Page 3 of The Fake Husband Play
Or a cheapskate who takes you to Boobie Bob’s and asks to split the bill.
[Heavy sigh.]
And that, my darlings, takes us full circle. Life may besour, but may your dreams be full of hockey players as sweet as Louisiana pralines and five times as satisfying.
Until next time, this has been Love On Ice—he shoots, I moan. For girls still holding out hope for a hockey hottie of their very own.
[Theme music fades in as episode ends.]
Fifteen minutes later,I hit publish on my latest episode—the editing isn’t my best, but my listeners are cool about things like that—and climb out of the bathtub to investigate the thudding sound I heard.
At first, I thought it was noise pollution on the track, until I rewound and realized it was coming from outside my “recording studio.”
Which means it’s time to check on Mimi.
I slip quietly out of the bathroom, clutching my laptop and mic like precious cargo. If anything were to happen to them, there’s certainly no room in the current budget for new recording equipment.
The apartment feels smaller in the darkness, our secondhand furniture casting mismatched shadows, reminding me of all the other things I can’t afford to replace.
Down our short hallway, Mimi’s door is cracked—she likes a little light filtering in to “keep the bad dreams away.” Usually, athudfrom her room is just my girl knocking a toy off the bed in her sleep, but I’m too much of a worrywart not to check.
If anything ever happened to her because I was busy with my hobby, I would never forgive myself.
I peek inside, and my heart squeezes tight. God, she’s so stinking cute. My daughter is ridiculously precious when she’s asleep. As usual, Mimi is sprawled across her twin mattress like a tiny Victorian woman who just had a fainting spell, surrounded by all the toys she insists on taking to bed, so none of them will “get their feelings hurted.” One arm is thrown up over her head, and her dark curls fan across her stuffed unicorn like a second mane.
Thankfully, her nebulizer sits silent on the nightstand tonight—no wheezing, no breathy cough that sometimes tags along when her immune system’s under siege. But the sight of it reminds me of the three prescription bottles nearly empty on the kitchen counter. Not the top-tier meds her rheumatologist wanted—those cost more than our monthly rent, evenwithinsurance—but they’ve been helping keep the worst of it at bay.
But that’s help I can’t count on anymore…
How long until we’re forced back to the old steroid routine that the state will pay for? Is she really in partial remission, or will this mean a return to swollen joints and emergency room trips every few weeks when the pain spikes out of control?
Everything will be okay, it always is in the end,I assure myself, just like Mama Becky used to when times were tough.
My foster mom was the kindest, steadiest woman I’ve ever known. She never gave in to despair, not even when Papa Jim died, and we struggled to cover the mortgage for a year until his life insurance finally kickedin. If she was scared, she never let it show, and she never evenconsideredputting me back into the system.
If she were here, she would tell me not to lose faith, to trust that I’m strong and resourceful enough to provide for myself and my daughter.
But the stack of bills on the kitchen counter tells another story.
Setting my equipment down on the hall table, I tiptoe to Mimi’s bed, brushing a curl from her forehead to lay gentle fingers on her skin. She’s warm but not feverish, and her breath comes steady and deep. The good days have started to outnumber the bad ones in the past six months, but now…
What will happen now that my insurance from the station is gone?
My stomach clenches at the memory of my walk of shame out of the newsroom this afternoon. My boss swore it was purely a budget issue, nothing to do with the quality of my work, but I’d never been fired before.
The entire process was humiliating and stressful.
Speaking of stress, I should probably stop hiding from my problems in hockey podcast land and deal with the HR email I’ve been avoiding. My fifteen hundred podcast subscribers bring me so much joy, but Love on Ice isn’t going to be paying the bills anytime soon.
But at least it keeps me sane.
When life as Eloise Thibodeaux, struggling single mom to a chronically ill little girl, feels too heavy, I retreat to the bathroom and become Luvvy Puck, dating coach and hockey fangirl. Luvvy, who has a “roommate,” plenty of time to scroll through dating apps, and zero worries about how she’s going to take care of herchild’s medical needs if this whole “COBRA plan” thing doesn’t work out.
With a soft sigh, I ease out of Mimi’s room, collect my laptop, and head for our ancient couch.
I joke that it’s my office.
It’s also my bedroom.
