by Carter, TK
“Then help Gibson with his spelling!” I yelled to his back. I heard the front door close and squinted my eyes tightly.
When I opened them, Martin was staring at me. “Are you okay, Mom?”
I turned to the sink and rinsed the tea pitcher then started a pot of water boiling. “Yep, I’m good. Tell me about your day.”
He leaned against the counter. “It was okay.” He picked up the box of stuffing. “This can be microwaved. Want me to fix it?”
I caught the sob in my throat and choked it down. I whispered, “Thank you, honey. That would be awesome. Just follow the directions for the microwave.” I reached over his head and pulled a bowl out of the cabinet. “Use this and follow the directions.”
Del Ray sauntered into the kitchen. “Hi Mom.” She opened the refrigerator and asked, “Where’s the tea?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m making some more.” I grabbed the pork chops out of the microwave to prep for baking.
She closed the door. “How was your day?”
“It was okay.”
“What was the big emergency with Alissa?” she asked as she grabbed the tea bags out of the cupboard and started dipping three tea bags in the nearly boiling water. “Is that water in the pitcher ready for the tea?”
“Yeah don’t forget the sugar or there will be a riot.” I winked at her. “Thank you for helping.” New tears stung at my eyes. I finished seasoning the pork chops and put them in the oven.
“So what’s the deal with Alissa?” she asked again.
I shrugged. “She got some news today that was pretty shocking, so she needed her friends.”
“Is she okay?” She poured the sugar in the hot tea then dumped it in the tea pitcher.
“Yeah, she’s okay. It’s private, so I can’t talk about it, but she’s fine. But thanks for asking.” I grinned at her and touched the shaved side of her head. “Doesn’t this itch?”
She laughed. “No, I think it feels pretty cool. The purple is fading faster than I hoped, so I’ll have to do it again this weekend.”
“Oh great. I can’t wait to lose the bathroom for two hours again.”
“Oh whatever. You should let me dye your hair too.”
“I can’t imagine how much your father would love that.” However, the idea of pissing him off held a vast appeal to me.
Martin was done with the stuffing. “I think this is ready to go, Mom.”
“Okay, put it in the microwave but don’t turn it on. We’ll cook it about five minutes before the pork chops are done.”
“Wanna do this math homework now?”
I leaned over to see if Brandon had snuck back in, but he was probably in the garage cleaning his golf clubs. I sighed. “Sure. Do you have a pencil?” He waved one in front of my face. “Okay, have a seat at the table.”
I had just finished helping Martin with his worksheet when the timer went off announcing the pork chops were ready. It was seven fifteen and an hour later than when we normally eat. Del Ray must have known I was about to lose my shit earlier, because she set the table around Martin and me and put ice in the glasses before she left the kitchen. I turned the microwave on and pulled the pork chops out of the oven.
“What else do you need, Mom?” Martin asked.
“Grab the applesauce and a spoon, and then I think we’re ready. Gib, go holler at your dad and tell him dinner’s ready.”
“’kay,” he yelled.
“Smells good, Mom,” Del Ray said as she came into the kitchen.
I looked sideways at her. “What’s gotten into you?”
She looked at me with a blank expression. “What do you mean?”
“This.” I swirled my finger in the air. “This extremely nice, polite behavior I’m seeing tonight. What’d you do?”
She chuckled. “Nothing, I didn’t do anything wrong, I promise.” She looked at Martin then at me.
“Well, it’s very nice. Keep it up.” I winked at her and mouthed, “Thank you” when Martin turned his back.
When Martin was born, I had a hell of a time convincing Del Ray that he was my baby and not hers. She was three and half years old when he joined our family, and she was convinced I’d brought her a real-life, breathing, pooping baby doll to play with. When he cried, she took off running to get to him before I could so she could take care of him first. It was cute until it wasn’t. Her maternal instincts toward him faded when he started walking and took her toys out of her room to play with them in the toilet. After that, she parented from afar until he started school, and then it started all over again. She had to escort him through the crosswalk, she had to keep an eye on him at recess, and twice she got me called into the principal’s office for interfering with a teacher scolding him on the playground.
