Afternoon Sunday, June 16th, 2024
Alone at home while Lyrou ran errands with Penny, and Alan was out skateboarding and bike stunting with friends, Garin found a gift box delivered on his front porch, tucked behind a plant pot to prevent porch pirates, with yellow ribbon and black and gold polka dot wrapping. He picked it up and read the tag: ‘To Garin’.
Walking it back to the kitchen counter, he began pulling off the wrapping, a simple white box. He set it down and opened the flaps; inside was a coffee mug. Who would give him another damned coffee mug today? Did a client get his home address and send it? Tipping the mug into his hand, he read the print on the side upside-down: “World’s #1 Zaddy” with the image of a credit card and a red lipstick kiss print.
Garin winced and snickered, then found stuck to the inside of the mug a card. He opened it to read in the most girly cursive: “Hi Garin, it’s not the same shopping without you. I wanted to let you know I got all my credits, and I’ll be graduating soon. I’m on the dean’s list. I did it without staying after class for extra credit, mostly. Are you proud of me? Listen, that means I’ll have to make my first student loan payments! I’m scared, Zaddy!”
She had written ‘Zaddy’ in wobbly print as though she was shaking with fright. Garin laughed, shook his head, and continued reading.
“Please call your little girlie, I need a talking to about what I’m going to do with my talents in the big grown-up real world.” And she gave her number, signed Andrea.
She must have found his home address online easily. That wasn’t the question. Nor was there a question if he’d meet her again; no. There was the mug.
⚜
Morning Wednesday, June 19th, 2024
Garin and Lyrou had the kitchen to themselves, as Alan mowed grass out back for his allowance and Penny showered upstairs. He offered to make coffee for her. “Yeah?” He pointed to the coffee machine.
“Merci, Garin.” She flipped through a catalog of coupons. “They lure you into buying their fried poison with discounts. Family combo, choice of sides.”
Coffee was served, and Garin sat and looked around the kitchen innocently. Lyrou, stirring her drink, looking over the coupons, she felt by its handle in her grip and the rim on her lips that she’d never drank from this mug before. She looked at it and saw the print, ‘World’s #1…’
She swallowed her coffee down wrong and choked, coughing. Garin feigned concern. “Wrong pipe? Are you alright?”
She composed herself, eyes pink, pointing to the print on the mug. “Who is Zaddy?!”
Garin with his index finger to the sky, then thumb into his chest, said, “Me! The one and only world’s top Zaddy.”
Lyrou, eyebrows and nose scrunched. “Oh?! You!?” She put it together instantly who the mug was from. “OK Mister Zaddy. This has to be removed from our home.”
Garin grinned. “That is the most expensive mug I’ve ever owned.”
Lyrou nodded deeply. “I presume so. It has to go. You had your laugh.”
Garin forced a frown. “Well, alright. After you’re finished drinking your coffee, I’ll chuck it.”
Lyrou sipped. “Merci.”
Garin looked at his watch. “Today it’s been 366 days since I wondered like you now; oh, what is that? A year of wonders for us both.”
Lyrou held the mug up in mock toast. “To another year of wonders?”
Garin holding an invisible mug, toasted, “Another one.”
⚜
Afternoon Monday, June 24th, 2024
With Penny’s enrollment in the math academy came a new monthly calendar date to keep; the last Monday of each month, the teachers gave out commendations to high-performing students. Parents were invited, and though they didn’t always make it, Lyrou could make it, and she wanted to make an early impression on the tutors there that she was one of those moms. One of those moms, like Tatiana, who was there with her Calvin Jr.
The parents sat in the back row of one of the classrooms, as students took the desks, and the staff stood at the front, calling up kids to receive certificates for perfect attendance. Tatiana, seated beside Lyrou, whispered, “This is the award for having a mom who knows half the battle is showing up.”
And with that, a tutor called Calvin Jr. up to get his award for perfect attendance. Tatiana snickered to herself, turning to Lyrou and lightly slapping her shoulder. “Please, I can’t help myself.”
Lyrou smiled, wide-eyed. “Penny’s only been enrolled for a couple of weeks and she missed two lessons. I can give her to you; I give up.”
