Page 34 of Love Complicated

“I know you’re not.” I take his squishy pink sweaty cheeks in my hands and kiss his forehead. “You’re all heart.” And then I level him a stern look. “Did he say I was mean?”

Why’d I ask that? I know better. I should never ever draw them into conversations about their dad and what he says about me.

“He said you were a liar.”

“Daddy’s a fuck face.” No, I didn’t say that to Grady, but you know I’m thinking it. How does he have the right to talk shit about me?

Hecheated onme!

Is waterboarding legal? I have this vision of me standing in the backyard, my foot on Austin’s throat and the garden hose stuck in his mouth screaming at him to take back calling me a liar. While it’s graphic and actually somewhat gratifying to envision this, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s pulling our kids into this mess when he shouldn’t be.

I’ve made it a point to never ever say a bad thing to them about their father, and I certainly could have, couldn’t I?

Grady raises his eyes to mine, and I see so much of Austin in him I hate it, but at the same time, I love it because I have all of Austin’s good qualities in Grady. “Is he right? Are you a liar?”

“No, buddy.” I lean forward and kiss his forehead. “Time for bed.”

Every mother struggles to think they’re good enough. Especially when they’re raising little boys to be men.

I ask myself constantly, how can I give them what they need? How can I give them the attention they deserve?

Cash and Grady, though identical, arecompletelydifferent. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine they’re brothers and shared a womb at the same time.

I don’t get it right. I forget to pack lunches. I forget to make them brush their teeth or shower every day.

Occasionally they have to remind me they haven’t eaten or they have homework they haven’t completed, but I’m not a bad mother, and I’m certainly not a fucking liar.

ONCE I HAVE the boys to bed, Tori comes over with a bottle of wine. We do this a lot, me and my cousin. Mostly since Austin moved out because they never got along.

Funny, he never got along with any of my family.

As we sit on the back patio, slowly sipping on my second glass of Ménage a Trois Moscato, I stare at the lawn I need to mow.

The night before Austin moved out, I ran over all his suits with the lawnmower. Made for nice fertilizer. Actually, no, it didn't. There are actually brown spots on the yard, like they’re outlining the scene of the crime. Like the shit he spewed about being an honest man leaked through his clothes and into the lawn.

My point? I love this house. Naturally, Austin hated it because my parents gave it to us and it wasn’t the style of home he wanted. He wanted to move out of Calistoga and to San Francisco since he graduated law school but I didn’t want to. I love this small historical town and having my family close by.

I’m looking through recipes on Pinterest of cute, creative kids’ meals I pin, but honestly have no intention of making when Tori gasps, clutching her phone tighter.

She’s beside me in one of the chairs surrounding my outside fire pit, scrolling through Facebook and Instagram when she twists her phone my way. “What a cunt cake. Brie changed her profile picture to one of the boys.”

“No way!” I grab the phone from her hand. I don’t have Facebook. I did, but once I found out about Austin and Brie, I’d spend all my time on stalking them and waiting for them to post pictures together. Austin never did, he’d never been much into social media, but Brie, she did to rub it in my face that she now had my husband. Everywhere they go, she tags him and her together. It’s sickening how easily she squeezed herself in.

There it is. A picture of my boys with Austin in the middle. She stole my family. Ripped it from my life and inserted herself in the middle.

I down the rest of my wine. “One of these days she’s going to meet me face-to-face, and the boys won’t be around, and I can finally say what needs to be said to her.”

I don’t want Brie touching my children let alone using their picture as her profile for fuck’s sake. It’s a jab at me. I know it is. And believe it or not, I’ve yet to confront Brie on her cock stealing. I don’t know what to say to her other than to scream, and I want whatever I do say to convey how badly she hurt me. The time will come.

Tori pours me another glass. “We could kidnap her. I have chloroform.”

I stare at Tori and her big blonde hair she has twisted around in a bun on the top of her head. And the Cheerios stuck in there. She does have a two-year-old at home. “Why do you have chloroform at home?”

“Everyone does.”

“Nope.” I reach for the glass on the table beside us. “They don’t.” And then I think to myself, why am I letting it bother me so much?

I am because she’s involving my children now.

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