“What do you mean, ‘What is it?’ Who was that woman?”
“That was Landon’s wife. You didn’t hear her say that?”
“I heard her, but what does she want with you? What was she talking about?” I leaned over to her chair to whisper. “Did you sleep with Landon?”
Sasha looked at me sharply.
“So what if I did?”
“So what if you did? He’s a married man—that’s so what,” I whispered.
“So now it’s my fault?” Sasha flashed a malicious smile that dissipated into a grin. “No, I didn’t sleep with him. Calm down. I’m just annoyed at how ridiculous she’s being. He’s her husband. She needs to calm down and play her position.”
“Confronting someone she thinks is sleeping with her husband isn’t her position?” I asked.
“No, it’s not,” Sasha answered. “Look, if he’s done with her, she needs to move on. Plain and simple. Marriage is little more than some ring and certificates. You can’t expect people to stick around just for that. Be a good wife, and if he stays, he stays. If he finds a better wife in someone else, well, it is what it is.”
4
Someone should’ve rang the fire alarm. Someone should’ve. But no one knew there was a fire. At least I didn’t. And that’s the funny thing about fires, you know? Most of us think when a fire breaks out, it just appears from nowhere. Stabbing, hot flames of red and orange flashing before our eyes like warning signs, giving us enough time to break a window and call for help. Run out of the door. Get the children out of their beds. But all fire isn’t like that. Sometimes, it starts in the walls. In the attic. Beneath your bed. And can burn for a few minutes. An hour. A few hours. Sometimes days. Before you’re willing to really see it and try to escape. But before that, there were signs. You smelled smoke. You heard cracking. You felt the heat. But you came up with a million excuses as to what else it could be instead of a fire. You opened a window. You turned your music up. You turned the heat down.
This was my fire brewing in front of me. And I was so busy trying to just kowtow and make good, have a friend in someone, that I was the one opening windows and turning up music and turning down heat. I wanted Sasha to be OK. Like, as my friend. And not smell the smoke, hear the cracking, or feel that heat. So I didn’t. At least not those last days she spent in my house. I was busy making excuses for her.
Sasha was leaving in the morning. For real this time. She’d called the car and her bags were packed and by the door. The twins were buzzing around her at the dinner table. Cheyenne had made her a friendship bracelet at school and R. J. had a special surprise.
“We’re going to miss you,” Cheyenne said, her arm linked with Sasha’s on the table. “No more pancakes in the morning. No more lasagna for dinner. . . . What are we going to do?”
“Eat what I fix you,” I said.
“Or I suppose I could leave my lasagna recipe, too,” Sasha said. She’d already given me the pancake recipe, but I’d stashed it away in Reginald’s mother’s old recipe box.
“Thank God for recipes,” Reginald joked.
“So what’s your special surprise?” Sasha asked R. J. And instead of looking away, he did something I’d come to expect when he was comm
unicating with Sasha: he smiled.
He reached down under his seat, pulled up something flat that was wrapped in the red and orange wrapping paper I’d used last Christmas.
“What’s that, sweetie?” I asked because I hadn’t taken him anywhere to get something for Sasha.
R. J. proudly handed the gift to Sasha and said, “Thank you.”
“Ohh.” Sasha patted R. J. on the head. “Thank you for what?”
“For being my new friend.” R. J. flung himself into Sasha’s arms and hugged her so intimately I felt my blood stop.
“And thank you for being my friend,” Sasha said before opening the gift.
“What’s that?” Reginald asked as we saw what looked like a book appearing from beneath a snag in the wrapping.
“Is that a book?” I asked.
“Goodnight Moon,” Sasha read the cover.
“What?” I leaned forward in my seat so I could see the cover. “Is that your book, R. J.?”
“Yes,” he said.