Once Upon a Lie Read Free Page A

baby off his shoulder.
    “For me?”
    “Yeah. You work twelve hours a day and when you’re not working, you’re taking care of the girls. Or your dad. You need a break.” He shoved the baby’s chubby legs into the carrier. “You need to do something for you.”
    “Like tennis?” It was the only thing she could think of that women her age did when they were at a loss for other things to do.
    “Sure. Like tennis.”
    Maeve mulled that over. A hobby.
    “Find something meaningful. Something that would help you relax.” He stood, pulling the baby’s feet through the holes in the carrier. “Or if it makes more sense, something that would help other people. Because if I know you, that drives you more than anything.” He was smiling, but she could sense the dig inherent in that. Doing for others and not for him. For him, that had been the downfall of her marriage.
    Maeve’s mind was racing. “Or a combination of all three of those things.” You know what would help me relax? she thought. You shutting up. The smile never left her face.
    Cal looked as though he had hit on something. “Right! Meaningful, relaxing, and helpful to others. That sounds like the perfect combination for you.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Now you just have to figure out what that might be.”
    Maeve looked up, her ex-husband’s handsome face backlit by the late afternoon sun. She smiled. “I’ll give it some thought, Cal.” She was glad she had left the Spanx in the car. If they’d been in her bag, handy, she might have been inclined to strangle him with them, right in front of every mother in the stands. No jury in the land would convict her, she always thought, particularly if it were truly a jury of her peers: overworked, underappreciated wives and mothers who just wanted someone to clean the toilet when it was dirty and pick up a gallon of milk when there was none. Instead, she continued smiling, thinking of how she used to ignore the way he patronized her, sometimes even finding it just short of charming, chalking it up to his concern for her. Now, though, it got under her skin the way a lot of things did, things that never used to bother her but now made her blood boil, like rude customers at the store or people who let their officiousness and position hold sway over her, making her fear the worst. People like Charlene Harrison, who couldn’t contain one old man in an assisted-living facility that was a good three miles from the river the man loved so much.
    “Hey, what are you thinking about?” Cal asked.
    Nothing. Everything. “Just all the things on my to-do list.”
    “I’ve got the girls this weekend,” he said.
    She knew. Unlike him, she never forgot where the girls needed to be or what they required to live happy lives in this little village. Her brain was full, way fuller than his, with details about everyone else’s lives. How she managed to keep everything straight, while he could barely account for himself most days, was a mystery she had yet to solve. Maybe it was like the late George Carlin used to say: Women are crazy and men are stupid. And the reason that women are crazy is because men are stupid. Maeve ran through the list of activities scheduled for the girls while in Cal’s care. “And don’t forget that Heather is grounded.”
    “She’s here now,” he said, pointing to his middle child, high up in the bleachers.
    “This doesn’t count. She’s supporting her sister,” Maeve said, although she didn’t entirely believe it. “She wants to go to a party this weekend, but she’s grounded from going.”
    Cal raised an eyebrow. “For?”
    “Unauthorized Facebook use.”
    “I don’t even know what that is.”
    “And you don’t want to know,” she said, adjusting herself on the bleachers. It entailed putting something on Rebecca’s wall that detailed her older sister’s extensive morning toilette, inviting derision from many of Rebecca’s own classmates, not to mention