Scalding Hot Chocolate

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  Chapter Six

  “You look like you’re on a warpath,” Dayton said when I got to the classroom. He was helping a little girl zip up her jacket.

  “I feel like I’m on one.”

  He stood, frowning at me. “I’m gathering your meeting with Koen didn’t go well?”

  “No.” I waved my hand in the air. “That went great. He’s great, and he’s totally ready to ride into battle with me.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

  “The grandmother happened.” I blew out air. “Don’t worry about it. And thank you. For recommending me to Mr. Weiss. It matters. The recommendation. It matters more than you think.”

  “Of course. I just don’t want something like this turning dirty. It’s always the kids that suffer the most through it. I hope you guys are able to figure this out.” He glanced over at the twins. They were at their cubbies, grabbing their things. “They’re good kids. Quiet sometimes, but they’re good.”

  My expression softened at the tenderness in Dayton’s expression. He truly cared about his students. If he ever decided to have kids of his own, he’d be an amazing dad. I could see it, him playing with them, smiling big, eyes lit with pure happiness as he acted just as silly as they did. I bet he’d be good at tickle fights and he wouldn’t complain no matter how many times his kid wanted to watch the same cartoon over and over and over again.

  “I need to get going, but thank you,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  He smirked. “Careful, I might take you up on that offer.”

  “Ha. Go ahead. I’m looking forward to it.”

  His eyes widened slightly, not expecting me to take on his challenge. I giggled and left with the kids in tow.

  After helping Lawson and Lee buckle themselves, and double checking that they were safely in, I got into the driver’s seat and pulled away, extra mindful of the precious cargo in the back. With this simmering fight over the twins, all my insecurities were being hit at once. I glanced at the phone, wondering if I would last until Wednesday for my next session or if I should do an emergency session. Then my thoughts turned toward Olivia finding a way to use that knowledge against me.

  Could she even do that? Use my therapy sessions against me? I was going to have to ask. Would it even be smart to use Dr. Adam as a witness? I felt like it was screaming weakness to have my therapist as one.

  Who else could I use? Definitely Kenni, without a doubt. I also had a client who adored me. She was one of my first freelance clients and had stuck with me ever since. Maybe she could attest to my work capabilities. Being a freelancer already put a point against me. People always looked down on those who were freelancers, as if we weren’t as hard working because we didn’t work for some company.

  Frankly, they didn’t know how hard it was to do everything myself. I had no one to help me. I did my own schedule, figured out my own taxes, tracked my own expenses, and stayed on top of my work. That should have been a bonus.

  “Sissy, are you listening?” Lee asked.

  “No,” I answered automatically.

  “Sissy!”

  I winced at the high pitch voice.

  “I’m sorry, Honey Bunches, what’s up?”

  Clearing my thoughts, I listened very carefully as he went on about the tricks he did on the monkey bars during recess after lunch. When he sounded so proud for holding himself up and able to do a flip, I voiced my own delight in his success. He beamed at me as I grinned back through the rear-view mirror.

  “How about you show me?” I asked. “We can go to the park.”

  That got the two of them pumped, and in return, I got excited too. There was a park just two blocks from where we lived, so after we parked the car, I walked them down there. Other kids were already playing, parents claiming the benches and tables as they waited for their kids to expel the extra energy they had. Lawson spotted a kid from class and quickly disappeared after giving me a backward wave. Lee dragged me over to the playground, and we had to wait for a little girl being helped by her dad to get across.

  When she finished, I clapped loud, cheering her on. “Good job,” I said with a huge grin.

  Her eyes widened and her cheeks went red as she tried to hide behind her dad. He chuckled. “She’s our next gymnast,” he said, teasing her. She did a little squeal and ran away. Her dad laughed harder as he chased after her.

  “Ready?” Lee asked, beaming at me.

  “I’m ready, Freddy.”

  He frowned. “My name isn’t Freddy.”

