CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Scott
Now
Several days later, I was sinking. I had no control over the kids, the house was a total wreck, and all of our meals were coming from the chest freezer in the laundry room.
All of them.
I’d made tuna casserole and lasagna breakfast foods.
That hadn’t exactly gone over well, but things were even worse now. We’d almost run out of the seemingly endless supply of casseroles. And now I was in charge of dinner.
I was exhausted from getting the kids ready and to school, going to work, dropping by the hospital two or three times a day to check on Blair, getting the kids to their activities, and finally, blessedly, falling into bed.
How the hell had Blair made this look so easy?
I had a bad headache as I tried to divvy up the food I’d scrounged together in the pantry.
“No, I want the doughnuts!” cried Sophia as Selene easily beat her to the box.
“Ha! Loser,” Selene stuck her tongue out.
“Girls,” I said half-heartedly.
They ignored me. They all did.
When Sammy and Spencer almost came to blows over who got the last piece of cherry pie, Sutton stepped in.
“That’s it. I’m going to handle this.” She aimed a skunk eye at me, but I was rocketing towards a full-blown migraine. The stress and chaos were just too much for me to handle. And I was letting that trickle down and affect the kids. “There are seven of us…”
“Six,” I broke in. “I don’t feel like eating.”
“Six of us then, and there are eight things to choose from. We should all be able to have a little bit from each thing. Sophia, count the sausage balls. Sammy, count the doughnuts. Sean,” she tapped her chin, “I guess it’s too hard to decide how many spoonfuls of baked beans are left.”
The doorbell rang.
We all froze.
Sammy got a hopeful look on his face. “Do you think it could be one of those casserole ladies?”
We all seemed to cheer up at that thought. I took a quick sip of water, tried to ignore the pounding in my head, and made my way to the door.
It wasn’t a casserole lady. It was Carrie, Melinda, and Sadie.
“Hey,” Carrie said, breezing past me and into the house, “we’re just here to see how you’re…”
She stopped talking. Her mouth dropped open as she stared around the house.
I winced as I turned to look and see how bad things were. My God. They were really bad. Blair had only been in a coma for three weeks. How had things deteriorated so quickly?
“What the actual fuck?” Melinda whispered.
Sadie coughed loudly over the curse word, but it was fairly simple to read Melinda’s lips. She turned to me. “What have you done?”
I shrugged, and sat down, defeated. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Carrie narrowed her eyes. “Is that their dinner?”
I turned to see her eyes land on the table full of assorted food items. There were doughnuts, sausage balls, cookies, cherry pie, a pan of baked beans, several cans of olives, a very small pot of chili, part of a hummingbird cake, and a large container of animal crackers that tasted like cardboard.
It was obvious from the kids’ plates that there was a barter and trade system going on.
“Yes,” I said, semi-defensively.
“Why didn’t you order a freaking pizza?” Melinda asked.
Good question.
“I didn’t want to waste any food…”
“So, you’re making them eat cake and baked beans for dinner?” Sadie clarified.
“Um… yeah.”
Melinda shook her head and placed a call.
“Hey Troy, it’s Melinda. Listen, I know it’s past time for you to cut off orders, but I have a bit of an emergency over at the Hastings house.
” She paused to listen and then broke into a smile.
“You’re an angel. Let me get two of your family meal deals, two large Greek salads, and four orders of breadsticks.
” She walked off to handle the rest of the order.
“Y’all come with me. I brought another book to read to you,” Sadie said.
Selene jumped up and punched the air. “Is it The Celery Stalks at Midnight?”
“It is indeed,” Sadie said with a wink. Even I knew it was the much anticipated second book in the Bunnicula series she’d started them on. I’d heard enough of it that I was also interested in the sequel. Not that I was necessarily going to admit that.
The kids flocked to her. Even Sutton hurried over.
Carrie started clearing the table. She threw everything out. “You can’t live like this, Scott. Blair would lose her mind if she knew.”
I nodded, too overwhelmed to do anything but agree. The silence stretched out until it dawned on me that she wasn’t talking or doing anything. I looked up to find her staring at me. “What do you need from me right now?”
“My head is killing me. I know I need to be with the kids. I also wanted to swing by and check on Blair one more time, but…”
“Go to bed.”
My eyes shot to hers. “What?”
“Go to bed. One reason you’re making your children forage like woodland creatures is that you’re too exhausted to think straight.
Melinda and Sadie will take care of the kids.
I’m going to call Dr. Marvel and tell him you need a couple of days off, starting with tomorrow.
Then I’m going to go by and sit with Blair for a couple of hours. Sound good?”
I started crying. Not sobbing or weeping—just tears trickling down my face. “Thank you,” I managed to say.
Her eyes softened as she took pity on me. “I’ll also do the school run in the morning.”
I shook my head, though the motion made my head throb even more. “No. I have to learn. If I don’t want to give up and let my kids be raised by a nanny if Blair… if Blair…”
“I know what you’re saying.”
“I want to raise them. If I can make it through dental school and open my own practice, I have to be able to handle the school car rider line.” She was silent. “Right?” I asked plaintively.
“Right. Okay, then. It’s a plan. You go to bed but set your alarm for in the morning. Take the time off from work to figure out how to follow Blair’s schedule.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me; I’m doing this for Blair and the kids.” She paused and narrowed her eyes. “I’m coming back in a few days, Scott. I’m going to need to see some improvement.”
She couldn’t make it clearer that she hated me. But I didn’t have the energy to even feel bad about it. As I trudged up the stairs, I heard Carrie talking.
“Let me interrupt story time for just a minute,” she said. “You all know your chores, right?”
I stopped to listen. The kids all said they did.
“Then explain to me why your house looks like it does.”
No one answered. “Your mother would be disappointed,” she said softly, “and I think you all know that, don’t you?
” She paused a couple of beats. “Sophia, you’re now in charge of your mom’s chore chart.
I’ll be dropping by five or six times a week until your mom comes home.
I’d hate to have to tell her that you neglected your chores on purpose while she was in the hospital. ”
The unmistakable sound of sniffles reached my ears, but I had to be strong. I went the rest of the way upstairs and threw myself on my bed.
Thank goodness for Blair’s friends.