Page 10 of Sugar Pie
I needed to fix my schedule. I put the wine in the fridge then washed the vegetables. My phone vibrated.
I glanced at it. Other than Romeo, no one had called me in months. I’d half wondered if my ex had canceled my account, though I was still on my parents’s plan, as I’d never bothered to change it despite being married for three years. I’d planned to get my own when I was finally on my own, and it suddenly became a priority once I got a job. I turned the water off and saw my mother’s picture, so I answered it.
Instead of “hello,” she said, “Come home.”
If I did that, Romeo would find me, and my parents would invite him in while I was sleeping, which is exactly what had happened three months before.
Home wasn’t safe.
I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.”
My mother sighed. “You left your husband on the highway. You’re clearly distraught.”
No, I’d walked off at a gas station and disappeared as fast as my feet could carry me.
He’d obviously spoken to them. I wouldn’t have been surprised if all of them had made a plan for me. But my freedom was going to stick—I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. “I’m actually pretty good despite you not supporting me getting a divorce.”
“I didn’t understand.” She paused. “Look, let me buy you a plane ticket.”
They were absolutely working together. I swallowed and glanced at the ceiling. There was no way I was ever going back without a divorce certificate, a job, and a place to call my own. I needed to grow a spine and stay strong. “Mom, I’m handling my life.”
“I’m worried about you. Are you taking your meds?”
“I never needed them. I’m happy and don’t want to live my life with my head in a cloud of indifference.” I closed my eyes, and it wasn’t the onion that needed to be cut making me choke up. No one had ever listened to me or what I wanted, and I knew they wouldn’t start all of a sudden. “Why do you want me home? Because you care or because you want to send me back to Romeo so you can continue telling everyone your daughter married a doctor?”
“I’m worried about you. Quitting medication is dangerous, dear.”
“I didn’t need pills before getting married. You know that. And I’m capable of making my own decisions, just as I did in college.”
“Your father and I paid the tuition.”
“And I’m grateful. I earned good grades, and my friends all went and got jobs.”
“You don’t need to be a slave.”
There was no way working was worse than living with Romeo. I swallowed and stayed focused. ”I’m not going to take anything else that puts me to sleep and makes me forget I hate my life,” I said quickly. I had spent two years of my life medicating the pain away, and I wasn’t doing that anymore.
Besides, pills made it harder to think about what I wanted or how to fix my life. I needed a plan like the one Warren had.
Romeo’s friends wrote prescriptions as if drugs were candy for me. Maybe I would have been okay to sit there for one more house party, smiling alongside the other trophy wives, but that was over. I was done having a cloudy mind. And if I showed any weakness, they would get what they wanted. I wasn’t going back to that.
I said goodbye, hung up, then threw myself into cooking, the only thing that ever made me feel calm. A few minutes later, I let out a sigh then began to sing a wordless melody, swaying as I worked.
First, I fried chicken strips until they sizzled, flipped them in the frying pan, then set water to boil for pasta. As I finished, I was almost dancing.
Once the meat was almost done, I started on the sauce. I danced as I diced onions, avocados, and peppers then added them to a small pan with evaporated milk, humming a faster tune.
Soon, dinner was almost done, and I grabbed the shirt Warren had left out for me as I used my phone to search the job boards.
I needed a résumé and a clue if I wanted to avoid being a maid. I made an appointment with my old university’s career services center for the next day—I needed all the help I could get, and a well-written résumé could make a huge difference.
I felt almost happy, which was odd.
Just as the pasta finished cooking, I heard a key in the lock. I held my breath and stopped humming as Warren came in and our gazes met. My knees went weak, but I hid that behind the counter.
He closed the door behind him. “It smells good in here. Where did you get the food?”
I walked, read ingredients that were on sale, and chose based on how little I wanted to spend. For the first time in a long time, I hadn’t been ordered to serve a husband or guests. I smiled. “I told you I’d stay on budget, but that meant cooking. So I grabbed a pepper, a lemon, an avocado, a small chicken, pasta, and evaporated milk. I figured you had a long day, and dinner cost less than ten dollars this way—fifteen if you include the wine.”
