The Liar Next Door by Nicola Marsh

Fifty-Three

Celeste

I’m glad Frankie agreed to help me with the baby shower for Saylor because I’m not a great planner. I have grand ideas—like creating signature non-alcoholic cocktails, a onesie decorating station, and a diaper cake—but when it comes to the execution, I’m hopeless. I’ve always been like this. I wanted to be an actuary; I ended up being an accountant. I wanted to live an exciting life in Atlantic City; I ended up here. I wanted four kids with a loving husband in a big house in Connecticut with room for the kids to ride bikes and play baseball in the backyard; I’m a single mom in a brownstone with barely any furniture.

I shouldn’t have built fanciful scenarios in my head. When they didn’t come to fruition, it added to the noxiousness of my relationship with Roland. Our breakup wasn’t pretty and I had to escape. But on occasions, usually in the dead of night when I’m lying on my side, curled in a fetal position, and rehashing all the ways I could’ve done things differently, I wish I could call him. Rant at him for how badly he hurt me. Rage because his inexcusable behavior has resulted in Vi losing her father. But I can’t. I won’t.

I’m sitting on Frankie’s comfy couch with my laptop, a spreadsheet open. They comfort me, the order of listing everything in those small rectangles, and I’m making a list of party supplies while the girls are engrossed in a new jigsaw at my feet. Frankie’s working at the kitchen table, doing some final editing on a video she shot earlier. It’s time sensitive so she needs to get it done, then she’ll join me in here and we’ll do some planning together.

I want to get as much of this done as possible so we can present it to Saylor as a fait accompli, because I know she’ll refuse if we give her a choice. That day in the park when she’d been discussing Ruston she’d seemed defeated, like she can’t take much more, and I want this to be a nice surprise, with her not having to do a thing.

I type “paper plates, plastic cups, napkins, cutlery” into the boxes, when I become aware of the girls’ conversation.

“Will you be my sister?” Vi asks Luna and I swear my heart stops. My poor girl yearns for a sibling the same way I yearn to give her one.

“Won’t that be weird?” Luna’s face scrunches up. “Because our moms and dads are different, how can we be sisters?”

I watch Vi ponder this for a moment before tapping Luna on the nose, like she’s a fairy godmother granting a wish. “Well, you don’t have a sister and I don’t either, but I really want one, so why can’t we pretend?”

“I guess we can do that.” Luna hands her a puzzle piece. “I sometimes wish my mom would have a baby, then I wouldn’t be alone.”

I realize I’m leaning forward, hanging on Vi’s response. “I want my mom to have a baby too. But my dad isn’t here and she says she’ll think about it.”

Vi glances up and I quickly drop my gaze to the computer screen on my lap so she can’t tell I’m eavesdropping.

“But I think she’s lying.”

My heart sinks and I wish I could go to my daughter and comfort her.

“I don’t think she wants another baby. If she did she wouldn’t have left my dad.”

Luna tilts her nose in the air. “Don’t be silly. Haven’t you heard all the fairy tales? They’ll get back together and live happily ever after and you’ll get your baby sister then.”

My chest aches with suppressed emotions, with the simplicity of children solving the problems of the world, with me wishing it were that easy.

“Yeah, but that might take forever, so in the meantime, you be my sister, okay?”

“Okay.”

Vi holds up her pinkie finger and Luna intertwines hers with it, and I know these two will be friends forever.