  “Nope, you’re Lee Monroe Hansen, but for this moment, you shall be dubbed Freddy. Now show me what you got, Freddy.”

  He still looked at me funny, but years of experience dealing with my particular brand of crazy had him shrugging it off as he climbed the short ladder. Once he reached the long single bar, he gripped it hard enough to turn his little fingers white, his body swinging in the air as he hung a full two feet from the ground. I clapped.

  “Not yet,” he said in a tight voice as he strained to hold himself up. His arms shook as he moved to the middle of the bar. Once there, he swung his body back and forth, building up momentum. Finally, his body went up and over, coming down on the other side. He did it one more time as I clapped and jumped for him. As he came down, he let go and landed on his feet.

  “Ten out of ten,” I said. “Perfect score.”

  He grinned huge as I ran over and picked him up, blowing raspberries on his cheeks.

  “Let go!” He tried pushing me away as he laughed hard.

  “No way. I get to congratulate you for your awesomeness,” I said.

  “Okay, I get it! Let me go.”

  I did, and he turned to me, face flushed, eyes big with happiness.

  “Can you do it too?” he asked.

  “You want me to do a flip?” I eyed the contraption nervously.

  He nodded.

  “I wanna see too!” Lawson said, coming over with his classmate. A woman joined shortly after, and by the similarities in the blond hair and brown eyes, I deemed them relatives.

  “Oh, the pressure,” I teased and looked at my new enemy. It was one really long pole, about eight feet in length “I haven’t done this in like a year,” I said. “And if I remember correctly, last time didn’t end so well for me.”

  The woman laughed. “Your dress might get in the way.”

  I looked down at the puffs. She was right. I was going to look like a spinning loofah on that thing. I shrugged. “Never stopped me before.”

  Underneath the dress were winter tights to combat the cold. They were thick and black, so nothing could be seen. I took off the tulle skirt, ignoring the gaping woman as I handed it to Lawson and Lee. Between the two of them, they’d keep it off the ground.

  Rolling my shoulders, I approached what could very well be my death sentence. Or a painful trip to the emergency room. I didn’t bother using the ladder, I was too tall for that and just went to the middle. I reached up, gripping the bar, and then lifted my knees so my feet didn’t drag on the ground. My arms shook painfully, reminding me that the gym did not exist in my world. And there probably was a reason behind eating leafy greens. Forcing my legs forward and back, I built up momentum, letting my body swing. Once I thought I had enough of a swing, I used all my muscles and tried to pull myself over. As I swung, the sky came into view and then the ground.

  The only problem was that when I should have seen my munchkins, I still only saw the ground. And it punched me in the face as I fell.

  “Ugh.” I tried to ignore the pain in my face.

  “Sissy, are you okay?” Lee asked, at my side.

  “Mm,” I responded as I blinked back tears. It would be so easy to just bust out crying, letting everyone know around me that I was hurt. My adult side said no. I’d done this to myself. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be baited by a six-year-old boy. So I had to suck it up like an adult and push away the need to cry.

  “Are you okay?” Lawson asked.


  “Great, that was kind of fun. At least until I fell.” I laughed off his concern as he handed my skirt back to me and I slipped it back on. “I think I’m going to go sit down for a few minutes.”

  “Are you really okay?” Lee asked.

  I smiled down at him. “I’m great. I just need to walk it off.” I eyed the two kids. “You know what will make me feel better?”

  They leaned closer, waiting for my answer. “I want a pirate ship.” I pointed toward the small playground off to the side that was in the shape of a pirate ship. “Will you go plan a hostile takeover for me and claim it?”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Lawson asked.

  “I’m great. I just need to rest.”

  “Okay.”

  “Great, now go get my ship for me. It’s going to be our ride home tonight.”

  Down with my game plan, the twins took off to play on the boat playground while I claimed a spot on a bench. When I rubbed my nose, I winced and realized I was bleeding. Using my phone to check, I poked at a small cut along my cheekbone.

