The Other Mothers (Chop, Chop Series Book 5)

by L. N. Cronk

“You’re so lucky I’m here,” he told her, taking her hand and leading her away. “Let’s go.”

  I hurried after them until we arrived at a women’s restroom. It was one of those huge deals with two separate entrances. Tanner knelt down next to her and pulled out his phone.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now, if you need anything, just push ‘two’ and then hit this green button, okay?”

  She nodded and he had her practice. My phone rang.

  “Who’s number one?” I asked him.

  “Laci.”

  I snatched the phone from Amber, pushed “1” and “send”. It dialed his voicemail and he grinned at me. I shook my head at him and then unzipped Amber’s fanny pack.

  “If you call me,” I told her, dropping the phone into her pack, “I’m coming in there. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “And if you’re not back out here in two and a half minutes, I’m coming in there. Understand?”

  She nodded again.

  “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” Tanner told her and she traipsed off.

  After she was gone Tanner brought his watch up to his mouth.

  “WhiteBoy,” he said into his watch, “this is TanMan. We got a ten-thirteen. Over.”

  I smirked at him.

  “WhiteBoy,” he said again. “This is TanMan. I’m going to secure the other entrance. Be advised that you are instructed to maintain visual at all times. Over.”

  He wandered down to the other entrance and dropped his sunglasses onto his face. Then he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, staring straight ahead. Periodically he brought his watch up to his mouth and pretended to talk into it. Eventually Amber came out at my entrance and Tanner rejoined us.

  “WhiteBoy,” he said into his watch one more time, “this is TanMan. Subject is secure. Mission has been successful. Over.”

  He looked down at Amber.

  “You didn’t drop my phone in the toilet, did you?” he asked. She shook her head and he held out his hand. She fished his phone out of her fanny pack and handed it back to him. Then he looked at me.

  “Can we go get our luggage now,” he asked, “or do you want me to sweep her for explosives?”

  By the time we finally checked into the hotel room it was almost six o’clock. I had booked two rooms for the three of us. One room had two queen sized beds and was attached to a smaller room with a double bed. I took Amber’s suitcase and put it in the smaller room. She watched me as I unpacked her things.

  “Isn’t this nice?” I asked. “You get a room all to yourself !” (At home she shared a room with Lily.) She pointed to the adjoining room.

  “What?”

  She kept pointing.

  “That’s where Tanner and I are gonna sleep. If you need anything, you can just come in there and get me.”

  She shook her head and pointed at herself. I sat down on her bed and patted the spot next to me. She scrambled up onto the bed next to me.

  “I know you don’t usually sleep alone,” I told her, “but I think you need to have a room to yourself.”

  She shook her head again and tears welled up in her eyes. After everything that had happened to her, I worried a lot that it would be very inappropriate for her to not have a room to herself. On the other hand, I couldn’t stand to see her cry.

  “How ‘bout you start out in here so Tanner and I can watch TV after you’ve gone to bed,” I suggested, “and then when we’re ready to go to sleep Tanner can sleep in here and I’ll take you in there.”

  She thought about it for a moment and then nodded. She jumped up, put her clothes back into her suitcase, zipped it up and looked at me expectantly, ready to go into the next room. I smiled at her and went next door where Tanner was hanging his shirts up in the closet.

  “Pack up,” I told him.

  “Huh?”

  “Pack up,” I said, pointing to the small room. “You’ve got the single.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you snore.”

  He looked at Amber and must have figured out what was going on.

  “I’m being maligned,” he told her. “I don’t snore.”

  “And you lie,” I added as he grabbed his shirts out of the closet.

  We ate at a restaurant that was in the hotel and by the time we got back to our room, Amber was already rubbing her eyes. I had her brush her teeth and get her pajamas on and then I tucked her into bed.

  “If you need me, just come get me. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Goodnight, sweetie,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered, and for the first time ever, she didn’t make me put my ear near her mouth. She just whispered it into the air – almost like she was talking.

  I smiled at her and kissed her forehead.

  “Goodnight,” I said again.

  I closed the door when I left. Tanner was sitting on the bed that I would move Amber into later, watching a baseball game on TV.

  “What are you two gonna do tomorrow?” I asked him as I sat down on my own bed.

  Before he could answer, the door between our two rooms opened. We both looked at it and waited for Amber to appear, but she didn’t. After a moment I got up and stuck my head in the room. She was in bed.

  “Problems?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be able to go to sleep if the door’s open?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay,” I agreed. I walked back to my bed.

  “Way to be firm,” Tanner said, giving his fist a little pump into the air.

  “It’s not gonna hurt anything for her to have the door open,” I argued. We were both keeping our voices low so she wouldn’t hear us.

  “No,” he agreed, “but at some point she’s going to have to not get what she wants. Things aren’t always going to go her way.”

  “Things didn’t go her way for a long time,” I reminded him.

  “I know.”

  “I just want her to have some happy times,” I said. “You know?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “I know.”

