by M. E. Carter
By the time we get to the park, I’m no closer to the answer. But I am closer to lunch time and I’m getting hungry. Coffee for breakfast doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.
The girls take off running with excited shouts while I heave the cooler out of the front seat and drag it to the picnic table Callie has commandeered. It doesn’t surprise me she showed up early. Keeping Christopher contained at home for too long always results in something breaking… a knickknack, a favorite toy, spindles of the staircase when his head gets stuck.
“Hey,” she greets me, clicking off her phone and putting it down to help me unload. “What did you bring?”
It was my week to bring lunch for everyone but after working all week, I didn’t put in much effort. “Peanut butter and jelly.”
She crinkles her nose in disgust. “Ew.”
“I made us ham and cheese,” I clarify.
The look on her face immediately changes. “Yay!”
“Please. You think I’m going to eat P-B-and-J? I practically have a gag reflex smearing the peanut butter on the bread.”
“Then why do you make your kids eat it?” she asks through the bite she just took. “Mmmm,” she moans, eyes closed as she enjoys.
“It’s a rite of passage,” I respond, tossing the rest of the sandwiches on the table along with apple slices and a giant bag of barbeque chips. “My mom tortured me with it when I was a child, so I’m torturing my own kids with it.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Plus it’s cheap.”
“Exactly.”
She swallows and takes a drink before speaking again. “Did you meet the new neighbors yet?”
My turn to crinkle my nose. “Yes.”
“What? You say that weird. What’s wrong?”
“She seems nice, but…” I trail off, trying to figure out how to explain myself.
Callie looks at me for a few seconds, finally shaking her head slightly with impatience. “But what? She’s drunk? She’s loud? She’s got a glass eye?”
“What does having a glass eye have to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t. I just thought you were trying to be politically correct or something.”
I roll my own non-glass eyes. “No. No glass eyes. I just can’t get a read on her. She knew about the girls, which was really weird. And yesterday I saw her peeking out the window, but as soon as she saw me looking, she disappeared and the blinds snapped shut.”
Callie stares at me without blinking before finally speaking. “You’ve been watching the Investigation Channel again, haven’t you?”
“Shut up,” I laugh and toss a package of napkins at her, which she easily deflects.
“Give her a chance. She probably saw the girls outside yesterday. Your kids aren’t exactly quiet.”
“I know. And she did say the realtor had told her about the girls. But I swear I know her from somewhere.”
“Maybe. You do work at a school. You see a lot of people.”
I shake my head. “Her son is in college.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe she came with a friend to pick up the friend’s kid. Maybe she’s a stalker. Or maybe you’re completely off your rocker.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “What’s your problem? You’re ultra snarky today.”
She sighs and leans her arms on the table. “Ben and I are fighting again.”
I groan. “What is it this time? Wait…” I hold up my hand so she doesn’t speak. “Let me guess.” I tap my finger to my chin as if I’m actually serious about my guesses. Because lord knows, Ben argues over the most ridiculous things. “You used vegetable oil instead of olive oil in last night’s dinner, so obviously you’re trying to give him a heart attack from cholesterol.”
“Nope,” she says with a shake of her head. “He threw out the vegetable oil last week.”
“He did?” I ask, getting sidetracked momentarily.
“Yep.”
Shaking it off, I get back to my guessing game. “You only vacuumed under the couch, but not the underside of the couch.”
“That was last month’s fight.”
“Ah. Well then, I’m out of guesses.”
She takes a deep breath. They’ve been married for seven years and I know the constant fighting wears on her sometimes. No matter what she does, it’s never good enough for him. “I’m spending too much money on my inventory.”
“For RowRow? This doesn’t make any sense. You pay for the inventory and then turn right around and sell it for a profit.”
“Yep.”
“Didn’t you make like ten thousand dollars last month alone?”
“Yep.”
“So what’s the problem.”
