Selfish Love

Before anyone could say anything else, I decided I'd had enough and left the room.

Six

Kids have the double-edged sword of inherent simplicity.

Up to a certain age, things are very black and white to a kid. Baylee was smart as fuck and picked up on far more than I expected sometimes, but she was still a child. She might have understood the injustice and heartache of the situation, but to her, the problem was the men in the room.

Walking away from them meant the problem was solved, at least in her eyes.

I worried about it, late that night after poking my head in her room to make sure she was fast asleep. God only knew what the fallout would be, what sticky bit of trauma would follow her from that defining moment, what deep-seated lesson she had learned that would manifest in some strange way later in life. But Baylee didn't blame Leia for it; on the contrary, she couldn't stop expressing her excitement as I drove the two of them home.

"It looks socool!" she declared in the car.

"It'll make songs lots easier to play," Leia said. "So I can learn them faster and you can sing along with me sooner!"

Baylee clasped Leia's hand eagerly, childish exuberance filling the back seat. "I can't wait for you to play it more. Maybe I can be on your YouTube with you one day!"

They giggled and chattered and I kept my eyes focused on the road, wondering with pride and shame how my daughter had ended up so selfless when she had selfish parents like me and her father.

I expected Em to be pissed that I'd spilled the beans to Jimmy and had resolved to own up to it when she came to pick up Leia, but she already knew what had happened.

"I lost my shit on Alex," she said as soon as she walked into my house--without knocking, of course, because we didn't bother with those kinds of formalities anymore.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be." She walked to the fridge and grabbed two beers. "Put the popcorn on, I'm starving."

I grabbed a bag of microwavable popcorn from the pantry. "I mean I'm sorry for... I didn't know you hadn't told Jimmy. Was he mad?"

"Oh, that?" She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Of course not. If he wasn't pissed when he found out Alex and I were fucking, he wasn't going to be pissed about us moving in together."

I smiled in spite of myself. Jimmy's discovery of Alex and Em's relationship coincided with my discovery that Jimmy had grown up and matured a lot. He'd overheard me and Em talking about the fact that not only was she sleeping with his boss, but with the guy who had ruined his career, and that they were the same guy. Both of us had cringed, waiting for Jimmy's trademark anger to show, and for him to storm off to find Alex and lose his mind on him.

But Jimmy just laughed, called Alex a fucker, and declared he was going to ask for a raise.

"He was concerned more than anything," Em continued as she opened the beers and passed me one.

"About what?"

"You."

I laughed, startled. "What? Why?"

"Well, aside from feeling awful about the whole guitar thing, he wanted to know who was going to bring Baylee to school and watch her and stuff."

"I hadn't thought about that yet," I lied.

"We'll figure it out," Em said lightly. "Anyway, that was his main concern about that. Then the guitar thing was... well."

"It's... she's fine."

"Clearly," Em said, indicating the slightly off-key way my daughter was singing along to Leia's slightly off-beat guitar playing.

"I'm probably more upset than she is," I admitted.

"For good reason." She sipped her beer. "I don't know who's asinine idea it actually was, but Alex took the blame for it. He said he should have told Mike to wait until Baylee wasn't there, but Mike was apparently crazy excited to give her the guitar."

"I wonder what that must have looked like," I muttered bitterly. "Giddy as a schoolgirl, that one. Probably pulled a muscle trying to smile."

She burst out laughing. "You know how he gets with Leia."

Oh, I sure did.

"None of them thought it through," she continued. "Alex had the balls to ask how it was any different from a kid's birthday party."

"Fucking seriously?!" I blurted. "Because it's not her birthday and--"

"--a kid understands how birthdays work but not necessarily how random fucking custom guitar gifts work," she finished. "I know."

"Asshole."

"That's what I called him."

We paused, sipping our beer.

"And what did Mike say?" I asked.

The shift was subtle, but there. Em tapped her beer bottle against the kitchen table.

"Well, I didn't talk to Mike," she said. "And, um..."

"What?"

She sighed. "Alex doesn't want Mike to know about it. He said he'd make sure nothing like it happened again, but... I don't know. Mike's kind of sensitive about Leia and I guess he's got some other stuff going on." She looked at me, dark eyes pleading. "I know it's not fair to ask, but--"

"Yeah," I said. "Whatever. I won't mention it."