The two sat and watched, making little comments, Tatiana noting, “Plurality Indian enrollment. I guess they did invent numbers.” And Lyrou, “An award for cleaning up after themselves? We shouldn’t pat children on the back for performing the basics.” And then Tatiana, “Those Gupta twins are savants, though.”
With the little ceremony over, Penny stood from her desk, turned, and approached Lyrou. “I didn’t get a freaking award for anything.”
Tatiana said with warmth, “Oh, honey! You haven’t been in this academy for but a couple of weeks, right? Next month you’ll get a piece of paper here, and by then you won’t be bothered that you did or didn’t.”
Penny was in a rotten mood. “I’ll be in freaking France next month.”
Lyrou, taking Penny’s wrists, spoke up at her from her seat. “No more freaking this, freaking that. I spoke to the administrator, you’ll take your math academy course online.”
Penny’s eyes got big in protest. “From freaking Paris!?”
Lyrou’s lips puckering out in frustration. Tatiana said with a light laugh, “I’m taking Calvin for dinner. Fried chicken, right across the way, we don’t even need our cars.”
Penny’s face lit up with appetite. “Huh? Yes, can we?”
Lyrou melted a bit. “Yes, we can have freaking fried chicken today.” Out the four of them went for greasy poultry and mashed potatoes.
⚜
Noon Monday, July 1st, 2024
Garin found his guy waiting and munching in the fast-food burger restaurant he’d asked to meet at. He had a bald shiny black head and a black leather vest. With a handshake, Garin sat opposite him at the table, nuggets and fries poured out onto a tray between them.
Garin took one of each and held them in his open palms. “If I eat the French-fry, I can go on living my life, the illusion. If I eat the chicken nugget, you’ll show me how far the rabbit hole goes.”
“I’d a funny man tell me this feels like a meth deal and ask me to say his name, then tell me I’m god-damn right, but you topped him.” The private investigator opened a packet of ketchup and squeezed it onto the tray paper.
Garin chewed. “You’ll tell me everything about her?”
“Everything? Everything is a word I can’t use, but you’ll know a lot; I’ll crack all of L’s social media, internet footprint, record of purchases, records upon records, and then I sort through all of it, condense and compile, so I don’t come back to you with a mountain of mess to sift through,” the investigator explained, keeping his voice down as other patrons came in and out giving and taking their orders at the front counter.
Garin tried to match his tone. “Do you take that mess out to a pit and burn it, or what do you do with it when you’re done?”
“It’s kept in a vault of filing cabinets in an undisclosed location,” the investigator said. “Nobody has access to it, and it isn’t sold or shared.”
“What’s the protocol if she catches you?” Garin wondered seriously.
“If who catches me… L? Not going to happen,” he said in the reassuring tone of an ex-cop.
“But if it did, and she offered to pay you double to tell whose man you are?” Garin wasn’t joking.
The private investigator chuckled. “Not going to happen, and I honor my agreements.”
Garin was satisfied with that; he’d hire him to get the full story on her. He pulled from his inner jacket pocket a thick envelope filled with cash, passing it over the table into the investigator’s hand. “Then I’ll see you in two weeks.”
⚜
Evening Thursday, July 4th, 2024
Garin saw Joseph already seated; he was watching a game up on one of the many screens broadcasting highlights of one of several sports. Garin took his seat opposite him, wondering what unimportant word combo would fly out of Joseph’s mouth first. It was, “I can’t see them going all the way this year.”
Garin sputtered a little laugh. “Yeah? You were almost a believer.” He looked at the menu.
Joseph had evidently decided to pretend nothing had happened between him and Lyrou. “Almost. But they don’t have the defense they had; they take one step forward and two steps back.”
A busty blonde waitress in fiery short shorts and a tight low-cut t-shirt came for their orders. “Hello gentlemen, I’m Amanda. Are we ready to order or just drinks?”
Garin handed her the menu. “Barbecue wings, mildly spicy, bone-in, smallest count. Honey mustard. A large root beer.”
Joseph said, “Same, but extra-spicy.”