She snorts. “No idea. Something about me needing to completely sell out before buying more.”
“Wait, wait, wait… he wants you to sell out completely? Has he never been to a department store? That’s not the way it works.”
“I know. But you know Ben. He always has to be right. Even when he’s not right.”
“Man, that sucks. Sometimes I wish I could give him a piece….”
“Oh, hey there’s Deborah!” Callie exclaims, cutting me off.
That was weird. She’s never been distracted when we’re having a serious conversation before. But I roll with it. It’s not often we have other people joining us for playdates. Not since Greg and Peyton started coming with us.
A pang hits my chest when I think about them, but I push it aside and paste a smile on my face. It’s been nine months. I’m moving on.
I’ll just keep telling myself that.
Callie stands up to greet Deborah with a hug, a tow-headed boy standing next to her. He looks about Christopher and Max’s age. Maybe a little older.
Speaking of, where are Christopher and Max? I quickly scan the playground, counting heads. Fiona’s hanging upside down on the monkey bars, Maura is belting out the lyrics to the latest Disney flic while swinging, and Christopher is sliding down the tallest slide in the park, Max right behind him.
As he gets to the bottom, Christopher can’t slow himself down and flies off the slide, landing on his back in the dirt. Max has the same problem and lands right on top of him with an “oof.” They immediately begin wrestling.
Eh. They’re fine.
Turning my attention back to Callie’s new friend, I introduce myself.
“Hi, I’m Elena.” I reach out to shake her hand. “I think we met at one of Callie’s sizing parties a couple months ago.”
“Yes, I remember.” She takes my hand to shake it. “It’s nice to see you again.”
She has one of those weak handshakes where I only get to hold her fingers. Ew. I hate that kind of handshake. But her smile makes up for it, so I let it go quickly.
Literally. I couldn’t hold her fingers for one more second. No wonder Callie greeted her with a hug.
“Thanks for inviting us,” she says kindly, putting her hands on the little boy’s shoulders. “Trevor doesn’t have many friends, so it’s always fun to bring him on playdates.”
“Oh, did you guys just move to the area?” I feel bad for the boy. It’s never easy being the new kid.
“Oh, no. I’ve lived here my entire life.” She smiles. “But you know how hard it is to make friends these days.”
I look over at the playground to see Fiona playing a hand slapping game with another little girl while Maura, who is apparently done with her practice for Broadway, plays tag with a group of kids. Max and Christopher—yep, still wrestling.
But I shouldn’t judge. Some kids have a harder time than others. Maybe getting to know our kids will help him.
“How old are you, Trevor?”
“He’s five,” Deborah answers for him.
I bend down so I can make eye contact with him. “See that little girl over there in the yellow dress?” He nods. “That’s my little girl Maura. She’s six. Would you like to play with her and the other kids?” He nods again, making me smile. He must be terribly shy.
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br /> After calling Maura over and introducing them, they run off to play leaving the adults behind. Callie and I turn right back to our lunch, but Deborah has a strange look on her face. I can’t figure out what it means, but I realize she probably didn’t realize we were having lunch.
“Deborah, it was my turn to bring lunch today so I made an extra ham and cheese for you and and p-b-and-j for Trevor if you’re interested.”
“That’s so nice of you, thank you. But Trevor’s allergic to peanuts.” She smiles sweetly and plunks a giant purse on the table.
“Oh I’m sorry.” I begin gathering sandwiches to put them back in the cooler, not knowing how severe his allergy is. “Do the kids need to wait to eat? They can survive on apples and chips for a while.”
“Oh no, it’s fine!” Deborah begins pulling out coordinating Tupperware containers that snap together and have compartments and fancy lids. And all of them have the exact right amount of food in them. “His allergy isn’t airborne. Just ingested. Well, I mean, he only had an allergic reaction once and it totally could have been teething, not peanut butter. But who wants to take the chance, right?”