"Kels--"

"Whatever, Em." I grabbed another handful of popcorn. Of course we were trying not to offend Big Mike's delicate sensibilities. Of fucking course we were. "Look, maybe it would be best if Baylee didn't hang out at the studio for a while."

"Don't take away something she loves because you're mad at Mike," she said bluntly. "I know it was a shitty thing to do, but--"

My mouth dropped open. "You think I would do that?"

She had the self awareness to realize she'd crossed a line and the decency to look ashamed. "No, I... that came out wrong."

Sure it had.

"I wouldn't," I said. "I meant... I just--"

"I know," Em said. "If Baylee isn't... I mean, if she really doesn't want to spend time there, we can make sure the girls have somewhere else to hang out. This is all Alex's fault, remember? So he can figure something out for them. But if she does want to, I'll make sure they... it's going to be different."

"She's going to know if they're pandering to her," I said. "She's not stupid."

"It's not pandering." She looked at me, earnestly fierce. "Jimmy felt like shit. Seriously. You know he adores both of the girls?"

"Sure. But Leia is his niece."

"Doesn't matter. Jimmy loves Leia, and Leia loves Baylee, and Jimmy feels as protective over Baylee as he does over Leia. He's spent so much time with the girls that... I mean, he cares about you both a lot, Kels. More than you know."

Something tugged in my chest as she said that. I sucked lightly on my lip ring but didn't say anything.

"He felt awful," she said. "I don't remember the last time I heard him sound so upset with himself. He's not going to let something like that happen again."

"If you say so."

"I do say so."

The words stuck in my mind long after Em and Leia left. Long after Baylee had her bath and crawled into bed and let the memories of the day wash away. Long after I should have been asleep so I could wake up early and take advantage of the numbered days I had left with childcare in the morning.

Long after I should have let it go, I held onto that flutter, the terrifying comfort I'd felt when Em said Jimmy cared about me and Baylee.

Seven

Lies.

All of it was lies.

Lies, trickery, untruths, and fabrications. Straight up fucking delusional bullshit.

I cursed them all. I cursed Em. I cursed the day that brought them into my life. I cursed Alex for instigating the whole thing. I cursed Ethan Poplin for making the damn thing. I cursed the inventor of the goddamn thing. I cursed Mike just fucking because.

All of them. Curses on all of them.

Especially that fucker Jimmy.

I don't know how he convinced Em he cared for me. A master of straight-up deceit, that one. His actions weren't the actions of a man who understood what he was doing to me.

Although I had to give him credit. He did care for Baylee. That much was clear the second he put that cursed instrument in her greedy little hand and taught her how to play it.

A tambourine.

He gave my daughter a fucking tambourine.

I would be haunted until the day I fucking died by the jingles and the jangles and the palm-slapping pounding of an eight-year-old girl's hand on the head of it. And yes, those were proper terms for parts of the tambourine, as Baylee so kindly informed me fifteen fucking times.

The thing was, I had been right. The day after the new guitar debacle, I brought Baylee over to Em's house to get ready for school like I always did. And like always, Em was in the kitchen, blearily brewing coffee and tucking Fruit Roll-Ups into Leia's lunch bag.

And like sometimes, Alex was there, sipping coffee at the kitchen table as he flipped through some guitar magazine.

"Morning, Em!" Baylee said cheerfully.

"Morning, Bay," Em replied. "Leia's in her room. Go see if you can drag her out of bed, okay?"

Baylee dropped her bookbag and kicked off her shoes. "You got it!"

"No 'good morning' for me?" Alex teased from the table.

The sunshine on Baylee's face flickered and my heart broke.

"Morning, Mr. Alex," she said politely.

He caught the subtle shift just as clearly as Em and I had, but smiled anyway.

"Hey, before you run off, I was thinking. Your mom says you're pretty good at art, right?"

She brightened cautiously. "Yeah, sort of."

"Well, Em and I were talking and we could use some help with the posters for the concert. What about if you and Leia came by the studio after school today and helped us make some? We could get Lini to print them so we can put them up around town."

"Oh," Baylee said. "Um, maybe we could draw the posters at my house and then you can give them to Ms. Lini for us?"

Alex nodded casually. "Sure, kid."