  Digging through my purse, I searched for a Band-Aid. I found one at the very bottom, a little crumpled, but it’d do. I’d have to clean it out when I got home. Every time I touched the wound, it stung, and I winced. Yet, I couldn’t stop. I’d poke it. Wince. Wait a minute. Then repeat it. It was my distraction as the twins played.

  I let Lawson and Lee run around for another hour before collecting them and heading home. They didn’t put up a fuss and I knew they were tired. My diabolical planned worked perfectly. They weren’t going to put up much of a fight tonight.

  The rest of the evening flew by as they did their homework and I forced more vegetables down their throat. I even ate some of the carrots, thinking having a little bit more muscle on my body wouldn’t be a bad thing. It was after we finished watching a movie that they hit me with a bat out of left field. Or was it ball? Either way, they came out of nowhere and gutted me.

  “We miss Mamma,” Lee said.

  My head whipped around to stare at them, my mouth popping open. Lee was blinking furiously as he stared hard at the screen, his hands wedged between his legs. Lawson stared at me with a heartbreaking expression that nearly made me feel like I was dead.

  I closed my eyes briefly as a new onslaught of grief washed through me. How many times did we have this conversation? How many times had I had to tell them that she wasn’t going to come back? Explaining death to little kids wasn’t easy. They couldn’t grasp it completely, and the day that they did finally understand scared me senseless.

  “Sissy, why can’t she be with us?” Lee asked.

  I blinked back tears, trying to keep my grief to myself. This wasn’t about me. They needed to understand right now.

  “Mandy used to take you to church, right?” I asked.

  They nodded.

  “And they talked about Heaven, right?”

  They nodded again.

  I never went to church. It wasn’t my thing, not when I had to take care of my mother as she got sicker and sicker. That was one belief of Mandy’s that I couldn’t get behind, no matter how hard she tried to drag me there with them. That made this conversation harder, made me feel like I was a bit of a fraud, talking about something I had no business talking about.

  “Heaven called her back, and she had to return to God. He loved her too much and wanted her back sooner than what was planned.” I bit my lip, wanting to scream that some nutball was too stupid to follow the law and slammed into her small Kia and she never stood a chance. The only saving grace to her death was that it was instantaneous. Of course, the nutball who hit her walked away with only a concussion from that car collision. He stole a mother from her twins and the son of a gun was probably too high somewhere to realize that.

  Life sucked balls too often.

  “Can we go see her?” Lawson asked.

  I could barely hide the wince. I was definitely doing this wrong. All wrong.

  “Heaven isn’t a place for the living,” I answered.

  “We want to see her,” Lee whispered.

  His broken voice did me in, and my tears fell. I wanted to see her again too. I moved us so that I sat between the two of them and held them close into my side. I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling, trying to find the right words to help them understand that Mommy was no longer in the picture. They were stuck with just me.

  “I want to see her too,” I replied, listening to every sniffling sound they made. We sat there as they cried for the loss of their mother, and I mourned the children they used to be before they felt that loss. Slowly, an idea formed and around a clogged throat. I asked, “Would you like to go to church on Sunday?”

  “Can we?” Lee asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. I can take you.”

  “You don’t like church,” Lawson pointed out.

  I gave a painful chuckle and said, “For you guys, I can learn to like it. If you want to go, we’ll go.”

  “Yes, please,” they said in unison, with renewed hope. Church was something to them and idiot me was too dumb to know it. Maybe they’d get their answer there because I didn’t have an appropriate one.

  “Then we’ll go.”

  We were quiet as they got ready for bed, taking a bath, brushing their teeth, and changing into their jammies. While they did that, I looked up nearby churches. Thankfully, Boston was full of them, and a lot of them were in very nice, older churches with a good history behind them. The oldest church was Old South Church right there in Back Bay. So after putting it in my phone calendar for Sunday at nine in the morning, when we should be in bed and sleeping, I went to check on the twins. They were lying in the same bed together, and it took everything I had in me not to crawl in with them.