Ooookkkkkkk, I think to myself. I’m gonna pretend that wasn’t weird.
“I wish I had brought enough food to share with the other kids,” she continues.
She pops the top of the largest container open revealing celery sticks, hummus, and is that kale? No way my kids will want any of that.
“I think we’ll be good,” I say, Callie quirking her lips as she tries not to giggle. No way Christopher will touch that stuff either.
We continue setting out drinks… our regular juice boxes to Deborah’s homemade, organic grape juice… and chit chat as we get to know each other. She has one child. Been married for six years to some guy who is a big wig in an oil company downtown. Was a kindergarten teacher for a couple of years before having Trevor and becoming a stay at home mom. Deborah’s a little quirky, but she seems nice enough.
When we’re finally set up and Max has complained one too many times about being hungry, we call them over for lunch.
Fiona and Maura trot over. Christopher and Trevor… that’s a different story. They’re on opposite sides of the swings and as they come around, racing to the table, they run right smack into each other… knocking heads and falling to the ground.
“It’s ok!” Callie yells automatically. “Rub some dirt on it! You’ll be fine!”
Before her words are all the way out of her mouth, Deborah is running full-speed, scooping Trevor up in her arms as he’s rubbing his head, screaming like he’s got a nail shoved through his foot.
I glance at the shoes he’s wearing. Nope. No nails. Just a bump on his head.
We watch as Deborah kisses all over Trevor’s face, rocking him and cooing at him, like he’s on his death bed.
I look over at Callie who has the same look I’m probably sporting. One that says, “I’m trying really hard not to be judgy right now, but I can practically hear the helicopter blades from her parenting style.”
“Are you thinking the same thing I am?” Callie finally says.
“I’m trying not to. Especially since our parenting style looks like that.” I point at Christopher who is still sitting where he fell, only now Max has joined him and is doing exactly what Callie said… picking up dirt off the ground and rubbing it on his forehead. “You really think we have room to judge someone?”
“You’re such a better person than me.”
“Yep,” I agree.
“And she’s such a better mom than us.”
“Yep,” I agree again. But really, the jury’s still out for me.
You can never trust someone who gets the Tupperware portion sizes right every time.
“Run, baby. We’re late.”
Fiona and I race in the door to the gym; her sprinting through the gate and joining her class for the tail end of the warm up, me heading for my regular bench. Recently, we’ve been a little behind schedule. Mostly it’s because working has put a kink in my ability to get anywhere on time. Funny how taking ten hours out of your day leaves very little time for anything else. Go figure.
But it’s also because of my mother’s newest obsession… Real Housewives. She ran out of Kardashian episodes a few weeks ago, so she moved on to New Jersey and it’s been non-stop ever since. As soon as she showed up to babysit the other two kids, she began babbling on about how much she loves Teresa’s spunk, even if she is a horrible person.
I wish I had a picture of her face when I told her Teresa went to prison. She had no idea. For a woman completely obsessed with reality TV, my mother stays remarkably far away from the tabloids. She says it’s because you can’t believe a thing you read in them.
Yet she considers reality shows actual reality. There are no words for that woman sometimes.
I will admit, bringing Fiona to her class was hard when Greg first moved away. Being in the building brought up so many memories. Plus, any time one of the kids would mention him, my heart would sink. And when the new director introduced himself to me for the first time, I thought I was going to burst into tears.
It felt like everything was still exactly the same and everyone was going on with their lives like Greg had never even been there. But to me, the most important part was just… missing. It left what felt like a gaping hole in my chest.
Over time, that gaping hole became smaller and smaller until it became a tiny pinprick that pokes me every once in a while. Ok, it’s a big pinprick. But I don’t feel like I could cry everyday anymore.
Strangely, moving Fiona to a different class on different days helped me with the hurt. Fi worked really hard and moved up to the more advanced level, so she has Coach Pete now. He’s a nice guy, always has a smile on his face. And I never saw him with Greg, so that’s been nice for me. I know it’s selfish, but not having any memories of the two of them interacting gives me a little bit of peace.