The waitress turned. “Got it!”
Joseph didn’t check her out, as he would usually. Garin prodded, “Yo?! Are you sick or something, Joey?”
Joseph perked up. “No. No?”
Garin shrugged. “You’re off.”
Joseph had started unconsciously mirroring Garin, shrugging along with him and placing his hands and arms in near perfect reflection of Garin’s. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the reverse cheerleader effect.”
Garin smiled. “I haven’t heard this theory. The original, obviously, but reverse?”
Joseph forced a small laugh. “Yeah. When you have several hot chicks in close proximity, they make one another look less hot by comparison.”
Garin snapped his fingers. “Aha! I know what you mean. If we managed this place, we’d have to hire one whale.”
Joseph smirked and wagged his finger. “And it would appeal to an untapped market: the chicken chomping chubby chaser.”
Garin laughed along. “We got big chicken, we got big chicks.”
Joey, in a pro-wrestler voice, “Hell yeah, brutha.”
Garin wondered at the duplicity of Joseph. This must be what Lyrou wanted to show him, this was her real birthday gift to him, that anybody could look him in the eye… anybody… and play that nothing was amiss. With each word exchanged between them, it became evermore impossible that Joseph would say the words he ought to as a friend. The more he reinforced this buddy relationship they had, the more difficult it would be for Joseph to come clean. Sweep it under the rug, then? Tell yourself it wasn’t so bad what you did? Pat yourself on the back that you were restrained relative to what you could have done? Blame the woman? Wasn’t it your idea? She’ll probably never tell on you if you don’t tell on her. Garin supposed these must be the rationales in Joseph’s mind.
Garin began to pity him that beneath the intended mirth of this meeting, there was this thing that had happened and which Joseph now carried in him, like an arrowhead lodged in his rib-cage. Their wings came, and they talked sports, recalled games they’d played for the high school team, and gave updates on family.
To Garin’s utter amazement, Joseph asked first, “And how’s Lyrou doing?”
Garin pretended he didn’t hear over the noise of the bar, prompting Joseph to have to ask again. “Huh?”
Joseph repeated himself, “Lyrou. Lyrou, how’s she these days?” He took a drink.
Garin, dipping a wing. “She reserved me a massage at this Crimean spa. I need it, I’m getting hunched at my desk all day. She’s herself. She’s into her yoga, her garden, art stuff, and she reads. I think she’s happy.”
Joseph nodded. “Good. Good man. That sounds well-rounded.”
⚜
Evening Thursday, July 4th, 2024
Since marrying Garin 14 years ago, Lyrou had a life of grocery shopping, running errands, waiting at the post office, carpooling to soccer practice, protests against animal cruelty, school Halloween parades, attending PTA meetings, organizing play-dates, volunteering at the school, preparing family meals, packing a lot of luggage, running the cars through the car-wash and vacuuming their interiors out, attending yoga classes, taking the kids to extracurricular activities, ceaselessly shopping for clothing and shoes, gardening or landscaping, kids’ birthday parties, participating in neighborhood watch meetings, attending local farmer’s markets, planning family vacations, cleaning and organizing the house, ordering school photos and yearbooks, holiday shopping and gift wrapping, taking a gerbil Penny had named Mrs. Glork to the vet, replacing Mrs. Glork upon her miraculous disappearance, managing family schedules, crafting and DIY projects, bricoler with appliances and the floor cleaning robot, attending community events and festivals, shopping for home décor, organizing family photos, participating in charity events, arranging for home repairs, scheduling and attending doctor appointments, going to the gym and fitness classes, and accommodating and feeding in-laws on holidays.