  To make sure I followed Dr. Adam’s assignment, I kept their door propped open as I sat in the hallway and listened to them breathe. Each breath was a balm to my soul, a reminder they were still there and healthy. Maybe this wasn’t what Dr. Adam had had in mind when he told me I couldn’t sleep with them, but it worked for me, and I needed it as grief tried to cripple me.

  Hopefully, church worked for them. I remembered trying once, after my mother died. It had done nothing for me. I sat there, listened, prayed, and tried to understand what they were saying, but it didn’t click for me.

  For me, my mother was dead, and I had been left alone in a world I didn’t understand. Frankly, if God did exist, then I wanted nothing to do with him since he wanted nothing to do with me. I glanced at the boys’ sleeping forms.

  But maybe God was who they needed.

  Chapter Seven

  Sleep never really came, and my eyes were glued shut when a loud crashing sound with the unmistakable sound of glass breaking sent fear driving through me. Before I could draw in a full breath, I was out of bed and sliding across the floor as I entered the kitchen, expecting to see murder and mayhem. Instead, I saw two sneaky boys, one standing on the counter, another on the chair as they stared wide-eyed at the floor.

  “What happened? Who’s hurt?” I rubbed my eyes, ignoring the slight pulse of a brewing headache. My cheek felt sore, and I wasn’t looking forward to looking at the damage in a mirror.

  “Sorry,” Lawson said.

  I blinked hard, trying to focus more on the scene. When I came around the counter dividing the kitchen from the living room and dining room, glass reflecting early morning sunlight caught my attention. Lawson moved to get off the chair, and I held out my hand.

  “Don’t move,” I snapped out. He froze, eyes wide as he blinked at me. His face went pale, and I realized he was scared of me, thinking he was in trouble. I gave him a weak smile. “I don’t want you stepping down and getting glass in your feet. Let me clean this up first. Neither of you move. Pretend there’s lava all over the floor.”

  “What about you,” Lee asked. “Lava could kill you too.”

  I struck a superhero pose with fisted hands on my sides, legs apart. “I’m Lava Woman. It won’t hurt me.” />
  They giggled as I put on shoes and grabbed the broom. I took my time to make sure I got every piece picked up. They had knocked down a glass cup from the cupboard as they searched for what looked to be a mixing bowl.

  “Are you mad at us?” one of them asked.

  “Why would I be?”

  “We broke your glass.”

  “You’re fine. I’m just glad no one got hurt. Digging glass out of big feet is hard enough. I can’t imagine needing to do it with tiny feet.”

  Once everything was cleaned up, I let them get down and sent them off to get ready for school.

  “We just wanted to make you breakfast,” Lee said in the doorway to their room. “We made you sad last night, and we wanted to surprise you with breakfast. We’re sorry we made a mess.”

  My expression softened as love pushed out the grief I had been drowning in. Something so simple from the two of them and they always made it better for me. “Thank you, little man. The two of you are so thoughtful. How about next time, instead of trying to surprise me, we work together and make breakfast. I always have so much fun cooking with the two of you.”

  He smiled before his feet pattered against the wood as he ran to their bedroom.

  They left the door cracked open, and I could hear their mumbles. I took in a deep breath and bit my lip, a surge of fear and sadness rising through every part of my body, trying to tear me apart.

  Everything was okay. Even if Mandy was gone. Even if Felix broke up with me. Even if Olivia wanted to take them away from me. Everything was okay.

  “Today will be fun,” I whispered.

  After turning on the TV so Lawson could watch Teen Titans, I made an attempt to make eggs. My head wasn’t in it, so I wasn’t surprised when smoke came off the pan and the eggs turned black.

  “Darn it,” I grumbled and dumped the pan into the sink and ran the water. Rubbing at my face, I tried to find coherent thoughts. The small sting from my cheek when I touched it definitely cleared my thoughts. “I hope you guys don’t mind oatmeal today,” I called out.