Which is good because I don’t have time to feel depressed while we’re here. It’s two hours every week where I have uninterrupted time to catch up on emails, calls, and texts. I need to take advantage of it.
Settling myself on the bench, I grab my phone and open it, beginning the tedious task of going through everything I may have missed throughout the day. But of course the first text I see is from my mother and it came in seven minutes ago.
Mom: Are you sure Teresa went to prison? She’s a terrible person, but she’s not a criminal.
I shake my head in amusement. I am never going to hear the end of this until she gets to that episode.
Me: Yes, Mom. It was all over the news. Google it if you don’t believe me.
Mom: That’ll ruin the surprise of that episode.
Me: Didn’t I already ruin the surprise by telling you?
Mom: Yes, but you didn’t tell me what all happened. That’s still a secret.
Me: It’s not a secret. I don’t even watch the show and I know she was only in the slammer for six months or something.
Mom: ELENA JOANN MONROE!
Oh shit. I just got shouty capitaled.
Mom: You stop ruining things for me or I’m dumping out all your wine bottles and filling them with water.
Me: Thank you, Jesus.
Mom: Jesus turned water into wine, not wine into water. Where did I go wrong with you?
Me: You stopped making me go to church when I was sixteen and I lost my moral compass?
Mom: I have regrets now. Don’t rush home. I’m baking chicken for dinner. And don’t say a word about it. I felt like cooking today. Also, Maura swears you said it was ok for her to wear your lipstick. Yes or no?
Me: No! And thanks for dinner, Mom. I’ll text you on our way out.
Maura and her obsession with all things girly are going to kill me, I just know it.
I close my eyes and sigh, re-centering myself and taking a breather. My body relaxes so much now that the obnoxious chore of cooking has been taken off my plate, I barely hear the snick of the offic
e door closing next to me.
This is my first time being a single, working mom. And it. Is. Tough. Granted, I don’t do as much cleaning anymore because no one is home to mess up the house. But staying home meant having momentum. I got things done because I was already up and moving and accomplishing other goals.
Somehow, leaving a job and driving home kills that momentum. So any time my mom decides to cook dinner for us, I won’t argue. I just thank her profusely and am grateful it’s one less thing I have to do.
Opening my eyes, I search the room for Fiona and find her practicing her back handsprings with Coach Pete. Not bad. She’s still jumping up instead of back a little too much. Recognizing the technique problem is the curse of being a former gymnast.
Regardless, it’s so impressive watching how far she’s come. Seeing her smile every time we’re here makes me smile, too. She loves being at the gym. I’m pretty sure Coach Pete plans to bump her up to team and start her on several hours a week by winter.
And so the life of an athlete, and the athlete’s chauffer (a.k.a. Mother) begins.
I watch as Fiona gets herself back into position—standing straight, arms high above her head—but just as she squats down to put some power into her jump, she gets distracted, her eyes widen, and she squeals as she takes off running.
“COACH GREG!” she’s yelling as she runs across the floor and flings her arms around a man’s waist.
Greg? My Greg? What is she talking about?
As the kids begin to crowd around him, the man slowly turns my direction. When our eyes lock, I suck in a breath.
Ohmygod. It’s Greg. He’s missing his beard, which is really weird since I’ve never seen him without facial hair, but it’s definitely him. His baby blues are a dead giveaway. And right now, they are staring right into me.
What is he doing here? Is he visiting? Why didn’t he call me?
All these thoughts run through my brain as I strain to listen to what’s he saying to the kids, but they’re too far away. Instead, I have to focus on another coach answering one of the parent’s questions.
“Today is his first day back,” the coach says, completely oblivious to how hard my heart is pounding, even though I’m sure it can be heard if you get close enough. “The San Antonio gym is up and running now, so we snatched him right back from them.”