Being an ever-acclimating French woman married to an American man, raising her children in the US wasn’t easy either. Her dépaysement came and went, but never concluded. Lyrou’s assumptions about how it’s done clashed with Garin’s, and she found few who could see her side of it, never mind taking her side. There was her closest girlfriend, Reine, born in France to one French parent, but Reine had been raised mostly in the Garden State and spoke little French. Culture shock and annoyance at American etiquette, “different, not worse,” she reminded herself, did grind her down. The condescending Anglo-splaining as to why Anglo-American values were superior was allowable and to be expected, but she couldn’t let an American stand haughty on ideals such as Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, unaware that whole thought-genre sprang from France! That said, she’d ironed out her English fluency by taking classes and immersing herself. She still dreaded her mispronunciations of Americans’ names, though some of them were pleasantly taken with her rendition of their names. She’d stopped correcting their mispronunciations of her name if she judged they should’ve picked it up from someone who knew her or if she’d introduced herself just fine.
To Lyrou, the melting pot was a frenemy. Penny had irked her with her “morbid Americanism” and with one “popular but poor wardrobe choice” was forever after forbidden from wearing pajama pants to school, or out the door. “Should I zip up your night blinders in your backpack?” she lectured. Lyrou had fought and was handily winning her prohibition against fast food until his peers, and worse still, his teachers, had introduced it to Alan. Thankfully, Garin had sworn it off because he was fitness-oriented. Penny, like Lyrou, just found it salty, oily, and gross. However, she found everything gross, regardless however many road travel guide stars it had. Lyrou made it a point that her family gathered around the table most days of the week and ate “real nutritious sustenance”, that they lingered there instead of “sucking it up like human-vacuum cleaners”, and that they conversed altogether. Here too, she’d won her inalienable rights, but touchscreen pads, wireless earbuds, and Garin’s needy clients infringed.
Garin exemplified the Yankee living-to-work ethic, his career spilling over into their personal space and time. But this she accepted within limits, appreciative that he worked to provide for their family and she’d not harangue him for it while gorging on the fruits of that very same labor. In that vein, she wasn’t alarmed at the American notion to travel, for her family vacation destinations beyond Bosnywash were biannual at best, and this was satisfactory. So too, tipping, terse greetings, and empty small talk were local customs Lyrou was aware of before and acquiesced to upon her arrival. For a time, she was the beneficiary of all three and knew their utility. Though it did agitate her that her husband would abide it generously for quality service or bad, polite strangers or rude jerks. “Garin, draw the line somewhere.”
Moving to the riverside gateway town of Edgewater was a reprieve from clutching her keys in the dark, nervously scanning her surroundings, mentally retracing her steps through poorly lit areas to find safer paths as she had in university. But unlike her come-and-go-as-she-will youth, soccer mom mornings were a rush, getting her groggy kids off to school and making everyone’s breakfast but hers. At family gatherings, she quietly excused herself, rifling through her bag for menstrual supplies while overhearing through the bathroom door in-laws unilaterally setting vacations to swim parks and beaches, knowing she’d need to trash her plans. When she strove to cross a cultural bridge with her husband, she saw that he was distracted or incapable of understanding the depth of her experience. After a long day, she was buried in the kids’ homework and preparing for school events, while he relaxed on the couch, unaware of the hamster wheel race she ran. At play-dates, she overheard judgmental Karens nitpicking her parenting, and although she smiled politely, she sometimes daydreamed about going off on them in the full fire of her language, if the monolinguals would only comprehend.
And Lyrou was herself rapidly sucked into the department store consumerism, Christmas mania, the big house as a woman’s crowning achievement, the DIY everything, and the sports-mom deal. This was in sum, the biggest cultural shift she made, and she did it without much vocalizing. It wasn’t until her mother’s 2nd transatlantic visit, eight years into her marriage, the first being her wedding, that anyone had told her, “You have changed.” She didn’t know how to feel about that in the moment, but after sleeping on it decided she’d puff her chest out, hand on her heart, and be proudly red-blooded. She lived it, and though she didn’t always love living it, she loved that she had it. This existence. It was hers. It was right.
