Doran's Destined Mate

1. Sarah

SARAH

The alarm went off too early as usual. Not that it wasn’t the same time I always set it for on a school morning, because it was.

It was simply too early for me to feel quite human and for the kids to not be bratty while I got them out of bed.

I loved them, I really did with every fiber of my being, but the me before I had my first hit of caffeine was refusing to face that hullabaloo.

I sniffled and blew my nose, rubbing my gummy eyes.

The kids had been like this too lately, Lucy with a cough that came and went.

If it rained, that cough appeared, but as soon as we had a second dry day complete with sunshine, she was fine.

I had a suspicion those mold stains in the shower weren’t just from the previous tenant leaving the window closed in that tight space and not cleaning the tiles, but a more serious issue like black mold behind them.

I’d mentioned this to our management company, whose response was simply, “Use bleach. Moldy tile in bathrooms is the tenant’s responsibility.”

They’d fobbed me off so many times, I stopped asking and started a Zillow alert for a new place to live within my personal income bracket, which was admittedly laughably low.

A hotel housekeeper’s salary, and three kids and a dog, did not make the grocery money go far.

Now, if Harold actually paid his child support payments, that would have been a completely different story.

He was erratic at best, and that was the polite way of saying that he only paid anything if the court pulled him in and forced the issue.

I couldn’t even get his income tax return garnished as he’d taken a job with a foreign company and moved his new family over there.

Thanks to the tax treaty, his first seventy-five grand was US tax free as he paid taxes to the other country.

I’d been informed that I could pursue him through the foreign court and get a wage garnishment, but I didn’t have the money to even think about paying a lawyer who could do that.

So, my sole income it was, along with a hefty monthly sense of angry disappointment when the child support payment date came and went.

Still, I’d found this place by being patient, and it had gotten us into a two bedroom instead of a one, so there was hope.

Or so I told myself as I shuffled into the galley kitchen and set a pan of water on to boil.

Some would be for the kids’ instant oatmeal, and some would be for my coffee.

After my coffee maker had broken, I’d started using my thrift store find tea strainer to make my coffee.

I put my grounds in it, balanced it over the edge of my cup, and slowly poured the hot water over.

It made for a decent cup, much better than instant, but not quite as good as my Mr. Coffee had produced.

Not as convenient either, as I’d been able to brew more than one cup at a time and have it keep warm until I switched it off right before going out the door, filled travel mug in hand.

Not to mention, the timer had meant that I had always gotten to wake up to fresh coffee waiting for me.

The thrift store regularly had similar machines for five to ten dollars, but when you often had to send a creditor five bucks just to delay further action for a few more days or even weeks, that was a personal expense I couldn’t justify to myself.

Especially not when there was a perfectly good five cent tea strainer I could use instead.

I hopped into the shower after popping on a shower cap to keep my hair dry and quickly washed myself, mindful of the pan on the stove.

A quick dry off and my bathrobe tossed on over panties and a bra, and it was time to finish making my coffee.

I did that, and after drinking half of it down, I was ready to face my children.

“Emma,” I called softly, gently touching her shoulder. “Come on, baby girl, it’s time to get up.

She sat up groggily. “Morning,” she said with a yawn. “Five more minutes?”

“No, so don’t lie back down.”

“Mmm,” she rumbled in protest, but she did as I asked, rubbing her eyes before swinging her legs over the side of her bed.

“Go get your shower while I get them up,” I said, tilting my head to indicate Caleb and Lucy, who slept in bunk beds on the other side of the room.

“Okay.”

“What kind of oatmeal do you want this morning?” I asked as she left the room.

“Raisin spice,” she replied.

Turning to wake up eight year old Caleb next, I gently shook his shoulder.

He responded by rolling over and pulling his blanket over his head.

I tugged it down. “Caleb, I do not have time for this. You have school this morning. Come on now.”

“I hate school!” he complained. “It’s boring, and we’re doing fractions, which I hate even more than just regular school!”

“I’m sorry about that, but there’s nothing I can do about you needing to learn fractions. It’s something you’ll use a lot.”

He rolled back over to eye me steadily. “Like how?”

“Cooking and baking. Deciding how many pieces of pizza each person can get,” I quickly offered off the top of my head.

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded, sitting up. “I can always just buy microwave dinners and eat in restaurants when I’m rich like we used to be, but no matter what, making sure no one gets more pizza than me is important.”

I laughed at his logic, ruffling his head.

“Well, there you go. Get dressed and as soon as your sister is out of the shower, go pee and wash your hands. What kind of oatmeal do you want this morning?” I didn’t bother correcting him on our former financial status.

We’d not been wealthy at all, merely very comfortable, and I had never, ever, fed them a diet of microwave meals, though we had eaten out at least once a week.

“Apple and cinnamon, and some butter on it I can stir in.”

“I want regular with butter and honey,” came Lucy’s voice from the bottom bunk.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I told her, ducking down to brush a kiss against her cheek. “Get dressed and go potty, like I told Caleb. I’ll have your breakfast waiting.”

“Okay, Mommy,” she replied, yawning.

I smiled to myself as I returned to the kitchen to fetch the requested flavors from the variety pack of oatmeal.

This morning was going to be a good one if the lack of morning drama from the kids was any indication.

I made up the bowls and poured out three small glasses of tropical juice drink and another three of milk and placed them all on the table.

Emma sauntered in, still brushing her hair.

“You know, if I had an alarm clock, I could get up by myself, and they’d hear it and wake up too.”

“And you could hit the snooze button,” I replied, reminding her of how we’d tried that last year and she’d done exactly that.

“I wasn’t as mature then as I am now. I’m a teenager. You won’t have to come get us up or check on us at all. I’ll even come to the kitchen before my shower and tell you what we want to eat.”

I sighed, knowing if I didn’t agree that her turning thirteen made her much more grown up was going to end in the sort of disaster I wanted to avoid.

“How about this? I’ll dig out your alarm clock and put it back in your room on Friday.

Then we can give it a try on the weekend.

If it goes well, we can keep doing it during the week. ”

Weekends, we had an extra hour in the mornings, so if we set the alarm a half hour before I actually needed them to get up, even if I still had to go rouse them, there’d be no delay, and I could get to work on time.

“Okay!” she agreed, her eyes shining as she bounced gently in her chair.

Caleb and Lucy trailed in and took their seats.

The lights flickered and went off.

“Did they shut off the power?” Emma asked softly, looking worried.

I got up and peered outside the window. Mrs. Haversham always left her porch light on, never turning it off even during the day. It was dark too,

“No, looks like a power cut. Good thing we already made breakfast,” I replied with false cheer.

I knew exactly why she’d asked that, as yesterday’s mail had brought a red edged envelope from the electric company, with the words FINAL NOTICE on it.

Payday was a mere three days away, and the notice gave me seven.

I was going to be able to pay it, but the water bill was going to have to accept ten bucks until after I paid rent the following payday.

Luckily, we had SNAP, but that had been a more recent development, after Harold skipped six payments in a row and I was able to prove he’d moved overseas, so there was next to no chance of getting that money.

They’d put the kids on the state children’s insurance too, as he’d also stopped providing that after moving and changing his job.

Which was fine and dandy for him. They were in a country with universal health care.