Last year she discovered she was a teenager and found that friends were more important than her nine-year-old brother, so she ditched him. That was a hard transition for the little guy, but he paid it forward and took his turn as the big kid with Gibson. Seeing her concerned about him again gave me a flicker of hope that my little girl was still inside that freakish-looking teenager sitting at the table.
We were all sitting at the table when Brandon waltzed in and went to the sink to wash his hands.
“Come on, Dad, I’m starving,” Gibson said.
Brandon dried his hands. “I’m coming, I’m coming. Smells good, honey.”
“Thanks,” I said coldly.
“No bread?” he asked as he sat down.
I passed the pork chops to Del Ray. “You don’t need bread. We have stuffing.”
“I want some bread,” he mumbled as he scooted his chair away from the table.
Everyone at the table groaned and put down their forks. We have a rule that no one eats until we’re all sitting around the table. I looked at Gibson’s face smashed against his hand as he stared at the applesauce. “Go ahead and eat, guys. It’s getting cold.”
The kids looked at me wide-eyed and said in unison, “Really?” Forks and knives scraped against plates in record speed.
Brandon returned to the table with a bun in his hand. He trimmed his pork chop and slapped it on the bun before he took a bite and sighed.
I stared at my husband and wondered when he turned into such a selfish prick. Watching his temples bounce up and down as he chewed annoyed me. I glanced around the table and saw my children devouring their meal. I felt my chest tighten. “Dare I ask if you guys had a snack after school?”
Martin and Gibson shook their heads, but Del Ray answered. “Nope.”
“So, you guys haven’t eaten anything since lunch?” I turned to Gibson. “What time do you eat lunch, buddy? Ten-fifty?”
“Yeah,” he said in between bites.
I looked at Brandon who was scooping stuffing onto his fork. “That’s nearly nine hours ago, Brandon.”
He stopped and looked at me. “What?”
“These kids didn’t have an after-school snack.”
He shrugged. “They’re old enough to say if they’re hungry or not,” he said as he went back to his meal.
I looked at Del Ray who rolled her eyes toward Martin. I followed her gaze and watched him scoot his stuffing around on his plate.
I cleared my throat. “Martin, tell me about school today.”
He looked at me and shrugged. “Not much to tell. I got an A on my science test.” He grinned.
“Good job! Was that the one over the planets?”
“Yep, thanks for helping me study.”
“You’re welcome. Gibson, after dinner we’ll work on those spelling words.”
“I’m too tired to study, Mom,” he groaned.
“If you can play video games or watch TV, you can spell words out loud to me . . . or your dad.”
Brandon chugged his tea and shook his head. “I’ve got to finish cleaning my clubs after dinner.” He set his drink down and looked at Del Ray’s dropped jaw. “What?”
She pointed her fork at me. “She worked, went to see a friend,
cooked dinner and helped Martin with his homework …”
“That’s enough out of you, Del Ray,” Brandon said, ending the conversation.
We ate the rest of the meal in silence, but I had found an unexpected ally in Del Ray.
After dinner was over, the table had been cleared, and the kitchen cleaned (courtesy of my new teammate and myself), I sat down with Gibson and gave him a practice spelling test. He aced it, so we didn’t spend much more time on it. Once showers were done and clothes laid out for the next morning, it was nine-thirty, and I was exhausted.
I walked into the bedroom, and Brandon was lying down watching TV looking as relaxed as he could be. “That was a good dinner, Chelle.”
I didn’t answer him. I gathered my clothes and went to the bathroom to change and brush my teeth. Gibson’s clothes and puddles of water littered the bathroom floor, but he was already in bed (hopefully sleeping), so I picked them up and wiped up the water. I glanced at the sagging floor by the bathtub and wondered how much longer that floor was going to last before needing repair.
