Page 9 of Woman on the Verge

They had no response to this. They were intrigued. I had never said this before.

I pulled into the driveway, my heart still racing. I knew Kyle could see us pulling in from his office window, but he wouldn’t come out. He probably didn’t even realize that we were back sooner than we should have been.

When I unbuckled Grace, she squirmed away from my attempts to hold her and ran toward the house, likely curious to encounter this mysterious version of her father who was going to take her for ice cream in the middle of a workday. Liv, still tired, was dead weight in my arms, nuzzling into my neck.

I followed after Grace, and once inside, I heard Kyle’s voice: “You guys are back!”

“Mommy said you’d take us for ice cream,” Grace announced.

Liv raised her head from my shoulder to see the reaction.

“Oh, she did?”

Kyle’s eyes were on me, his eyebrows raised, asking for my consent. In many ways, I am his mother too. I nodded.

“Well, okay then,” he said with a smile. “That works out anyway because Mommy may need to call Grandma Merry.”

Merry—short for Meredith—is my stepmom. I hardly ever talk to her and didn’t know why I would need to now.

Liv squirmed in my arms. “Down,” she said.

I put her down, and she and Grace went into the kitchen to pack their backpack for the ice cream excursion.

“Merry called,” Kyle said once the girls were gone. “She said she tried your cell and you didn’t pick up.”

His eyes looked concerned. I sat on the guest bed next to his desk. When I checked my phone, there was a missed call from Merry. It must have come in while I was roaring on the freeway.

“She said something’s wrong with your dad.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She said he’s acting weird. Memory issues or something. I told her you’d call.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’re taking the girls now?”

He stood from his chair. “I’ll take them.”

He looked at his watch, one of those sporty watches that counts your daily steps. Kyle has the brain space to consider his daily steps. I can’t fathom this.

“I need to be back in an hour for a call,” he said.

“Okay. That works. You know I can’t stand to talk to Merry for more than twenty minutes.”

This was once one of our bonding things—talking about how draining my stepmother could be. I’d just dangled this bait in front of him, welcomed him to take it, to partner with me again.

Instead, he just said, “Nic, she’s not that bad.”

This was the day I marked as the beginning of everything that would come.

This was the day that would serve as the dividing line between before and after.

Chapter 2

Katrina

The bartender brings a whiskey for Katrina (her second) and a beer for Elijah (his first). That’s his name—Elijah. Moments ago, he sat next to her at the bar. She would like to think he was seeking her company, but the truth is that the seat next to her was the only one open. They have just exchanged names. He is one of the most handsome men Katrina has ever seen. Not regular-guy handsome, but might-be-a-Calvin-Klein-model handsome. He has big brown eyes, irises like melted chocolate, and curly brown hair in a bun on top of his head. His eyelashes are outrageously long. Women pay stupid amounts of money for extensions that make their lashes look like his.

“So are you from around here?” he asks, before taking a sip of his beer.