Page 32 of Beg Me

“Kind of.”

She draws lines through the circle. “I just cut this pizza into four equal slices. If your dad eats two of them, he ate two-fourths of the pizza, right? Because two of the four are gone.”

“Okay,” Gus says, watching her color them in.

“But look at this. Once we color them in, we realize that it’s the same thing as half of the pizza, right?”

“Yup.”

“So, two-fourths is the same thing as one-half. They mean the same thing, just in different ways. We say that one-half is simpler because we’d have to cut the pizza fewer times.”

Gus sits up in his seat. “That makes sense.”

Thank God.

I deliver the food and drinks to the table, then take my seat as Markie continues her lesson. The tension that filled the room when I was trying to teach him is now filled with laughter. Instead of pretending to be too dense to understand, Gus now seems determined to impress.

I can’t help but smile. .

“Boom!” Gus says, lifting his chin. “Three-fourths. Eighteen twenty-fourths simplifies to three-fourths.”

“See?” Markie asks, patting him on the shoulder. “You can do this. Now, let’s eat before this gets cold.” She turns to me. “This looks pretty great, Jory.”

I study her, wondering what else there is to know about this fascinating woman. Instead of looking away, she holds my attention. For a moment, she’s not here to deliver a key or to help with math. She’s here as a woman having dinner with my son and me.

Finally, I look away and focus on my food. “Thanks. So, are you a math whiz or something? You just jumped right in and got him to understand something that we’d gone over a million times.”

She shrugs, placing a napkin on her lap. “Not exactly. But I am pretty good at it. I tutor kids, mostly during the school year.”

“So you work at the farmers’ market, and you tutor kids?” Gus asks. “Are you a teacher, too?”

“No.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I have filled in a few times at the school here in Sugar Creek, but teaching’s not my thing. It turns out that I’m pretty good at one-on-one situations, but when twenty little gremlins outnumber me, it’s overstimulation city for me.”

I hold my breath as I take my first bite of pasta. If I’d known she was coming, I would’ve picked something else—probably takeout that I could’ve faked as my own. But when the sauce hits my tongue, I nearly sigh in relief. It’s good.

“What else do you do?” Gus asks.

I start to tell him to mind his business but stop short of saying it. I’m curious about her, too. And if I don’t have to be the one to ask, even better.

Markie glances at me. “Well, I help manage the farmers’ market. That keeps me busy from spring through fall. It really pares down in the winter to about a day a week. Then I tutor throughout the school year and sometimes substitute teach if the school is in a bind. I also work at the library part-time once school starts because the high school kids who work in the summer go back to class, leaving them shorthanded.” She pauses to take a sip of water. “I also do some bookkeeping for John Travers, the local accountant. I do it from home, starting in October through May, usually. I just help get him through the tax season.”

“Wow.” I nod appreciatively. “That’s a lot of balls to have in the air.”

“It is,” she says, preparing a bite of pasta. “But I think if I had to do the same thing every day, I’d get burned out so dang fast. And this way, I get to tinker with all the things I love and still pay my mortgage.” She lifts the fork to her lips. “My parents died so young. It’s never been appealing to me to waste my life in an office with people I probably don’t even like. I prefer to be in the community, talking to people and enjoying life instead.”

Shrugging, she takes a bite.

My heart sinks at her tone. It’s not objectively sad, but there are enough notes in it to be obvious. I can’t imagine losing both of my parents—losing my father at eighteen was hard enough. But having no one to call with news, nowhere to go for holidays, and no one to call to ask about the random trip I barely remember when I was four? That kills me. And that’s what she deals with every day.

“I didn’t know your parents were dead,” Gus says, his voice somber. “My first dad died when I was a little kid. It sucks.”

She smiles at him. “Thank you, Gus. It does suck, and I’m sorry you lost your first dad, too.”

His fork clatters against the side of his plate. His eyes are wide, filled with concern. “Do you have more family, though?”

“Yes. I have a Lolly, my grandma. And a sister and a brother. I have a brother-in-law now, too, and hopefully nieces and nephews in the not-too-distant future.”

“That’s good.” He nods as if he’s reassuring himself. “I was going to volunteer to be your stepson, but⁠—”