"I didn't say anything to her about not going to the studio," I said to Em as soon as Baylee rushed down the hallway to wake up Leia. "This is the first I'm hearing about it."

"I believe you." Em glared at Alex. "And I told you to give it some fucking time."

They were still squabbling as I left for work and when I picked the girls up after school, neither of them mentioned going to the studio or drawing posters for the concert. Instead, they shut themselves in Baylee's bedroom for what I was told was a Very Important Secret Project. I heard giggles and whispers and the occasional gasp of laughter accompanied by words like "boyfriend," "married," and "in love." Before I could shit myself in panic at the fact that my eight-year-old was talking about boys, I heard a murmur about planning to "trick them into a date" and realized they were talking about setting up someone else.

That was a relief. I mean, they were eight. I told Em about it when she came to pick Leia up and we laughed, though we both cracked a beer and clinked the bottles together, silently grateful that we weren't the parents of whichever kids they were trying to set up on a date.

A few days after that, I had to work late and asked if Em could take care of pick up. And that was where I fucked up.

The silvery rustling of the rattling jingles slapped me in the face as soon as I opened the door to pick up Baylee after work. I didn't make the connection at first; loud and strange noises weren't all that alarming on their own, not when I had a boisterous kid with a rambunctious best friend. It could have been some game they made up--Shake The Pennies Inside A Metal Can Because Of Reasons, for example--or a craft Em had invented to keep them busy--Put These Pennies In A Metal Can To Scare Away Bears Or Something, maybe.

No, what made it alarming was that I looked into the living room to see Jimmy sitting beside Baylee on the couch, grinning as she tapped and shook and struck the tambourine in her hand while Leia looked on excitedly.

"Mom!" Baylee said. "Look, Jimmy taught me to play this!"

"Did he?" I asked, trying to sound like I was something other than devastatingly horrified.

"She's pretty good," he said.

The cynic in me wanted to roll my eyes at him, assuming that he was being tongue-in-cheek at best and facetious at worst. I was halfway to giving him one of those "I know what you're doing, asshole" looks, but I couldn't.

The look on his face was so genuine and bright and proud that I just... I couldn't.

"Of course she is," I said instead, and Baylee beamed.

"Mom, watch!" she demanded. "I already know how to do, um... this thing."

And she did a thing that featured rattling the tambourine and also hitting the tambourine. I guess it was good because Jimmy's face glowed with pride.

"Impressive," I said when the jingling faded.

"It is," Jimmy said. "It's actually--okay, so, I have to double-check, but I think... I mean, if it's okay with you, Kels, but you know the Poplin Family Jug Band?"

"I... yeah," I said.

"Okay, right." He was talking fast and motioned toward the tambourine. "Ethan Poplin makes instruments and stuff. He made this as sort of a test thing, I think. But he was saying he wanted to incorporate some tambourine into their songs and asked if I knew anyone, and I said no but clearly I hadn't heard Baylee play yet." He looked at me imploringly. "What would you say if Baylee maybe came to the studio to practice with the Poplins a couple of times? Then we could ask Ethan if she could play in the concert with them?" He glanced at Baylee. "Only if you want to, of course."

Well, there was no question about it. She nearly jumped off the couch, her fist tight around the tambourine in her hand, her eyes wide and wild and eager and full of a passion I'd never, ever seen in her before.

"Mom, please?" she asked breathlessly. "Please, please, please can you ask Mr. Poplin?"

And how could I say no?

"No," I said.

Her face fell.

"But you can," I continued. "If you want to play the tambourine for the Poplins, you can ask Mr. Poplin if that would be okay."

Both Baylee and Leia shrieked with delight, and honestly, I had a feeling that Jimmy wanted to squeal right along with them. I sent Baylee to get her backpack out of Leia's room and as soon as the girls raced down the hallway, he stood from the couch.

"Is this because of the other day?" I asked before he could say anything.

The almost-wholesome excitement on his face faded. "Not even a little bit."

"Okay."

"I wouldn't do that," he said almost angrily. "Ethan gave me the tambourine and I thought the girls might like it so when Em asked me to watch them, I--"

"Wait, Em's not here?"

He shook his head. "She had a client tonight. Alex said he'd cover shit at the studio if I could watch them until she was back so..." He shrugged. "Anyway, I brought it over and Baylee saw it. It had nothing to do with... with that."

"Right," I said. "Okay."

