Chapter 19
DARCY
“You’re freaking out for no reason,” I muttered to myself as I wiped the counters again, but this time making sure I moved everything away from the wall so I could wipe under and behind the coffee maker, the flour canister that held phone cords and chargers, the sugar canister that had a selection of sticky notes and ink pens, and the one that was supposed to be for tea but really had a secret stash of skittles that Crow only dove into when Griffin had wiped out his Little Debbie’s stash.
“Why are you doing this? It’s not like she’s gonna be crawling on the countertops! ”
“You are freaking out,” Hawk said as he walked through the open back door with Nix close behind him. “Griff said you were but I was sure he was blowing things out of proportion.”
“Griff? No!” Phoenix said as he sat down at the table. “He doesn’t ever exaggerate anything.”
“You’re wearing shoes!” I all but screamed in horror. “Outside! Shoes on the porch!”
“Told you!” I heard Griffin whisper loudly from outside.
“We have to leave our shoes outside now?” Phoenix asked.
“Dude! We’ve got this. Go get whatever it is you need from upstairs,” Hawk ordered.
I watched Griffin sprint through the kitchen and run up the stairs before I explained, “I got the floors spotless and made a rule. No more shoes in the house. I don’t want to track in any unnecessary dirt that might compromise Rev’s health.
She still has a cough, although Amy said it was just lingering from the infection and it will go away soon, but I don’t want her anywhere near dirt. ”
“How is she going to play outside if she can’t get near dirt?” Phoenix asked in confusion.
“Are you going to feed her food off the tile?” Hawk asked at the same time.
“It’s a thing - more than a few cultures expect people to take off their shoes when they come into the house, and we’re adopting that rule as of today.”
“Do you think that’s going to help?” Hawk asked just as Yakko, Wakko, and Dot sprinted inside from the backyard and skidded across the tile.
Wakko was the only one who couldn’t keep his footing as the three turned the corner to follow Griffin upstairs, and he smacked the wall with a thud as his paws scrambled for traction on my newly polished floor.
“So if the dogs run around barefooted outside does that mean they should wear houseshoes inside the house?” Phoenix asked.
Lyric suddenly appeared in the doorway and screamed bloody murder as she ran across the kitchen with Koda hot on her heels.
“Give it back!”
“It’s mine now!” Lyric yelled. Koda had almost caught up to her when Lyric suddenly stopped and bent over, causing her cousin to slip on the freshly scrubbed, cleaned, and waxed floor before he flipped over Lyric and landed with a grunt. Lyric burst out laughing and ran up the stairs.
Koda was frowning when he stood up and looked at me and let his eyes drift over the floor before he glared up at me and asked, “What have you done to the place, man? I almost died!”
“You did not almost die!” I argued. “But thank you for leaving your shoes on the porch.”
Koda lifted his foot up and I realized it was filthy at the same time he did. I was staring at him in horror as he put it back down on the clean floor and said, “I don’t even know where my shoes are.”
“Hey, mom, I’ve got a question for you,” Hawk said suddenly.
I looked over and found him holding his phone aloft in front of his face and realized it was on speaker phone when I heard Summer reply, “I’m going to go with ‘No. Absolutely not. How dare you ask me such a thing.’”
“That’s been her go-to for years,” Nix explained with a grin.
Hawk was nodding as he asked, “What are your thoughts on clean floors, Mom?”
“The five second rule applies unless whatever you dropped has dog hair on it. If it does, do not throw it toward the trash can, put it gently into the trash can, or rinse it off and pretend the drop never happened in the first place.”
“Have you ever made a rule that you can’t wear shoes in the house?” Phoenix asked.
“Every time I mop the floors I make that rule.”
“How long does it last?” Hawk asked.
“Same answer as before - usually about five seconds.”
“Darcy is freaking out right now. She shined the floors so well that someone’s gonna end up on crutches.”
“Good for her. I love a good clean floor. She’s got the new baby in the house anxiety, I’m sure. That will pass after a few days, maybe a week.”
“I don’t remember you ever doing this,” Phoenix said.
“Because you and your brothers broke me, and then I had four daughters who worked together to make me go insane.”
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Hawk asked.
“I gave up all semblance of control because I was outnumbered. For years, no one else in the house seemed to understand that the pee goes into the toilet and not onto the rim, the sides, or the floor around it, your arm isn’t where you wipe your nose, and chewing gum shouldn’t be used as putty when someone accidentally makes a hole in the wall.
