Bloodlines #2
I frown. “Where’d those manners run off to?”
He makes a show of rolling his eyes, but then he grins. “May I please have some waffles, Daddy?”
“Sure thing. You gotta eat your yogurt, though, too, all right? That protein will help you grow big and strong, like me.” I lift my arm and tense my bicep, making it pop against my sleeve.
Dean does the same but pulls up his sleeve. “I got muscles too. See?”
“Lemme feel ’em.” I pretend to pump his little bicep. “Wow, buddy, those are impressive.”
He pulls his sleeve back down. “Thanks. It’s because I’m a cowboy.”
“Best cowboy on the ranch, no question.”
“I know,” he says with a sly little smile. “Will you get me some new chaps if I poop? The kind without the fringe, like yours?”
I let out a bark of laughter, even as my middle tightens with a familiar anxiety.
Dean has been a bear to potty train. He still gets constipated, and sometimes he gets so stopped up that he can’t hold it anymore.
He has accidents often enough to have me picking up new underwear for him anytime I go into town.
I’m ashamed to admit I’ve resorted to bribery. Not sure what else to do at this point. Everyone tells me he’ll go off to college knowing how to poop in the potty. But in the meantime, we’re struggling. Hard.
Setting him in the chair beside mine, I get up. “If you keep your underwear clean for a week, we’ll talk.”
I turn on our current favorite band, the Lumineers, while I make breakfast and pack Dean’s lunch. Ryder, who’s always been big into music, turned me on to the band recently.
Dean picks at his waffles for a bit, then meanders over to the counter.
“Peanut butter and jelly again?” He sighs when he sees the sandwich I’m making.
I glance at the clock. “What’s wrong with peanut butter and jelly? You ate it every day this week. And last week. And the week before that, come to think of it.”
“I don’t think I like it anymore.”
Inhale. Exhale.
“What would you like, then?” I ask.
“Betty always has chicken nuggets in her lunch.”
I chuckle. “Didn’t know people were naming their kids Betty again.”
“What’s wrong with Betty?”
“Nothing. So you’re telling me you want chicken nuggets?”
“Yes.”
My left eye literally twitches from the effort of not rolling it. I turn on the oven. “Hey, buddy, it’s time to get dressed. Please bring your plate up to the sink.”
“I don’t want to bring my plate up,” he whines, reaching for the oven.
I pull his hand away. “We’ve talked about this. We clean up after ourselves, right? I know that’s what Ms. Loo and Ms. Lawrence have you do in school.”
“Can’t you clean up after me? My legs are tired.”
Now he’s opening the junk drawer and rooting around inside. He’s probably looking for the packing tape I hid yesterday after he taped the dog’s ears to his head.
Speaking of the dog. “Elvis! Time to go out!” I pull Dean’s hand away from the drawer and close it. “We don’t have time for tape. Please go get dressed. This is the second time I’ve asked you.”
“I will! I just want to draw for five minutes.”
I open the freezer and pull out a package of chicken nuggets. “Fine. But only for five minutes. Then you really do need to get dressed, okay?”
He makes a face when he sees the nuggets. “I don’t want the dino ones. I want the chicken sticks.”
“We ran out of the sticks.”
“What? Why didn’t you get them at the grocery store?”
It’s the whining that really gets me. Tugging a hand through my hair, I shake my head. “I forgot. But I’ll try to swing by the store on my way home from taking you to school. Dino nuggets are all that we have, buddy.”
“Well, I don’t want them.”
“But you love them!” The kid literally ate ten the last time I made these damn things.
“No, I don’t.”
Inhale. Exhale. Try not to lose your mind, even though this is some real bullshit right here.
I’m not angry with Dean. I’m annoyed with him.
I’m angry because…well, life ain’t fair, and doing this whole morning rigamarole alone every damn day is a lot.
“Then it’s PB and J.”
Dean’s little face crumples. “But I don’t want that either!”
Elvis appears in the kitchen and ambles to the back door. He’s an eighty-pound mutt of indeterminate origin with a chocolate coat and this big, droopy face that makes him look like a jowly old man.
I love him dearly. I’d also love to not deal with him too this morning.
I have no idea what I was thinking when we adopted him nearly two years ago.
