Eileen Slovak

Chapter Fifteen: Apple Juice and Cheerios

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and locales are products of the author’s imagination. They are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental. Copyright © 2024 by Eileen Slovak.

Scarlet

Saturday at 7 a.m. I’m being pounced upon.

      “Sssshhh! Don’t wake her up! Mom said be quiet!” Michael says, every bit the oldest and the bossiest at age six.

      “I aaamm!” Five-year-old Christopher retorts.

      “I’m telling Mom if you don’t be quiet right now!”

      “You’re not the boss of me!”

      I’m lying on my back with my right arm covering my eyes. The boys are so close I can feel their warm breath on my cheeks. They smell like apple juice and cheerios. I slowly lift my arm, squint and giggle, “good morning boys.”

      “I told you, Chris! She’s awake and it’s all your fault!”

      “It’s ok, guys. SHE doesn’t mind,” I say, rumpling Christopher’s brown curly hair. He has Catherine’s hair, flecked with gold highlights, with Gary’s big hazel eyes. Michael is his opposite with shaggy, blonde hair and his mother’s serious, pale blue eyes.

      “Good, can we jump on you now?” Michael asks.

      “Okay, but go easy on me. I had a rough night.”

      They tumble onto the bed. Christopher crawls under the covers to snuggle. I feel his popsicle toes through my sweatpants pressing against my leg.

      “Where’s your baby sister?”

      Christopher plugs his nose: “Mom’s cleaning her. She pooped her pants. Again.”

      A sleepy-eyed Charlotte comes toddling in. She has her thumb in her mouth, dragging behind her a tatty stuffed elephant by one ear. Her blond curls bounce on top of her head. A small patch of three-year-old belly protrudes from beneath her pajama top. Her eyes light up when she sees me, “Anti Carlet!” She shouts, flopping herself on the edge of the pullout. I lift her up, giving her a tight squeeze.

      “Hi, love bug!”

      “I’m not a bug,” she scowls.

      “That’s right, you’re my little Charlotte.”

      Catherine enters the kitchen groaning, “entirely too much of my lifetime has been spent cleaning up poop.”

      “Boys, if you ever want to get that puppy, you’d better help Charlotte learn how to use the potty!” Gary calls out while coming down the stairs.

      “Okay, Dad!” They shout in unison leaping off of the bed to chase each other around the house with plastic swords. Charlotte climbs down from the bed, screaming with delight, she joins in.

      “What puppy?” I ask.

      “Notice how I’m ignoring that?” Catherine says, handing me a cup of coffee.

      “My savior, as always, thank you.”

      Gary scoops up Charlotte, “come on stinker, let’s get you some milk.”

      He looks at me suddenly somber. “Are you sure you’re okay, Scarlet?”

      I nod yes, but in truth I’m still shell shocked. Oddly it occurs to me that if I’d married Sean, I’d be a twenty-eight-year-old widow.

      The boys are tackling each other on the carpet. Charlotte squeals, wiggling away from Gary’s tickling fingers. Catherine is working furiously at the counter mixing, pouring and frying. The sweet scents of sausages and pancakes fill the room. I sit on a stool at the kitchen island drinking my coffee, taking it all in.

      “So, how about if I move in here? What’s one more mouth to feed?” I ask, while topping off everyone’s coffee cups. I place Catherine’s within reach on the counter near the stove. Wrapping my hands around my mug, I let the warmth travel through me, while the scene warms my heart.

      “Problems follow you wherever you go. You know that by now, little sister.” Catherine says flipping pancakes.

      “Fine by me”, Gary adds, kissing Catherine. “I’ve always wanted to be a bigamist.”

      “Are you kidding? You can barely handle one wife.” I chime in.

      “I manage the important things fine, right babe?” He says with a wink.

      “Babe?” I say, raising an eyebrow. I pull dishes out of the cabinet, setting their long farm table for six.