He glanced at the hall, then lowered his voice. "But I am sorry, Kels. I fucked up. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," I said.

His jaw twitched and hurt flashed in his dark eyes before he looked away from me, nodding resignedly. "Okay. I understand."

Déjà vu poured over me. There was a clamping sensation in my chest, guilt seizing me as I didn't give him the response he was hoping for. For half a heartbeat, I saw Daniel, and I braced myself for the inevitable gaslighting, the subtle nudges to direct me to do what he expected, the deprecating ridicule until I was the one apologizing for making him feel bad.

But that never came.

Of course it didn't. Nothing about Jimmy was anything like Daniel.

"Jimbo," I said.

His mouth twitched and he looked back at me, one eyebrow flicking upward.

I spread my arms. "Come here."

The twitch turned to a full smile and he stepped forward, wrapping his arms around me as I pulled him in for a hug. Beneath the warmth of his body, I could feel the relief pouring off him, the gentle sigh as his tension slipped away.

"We're good?" he asked.

"We're good," I replied. "On that, anyway. The tambourine, on the other hand..."

He snorted, but before he could say anything, the sound of two eight-year-olds giggling in the hallway interrupted us. We parted to see Baylee and Leia standing there, grinning.

"Hi, Uncle Jimmy," Leia said loudly.

"Uh... hey?" he replied, confused.

They stared, then giggled again.

"Right," I said. "Baylee, you ready?"

"Yes, Mom."

She started towards the door, then stopped and rushed across the living room. Jimmy barely managed to get his arms open before she was hugging him.

"Thank you," she whispered, just loud enough that I could hear it, and that strange little flutter started in my chest again.

Eight

The next few weeks weren't hell, but they were pretty close.

The only saving grace was that I was working six days a week, plus grabbing overtime hours wherever I could, so that meant I got a bit of reprieve from the sound of my beautiful, talented, determined daughter playing her tambourine at all hours of the day.

She loved the fucking thing. Loved it. If I'd let her, she probably would have slept with it like it was a teddy bear. Before school, she was playing her tambourine, and after school, she was playing her tambourine, and when bedtime rolled around, it was a struggle to get her to relinquish the goddamn thing. Everything in my life was done to the beat of the tambourine: washing dishes became an exercise in rhythm, I swept and mopped and cleaned in time to the ever-present tintinnabulation, and even taking a shit became a musical number.

Of course, working that extra time meant one less day a week to spend doing all the other things I was supposed to take care of in my life. Casual nights with Em dwindled as exhaustion and obligation began to take over. The saving grace there was that Ethan Poplin had enthusiastically agreed to let Baylee play tambourine for them at the concert, so she was spending more time at the studio practicing and even performing with the Poplin Family Jug Band. Alex sorted it out so that he could pick the girls up from school those days and do some "official" guitar lessons with Leia while Baylee was practicing, which meant I could pick up a few extra hours here and there.

In a sick way, I was somewhat proud of how well I was covering up the stress I was going through. It gave me a sense of self-reliance, despite the fact that I was relying on other people heavily to help me. But each hour I worked was an hour closer to being Mom Of The Year in the category of Providing Basic Necessities And Bitchin' Christmas Presents Without Asking Her Squalling Turd Of An Ex For Help.

Which was something.

But the delusion that I'd been doing a good job handling it all came crashing down one Saturday night after I finished work.

The Poplins wanted Baylee to perform with them at some community thing, Em said, and the girls wanted to have a sleepover after, and would I mind if they had the sleepover at Alex's place so Leia could start feeling like her room there was her room?

And that made sense, so I said yes, of course, and when I got home from work, Jimmy was sitting on my doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I slammed my car door shut.

"Bringing you food."

There were two large bags sitting beside him on the step. I glanced at them, then back at him with raised eyebrows.

"Why?"

"'Cause you need a night to yourself," he said. "That's why Em decided the girls were having a sleepover. She knows you've been working your ass off but that you'd never ask for a break. So she decided you were getting one and I said I'd bring dinner over for you."

I eyed the overstuffed bags as I stepped past him to unlock the door. "How much do you think I eat?"

He followed me into the house, trapped behind me as I stopped to put my purse down and take my work boots off. "Well, I was pretty hungry, so..."

"So you figured you'd crash my night to myself?" I teased.