Lies. Dean was sad, you’d been drowning in grief for a year and…other shit, and you both needed some Christmas fucking cheer.
I stuff the nuggets back inside the freezer, turn off the oven, and open the back door. We’re well into October, but it’s still hot and humid enough in our corner of Texas to make you sweat even before the sun is fully risen.
Elvis, being Elvis, takes his sweet time heading outside. We rescued him from an animal shelter, so there’s no telling exactly how old he is. The vet guessed two or three back then, which makes him around five now. But you’d think he’s ninety for how slowly he moves.
Eeyore in dog form, basically.
My gaze catches on Dean’s Spider-Man backpack beside the door. My stomach drops when I remember he took out his work folder yesterday for God knows what reason.
Please, God, let him have put it back in the bag.
Unzipping the backpack, I see that the folder is missing. Which is just great, considering I put a check in it last night for an upcoming field trip.
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
“Hey, Dean? Where’s your work folder?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I dunno.”
“You need to find it, buddy. Then you need to get dressed and brush your teeth and put your shoes on. I’ve already asked you multiple times—”
“I’m going. Just give me a minute to draw, God!”
I close my eyes. My therapist told me to count backward from ten when I feel like I’m about to lose my shit. Funny enough, Dean said his therapist gave him the same tool to deal with his big feelings.
I get to eight when I hear Elvis growling.
Elvis never growls.
Also, why do I smell poop?
I open the door to see the dog standing there with…Lord, is that another snake in his mouth? It looks like it’s dead, but you never know. Please, God, don’t let it have bit him. It’s still mostly dark outside, so I can’t tell what kind of snake it is.
We see a lot—a lot—of rattlers in these parts.
“Elvis, drop it!” I hurtle down the back steps.
My son follows me to the door. “Daddy.”
“Hang on, Dean.”
“Daddy.”
“I’ll be right there—”
“Daddy!”
I whirl around. “What?”
“I think I had an accident.”
I close my eyes. Wish that a lightning bolt would come down and take me out right here, right now. End it all, because it’s not even seven a.m. and already the level of suck I’ve experienced today is extreme.
And just think, after I drop Dean off, I get to work a whole day.
Parenthood is just as rewarding and empowering as they said it would be. Ha.
“Did you poop your pants?” I manage around the burn in my throat.
“Yup.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I bound up the steps and grab my work gloves. I dash back outside and carefully remove the snake from Elvis’s jaws.
Lucky for us, it’s a black snake. Unlucky for the snake, Elvis killed it.
I usher the dog inside. Dean’s in the bathroom, whining about how much his bottom hurts. His lunch box on the counter is still empty. Folder is still missing. A pair of stained underwear is on the kitchen floor.
My third cup of coffee has gone cold on the table beside my laptop. My reflection stares back at me from the computer’s blank screen. Even from several feet away, I can make out the lines around my eyes and mouth that have deepened over the past few years.
I look tired. And old.
Honestly, I look like my dad.
To be fair, Dale Wallace is a handsome man. But he’s spent a lifetime working in the Texas sun, and he looks it.
I’m beat by the time Dean and I load up in my Silverado. I crack the windows and drive slow over the dirt road that connects our little A-frame house to the rest of the ranch.
The familiar smell of newly cut hay fills my head and eases the tightness in my chest.
Dad and my brothers and I actually built my new house. There’s six of us Wallace kids, five boys and a girl. Always thought I’d have a big family like that, but…
Yeah, not gonna go there.
After Abby passed, I felt like Dean and I needed a fresh start. One day—Dean was three at the time—Dad showed up at the foreman’s cottage where we were living, a wad of permits tucked underneath his arm.
Next thing I knew, my brothers and I were learning how to pour a foundation. Billie, my younger sister, crunched the numbers so we didn’t go over budget by a single cent.
Dean and I moved in a little less than a year after construction began. Been living happily in our thousand-square-foot new build ever since. I figured we didn’t need a ton of space because it’s only the two of us.
As far as I’m concerned, it will always be just the two of us. Stability is my number one priority. The last thing my son needs is more upheaval. More change. He’s had enough of that to last a lifetime, and the kid’s only six.
So we stick to routine—to tradition—come hell or high water, and that’s how we survive from one day to the next.