​​​Chapter Thirty-Three
Natalie

It’s a Monday. It’s not the best day to confront Hootie.

So I do it anyways.

His wife is what you would call “petite,” that section in the clothing department reserved for underfed librarians. She’s very anti-Hootie. Whereas Hootie looks like an overgrown mountain man with a big personality, Denise is slight and blonde, her hair in a perfect bob. She’s the perfect soccer mom who can afford to roll around in a Honda Odyssey and whose nails are the perfect shade of Passion Pink.

My nails look like they’ve been through a meat grinder.

That’s what I’m doing, looking at my nail beds, at my weathered hands, parked out front of Hootie’s condo as frank as day. I could have cornered him in his office but there are too many wandering ears about that place. And then there’s the real reason I’m here: I want the threat to be real. I could tell his wife at any point he doesn’t cooperate.

I make the mistake of looking in the rearview mirror. I see gunk in my right eye, and then I start to tear up. I’m a mess. I feel a mess. I’m about to take a man’s whole world and dangle it above his head.

I think of Mack’s dangling feet, and my eyes burn when I shut them.

If only it had gone better with Wren. She didn’t make it easy. She must have been high to think she, Jerry, and I would make the perfect little family. I didn’t have the heart to tell her there’s no way this is Jerry’s baby. The man won’t sleep with me. He’s too much of a gentleman that way. Mostly, I hold him while he cries in the dark, unraveling and re-braiding the sick things his mother did to him as a child.

Yes, I see the pattern. Yes, I have a problem.

But other than a long gone Dr. Carol, I’ve got no one to spill this to.

I can see her in the front window, Denise. There must be a piano or a desk against the window facing the street because she leans over one of her children, points at something in front of them.

Oh heck, I think, smacking open the glove compartment and spritzing frenziedly at my face and hair. Might as well talk to the real boss of the family.

Lord knows, Hootie isn’t man enough to wear that hat.