Page 21 of Spoil
Chapter twelve
Penelope
Daniel: When can I see you again?
Istare at the text and ask myself that very same question when the bell rings. My stepmother’s bell.
I walk up the stairs and turn left at the landing.
“Yes? Genevieve?”
“I need my ice water refilled.”
“Of course.” I take her grey Stanley from her and look around her room. Blankets, sheets, and clothes lie around in piles. For someone who doesn’t leave the house, she goes through a lot of clothes. I think she has manic episodes where she convinces herself to get up and “put on her face” and rejoin the world and then decides she’s not up for it, so she gets back into pajamas to go back to bed.
I walk downstairs and fill it from the fridge, grabbing a laundry basket from the laundry room on my way back up. Danny smiles up at me from her coloring on the living room floor. I smile back at my girl. We haven’t gotten a chance tofigure out what her father’s sudden appearance means, or when we want to see him again. I think we’re both letting the idea of him marinate before making any decisions.
I’m a full-time housekeeper and caregiver for Gen, supplemented with an indecently small check from the state, and then I drop a sleeping Danny off at Cara’s apartment before my shift at The White Envelope from five to nine am, when I go pick up Danny again and head home to care for Gen.
Technically, I’m “off” at home at six. But then I have to make dinner for the family and do any other little chores they need me to do. I mean, I live here, too. And it’s what I would be doing as a stay-at-home mom anyway, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time to organize something with Daniel.
I hand Gen her Stanely back and scoop what blankets and clothes fit in the basket.
“Some of those have to be dry cleaned,” Gen says, as if I haven’t been doing her laundry for the last four years.
Dad got sick with cancer, and by the time they diagnosed him, it was terminal. He passed three months later. But in the three months he was being treated, it was one chemo appointment after the other, oncology appointments, cardiology appointments, ER visits when he would wake up vomiting and become too dehydrated to stand. Gen took him to all of his appointments and monitored his vitals at home like it was a full-time job. So, I helped in the ways I could - by cooking and cleaning, so they wouldn’t have to.
Chastity and Grace live in the home, too, but they never learned how to cook. It was always my dad who did the cooking. And he didn’t like the way that Grace didn’t vacuum close enough to the baseboards, or how Chastity would load the dishwasher. So, those chores fell to me.
I didn’t mind. I liked being useful.
And then after his passing, Gen basically gave up on life. Started spending more and more time rotting in bed playing online backgammon. It was her escape from her hurt. And I get it. I had Danny to focus on for my escape. She was born a month after Dad passed, and I threw my grief into mothering her.
So when would I get to see Daniel again?
I go to the laundry room and separate what can tumble dry and what needs to be dry cleaned and mentally run through my schedule.
I could maybe do something next week. But is that too long to make him wait? Does he want to see just me? Or me and Danny?
I start a load and sit cross-legged in front of Danny. I can’t make any decisions without knowing what is in her best interest. Being raised by a single dad, I’ve seen firsthand the impact a father figure has. My dad was my everything. My best friend, my confidante, the person I cried to when I didn’t get any carnations at school for Valentine’s Day. Danny could have that with Daniel. He seemed shocked when I told him he had a kid, but not at all uninterested. The way he chatted with her, got down to her level to say goodbye. Those are the actions of a good man.
“So, finding your dad was a really big deal, right?”
She nods happily.
“How do you feel about it?”
She shrugs and returns to her coloring book.
“Do you want to see him again?”
“Yeah. He seems cool.” Cool is her new word. Everything is cool. Pizza is cool. Horses are cool. I’m cool too sometimes.
I pat her hair. “Okay, baby. Let me see when I can make that happen.”
I get my phone from the counter again. I just need to be honest with him. It’s not that we don’t want to see him; it’s that I don’t know when we can.
Me: I drop Danny off with my friend at 4:30 am before working at the club… YOUR club apparently… from 5 to 9. Then I work at home from 9:30 to 6pm. Then I have to make dinner, pick up around the house, homeschool with Danny. Then bed by 7:30