  “So what are you going to do tomorrow?” I asked again.

  “We’re gonna walk across the bridge.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, quietly. “Did you know that it’s the number one place in the world for people to commit suicide?”

  “Yep,” he nodded. “I was reading about it on the Internet last night. Number two is the Aokigahara forest in Japan.”

  “I don’t want her to see someone committing suicide!”

  He looked away from the television. “Do you honestly think people are lining up, waiting to jump and other people are just standing around watching?”

  “It could happen.”

  “If I see any jumpers I’ll cover her eyes,” he promised.

  “I’m also worried about how safe it is up there,” I said.

  “It’s safe.”

  “How safe can it be if people can jump off it?”

  He rolled his eyes at me.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll wind her up real good in bubble wrap before we go. That way – if she falls – not only will she be well padded, but she’ll float! And, if I wrap it around her eyes, she won’t be able to see the jumpers.”

  “It’s not funny, Tanner,” I said.

  He looked at me for a moment and then asked me in a serious tone, “If you don’t trust me with her, why did you agree to let me come out here with you?”

  I looked away and sighed quietly.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I said, looking back at him. “It’s just that I worry about her.”

  “Really?” he said dryly, turning back to the TV. “I had no idea.”

  I was quiet for a minute.

  “You know what I’m really worried about?” I finally asked.

&
nbsp; “I can’t imagine.”

  “This bathroom thing.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “I’m serious, Tanner. It’s not safe for her to be going into public restrooms all by herself. If she has a problem – if someone tries to hurt her or something – she can’t even yell for help! What’s she going to do? We didn’t think all of this through before we brought her out here.”

  “I already thought about it,” he said, leaning forward. “I’ll find a woman – some woman with a little kid – that’s going into the bathroom. I’ll tell her what’s going on and I’ll ask her if she’ll keep an eye on Amber while she’s in there and I’ll be standing right outside, waiting. Okay?”

  I nodded, heartened that (even though he wouldn’t admit it), he was worried about her too.

  “I’ll take care of her,” he promised. “Trust me.”

  “Okay,” I nodded again. “That’s a good plan.”

  “It’s an excellent plan,” he said, sitting back and turning his eyes to the TV once more. “And if the woman I find happens to be single, well . . .

  “Single women with kids are the best,” he went on, ignoring the fact that I was glowering at him. “Their biological clocks aren’t ticking so much anymore so they aren’t as likely to be pushing for a serious relationship.”

  I stared at him hard until he finally looked at me.

  “What?” he asked innocently, pointing toward the door that Amber had opened. “I’ve got my own room now – there’s no sense in letting it go to waste!”

  ~ ~ ~

  BY THE TIME I woke up in the morning, Tanner had already been to the fitness center, worked out, returned, showered, and was dressed. I jumped into the shower and dressed as well and – by the time I came out of the bathroom – Amber was up too and Tanner was brushing her hair.

  “Okay,” he said to her, pointing to the bathroom door. “Now get in there and get changed and then we’ll braid it. Hurry up.”

  She scurried off to the bathroom with her clothes in her hands.

  “You’re going to braid her hair?”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you know about braiding hair?” I cried. “You don’t even have hair!”

  “I have plenty of hair,” he argued.

  “You’re bald!”

  “I’m not bald! I just keep it short.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I do!” he insisted, pointing at his buzzed head. “This happens to be very intentional!”

  “It’s preemptive,” I muttered.

  “Why are you wearing a tie?” he asked, watching me working on it in the mirror and obviously trying to change the subject. “You’re going to be crawling around in buildings that might fall down on you at any minute.”

  “Because I want to look good when they pull my body out of the rubble,” I answered. (I didn’t actually crawl around in buildings that “might fall down on me at any minute” – in the seven years I’d been doing this, I’d only gone into three or four buildings that I’d been in a pretty big hurry to get out of.)

  “Really,” he said. “Why do you have to wear a tie?”

  “I don’t have to wear a tie,” I smiled, “I get to wear a tie.”

  “Are you serious? You don’t have to wear one, but you do anyway? What’s wrong with you?”

  “If you padded around in slippers and sweatpants all day, you’d welcome the chance to dress up a bit too. I even get to wear a fancy ID badge,” I said, holding it up to show him. “It makes me feel so special!”

  “Glad you’re happy,” he said, shaking his head. “You know she wants to come and see you when you’re working, don’t you?”

  “I know,” I nodded, giving the tie a final tug. “That’ll last about five minutes once she sees how boring it is, but let me get down there today and check it out. I’ll probably be able to work something out later in the week.”

  The bathroom door opened up and Amber stepped out, carrying her pajamas and wearing a bright orange top and blue jeans.

  “I like that shirt,” I said. “It’ll be easy for Tanner to keep an eye on you.”

  Even Amber rolled her eyes at me.

  “You ready to get your hair braided?” Tanner asked.