      “Is this an appropriate conversation to be having in front of the children?” Catherine asks.

      “Daddy, what’s a pigamist?” Christopher asks.

      “Ha! That’s what you get!” Catherine teases Gary.

      Breakfast in the McKnight household is loud with a touch of pandemonium thrown in. I’m glad for the distraction, the noise. My apartment is so quiet sometimes I think I’ll go crazy trapped there alone, with only my thoughts for company.

      After breakfast, Gary takes the boys to their weekly karate practice. Catherine loads the dishwasher while I fold blankets. I tuck away the bed into the pull-out couch, replacing cushions and throw pillows. Then, we sit sipping coffee in the living room. Charlotte plays with her mini kitchen, feeding breakfast to her stuffed animals.

      “I fainted, Cat. At a funeral! It was humiliating. I was trying to be inconspicuous, until I conspicuously fainted. I feel like such an idiot. What was that about? I mean, I’m not a drama queen. I’m not sure I even have any right to feel this way.”

      “You have a right to feel any way you feel. There’s no time period for pain. Maybe you felt more strongly about Sean than you let yourself believe.”

      “How are you always so well grounded, Cat? You and Gary have the perfect life.”

      Catherine’s quiet for a moment.

      “Nothing’s ever perfect. Everyone has problems, Scar.”

      “What do you mean? Did something happen? Here I am rambling on about my problems!”

      “No. But, we’ve been together for years. We didn’t date long before marriage. We’ve been through so much, three kids, two moves, work and bills. The house or the cars always need repairs. We gave up on romance a long time ago to focus on survival.”

      Charlotte toddles to the kitchen. She’s removed all of the magnets from the refrigerator. Now she’s arranging them in a pattern of her own design on the kitchen floor.

      “I’m sorry, but I still see you as the model family. Mom would be proud.”

      Catherine drinks her coffee.

      “Do you think mom and dad were happy?” I ask.

      “Define happiness. The longer I’m married, the more I understand what happens in marriage. In the beginning, you want to spend every waking moment together; it’s all excitement, passion. Then time passes, you have your interests, he has his. You think you’ll always be as wild about each other as you were when you first met. But so many little things become a drain on your energy. Duty and obligation take over. I was so naive about it all. I thought it would be the end of the world if my boyfriend or husband ever cheated on me. Now, I think, people are human, things happen. You have to decide whether to fight about it, or move on from it,” she says wistfully.

      “What is this crazy talk?” I whisper, “you don’t think Gary is cheating, do you?”

      “No. I don’t know. Maybe? He’s always working late. Maybe he’s avoiding the kids and me. He can be so impatient with them sometimes. They can’t help that they have way more energy than we do combined. I’m telling you Scarlet; I should have started this mommy gig in my early twenties. I’m too old for this!”

      “Cat, you’re a great Mom. Don’t read too much into Gary’s behavior. Maybe it’s stress. He has a tough job, plus a family to support, that’s a lot of pressure. Is his boss riding him, or does he maybe have some tough cases right now?”

      “Who knows? Part of the problem is we never get to talk. If we were ever in the same place at the same time without the kids mixed up in the middle, I’m sure we would talk about it. Hey, aren’t we supposed to be discussing your troubles, not mine?”

      “See how I turn things around? Thanks. This is what I needed, really.”

      When Gary returns with the boys, I head back home to my apartment. I devote the rest of the day to tidying up and finishing a project for work. Then order takeout, before finally turning in at 10 p.m. Time at Catherine’s always makes me envision what it would be like to have a family of my own. There’s one catch though. I’m not willing to give up being who I am right now. And that doesn’t leave enough room for a husband and children.

      Would I be the one making all of the sacrifices? It seems that was what Sean wanted, for me to give up my career, my life here, to follow him. Perhaps some people should never marry, quite possibly I’m one of them. I am perfectly content to live vicariously through Catherine’s family experience, for the time being.