My hairdresser called me. Not texted. Called. And Debra never calls. She’s a texter, little voice memos, thumbs up emojis. So when her name lit up my phone on a regular Wednesday morning, I already had a weird feeling before I even said hello.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “About what your daughter said in the chair.”
My daughter Lily is four. She sits up on the little booster seat and talks the whole time, to Debra, to the lady getting foils next to her, to the broom guy. She tells everybody everything. Last month she told a stranger at the grocery store that Mommy cries in the car sometimes, which, okay, fair, but you get the point. So I laughed. “Whatever she said, she made it up,” I told Debra. “She’s four. Yesterday she told me our cat used to be a doctor.”
Debra didn’t laugh. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. Debra always laughs.
“She told me Daddy has two kitchens,” Debra said. “One with you. And one at his other house. The one with the blue door.”
I want to be honest about something here, because I keep trying to make myself look better in my own head and it’s not working. My first reaction wasn’t fear. It was annoyance. I actually rolled my eyes. Mark, my husband, takes Lily out every single Saturday. Has for over a year. To his mom’s house. And honestly? I was grateful for it. I’d sleep in. I’d drink coffee while it was still hot. I thought I married a good dad. I’d tell my sister, “At least he gives me Saturdays.”
So I said, “Debra, she’s mixing up cartoons with real life.”
Then Debra got quiet, and when she talked again her voice was lower. “She said the other mommy makes pancakes.
And there’s a baby. A baby named Maya.” She paused. “She said she goes there on the weekends. When Daddy takes her to Grandma’s.”
My hands went cold around the phone. Lily was in the next room singing the cleanup song to her stuffed animals. And I’m standing in my kitchen, my ordinary kitchen, the only kitchen I thought we had, and my brain just sort of stalled out. Because Mark takes her to his mother’s every Saturday. Every single one.
“Debra,” I said. My voice came out funny. “What blue door.”
And here’s where it got bad. Because Debra didn’t say “I don’t know.” She said, “I know that house. It’s two blocks from my salon. I drive past it every day. White siding, blue door, there’s one of those little kid plastic slides in the front yard.” A little kid slide. We don’t have a slide. Lily’s always asking for one.
