Page 13 of The Broken Heart Playlist
Mom sees us out, juggling four containers of leftovers for me. I make sure Lisset is buckled in, but before I can walk around to the driver’s side, Mom asks in a quiet voice, “You okay, Kate? Other than what’s going on with Lisset, is there anything else worrying you?”
An unexpected wave of emotion rolls over me. No matter the facade I put up, my mother possesses the parental super sense that picks up whenever something is off-kilter. But her question is a knot I have no desire to untangle.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Just tired.”
The age-old excuse people haul out when they want to hide the real reason they’re not coping.
After a beat, she says, “I can’t sit in your skin, but I can sit with you wherever you’re at.”
I stare at her. “Have you been listening to one of those parenting podcasts again?”
She flushes slightly, looking sheepish. “You know you can tell me anything.”
I nod. I wish, just this once, I could give in and tell her. But some things feel so shameful you can’t tell anyone, not even your own mother.
CHAPTER SIX
After a quick bath, Lisset climbs straight into bed. No arguments fall from her lips tonight regarding bedtime, which tells me how tired she is.
“Mom,” she whispers sleepily, “please leave the nightlight on.”
I stroke her hair back from her forehead. “Why?”
“I’m scared of monsters.”
My chest tightens. Only when she’s older will she realize monsters lurk in the light too.
“I’ll leave it on,” I say. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
I think she’s asleep before I’ve even exited her bedroom.
I’m heading downstairs when a memory resurfaces of how Lisset used to read for ages in bed before falling asleep. I would sometimes have to instruct her to turn off her light because she had to wake up for school the next day. Yet another Lisset-shaped detail that’s guiltily slipped my attention. Yes, I’m a single mom, and I’m tired and overloaded more days than most, but I have to do better than this.
I start tidying up—straightening cushions, folding laundry, stacking the dishwasher. The temptation to leave the house in its current state is almost overwhelming. I can’t help feeling, however, that if I give in, even once, to the temptation I’m in danger of setting a pattern. And if I’m unable to keep my house in order, what hope will there be for my life?
Tess sometimes teases me for being a control freak. Maybe I am. It’s just, I don’t know, the world is chaotic enough without me inviting that chaos into my home.
An hour later, I’ve finished tidying up and I drag myself upstairs to shower, brush my teeth, and change into my pajamas. Slipping into bed, I avoid looking at my bedside table, at the top drawer and the contents inside.
Tonight, I’m not opening that drawer.
I scroll through my phone for a while, looking at the feed of other food stylists to see what’s trending, but nothing on the screen holds my attention. With fatigue pulling at me, I put my phone away and switch my bedside lamp off. This is a time I both long for and dread. It’s finally a moment for my body to unwind, but it also means I have time to think.
And I don’t always enjoy the road trips my thoughts take me on.
During the day, the buzz and busyness of work consumes me, while the evenings are filled with Lisset’s bubbly chatter and endless questions.
But now, alone in my cold bed, the dark and the quiet press in on me, bony fingers tap-tap-tapping on the padlocks of all the memories I’ve chained in my head.
Most nights I’m able to ignore them, but tonight they’re insisting on a response.
And so I give them one. To blunt my memories and to forget what’s inside my bedside drawer, I make my way to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, take half a sleeping pill, and knock myself out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I don’t want to be here,” Lisset mutters, a sullen downward tilt to her lips.
My hands tighten on the wheel and I take in a slow breath through my nose, leashing my irritation. My daughter has been clutching her attitude tightly to her chest ever since I picked her up from school and announced we’re heading to the library.