In Lyrou’s bathroom and vanity area, there was an array of tall, bright mirrors where she could stand and see herself head-to-toe and from multiple angles, illuminated under the best and brightest simulacrum lighting. Here she and Garin had sometimes brushed their teeth together, shoulder-to-shoulder, conversing between spitting. Here she wiped up his facial hair stubs and sometimes a fingernail or toenail clipping. And here she’d spend a couple of minutes staring at herself, a creep of dysmorphia and hair discontent she kept in check then. There were on long glass shelves skincare and makeup products. On the marble countertop, moisturizer, sunscreen, primer, face serum, and face oil, alongside foundation, concealer, and setting powder in a spinning organizer. Blush, bronzer, and highlighter sat in a metal box. Eye shadow, eyeliner, and mascara in multitudinous colors lined and jumbled about. A lip product holder held lipsticks, glosses, and balms. Blenders and brushes were tucked away in a case near the mirror, with tweezers and a facial roller often thrown in. Down in the drawers were makeup removers and a hydrogen peroxide-based tooth whitener in a skincare section, with exfoliating scrubs and face masks in a deeper compartment. Hand cream, cuticle oil, and hand sanitizer were stuffed in a second, smaller drawer. In a small bag were stored nail polish, base and top coats, files, and clippers. Shampoo, conditioner, and hair masks hung from the shower head in a metal basket, and on the shower shelf, leave-in conditioner, hair oil, styling, body wash, and an exfoliating scrub. Below the sink was a case of toilet paper, a box of deodorant, foot cream, menstruation pads, and contraceptives. All this stuff!
In the sink were trace face shavings from Garin’s morning routine. Facial wipes and cotton pads were wherever they were for the day. Hanging from a hook on the wall was a heat-resistant pouch for her curling iron, and on an identical hook next to it a nifty red hairdryer. Lastly, a round makeup mirror on an extendable arm, flipping sides, one magnifying, both lighted around the rim. Her bathtub stood on four legs, and was a “wide, deep, heavy behemoth one could wash a baby hippo in,” she remarked when the agent had first shown it to them in their house hunting days. On its sill sat a couple of razors. Though she’d always shaved her armpits, contrary to the teasing of some American university boys she met upon her arrival, she only began shaving her legs when she moved in with Garin. He’d never mentioned it, but of her own imperative in dozens of aspects, she changed for the sake of basic conformity. The air conditioner was a nice change, but she could not vacillate on having a bidet, and had a Japanese model installed upon moving in. In that tub she used to wash the infant grime and toddler stickiness off her own baby hippos, Alan and Penny, in the mornings. And on Sunday nights, she’d treat herself to bubble baths with the salts and incense. Garin had on a couple Valentines’ Days placed candles, petals, cards, special chocolates, and such about it, and they’d bathed together. It was so right.
In Lyrou’s walk-in closet, there was a long, high window allowing in daylight, a ring of motion-detecting white lights on the ceiling, and a tall mirror on the back of the door. Hanging from and folded on a dozen shelves: casual wear, work attire, evening dresses, winter wear, scarves, blouses, tight jeans, skirts, tailored blazers, and professional dresses. On the opposite side, she had evening dresses hanging in various lengths and styles, for occasions, and sweaters stored in upper shelves. Migrating with use, she’d crop tops, sheer blouses, mesh tops, thigh-high stockings, off-the-shoulder tops, cut-out dresses, halter tops, high-slit skirts, and backless dresses. Then on the shortest wall hung jackets and coats, and a pair of ski suits. Beneath the clothing, she had a modest shoe collection on open shelving: pumps, ankle boots, sneakers, and sandals. Adjacent to the clothing, a few totes and clutches. In a lockable metal case bolted to the wall at shoulder height, she kept most of her necklaces, bracelets, finger rings, and earrings. In a chest of drawers, she kept lingerie, socks, pantyhose, and silky pajamas. Lyrou had, a couple of times, closed herself up in this closet for a good, slow, private post-partum cry. For such a necessary purpose, this space too was just right.
In Lyrou’s kitchen she’d a refrigerator shoved full of frozen meats, the pork rolls, and fish, lactose-free milk, vegetables, and in the door sauces, creams, and the tomato gravy, pilled and powdered supplements; vitamins A B C D E K, calcium, magnesium, zinc, olive oil, omega oil, carotenoids, probiotics, fiber, collagen, protein, forskolin, and melatonin. Her pantry was a reserve of seasonings, cereals, beans, nuts, potatoes, breads, bagels, and hidden junk food so that she could wrest some modicum of control over the sugar and salt flying into Penny and Alan’s guts. She hated microwaveable meals, as a French girl, Lyrou had grown up without one, and her children had no need of microplastics to cripple their endocrine systems. All hers, her Elysium, all so right for her.
