Page 59 of Lush Curves

But a small part of her, the part that she hadn’t fully managed to stomp all hope out of, rose up in her chest. Whispered to her thatit might be him out there on your porch. Told her to get up off her rapidly-spreading ass and go open the door, let him in, talk to him, make it all work. Someway. Somehow. Anyhow.

But no. No no no. No matter what Annie wanted, what she wanted desperately to the point of needing like she needed air to breathe, there was a small girl whose wants and needs mattered more than her own. No way Annie was standing between a small girl and her father, between a man and his child, not for anything. Not for love or money, as her Mom used to say, and Annie finally grasped the expression fully, because she wasn’t willing to hurt or confuse Cindy. Not for millions of dollars. Not even for love.

Not even though Annie’s heart was broken clean in half. She had no earthly idea how it possibly kept on beating, but it did, and she kept on getting up every day to stare at the TV, and eat crap, and work at methodically killing that last, stubborn little bit of hope that seemed determined to have a last few gasps.

Damnhim for making her believe in him, in them, in the goddamn fairy tale… because now she didn’t know how to stop. And ithurtto believe those things – hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. She’d forgotten how painful faith and hope and wishes could be, how their edges could slice and dice the heart and soul like talons. How they stole her focus and her energy and her will to brush her hair… yeah, belief was a serious fucker, and she had spent hours every day trying to kill it.

But as this knock on the door showed her, she’d failed pretty badly. In fact, she’d sucked at it, and she could now add ‘lousy murderess’ to her glowing and growing list of life fails.

The knock came again. Annie kicked down on hope again.

“Mom!” came a voice. “Mom, open up. We can hear the TV.”

She wasn’t sure of she was relieved that it was Noah standing outside her door, or if she was crushed that it was Noah standing outside her door. Then she instantly felt awful for being disappointed that her son was there, and she scrambled to her feet.

“Coming!” Annie called in the direction of the door as she frantically picked up potato chip bags and chocolate bar wrappers and soda cans. She kicked the pizza box from the day before under the chair, threw a blanket in front of it to conceal the evidence, then grabbed the melting ice cream carton and dashed to the kitchen. “Just – hang on a second!”

“She’s hiding all the junk food packages,” Annie heard Noah say to someone as she tossed the cartons in the sink among the wine glasses and coffee cups. “Don’t sit in the blue chair.”

“Why not?” Callie’s voice responded. “What’s wrong with the blue chair?”

“It will have stuff hidden underneath it.”

“Oh. OK.”

Ha, Annie thought as she raced to the door, trying to make her hair more presentable but knowing thatthatbattle was lost before it even began.I hid the pizza box under thegreenchair this time. Changing it up, keeping you guessing, kid.

She just had time to wish for some lipstick, then she opened the door, tried to look normal. “Hello.”

Noah and Callie both recoiled, looks of horror on their faces.

“Mom.” Noah was nothing short of totally disapproving. “When did you last brush your hair?”

“And wash it?” Callie added. “And put on makeup?”

Annie stepped back, waved her arm grandly, noticing too late the hole in her sweater sleeve. “Please come in.”

They did, gingerly, as if they expected her house to have turned into a ‘before’ dwelling on ‘Hoarders’. Noah nodded meaningfully at the blue chair, and Callie made a bee-line for the pink one.

Good choice, kid.

“So.” Annie returned to the sofa and Noah joined her there. She was all casual, like she didn’t look like a lunatic maiden aunt that had just wandered down from the attic. “How are you two?”

“Good,” Noah said. “And you’re terrible.”

“Clearly,” Callie chimed in. “Very terrible.”

Annie sighed. “Is it that obvious?”

She should have known better, of course, since Noah and Callie took what she said literally. Sarcasm bypassed them, every single time.

“Yes,” Noah responded with a grim face. “It is.”

Callie nodded.

“Well, yes.” Annie pushed her hair back. “I mean… I’m upset. I’m sad. I’m – well. I’m upset and sad.”

“We asked Naomi what we should do to make you feel better, and she said to bring you chocolate chip cookies,” Callie said. “So we did. We looked up the recipe on the internet and we baked them this morning. For you.”

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