See? I can do this. I can act normal. Everything is fine. Fine. Nothing to worry about.
She examined Luke’s face in the rearview mirror. He looked tired, obviously. Dark smudges under his eyes and heavy eyelids told her he’d need a nap as soon as they got home. She had no idea how she’d keep the house quiet. She squeezed the steering wheel, still examining her son for signs of impending doom.
Summer’s eyes returned to the road just as the traffic signal turned red. She knew she should stop. The light was red. But she also knew that if she slammed on the brakes, the seatbelt would cut into Luke’s chest. He had the pillow, sure, but it was just a pillow. How much could it really help? If she kept going, another car would probably hit her in the intersection, t-boning her van and killing Luke instantly.
After glancing both directions, panicked, she floored it. She heard a screech and her head swung crazily back and forth looking for the source of the sound. She didn’t see anything.
“Mom, why did you squeak like that?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Summer said. “I thought that was the sound of tires squealing. I thought someone was about to hit us.”
“That’s how Aunt Delaney met Uncle Jake, right, Mom? Someone hit the van? Uncle Jake was a Good Sam American.”
Summer could barely speak, her heart was beating so fast. She pulled over.
“Why are you stopping? Did someone hit us? This is where Aunt Dee pulled over after that crash, you know. Every time we drive by it now, she calls it the scene of the crime. She says, ‘Not the scene of the car accident, but the scene of me not asking Uncle Jake for his number.’ Why is that a crime, Momma?”
Despite the stress she was experiencing at the moment, Summer laughed. The sound came out high and maniacal.
“Aunt Dee had these weird rules before she met Uncle Jake. She used to refuse to ask guys for their phone number.”
The shift in focus calmed Summer down, and she was able to pull back onto the road without her hands shaking too badly. The remainder of the ten-minute drive home passed by in a rush of hazards Summer knew she was imagining but couldn’t help seeing: a bus stopping along its normal route, a car full of teenagers exceeding the speed limit to pass her as she went five under, a bicyclist in the bike lane coming just a bit too close to her van.
They arrived home without incident. Summer turned the keys in the ignition and laid her head back against her headrest, closing her eyes and doing her yoga breathing. When she heard Luke unbuckling his seatbelt, though, her eyes flew open and her heart sped up again.
“Wait! Let me help you down!”
She could imagine it now: Luke unbuckling himself, pushing open the van door, and tumbling out onto the driveway. His balance was probably off since he hadn’t walked anywhere aside from the hospital hallways in days.
“Mo-om,” he said. “I’m fine. Stop worrying.”
Still, to her relief, he remained seated until she opened his door and helped him down. When he was safely on his feet, she blew out the breath she’d been holding.
“I’ve been walking, for like, six years,” he said, grinning up at her.
***
Inside the house, chaos reigned. Summer should have known, it always did. Only, she wasn’t always worried about her little boy killing himself on a discarded baseball bat (what the heck was it doing in the house, anyway?) or slipping on a coloring book someone left on the floor.
Nate and Sarah were playing the dance-off video game, and Hannah ran wild circles around them, her arms in the air and her shrill voice calling out the song lyrics she could understand. Mostly “booty” and “shake it.”
Even while she laughed, Summer saw Hannah as a tripping hazard. Luke managed to make it onto the couch without falling, and Summer felt like she could breathe. The sense of relief lasted only a few seconds before she felt panicked again.
She walked into the kitchen and saw dishes piled in the sink and all over the counter. Had no one done dishes while she was in the hospital with Luke? Bits of food stuck to the faucet, hardened on and undoubtedly growing massive amounts of bacteria. Resigned, Summer rolled up her sleeves and began scrubbing.
How had they been eating? There were no clean dishes to speak of. She checked the garbage can. Paper plates pushed its lid open, and a couple of them had even fallen out and were crammed between the garbage can and the wall.
Germs everywhere.
Summer felt like screaming at the kids, letting loose on them for playing the stupid dance-off video game when the house was a total disaster. The entire top of the dining room table was covered with laundry. Dirty or clean, it was hard to tell. But at least Derek had the couch cleared off for Luke like Summer asked him to.
She couldn’t blame him for not keeping up with all the chores. If anyone understood how much work it was to cart kids back and forth from school and help them with homework and feed them and brush their teeth and get them to bed, it was Summer.
But she could blame Willow. Willow had insisted on staying to help, and what was she doing? Where was she? Derek, she knew, was sleeping. When they found out Luke would be discharged, Derek and Summer had agreed he’d go back to work that night. She expected him to be asleep when she came home, but who was supervising the bigger kids?
Alarm bells began ringing in the back of Summer’s mind. They were quiet at first, but increased in intensity as she realized she hadn’t seen Willow or Olivia. Speaking of Olivia, had anyone been feeding her? Summer checked the freezer to see how many bags of breastmilk remained. There was one left, which meant someone had gone to the trouble of defrosting them.
“Willow!”
Summer abandoned the dishes and went in search of her baby.
Between hip shakes and arm movements, Sarah said, “She took Olivia for a walk.”
“Great. Who’s watching Hannah?”
“We are!” Nate said.
