Page 101 of Courtroom Drama
“Just barely,” I say, plopping down beside her. I take in Mel’s painting on the wall, towering evergreens transitioning to the outline of astallion. I close my eyes. It reminds me of Damon. This notion cycles me through my multitude of emotions again. I look away so I don’t break.
Mel leans forward and pushes a mug on the coffee table toward me, light steam rising from the speckled ceramic. I pick it up and take a cautious sip, the heat warming my upper lip and nostrils. “Is there rum in this?” I ask, sniffing after I’ve swallowed.
Mel shrugs. “It’s a celebration, right? I mean, Margot is free!Youdid that!” She taps her blackAMOMmug to mine.
“Wedid,” I say, thinking of the eleven other faces around the courthouse table during deliberations.
“Then why do you seem melancholy?”
“Melancholy?” I repeat, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. I’ve been reading too much Sylvia Plath with you gone, leave me alone.”
“There’s this guy...” I state cautiously.
“Yes!” Mel cries, slapping the back of my upper arm across the sensitive under-fat.
I pull my arm forward and rub it.
I tell her everything. Well, almost. I tell her about his face, his tattoos, his brooding build. I tell her of his tender care throughout the trial, always ensuring I was okay. I tell her about his sister and how the loss of her made him both more tender and guarded. I tell her about the rooftop and the mix of euphoria and lust and connection I felt in that instance that I’ve never experienced before and would be hard-pressed to believe I’ll ever feel again. That it was one of those rare experiences you know is defining as it happens rather than just in hindsight. I tell her about our history. That he was my best friend. In some ways, how he never stopped being my best friend. I even recount our parents and the abrupt end to our relationship back then.
“Wow,” Mel says when I’m finally done, her silence having stretched longer than it perhaps ever has as I relayed it all. She looks up to the ceiling and then shakes her head vehemently. “Tell me again why you can’t be together?”
I sigh, sip from my spiked mug again. “There’s just too much. How would it work? If we, say, got married, are we to expect our familiesto come together? His mom and my dad, sitting at Christmas dinner together while Mr. Bradburn looks on?”
“That’s twenty steps ahead.”
“Yeah, but why start something we know can’t be anything lasting? Besides, his letter makes it pretty clear he’s unavailable.”
“All the things you just described? The fact that life put you two together again? And under such intense circumstances? It all sounds like pretty compelling reasonstobe together.”
“I don’t know. I think I just need to be alone for a bit. Process everything that just happened. With Damon. With the trial. Figure out how to be good on my own before jumping into something.” I think about Margot. How she met Joe as a relative newbie in L.A., barely an adult and, in many ways, not one at all. That one decision—being with Joe—how it changed the whole course of her life.
“What the actual fuck?” Mel says, slicing into my thoughts. I look over at her and then follow her stare to her phone.
“What is it?” I ask, curling myself behind her to look at her screen. There’s a picture of Margot with the wordBREAKINGacross the top, spliced with someone else I recognize immediately. Below it, a caption that causes me to grip the back of the couch.
It reads: “Margot Kitsch has moved on withAuthentic Momscast member Tenley Storms’s ex-husband Harry Tucker.”
Though I can’t seem to make Margot’s dramatics matter after what Damon told me in that letter, I start scrolling through my own phone, reviewing the news. It’s a nice distraction from the feelings I’m not ready to face.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a flurry of opinions in theAuthentic Momsworld. Most of the other Moms have already commented, with opinions largelynotin Margot’s favor. “Homewrecker,” reads one from Meredith Dixon. Tenley Storms goes for the jugular, posting a picture of a dumpster on fire, “No caption needed” written beneath it. Even Alizay’s post is cryptic at best. A picture of the ocean with an overlaid quote: “Instead of cleaning my house, I’m just going to move to another one.”
As if she didn’t have enough already, Margot Kitsch’s list of enemies has just grown tenfold.
49.
Settlement (n.)
a resolution between disputing parties
an opportunity to start again
The next day, I reach my mom’s house a little after nine a.m., the best window between Genevieve’s naps. Though I should technically be returning to work today, I called in sick. It would have been too abrupt a transition, I decided.
When I arrive, my mom is surprisingly put together—a full face of makeup, hair pulled back neatly in a banana clip, and wearing a trendy T-shirt dress. To someone who knows her less, the line of baggy blue under her eyes indicating terminal burnout and middle-aged motherhood might even go unnoticed. A quiet ache flows through me when I see her.
“Sydney,” she says warmly, embracing me at the door before I’ve stepped inside.
