A Trade For Good (15 page)

"So you know exactly what I’m talking
about? What, as in that… ugh,” Trish pretended to slow her breath
down and make a yoga pose to relax herself. “Don't get me
started...I’m talking about being engaged to Lydia, you
idiot."

Jeff looked at his sister in shock,
not to mention anger. "Are you out of your mind? What the…? Who
told you that?"

Sera was beginning to look very
uncomfortable since she was the one who had come up with this
little piece of information, but Trish seemed oblivious to her
discomfiture and kept going.

"Your
fiancée
came in yesterday and made
sure to let Sera know who she was, and where Sera
stood."

Jeff looked at Sera, and by now all
eyes were on her making her want to teleport any place and anywhere
out of there, "Sera, did you say Lydia was here?"

Sera looked down at her white sneakers
and then at Trish begging for help. "Yes, umm, she came in at
around noon, and I didn't tell you before because you weren't here,
and also because she didn't ask me to."

"She said we were
engaged?"

"Yes. She actually said it
more than once. She used the word engaged and the word fiancée, so
she left me no doubt. I shouldn't have said anything; it's just
that when Trish came in, I thought '
Great,
another fiancée to deal with'.
" Sera
realized she had said more than she had intended to say, and
immediately apologized. "I’m so sorry, you can have as many
fiancées as you want; I just work here. I..."

Jeff smiled at her. "I can? As many
fiancées as I want, huh?"

Sera turned a deep crimson, but put
his hand on her shoulder and smiled in a way that put her at
ease.

Sera was relieved, and her smile to
Jeff showed it. Trish looked at Mitch with a knowing glance and
signaled for them to go away. At the same time Jeff shrugged and
mouthed another ‘I'm sorry’ to Sera, who was left with very mixed
feelings: One was relief in knowing that Jeff was not actually
engaged to that horrible bitch, but the other and more frightening
feeling, was in being relieved that he was free. That giddy and
happy feeling of knowing he was unattached actually made her panic.
That, topped with the warm look Trish was giving her, absolutely
freaked her out.

Chapter 16

Saturday mornings were always hectic
at Sera’s house. Monday’s were also hectic, as were Tuesday’s,
Wednesday’s were just as bad, and Thursday’s, well, if she had to
be honest, all days were pretty hectic.

Still, Saturday’s were a different
hectic. They were sports days. During the week with work and
sitters, it was impossible to let the kids do their
extra-curricula’s, so that left everything for Saturday.

The activities changed regularly, but
usually there was dance, swimming, Tee ball, or whatever else the
school dangled in front of the kids to tempt them, who in turn,
dangled in front of their parents with a pouty face that softened
the deal and brought on a lot of expense.

Today it was Tee ball and Charlie was
having his first real game against another team of four and five
year olds.

Sera was in charge of not
only snacks, but in getting her four kids motivated and
moving.
Daniel
,
didn’t want to go, but didn’t really have a choice. A., it was his
little brother’s first game, but two, Sera needed his help. He was
thirteen and hated the world, but more than anything or anybody, he
hated his dad. Everything bad was about his dad, and today he was
stuck helping his mom because his dad had dumped them. There were
no two ways about it.

“Did you remember to pack the pretzel
packs?” Sera asked Daniel who was sitting in the passenger seat of
the SUV.

“Yah…”

“What about extra diapers for
Em?”

“Aha…”

“Did you get the…”

“Yup…”

Sera turned to look at her son who was
staring out the window of the car and obviously not even paying
attention to her. “Did you hear anything I said?”

Daniel smirked at his mom and said,
“Yeah, but just that last sentence.”

“You okay P.D.?” At that,
Sera saw her son’s miffed look and said, “Sorry,
D-a-n-i-e-l –
Hey, it’s
going to take me a while, but I’ll keep trying, okay?” She smiled
and continued, “I’m sorry that you had to come today, but your
brother worships you and I both need
and
worship you as well.” Sera looked
over to see if he was smiling or even listening, but he was still
looking out the window at the moving road, and brooding.
.

“I hate dad.”

“Peter! I mean,
Daniel
, try not to say
those things in front of your brother and sisters.” Sera told him
in a hushed tone.

“Why not? If they don’t hate him yet,
they should and will. Dad’s an asshole.” Peter braved using a word
he never used in front of his mom.

“Peter/Daniel, what’s wrong with you?
You know you’re not supposed to say things like that in front of
the little ones.”

“Really mom? Well that’s not fair… So
I can’t say a-s-s-h-o-l-e, but I can change a diaper or clean puke.
You can’t have it both ways you know! If you expect me to do things
that jerk should be doing, then you can’t expect me to be happy
about it.”

“P.D. said asshole…” Charlie giggled.
“A-s-s-h-o-l-e, a-s-s-h-o-l-e…”

“Charlie, don’t say that word sweetie.
It’s not nice. Peter is angry, but he shouldn’t have said
that.”

“That’s a funny word,
A-s-s-h-o-l-e. What’s an
asshole?”

Sera thought to herself,
the kid has a slight speech impediment and can’t say ‘boss’ or
‘kid’, but he can say
asshole?

“That’s a bad word Charlie! You’re
going to hell if you say that!” Melle chimed in. “Mommy, I don’t
want Charlie to say that! Tell him to stop! Please!”

“A-s-s-h-o-l-e,
a-s-s-h-o-l-e…”

“Hell? Where did you hear that Melle?
Nobody in this car is going to hell, you hear me?” Sera was
starting to lose it. She didn’t have time to have a family pow-wow,
and they were already running late to Charlie’s game. Under normal
circumstances she’d sit everyone down and make sure they all had a
chance to say what they needed to say, while making it a learning
opportunity on what not to say, but today wasn’t normal; they were
running late and had a game to go to.