They took turns cooking and sometimes cooked together; brownies were a favorite. They went out to socialite dance parties, and he broke corporate orthodoxy to take her to karaoke nights with his coworkers and clients. Attending concerts and football games broadened their tastes and helped her to assimilate into American culture. Art and sculpting classes at the community college and taking the kids to escape rooms brought them closer together. Picnicking in the parks, camping while Garin taught her and the kids the constellations and how to fish, exploring local hipster markets, and hitting the wine tastings where she’d plenty to teach Garin, it was all hers. It was right, her exultation.
Over their 14 years of marriage, Lyrou and Garin had created memories. They’d enjoyed date nights at diners, lively game nights, and cozy movie marathons. Spontaneous weekend getaways and outdoor adventures like hiking and kayaking had “put them in the green,” as Lyrou said. Garin had given her so many roses, flowers, chocolates, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Treasure. She regretted with a pang in her gut that she’d misplaced the bracelet he gave her on her thirty-fourth birthday, and only soon after receiving it. Had it fallen off, or had a pickpocket lifted it before slipping back into the crowd whence he skittered, she wondered, or was it her fault for being careless, taking the bracelet he’d given her for granted? She couldn’t ask him, of course, but Lyrou wondered if Garin would give her such gifts in their future. Had that changed?
Lyrou had in her dining room a second table where she had out a personal project she kept hidden from her family. It was a wide, half-finished mosaic made with a variety of glasses and stones, which she picked from bags where she’d pre-sorted them, and placed according to her plan. When she wasn’t working on it she kept it covered and trusted everybody not to look. When she worked on it, her family knew not to enter the dining room, that they weren’t supposed to see it yet. She meant to have it finished for her birthday and to give it to her family, as it was her tradition to give one gift in return for those she received from them. The mosaic would be a portrait of her son and her daughter together. She’d tried twice already but hated the results, so she scrapped them and tried all over. It was her children’s faces that were so difficult, because unlike clothes and background details, people can easily tell when the faces are off just a little bit. Worse, they might make fun of it or pretend it looked better than it did.
Lyrou had completed Alan’s face. But for his wispy, gossamer hair, her son looked like her. She thought of what Alan had last talked to her about. He’d explained to her as they’d toured a cosplay and comics convention, with one of his dorky friends, the different species of extraterrestrials from Draco, the Pleiades, and then “… most infamous of all the Zeta Reticulans. They mutilate cattle. The ranchers find these cows with laser lacerations!”
Lyrou had replied, “We can’t let them cut up our moo-moos, where will we get your strict diet of three cheesy pickle hamburgers per day?”
Alan had clarified, “The human-alien xenoforms they’re going to replace mankind with won’t eat meat because the Earth can’t sustain the biomass burden of livestock.”
Lyrou was then fascinated. “Oh? Xenoforms? How is that possible?”
Alan had an answer ready. “Mom, they’re abducting millions of people per year and erasing their memories!” Alan had made her guffaw with that then, and also now in her productive solitude; the implication that an alien would traverse light-years to sneakily steal people in the night.
“Alan, if they erase the abductees’ memories, how does anyone know it’s happening?”
Alan answered, “They leave scoop markings and implants. And! And with regression hypnosis abductees are on record how they found themselves in spaceships!”
But alas, on her mosaic Lyrou had started Penny’s cherubic face. Her daughter’s hair was more visibly of eclectic ethnic heritage, in texture and color. She whispered to the half-complete visage, “You’re your father, numéro un.” and pondered over the precise piece and placement to commit to. As it wasn’t something that showed well in photos of Penny, Lyrou closed her eyes and imagined Garin, the emotion his face imparted in her, and did her best to replicate it in the art. As she believed she’d done it and rejoiced, she then worried if they would feel the same when they saw it too. How she venerated the graven image.
⚜