I climbed into bed and groaned at how awesome my bed felt. I stretched out then curled onto my side. Brandon and I had scrimped and scraped by on many purchases, but we went all out for a good bed. Best investment we ever made.
He rolled over and leaned against my back as he rubbed my leg. “Well, hello there.”
I wished I had a Taser in my bedside table. I placed my hand over his and pushed it off my leg. “You gotta be kidding me. No way, jackass.”
Brandon huffed and rolled over. He flipped channels until I rolled over, grabbed the remote, turned off the television then threw the remote into a pile of clothes in the corner. I looked at him and smiled. “Good night.”
Chapter Ten
You’ve Got a Friend
Chance
I held my breath and watched Dani’s face as Alissa made the announcement about her pregnancy. It was worse than I’d imagined; seeing someone else moan about the one thing that eludes you is torture on a good day. When the words “abortion” and “options” tossed around like high school whores landed on her, I felt myself reaching a level of anger I hadn’t felt since Jeremy Newporter cheated on me in the late nineties. Then Michelle’s brilliant fix . . . sometimes I really want to shake that girl until her head pops off.
I chased Dani to the back porch and wrapped her in a hug.
“Hey, you.”
Dani whimpered, “How in the hell is this fair, Chance? How is this fair? She’s the last person on earth who should have a baby. She works out for three extra hours a week if she eats a piece of cheesecake, for crying out loud. How does she get to do this?”
“I know, but it happened. Believe me when I say the guilt is eating her alive. Everything you’re saying she said to me this afternoon.”
She sniffled and pulled away as she shook her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening.” She looked at me. “She’ll get rid of it; watch. She won’t carry this baby to term. And I don’t know if I can get past it if she does, Chance.”
“You don’t know what she’ll do, Dani.”
“Look at this house! Can you imagine a baby trying to grow up in this immaculate place? Look out there——look at that yard. Can you envision plastic toys and sand boxes? Because I sure the hell can’t.”
I wiped a stray tear and cleared my throat. I rolled through all of the you’ll-get-through-it speeches I’ve given in my life, but all of my words seemed inept for this situation. I thought about my breakup with Tony and how the last thing I wanted to hear was anyone say, “You’ll meet someone new, and this will just be a memory someday.” You can’t exactly look at a friend and say, “There will be other babies.” Thankfully, Dani just needed to talk, so I listened.
“Sometimes I wonder what I did in a different life to warrant being childless in this one. Maybe I was a horrible mother, and the universe is preventing the cycle from continuing.”
My silence ended there. “Keep that shit up and I’ll pretend you’re Asshole-the-punching-bag. You’re not being punished for anything. Don’t even think like that.”
She threw up her arms. “But it doesn’t make sense. I did everything right, Chance. I graduated high school and college, I got married; I have lived a squeaky-clean life so why can’t I have a baby? I deserve it. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s screwed up damn near everything she’s touched!”
“Now, Dani, I know you’re angry and extremely hurt right now, but that’s Alissa you’re talking about, not some cracked-out whore who’s on baby number eight with six different daddies fresh out of prison.” I stepped toward her. “That’s our friend, and when you can peel yourself out of your own misery, think about how she feels right now. She’s scared out of her mind because like you, she thinks she’s unfit to be a mother too. She’s sick as a dog and totally wigging that there’s a human life growing in her uterus.”
Dani closed her eyes and nodded. “I know you’re right, but I can’t get there, yet. I know it’s selfish, and when the shock wears off I’ll feel like a complete douchebag for my reaction, but right now, I’m . . . I . . . I just can’t, Chance.”
“And that’s fine. Just save your crazy for me, okay? Spare her this side of you. And for the love of God, don’t talk to the mother twins. I know they mean well, but Katie and Michelle can’t relate to you on this. And Michelle’s comment proved it.”
Dani sighed. “Yeah, she didn’t think that one through. I know it seems like an easy fix, but . . .”
“It’s not that easy,” I finished.
