Page 55 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
Anyway, I’ve also learned it’s easier if I simplytellher she’s not allowed to work any longer, and so that’s what I’ve started doing. If she needs someone to boss her into taking time for herself—someone to be the bad guy so she doesn’t feel guilty doing things like eating, showering, sleeping, et cetera—then I’m happy to be the asshole. The asshole who makes sure she takes care of herself.
Plus, I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t turn me on a little bit how squirmy she gets when I tell her what to do.
Like right now, when she ducks her head to hide her blush as she answers, “Yes, Bram.” I want to press my lips to the blush, but I can’t, because Joey Fucking Kemp has turned my living room into a nest of snakes and pizza. And they don’t know about... well, they don’t know about any of it. Us.
“Good girl,” I murmur approvingly, and Maddie’s cheeks flame even brighter.
She does dare a glance over to the others in the living room, where Alessandro is trying to steal Leo’s scotch while Joey is looking on with tears running freely into his wet beard.
“Is he going to be okay?” she whispers, concerned.
How to explain? “Joey cries when the Chiefs lose a game. And when they win a game. He cries when his girls bring him art from school. Once he cried because he saw a very tall tree.”
Maddie, whom I’m beginning to suspect only cries once annually, blinks at the giant bearded man wiping his face. “Oh.”
“He’ll be fine. We’ll get some pizza in him and then we’ll figure out what he and Riley fought about and then everything will be okay. You’ll see.”
“AND SO NOTHINGwill ever be okay again,” wails Joey twenty minutes later.
We’re circled in my living room, Sara on a phone propped against a bottle of Perrier, and Joey on my couch while Leo leans against the wall near my office, freshly en-scotched. Alessandro is still in my armchair, Sloane is next to Joey, and I’m sitting on the floor.
There’s a moment of profound silence as we all process what Joey’s just told us.
“Well,” Sara finally says from the phone. “This is very triggering for me.”
“And me,” I add.
“Another Kemp baby,” drawls Leo. “What does this make? Seven?”
“Four,” Joey corrects glumly. “Four, and Riley says it’s all my fault because I didn’t use a condom the night she probably got pregnant. But the condoms were so far away!”
“Joey,” Sloane begins in a delicate tone. “Does Riley want any support visiting a clinic or help getting mifepristone? Because I help students with reproductive health every day, and it would be no trouble.”
“No, she wants four kids,” Joey says, and sighs down at his last slice of pizza. “So we’re doing it.”
“She wants four kids?” Alessandro asks. “Then... why the pizza and the tears? Why is she angry with you?”
“Because she didn’t want the fourth so close to the third.” Joey’s eyes fill as he picks up the slice. “She says it means we’ll have two in diapers at the same time, and she’s worried all the extra work of a new baby is going to fall on her, because I’ll have to keep an eye on the big girls.”
We ponder this. Joey is a good dad—if occasionally clueless—but four kids present some logistics issues even good parents can’t easily parkour over.
“I mean, we did two kids in diapers at the same time, didn’t we, Sara?” I ask my ex-wife, who is inside a motel room that looks like it’s calibrated to the comforts of wind-grizzled fishermen. (Asher is behind her on the bed, wearing noise-canceling headphones and bopping while they do something with an Excel spreadsheet.) “How did we do it with the twins?”
Sara squints at nothing, trying to remember. “It’s all a blur, honestly. And we were divorced by their first birthday, so maybe we’re not the best people to take advice from.”
That’s true. “We did get very efficient at changing diapers, though,” I say. “And we even did cloth diapers.”
“Perhaps a factor in the divorce?” remarks Leo.
“My point is,” I tell Joey, “maybe you can prove to Riley that you can find ways to make it easier on her?”
He stops chewing, swallows. “Like... like figuring out how to change diapers faster?” He looks hopeful for the first time since he got here.
“Sure,” I say encouragingly. “That’s a great start.”
“When is she due?” Sloane asks.
“The middle of May.”
