Chapter 2 #2
Maybe that was why she had unintentionally shoved Serafina aside.
The child was not bleeding, nor did she have any broken bones.
She just wanted to snuggle, which, if Charity were ranking her wants, that would be very near the top.
But she learned long ago that a mom didn’t typically get to prioritize her wants.
Her life was a series of meeting her children’s needs and prioritizing those.
Gifford had run to do as she asked, and he was back quickly with a tissue, which wasn’t as good as a paper towel, but in hindsight, Charity thought they might be out of paper towels.
A paper towel wouldn’t stick to the wound the way a tissue would, but it was better than toilet paper, although, ten years ago, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea about that.
It’s funny the ways being a mom changed her.
“Thank you,” she said as she took the tissue from Gifford and put it over the gash at the back of Bank’s head.
“Ouch! That hurts!” Banks said, using his hand to try to swipe the tissue away.
“I need to press against it so that it will stop bleeding,” she said, her tone calm and not irritated. And then Banks smacked at her arm, causing it to push against Serafina who tumbled off her lap and promptly started screaming.
“Stop it! First of all, you don’t hit your mother, and secondly, you hurt your sister!” She had been calm up until that point, but her voice was raised as she spoke to her child.
She wasn’t as gentle as she could be as she shoved the tissue against the back of his head, holding his forehead with one hand to stabilize it and allow her to get enough pressure against it. They had blood all over the chair.
“Maybe this isn’t a good time?” A deep voice sounded, and she looked up to see a man standing in the doorway of her living room.
Lavinia was beside him, and Charity realized she had lost track of her. Maybe the man had knocked on the door and Lavinia had answered it, inviting him in.
“No. It’s not a good time. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry. I can…go, except?—”
She was having trouble listening to the man, because she was barely able to hear him over Serafina’s crying and Banks’s yelling and Evans’s whining to be picked up.
“You’re hurting me!” Banks shouted, trying to rip away from her, forcing her to stand, pressing his head into her stomach while she continued to put pressure on the back of his head.
If things had been less chaotic, she might have tried to talk him into sitting still so that she could do it, but right now, she was trying to keep him from bleeding to death or at least from dripping blood all over the house, and her superior strength came in handy.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement, and the man, who she thought she recognized as Wilson McBride, strode into the room and picked up Serafina who had tried to crawl after Charity so that she could grab her legs and fuss to be picked up.
He scooped up Evans in his other arm and walked out of the room holding her children.
She wanted to stop him. Where was he going anyway? Did he work for child services?
Maybe she should just let her kids go. Maybe she couldn’t take care of them. Maybe they were right after all.
She didn’t want to admit to failure, but more than that, she loved her kids.
She wanted to be able to take care of them.
She wanted to be able to give them every good thing, and she didn’t think that anyone could raise them any better than her, not to mention their young lives had already been upended when their father had moved out, and not only skipped town but had gone to a completely different country.
With his girlfriend. She was the last bit of stability they had in their lives.
Not that she was doing a very good job.
“I have to put pressure on this so that it stops bleeding. We need to be able to see whether or not you need to go to the hospital and get stitches.”
“I don’t want stitches!” Banks shouted, his words muffled since his face was still pressed against her stomach.
“I didn’t mean to knock him down. We were wrestling. It was an accident,” Gifford said, even though she hadn’t asked, hadn’t accused him of anything, and hadn’t even looked at him.
“The man wanted in. I just answered the door.” Lavinia spoke up, almost as though she knew that she probably shouldn’t have invited the man in to see the chaos that was her family. Although, did her children think this was normal?
Unfortunately, stuff like this happened almost on a daily basis. Bumps and bruises for sure, scrapes and falls of course, and yes, gashes that bled. Crying, chaos, unfortunately, that was pretty much her life.
She supposed she shouldn’t be embarrassed that Wilson McBride had seen it. But there was still a part of her that wanted to look like she was put together and an even deeper part of her that wanted to keep her children from being swept away by child services.
“It’s okay, Gifford. I know accidents happen. And you didn’t mean to hurt your brother.” She looked down at Lavinia. “Maybe it will be a good idea for you if you hear someone at the door, you come tell me.”
“I did. But you didn’t get my playdough, and you didn’t answer me when I told you there was someone at the door. So I just answered it myself.”
That was probably true, although Charity couldn’t remember Lavinia saying anything about anyone at the door. Of course, with all the chaos going on in the house, that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
She looked down, tilting Banks’s head and carefully lifting the tissue from the back of it. As she had known it would, it had stuck to the wound, and she ended up ripping the tissue.
At least no new fresh blood stained it, and she thought that perhaps they would get away with not having to get it stitched up.
“I’m going to need you to sit down at the table and hold this against the back of your head, okay, Banks?” she said.
“I want you!” he whined and shoved his head back into her stomach.
One second, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her and was yelling at her, pushing her away, and the next second, he didn’t want anyone to touch him except her and didn’t want to take care of himself.
Children could give a person whiplash. But she kind of understood. She felt like that at times too. One second, she wanted one thing, and the next second, she didn’t want that at all but something completely different.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to be something that a person grew out of. But divorce made it worse. That was for sure.
“Let me see what Mr. Wilson wants, and then I will come back and help you.”
“You always say you’ll come back, and you never do,” Banks said as she started moving toward the opening through which Mr. Wilson had walked through.
Banks’s words cut. She tried not to let it show, but she recognized the truth in them, even as she wanted to deny it.
She didn’t take care of her children the way she wanted to.
She sometimes did forget to honor her promises, and she hated that.
She wanted her children to learn that they could trust her when she said something.
That they could take her words and count on them.
The way they couldn’t count on their dad.
She wanted to be different, but it sounded like she ended up being exactly the same.
She felt weary, the whole way to her soul, but she sat her son down at the table, put his hand over the back of his head and told him to hold it, grabbed the playdough from the container in the dining room, set it on the table in front of Lavinia, opened it, ignored her when Lavinia protested that she wanted pink and not green, and then walked into the kitchen where Wilson had made himself at home, sitting at the table, Serafina on one knee, Evans on the other, and she couldn’t quite hear what he was saying to them, but he had made them both laugh.
“Thank you for taking them. I can get them now,” she said, holding her hands up for evidence.
The little boy, so much like his father, looked up at her like he didn’t know her, put his shoulder out, like he was pushing her away with his body, and laid his head on Wilson’s shoulder.
She didn’t want to think that he was like his father, but that was exactly what Clancy had done to her.
She tried to pretend she wasn’t embarrassed by the fact that her own child didn’t want her as she shifted toward Serafina, who could be counted on to always want her mom.
Serafina shook her head no, her thumb going in her mouth and her head lying against Wilson’s neck.
He’d had them all of five minutes, and both of her children didn’t want her anymore.
Maybe that was the sign that she needed to show that she really wasn’t fit to be their mother, and she should just give them all up.
“I’m sorry. Apparently they want to stay on your lap. But I can take them if you want me to.”
“They’re just fine. I came to talk to you, but I see that this wasn’t a very good time. It’s…not exactly an emergency, but I kind of wanted to get it said. Since…I’m here now.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Actually, you can go ahead and finish taking care of everything you need to do. I would like to have some privacy.”
“Well, I have five children, and this is all the privacy you are going to get.” She didn’t mean to be rude, but she knew the words came out kind of snippy.
What did this dude think? That she was just going to…
send her kids into the living room and they were all going to all of a sudden behave?
This was her life. This was the way they acted.
Of course, she probably could turn the TV set on, and all but Evans would be glued to it.
She tried not to depend on that for a babysitter, but sometimes she was just so overwhelmed that she had no choice.