  She nodded eagerly

  “Well, get on over here then,” he said, patting the bed next to him. “We’d better get started. It’s been a while since I’ve done this – I’m out of practice.”

  “Of course the fact that you were ever in practice,” I said, heading back to the bathroom to brush my teeth, “isn’t concerning at all.”

  When I got back to the hotel room that evening at about five-thirty, Tanner and Amber were already there. Cartoons were playing quietly on the TV and Tanner was sitting on the couch with Amber next to him. She was leaning against him and he had his arm around her protectively. They were both sound asleep.

  I was tired too and I debated lying down for a nap myself, but I was hungry more than I was tired, so instead I decided to wake them up. I knelt down in front of Amber and stroked her cheek with my finger. After a moment her eyelids fluttered open. She smiled at me.

  “Hi, beautiful,” I said.

  “Hi,” she whispered. Just like the night before, she didn’t make me put my ear to her mouth to hear her.

  “Did you have a good day?”

  She nodded and Tanner stirred.

  “What did you do?”

  “We walked across the bridge,” she whispered.

  “You did?” I asked as Tanner opened his eyes.

  “She slipped once,” he said, stretching. “I barely caught her.”

  I glared at him and Amber giggled silently. I sat down on the other side of her and she stretched out her t-shirt so I could see it.

  “I WALKED THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE,” I read out loud.

  She smiled proudly at me. “What else?” I asked, smiling back at her.

  “I danced with a silver man,” she whispered loud enough so that Tanner and I could both hear her.

  “A silver man?” I asked, making sure I’d understood her correctly.

  “Yep,” said Tanner and Amber nodded. “He was silver.”

  “Like his clothes?”

  “Like everything,” Tanner said. “His clothes, his hair, his skin . . .”

  (We didn’t have silver people in Cavendish.)

  “There were all kinds of street performers,” he explained.

  “On the bridge?”

  “No,” he said. “Pier 39.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking at Amber. “And you got to dance with one of them?”

  She nodded and smiled again. I smiled back at her.

  “What’s this?” I asked, pointing to part of a lanyard that I could see around her neck. She pulled the rest of it out from under her shirt and held it up to me – there was a plastic gadget attached to the end of it.

  “What is it?”

  Amber looked at Tanner worriedly.

  “Go ahead,” he urged. “Just do it for a second.”

  She looked slightly defeated but then grasped both ends of the contraption. She glanced at Tanner one more time and he nodded at her encouragingly. She looked back at me and then pulled her hands apart.

  EARSPLITTING. PIERCING. DEAFENING.

  How in the world that tiny, little thing made so much noise, I’ll never know. It took about three seconds for Amber to put it back together so that it would shut-up and – in that time – I thought my eardrums were going to burst. After that it was quiet again (although my ears were still ringing) and I looked at Tanner with my mouth open.

  “Personal alarm,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “I LOVE it!” I exclaimed.

  “I knew you would.”

  “You’re a genius!”

  “Yes. Can we go eat, now?”

  “Absolutely. I’m buying.”

  “Yes,” he agreed again. “You are.”

  “Come on,” I grinned at Amber, taking her hand. “You even
get to use the bathroom at the restaurant if you want.”

  ~ ~ ~

  THE NEXT MORNING Tanner pulled Amber’s hair back into a ponytail.

  “No braids today?” I asked wryly.

  Amber shook her head with an impish grin on her face and Tanner gave me a suspicious smile.

  “What are you up to?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Tanner said, completely unconvincingly. Amber shook her head in agreement with him.

  “Don’t you dare get her hair cut!” I warned Tanner.

  “I won’t,” he said, innocently.

  “Where are you guys going today?”

  “Back to Pier 39.”

  “You just went there yesterday,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t get there ‘til the afternoon and we hardly had any time to do anything.”

  “What’s there to do?”

  “See the seals.”

  “What seals?”

  “The seals,” he said. “The famous Pier 39 seals?”

  “Oh,” I said. Then I asked, “Don’t seals bite?”

  “Oh, brother,” he muttered.

  “Don’t you get close to any seals, young lady,” I warned Amber, shaking a finger at her. She shook her head.

  “So, why aren’t we braiding our hair?” I tried again. Amber broke into another grin.

  “Seals hate braids,” Tanner said, straight-faced. “The attack rate goes way up when they see little girls with braids.”

  Amber’s shoulders shook with soundless laughter

  “You better not be getting her hair cut!” I warned him again.

  “I’m not!”

  “Laci will kill you if you cut her hair.”

  “I won’t!” he said again.

  I narrowed my eyes at him before I left.

  “Don’t,” I said. “And don’t let her get too close to the seals.”

  I honestly agonized all day about what Tanner had up his sleeve. Was he going to get her a perm? Doubtful . . . she already had pretty wavy hair and if they did that it was going to look like she’d stuck her finger in a socket. Straightened? Might not be too bad. Colored? Would Locks of Love take it if it was colored? Laci would be furious with Tanner if not. All day I worried about what I was going to find when I got back to the hotel.