was all a lie—years of lies.

All those runs for the club, Dark was fucking other women, and Sunshine knew. He knew the whole time. He knew everything.

Perhaps that’s why he was nice to me and put in the effort—to quell his guilt and appease me?

I’m no closer to understanding their intentions today than four months ago. Sure, they’ve texted, sent emails, and letters, trying to apologize and explain. I’ve read them all, and it still changes nothing.

Tarek clucks his tongue as if he’s disappointed in me. “Mom. I know Dad’s an asshole, but he’s…”

Unimpressed with his hassling, I glare at my son, shutting him right up. “I love you, but please stay out of your parents’ shit.”

“He hasn’t seen Lily in three months,” he replies, sitting at a bar in what I presume is a Sacred Sinner clubhouse. Tipping his head back, my son drains a bottle ofbeer. It thuds a moment later when he drops it on the glossy bar top and grumbles as if he’s exhausted with me, his father, and life itself.

“I know, kiddo,” I comment, not knowing what else to say. I already know Dark hasn’t seen his kid. I know this because she tells me. Lily is over at my house more now than ever, and Abby doesn’t seem to care.

Tarek runs his finger around the lip of his empty bottle. “Abby’s texting me every day now.”

I sigh. “Tell your father that. Not me.” It’s not like I can do anything, and I don’t want to.

“I have. He doesn’t care. He’s…” Tarek smashes his lips together and frowns like he’s about to share something he’s not supposed to. While I’m curious, I don’t press because I don’t want to have this conversation to begin with. Do I feel bad my son’s putting himself in the middle of our crap? No. Because he’s grown, and so am I. He doesn’t have to put his nose where it doesn’t belong, and I don’t have to appease him because I’m his loving mother. There are some things even a mother can’t give her child, and forgiving his lying, cheating father is one of them.

“How’s your love life?” I ask, changing the subject as I wipe my hands on a paper towel before opening a glass container to separate dried mint leaves grown from my garden.

Not liking my question, Tarek runs a hand through his dark hair and mutters a string of expletives before he sighs long and hard. “What should I do about Abby?”

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