“The two small people who are so immersed in the dance-off game they don’t even notice Hannah is standing on the dining room table?”
The kids froze and turned around to look at the dining room table. Of course, Hannah wasn’t on top of it (she couldn’t possibly fit with all the laundry), but Summer had made her point.
“You tricked us, Mom!” Sarah said.
Nate laughed. “She’s right behind us!”
“But you didn’t know that,” Summer said. “You had no idea where she was.”
Their expressions sobered instantly.
Summer felt her temper rising into what Derek called The Danger Zone, so she walked back into the kitchen where she scrubbed dishes so hard her arm cramped. A while later, Summer heard Willow’s return before the door even opened. Olivia screamed in her stroller as if she’d been tortured. Willow, completely drained judging by the slump of her shoulders and the shuffle of her feet, pushed the stroller into the house and sighed with relief. “Oh, thank gawd you’re here. This baby is hungry. I need a shower.”
With that, she walked into the back of the house without even shutting the front door.
“Great,” Summer said. She slammed the door and picked up the baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“You know,” said Josie, “The Motherhood Intervention still stands. You have to take some time for yourself.”
Summer sat with Josie and Delaney on the couch in her living room. The girls had shown up after the kids’ bedtime, rather mysteriously. They denied having been sent by Derek, but immediately started carrying laundry from the dining room table to the living room and, once it had all been transferred, began folding it and putting it in tidy stacks.
Summer gestured to the laundry. “You guys didn’t even see the kitchen before I got ahold of those dishes. I’m not sure it’s possible to take time for myself.”
Josie and Delaney exchanged meaningful looks. Summer huffed out a sigh.
“You guys. Seriously. I’m fine.”
Liar. You’re going crazy, Winter said in a singsongy voice.
“I knew,
going into motherhood, that I’d have to make sacrifices.”
“You do…” Josie said.
“But?” Summer said.
“But you also have to make time for yourself or else you really will go crazy,” Delaney said. “I’ve seen what you’ve posted on FriendZoo lately.”
“I’m just being honest! Susan Little’s baby is horrendous looking. He looks like an alien rhino. And she keeps posting photos of him and talking about how cute he is. But he isn’t! Come on. I know you’re thinking it too.”
Josie laughed, but quickly made a stern face when Delaney shot her a look.
“We are,” Delaney said. “We are thinking it, too. But you just don’t say it. Or type it. Whatever. I mean, you thought Nate looked like a little piggy when he was a baby. That was before social media got really big. But you did. And I dare anybody else to say so.”
Fortunately, Nate had turned out to be a very good-looking child. But as an infant, he had looked like a piggy. At the time, Summer had prepared a response she could use if anyone ever said anything to her about it. She would have practically torn someone’s face off.
Still, she tried to act nonchalant. She shrugged. “You’re right. It was totally uncalled for.”
“And besides that,” Josie said, “it made you look like a real bitch.”
Summer hung her head. “He’s still ugly.”
The girls didn’t answer. They continued folding clothes. After a time, Delaney said, “I didn’t realize children generated this much laundry. I’m scared.”
“It’s so gradual you don’t even notice,” Summer said. “Until it’s covering your entire dining room table. Or all the flat surfaces in your living room.”
“When are you having babies, Josie?” Delaney wanted to know.
Josie shrugged. “Well, seeing as how our marriage just got off the rocks, it may be a while. Although the anniversary trip we’re planning may turn into a romantic baby-making trip. I ain’t getting any younger.”
“That would be very romantic,” Summer said. “To conceive your first baby on a trip celebrating your anniversary. I mean, one of my kids was conceived in the Rowdy’s bathroom. Not romantic at all.”
“But steamy,” Delaney said.
“Where was your baby conceived, Dee?” Summer asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Delaney said. “I picked out drapes for our new living room, by the way.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Josie said, setting the shirt she was folding on her lap. “Where was it? Tell us now.”
Delaney looked at the floor.“Well, you know how sometimes that urge just strikes you?” she said.
“Ye-es,” Summer and Josie said.
“Well, that happened,” Delaney said.
“Okay,” Summer said. “But where?”
“I’m not sure you want to know,” Delaney said.
“Ohmygod,” Josie said. “Now we really want to know. I mean, you can’t say that and not tell us, Dee.”
Summer found herself laughing, a genuine laugh that originated somewhere in her belly and bubbled up through her body. “Tell us,” she said.
“I can’t. It’s private.”
“Did she just say, ‘It’s private’?” Josie said.
Summer nodded, giggling, and placed a baby shirt on the stack closest to her. “She did.”
“Nothing’s private here, sister,” Josie said. “Especially when you say it’s private.”
A deep red flush moved from Delaney’s chest to her neck to her cheeks.
“Spill it,” Summer said, trying for her best serious expression.
“Fine,” Delaney said, and all three of them burst out laughing again. Delaney had overused the term, ‘fine,’ during The Dating Intervention whenever Summer and Josie had talked her into doing something out of her comfort zone. After that, it became a running joke. Still, Delaney didn’t dish. She kept folding. One of Nate’s shirts, a pair of Luke’s pants, one of Summer’s tank tops. Josie and Summer waited.