I swept and mopped the floors like it was a religion, just like I cleaned the counters, but you couldn’t tell because our house was lived in.
No matter how often I cleaned them, the floors always had drips from the most recent spill, usually something red and sticky, and the counter always had a pile of junk mail, nine hair ties, fourteen papers that needed to be signed and returned to the school, eleven empty water bottles, forty-three tiny little pieces of gravel, nuts, bolts, screws, and pocket change I dug out of the dryer because it was making a horrid racket, and at least one booger that no one ever fessed up to. ”
I was staring at the phone when Hawk and Phoenix started laughing, and suddenly Brighten walked around the corner and started laughing too.
“The look on her face,” Phoenix cackled. He lifted his phone up and snapped a picture of me before he started typing something, probably sending it out to everyone he knew. “She’s horrified.”
“That’s all I needed, Mom,” Hawk managed to get out between belly laughs.
“Did you call me just to get me riled up?”
“No, I called you so that Darcy could hear a veteran say that the floors are never perfectly clean, the house will always look lived in, and that no matter how many rules she makes shit’s gonna happen,” Hawk told her.
“Halleulujah,” Brighten cheered. “Preach it!”
“When I was ripping the carpet out of your old bedroom I found a hole in the sheetrock inside your closet that had three dollars in change, what looks like it used to be a donut, and two hot sauce packets from Taco Bell, Hawk. You and your brothers are the epitome of shit’s gonna happen.”
Hawk and his brother started cackling again and Brighten wiped her eyes as she explained, “You can’t protect her from every germ in the world, Darcy, no matter how badly you want to.”
“I’m a firm believer that dirt builds immunity and fresh air and sunshine kill germs,” Summer said through the phone. “Yes, it would be lovely to have a pristine house all the time, but you can’t have that and laughter too.”
“She’s right,” Brighten agreed. “And you live with Crow, so things are going to happen. You can stave off the majority of the funk, but the man doesn’t even sort his laundry, Darcy.”
“She’s rethinking this sudden move and all of her life choices that she’s made in the last week,” Hawk chortled, giving his mom a play by play.
“Darcy, sweetheart, you’re gonna have times when you think it would be easier to burn the place down and start fresh, but that’s just parenthood.
Crow knows damn good and well how to keep a clean house because I made sure all my boys knew how to do everything just like my girls did.
Griffin knows how to pick up after himself because Brighten doesn’t let him slack, but she can tell you that watching your kids laugh and smile is way more important than having pristine countertops and floors you can see your reflection in. ”
“She’s right,” Brighten said as she sat down on Hawk’s knee and put her arm around his neck. “Hawk knows how to clean up, and so does Griffin. We work together to get everything in decent order before bed each night, but if things aren’t perfect we can just try again tomorrow.”
“Our house was always spotless,” I muttered as I pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Well, some women are better at . . .”
I interrupted Summer, “We had a housekeeper, and there were rooms we weren’t allowed to go in because our stepmonster didn’t want them to get messed up. There’s furniture in their sitting room that I’ve never even sat on.”
“Why have a room you can’t go into?” Phoenix asked in confusion.
“You wouldn’t understand because we’re not that kind of people, Nix,” Summer answered.
“I don’t want to be that kind of people either, but I want to make sure that Rev is safe and healthy when she comes home today.”
“She’ll be safe because she’ll be surrounded by people who love her, and she’ll get healthier over time for the same reason,” Brighten assured me.
“What if I don’t do enough . . . What if I’m not enough . . .”
“You’ll always be more than enough as long as you love her,” Summer assured me. “One of you boys needs to hug that girl until she stops crying.”
“I’m not gonna cry!” Phoenix reached over and pulled my chair closer to his before he started patting my back. I burst into tears before I said, “Well, I wasn’t before!”
“You’ve got the new mom jitters, Darcy, and that’s perfectly normal. Just don’t let them get in the way of the really important stuff, and if they start to, stop what you’re doing and wait for Rev to smile at you and you’ll remember what the most important thing is.”
“Thanks, Summer. Thanks, you guys,” I said as I rubbed my face on Phoenix’s shirt.
He gasped and I giggled as I pulled back and used the hem of his sleeve to wipe my tears.
When I moved the shirt closer to my nose he gagged and pulled away, and the moment was broken by more laughter, but this time mine joined in. “I feel better now.”