The thing about Barbara was that she was never openly cruel when there was an audience. That was
almost the worst part, honestly. In front of other people she was perfectly pleasant. At family dinners she smiled and asked Lisa about school and second grade and whether she liked her
teacher. She bought Lisa birthday presents, nice ones.
She put Lisa’s name on the Christmas cards.
But get her alone, just the two of us, and all the poison came dripping out, one little drop at a time.
“Brandon has such a generous heart,” she told me once, in the kitchen, drying a dish while everyone else was in the other room. “Truly. Not every man would be willing to take on another
man’s responsibilities.”
I set down the plate I was holding. “Lisa isn’t a responsibility Brandon got assigned, Barbara. She’s not a work project he inherited.”
“Oh, I know, I know.” She waved her towel. “I’m only saying. It’s a lot. To raise another man’s child. That’s all I mean.”
Another time, while Brandon was out on the patio grilling and couldn’t hear, she asked me,
apropos of nothing, whether I expected Brandon to pay for Lisa’s college.
I actually laughed, because I thought she was
making some kind of strange joke.