“Right there,” Delaney finally said.
“Right where?” Summer said.
“Where you’re sitting.”
“No! You had sex on my couch?” Summer said.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never had sex on your couch!” Delaney said.
“We have, but it’s our couch!”
Delaney shrugged. “We were watching the kids one night, and they’d gone to bed. We felt frisky.”
“Geez,” Summer said. “I’d think watching my kids would make you not want to reproduce.”
Again, Delaney shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Your kids are charming. Jake thinks so, too. Ergo…” She gestured at her growing belly.
A realization dawned on Summer. She looked over at Josie, who was holding a shirt in front of her face … and who hadn’t spoken since Delaney made her confession.
“Josie?” she said. “You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet during this exchange. Is there something you wish to share?”
“No, hm-mm,” Josie said.
In slow motion, Delaney and Summer put down the clothes they were folding. Josie continued folding hers, still in very slow motion. Suddenly, she laughed. The T-shirt she’d been holding in front of her face danced as her body shook. Delaney and Summer looked at each other. Delaney looked a bit puzzled, but Summer knew what had happened.
“Admit it,” Summer said to Josie.
Josie dropped the shirt, and clutched her stomach as the laughter had her doubling over.
“We…” she began, and then stuck a fist in her mouth.
Delaney looked at Summer again, the realization hitting her. Then she began to laugh too.
“Say it!” Summer said.
Josie shook her head. She clasped her hands together in her lap and managed to squeak out, “Paul and I had sex on your couch, too.”
All three of them howled with laughter.
“We should have put laughing on your list of Intervention Rules,” Delaney said as they eventually wound down, gasping for air. “It produces endorphins.”
Summer knew it was true. The good, old-fashioned gigglefest had left Summer feeling better than she had in days. Weeks, even.
So it was no surprise Willow had to pull one of her stunts and ruin everything.
Without any warning, without any of the customary knocking or doorbell ringing, the front door flung open so fast it hit the wall. Willow stood in the doorway, her hands on either side of the doorjamb, one leg slightly bent as if she were posing for a magazine ad photo shoot.
Summer groaned, and Delaney and Josie froze.
***
On Summer’s tenth birthday, Willow offered to throw her her first-ever birthday party. “You’re entering the double digits,” she said. “And that is something to celebrate.”
Summer made the invitations herself, carefully folding paper into cards, neatly printing “You’re Invited” on the front of each one and then using a ruler to make lines on the inside where she used her best handwriting to fill in all the details. She handed them out at school, barely able to contain her excitement at having a real birthday party with friends and cake.
Willow and Summer spent an entire week preparing. Together, they cleaned the house. They pulled weeds, making their postage stamp of a front yard tidy. It was the happiest week of Summer’s life, the first time they’d worked together on something fun and productive.
On the day of the party they woke up early to bake the cake and hang streamers. Willow even surprised Summer with balloons she’d bought the night before and hidden in her closet. Summer tied two of them to the mailbox and the rest to the table where they put the finished cake. Summer was giddy with anticipation. Just before people were set to begin arriving, though, Willow disappeared. Summer had no idea where she’d gone, but was quickly distracted when the first guest knocked on the door. The house was cozy so Willow had limited the number of attendees to three.
Although Summer’s sense of unease grew the longer Willow w
as gone, she went ahead and orchestrated the games they’d planned out: Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Twister, musical chairs.
In the middle of musical chairs, the front door flew open so hard it left a deep dent in the drywall. Summer and her friends had been struggling over the remaining chairs, giggling madly, but their laughter stopped the second that door flew open.
Willow posed in the doorway, her hands on either side of the doorjamb and one leg slightly in front of the other. She wore a huge sunhat and a tight-fitting dress, and Summer had the briefest thought that she looked like she belonged in a magazine ad.
“What have we here?” Willow said in a syrupy sweet voice, and Summer quickly reevaluated her magazine ad idea. Willow belonged in a movie, playing the role of the villain. Someone turned off the music. Willow strutted forward, leaving the door open. It was a windy day, and the breeze rushed in, making the streamers flutter and the balloons dance.
“We were just playing musical chairs,” Summer said quietly. “Where were you?”
“I just went on a little errand,” Willow said.
For a flicker of a moment, Summer thought maybe Willow had gone to get her a birthday surprise. A gift. A bike, maybe. Or roller skates. Then she held up a paper bag, and Summer flinched. Her friends looked at each other, their eyes huge in their ten-year-old faces. Summer could hold up her façade, though, she thought. She could play this off.
“Want to do the cake now?” she said to Willow as her friends moved close to one another behind her. “I know we’ve both been looking forward to eating it.”
“Yes,” Willow said, dragging out the word. “I think the cake would go very well with my date to your little birthday party.”
She cackled then, withdrawing the half-empty bottle from her bag.
“Get me a knife, sweetheart, and I’ll start cutting.”
“Aren’t we going to sing?” one of Summer’s friends asked, her voice echoing in the gaping silence Willow had created.
“Dear me,” Willow said. “How could I forget?”
The Motherhood Intervention: Book 3 in the Intervention Series Page 15