She nodded and whispered, “It’s not that easy.” She wiped her face and took a deep breath. “I think I’m going to head home.”
I looked at my watch. “Yeah, I bet Chubs is about to explode right now.” I paused then asked her. “You sure you’re good to be alone?”
“I better get used to it.” She chuckled. “I’m fine. I’m going to put the house on the market next week, so I need to fill out some paperwork from the real estate agent.”
“What did Barry say about that?” I asked.
“Nothing. He came over last night to discuss the terms of the divorce. We both agreed selling the house seemed appropriate. It’s paid off, so we’ll each get half of the profit after closing. That will be a good down payment on something smaller.” Her chin quivered.
“Ya know, I love my apartment; want me to see if there are any available in my complex?”
She shook her head. “No, but thank you. I like the feel of a house, and I want to stay on this side of town.”
“Well, if you change your mind, let me know.” I gave her a hug. “I’m going to go tell Alissa we’re leaving and see if she needs anything.”
“Tell her I love her and I’ll call her tomorrow.” She crossed the deck, opened the back door, and we walked into Alissa’s immaculate house. Dani eyed the formal dining room and kitchen and shook her head as she wiped another tear.
I patted her on the back. “Hang in there, kiddo.”
She nodded and let herself out the front door, her tall stature shrinking as she moved. I shook my head and took a deep breath, my exhale echoing in the kitchen. I grabbed a glass of ice water for Alissa then headed back to the family room where we’d all gathered earlier, but the room was empty.
I found her little body curled up in the fetal position in her king-sized bed and had to chuckle. “Do you know how many times I’ve come into your bedroom over the course of our friendship? Brings back memories.”
Alissa waved me off. “Don’t make me call the cops on you.”
“I brought you some water. I’ve always wanted to throw it on you and see if you melted and screamed, ‘what a world, what a world.’ I’m so tempted.” I dangled the water glass in front of me.
She didn’t move but the bed shook with her laughter. “Do it and I’ll have Chubs stuffed.”
“This looks mighty expensive.”
She sat up and yelled, “Chance! Quit!�
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I pointed at her. “I win. You sat up. Now, drink up, little mama.” I handed her the cold water and sat on the bed.
She took a drink and looked at me. “I think we should go shopping.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know; who cares? Need a new car?” She winked.
I waved my hand. “Pssht, you couldn’t afford my tastes.”
She winked and gave me an evil grin. “Try me.”
I laughed and smoothed the bedspread. “Feeling okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, the private guest is giving me a reprieve at the moment, and I’m starving.”
“Want me to cook something for you?”
“No, smells really do me in right now. Wanna go grab something?”
I bit my lip. “Actually, I really need to get home and let Chubs out. Do you want to come over and grab something on the way?”
Alissa thought about it for a moment. “Actually, yeah, I don’t want to stay here. You sure you’re not sick of me, yet?”
“Absolutely I am. But you can either sit next to me at home or bug the shit out of me via text, so I’d rather be able to hit you at will.”
She stood up. “You wouldn’t hit a pregnant woman, would you?”
“Those are my specialty. One slap to the bladder, and they’re done for.”
Alissa laughed as she slipped on her shoes. “I’ll bring you something, too. Anything sound good?”
“Just none of that awkward-looking ethnic crap you brought last time. I’m sure my bathroom adventures offended the downstairs neighbors. It was horrible.” We walked to the front door.
“Wow, really? Did you have to tell me all that?”
I shrugged and threw up my hands. “Hey, bring it on over if you want to share that experience with me.”
“Noted. I’ll be over shortly.”
I tapped on the steering wheel and hummed off-key along with the radio. I tried to clear my mind and thought about flipping through Facebook while I sat at a red light, but I figured I’d had enough drama for one day. I saw a shiny black Mercedes go through the intersection, and my heart skipped a beat——it looked just like Tony’s car. Is he in town? Did he go by my apartment? I grabbed my phone to see if I had any missed calls or texts, but my hands shook too much to work my phone before the light turned green.