“Matthew, a boy from school, says if
we don’t think god is our father we’ll go to hell. He said god
sends you to hell when you say bad words too. I don’t want Charlie
to go to hell! I love Charlie! Make him stop mommy,
p-le-a-s-e!”

Sera’s head had started to pound. “All
of you stop! All of you stop right now! I mean it. I’m turning this
car around and heading home, and there will be no game if you all
don’t stop saying that word and talking about hell!” Sera pulled
the car over to the side of the road and gave each of her kids a
piercing look. Silence reigned, and was broken some thirty seconds
later by Peter.

“Asshole?”
Peter obviously decided to risk it again, but this
time to be rewarded for it; turning the car around to head back
home was exactly what he wanted.

Sera put her head down on
the wheel and started hitting it against the hard surface.
Once
oww,
twice
double oww
, three times and over and over, and over again.

The small humans in the car went
suddenly silent. Even Emma by some strange miracle had decided not
to scream. In the silence of the car, all they could hear was Sera
banging her head against the wheel.

“Mommy are you okay?” Melle asked with
a twinge of fear in her voice.

The kids stared silently while their
mother continued to hit her head.

After a while, they all looked at each
other wondering what to do. Melle and Charlie looked at Peter and
looked really scared.

That was just about the
moment when Sera chose to
accidentally
honk the horn of the car
with her head and jumped a foot off her seat yelling, “What was
that?!”

Peter looked at her like she had gone
mad, but after seeing her smirk and confused look after the horn
went off, he just started laughing.

Sera smiled at her son, winked, and
shrugged.

Another major emotional tragedy
avoided.

Later on in the day they’d have to
discuss bad words, bring up religion and tolerance - and how
everything isn’t black and white - explain that acting maturely and
helping out doesn’t give you a free pass to use foul language, and
the toughest one: discuss their dad – lightly – and try to balance
the truth and what the kids can handle.

Their dad’s abandonment couldn’t be
downplayed; we all live by example. However, how do you explain
that type of behavior to a kid when most adults around you don’t
even get it? Parenting was a balancing act, and these kids needed a
safety net. Sera was their safety net, and she was hanging on by a
thread.

Yes, all that would come later. They’d
have to put the family pow wow on hold for now, because right now
it was time to play ball!

They parked the car as close to the
field as possible, but not close enough for all they had to haul.
Sera asked Melle to take Emma… She didn’t want to push her luck
with Peter today. So Emma was in the stroller with Melle pushing,
Peter had the cooler to lug, and Sera carried bags with odds and
ends, while trying to follow a very motivated and enthusiastic
Charlie onto the field.

They were late. Not surprising after
the little episode they had had on the road. Now, Sera’s head hurt.
She touched where it hurt and felt some pain… Great, she was
probably walking around with a huge bruise on her forehead! Next
time she’d put one of those soft covers on her steering wheel
before hitting her head on it time and time again.

They got to the field where the kids
were lined up. The boys and girls looked adorable in their super
clean new uniforms. Sera wondered if there would be time for some
picture taking before they got too dirty. Even better, maybe they
could do a before and after.

The kids were standing attentively
listening to their coach. Sera didn’t really care for the coach,
who was too serious about a game for four and five year olds. The
guy must have worn a jock uniform in his early days, but now he
just wore a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a paunchy
belly. He made it clear to Sera the last time she saw him, that he
didn’t like that Charlie couldn’t make practices, but the only way
he could do that would be if someone other than Sera could take
him. Didn’t other parents work too?

“Hi everyone,” Sera smiled at the kids
who gave her a shy wave, but received no acknowledgement from the
coach.

“Charlie, you stand between Joey and
Becka,” the coach pointed to two kids who looked a little younger
than the rest, and looking up at Sera, “you can hang out with the
other parents.”

So she was dismissed. Nice. Sera
looked over to the bleachers to see if she recognized anyone, but
before sitting down, she’d have to track down Peter, Melle, and
Emma. Emma would start wailing soon and she was afraid she’d find
her stuffed in a trash can somewhere.

Sera started heading to the other side
to see where her kids were when a guy popped out of nowhere, and
got in her way. “Uh, hi. Excuse me,” sera stuttered, “I have to go
find my kids.”

“You’re Suzie Sinclair, aren’t you?”
He asked looking down at her body more than her face.

“Sera, I don’t think we’ve
met.”

“Brian. I saw you at the school a few
times. Your kid is Chuckie?”

The guy was gross. He was leaning into
Sera like he knew her and like he thought she wouldn’t mind. Sera
took a step back. ”C-h-a-r-l-i-e, not Chuckie, and uh, like I said,
got to go.” She turned quickly, but didn’t miss the thumbs up the
guy gave to another guy standing nearby.

Well, good to know her husband Peter
wasn’t the only scumbag around.

Sera scanned the crowd and saw Peter
and Melle standing next to Emma in her stroller, who was still
miraculously asleep. From a distance, Sera couldn’t really see if
Emma was awake or if she was asleep, but since she wasn’t wailing,
it was a safe bet to say she was still asleep. She had forgotten
about the cooler, but she’d have to bring it to the field a little
later for snack time. She was not about to tackle the coach or that
gross jerk until she re-energized.

With her eye on her kids, and that
beautiful image, Sera rushed over as if she hadn’t seen them in
ages instead of the five measly minutes that had gone
by.

“Hi guys! Have I told you lately how
much I love you?” Peter rolled his eyes and Melle beamed. Emma
slept. “So where should we sit?”

“How about here?” Peter
said.

Sera looked around, there were
bleachers there, but that part of the small stadium was empty.
“Don’t you want to sit where the other people sit?”