Brett's Little Headaches(20)

Laurie says it’s just baby talk, but I’m not too sure. I was a boy once, with brothers. Speaking of which, I need to call and rub it in that I beat them in the grandbaby race.

Since they’re older they’ve beaten me at pretty much everything else, but this was a biggie.

“You have to prioritize. In the beginning, especially when they first started walking, it was rough. I jumped each time one of them moved. I was always afraid they would fall and hurt themselves.

I was constantly moving, never a dull moment. But then I got the hang of it and stopped being afraid, now I just watch and let them play with my heart in my throat. I guess it’s always going to be that way as a mom. Do you have kids?”

She asked the last as if she thought she was overstepping. Hah, she can ask me anything, in fact I want her to.

“No, no kids, speaking of which, where’s their dad?” The word damn near burnt a hole in my tongue.

“He’s gone.” She shifted sand through her fingers and gazed off over the water. “He’s never even met them, but I don’t blame him, not anymore. We were young, well I was two years younger, but he was still a kid himself.”

“But do you think he’ll come back one day, want to have a part in their lives?”

“I don’t see how, he’s never been here for them. I think I would be pissed if he showed up at some later date after all the ground work has been done you know.”

“Yeah I hear you, so there’s no way you’d go back to him?”

“Are you nuts? I wouldn’t do that to my boys. As young as he was, I was younger; I stuck it out, he could’ve too. No, the boys don’t need that kind of influence in their lives.”

“What if he came back seeking custody at some later date?”

“I’ll fight him to the death before I’d ever let that happen. No judge in their right mind would ever do that after what he’s done.”

You might be surprised. I didn’t say that out loud, but the reality was that the justice system could be fucked sometimes and you never knew what was going to happen.

Especially if the judge was one of those asshole types that believed kids belonged with both parents, no matter how fucked they were.

“You said yesterday that you want to go back to school full time, what is it you want to study?”

“Right now I’m just taking the prerequisites for when I can go, that way they will be out of the way. I was actually thinking of early childhood development, I want to be a teacher. Either that or a daycare provider.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked away again.

“And that’s your dream?”

“No actually, my dream, before all this happened, was to grow up, meet prince charming, get married and have a ton of kids. I’ve never really been career oriented. But now with the boys, I have to face reality.”

Damn this was sounding better and better. If she’d said it was her lifelong dream to be a career woman, I would’ve found a way to live with it.

But the reality is, I make more than enough money so that my wife wouldn’t have to lift a finger to do anything, and quite frankly I don’t want my woman working outside the home; something else to file away for future reference.

I fished for more information while we ran after the boys and played catch with them or built sand castles.

Before you know it, it was naptime and the boys were getting cranky. We packed up and headed back after feeding them the fruit and snacks she’d brought for their lunch.

I’d just spent three hours with them and it felt like nothing, like I could do it all day and not grow weary of it. My adrenaline was pumping like the time my brothers and I climbed Everest. I was definitely a goner.

We passed by the house again and although she was a little tired, she still smiled at it and watched out the window until it was out of sight.

I didn’t miss the touch of sadness that left her when we turned the corner and it was no longer in view. She probably thought she’d never see it again.

Back at her place I helped her get the boys to bed. “I have something to do baby, how about I go take care of that and I’ll be back with dinner later?”

“You don’t have to do that...”

“I want to, what would the boys like? There’s this really nice Italian place I know that have the best spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Oh they’d love that thanks, are you sure?” I pulled her into me for a much needed kiss. She took me under as soon as our tongues met. Each time I took her mouth, it got harder and harder to let her go.

“You’re so soft and sweet baby. What time is it?” she checked her watch and told me.