Chapter 9
“OKAY, KALE, TIME to get in the shower. School tomorrow.” Kale shoots me a look of fear, and somehow I know the night is about to take a turn for the worse.
“What?” I ask with concern.
“I forgot I have math homework.”
“I didn’t want to ruin the movie so I fibbed. Then I forgot.”
“You lied? What have I told you about lying?” His lips purse and he rolls his eyes at me. Oh hell no.
“I forgot, okay?” he says with the attitude of an angry teenager rather than a ten-year-old pre-pubescent child.
“I forgot” is a learned expression from his father that I’ve heard way too many times over the years.
The eye roll is new and sends me over the edge.
It has been a long day of kitchen duties and insane amounts of laundry.
I sat down for five minutes the entire day and my exhaustion level is nearing the edge of insanity.
I thought I had thirty minutes until I could have some me time.
Thirty minutes until they were in bed and the night was mine.
Now there’s homework to be done. Blood boiling…
“Don’t you ever roll your eyes at me! Do you know how angry I am? How frustrated I am?”
Mike approaches with his fingers in his ears. “I think we can all tell you’re angry. You’re going to cause us hearing damage with the yelling.”
I watch as Kale laughs and makes eye contact with his father. He slides his fingers into his ears to mimic Mike. What’s the stage of anger after boiling? Nuclear explosion? I’m pretty sure I’m about to blow.
I pull Mike’s arm away from Kale and attempt to whisper in my nuclear voice. “Don’t put me down in front of him. You do this all the time.”
My whisper is met with his full voice plus a degree. “I just think you’re overreacting. So he has homework. He forgot.” He shrugs. “We can’t all be perfect like you.”
Kale wrinkles his nose at me. “Yeah, Mom. Why do you think I need to be perfect like you?”
I have a moment. I feel my heart constrict. I remember lovingly watching that nose wrinkle and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Now I suddenly want to grab him and shake the condescending expression off his face. Right after I slap it off his father’s.
“How dare either of you turn this on me! I asked you repeatedly…”
“You’re beating a dead horse, Everly. Kale, get your book and start it now.”
“Will you help me?”
“I need to go finish a report for work tomorrow.”
“But Dad, I need help. I don’t understand it.”
“Well, I have my own homework to do. Just do your best.”
Mike trudges up the stairs and Kale’s eyes fall to the floor. I’m still seeing red, so I make way back into the laundry room and the stack of socks that need to be sorted.
“Mom…” Marlow calls from the bathroom. “I forgot a washcloth.”
“Mike… can you get a Marlow a washcloth?” I yell toward the stairs. No response. I sigh and trudge up them. Mike is lying on the bed laughing at something he’s reading on his phone, and I feel like I want to scream. Instead, I get Marlow her washcloth.
“Privacy, Mom!” she shrieks as I enter the room.
“How exactly do you expect me to bring you a washcloth without coming in here? I can’t even see you behind the curtain. Here… I’ll toss it over.”
I wait for it but hear nothing. “Do you have something to say to me?” I ask her.
“Oh. Thank you.” Her half-hearted response makes me cringe.
I amble down the stairs and hear Kale’s light sobs. I take a deep breath to steady myself. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t understand this. I’m stupid!” He slams his book closed and leans his head on his arms.
“You’re not stupid! You’re tired. When you’re tired everything is ten times harder.”
“I wasn’t tired on Friday when Mrs. Romano explained it, and I didn’t get it then, either. I’m just dumb! Dumb, dumb, dumb!”
“Stop it, Kale! Show me what you’re having trouble with.”
I stare at problem after problem and realize I don’t remember any of it.
I’m not sure when they started teaching ten-year-olds the things I learned in high school, but I’m pretty sure his math homework is harder than it should be for his age.
After watching a few YouTube videos, I’m finally able to walk him through a problem his book didn’t explain.
This new educational policy is for the birds.
An hour later, after I left Kale with a problem to work on while I put Marlow to bed, I think he’s finally catching on.
He yawns and holds his head up with his hand. “I don’t want to do any more. I’m tired.”
“I’m tired too, Kale, but we need to finish. It’s the last one. This is what happens when you wait until the last minute to do your homework. Now, remember what we just did in the last problem? It’s very similar. Now, are they asking for area or perimeter?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. I glance at him, and he’s focused on how long he can make his retractable pencil lead extend.
“Kale, math! Pay attention.”
“I’m tired!”
“It’s perimeter. See, they want the distance around the rectangle.”
“You’re not teaching him anything by doing his work for him.”
I turn to see Mike standing behind me with crossed arms.
“You’re rewarding him for waiting by doing his homework for him.”
“No, I’m not. I’m explaining it.”
“From where I stand and what I heard, you’re just telling him the answers.”
“Well, if you thought you could teach him better, you should have been down here helping instead of watching videos on your phone.”
“I’ve been working, Everly. I took a five-minute break.” He turns and makes his way to the stairs. He says it under his breath, but I still hear it. “You’re such a bitch.”
“What did you just say?” I shout.
“You heard me. Everyone would be a lot happier around here if we didn’t have to listen to your whining and complaining all the time.”
The anger and frustration takes over. As I stomp to the stairs, I yell, “Who do you think you are, you selfish ass? You do nothing around here to help and you criticize me? Do you think the lawn cuts itself? Do you think the food cooks itself and the dishes jump happily into the water? How do you think your shirts get cleaned and ironed? Magic?”
“Oh, here we go again. Poor Everly, your life is so hard!” he whines in supposed mock of how I sound and adds a pouted lower lip.
“Mom?” Kale asks. “Can I go to bed now?”
I turn on my heel back to Kale. I’m not sure if I want to cry or hit something.
I’m tired of Mike, of laundry, of attitudes, and especially of math homework.
“It’s forty. The length is twelve plus w, and since the width is four, that makes the length sixteen.
Add all four sides together and you get forty. Okay?”
Mike continues up the stairs making sure to add, “Nice. Yeah, you’re really teaching him. Good job, Everly.”
Kale writes down the answer and yawns. “Get to bed,” I tell him. “I’ll clean this up and pack up your stuff for tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he says earnestly. “I’m sorry for being so crabby and waiting so long.”
“It’s okay, baby. Just go brush your teeth. It’s late. It won’t kill you to skip a shower one day.”
I put his book and homework into his backpack and pull out the bread and lunchmeat to make lunches.
A few minutes later, I hear, “Mom, are you coming to tuck me in?”
I tread up the stairs and into his room. He climbs into bed and I pull the covers up over him, kissing his head. “I love you, Kale.”
“Can you ask Dad to come say goodnight?” he pleads.
I nod my head and turn out his side lamp as I leave his room. I dread having to talk to Mike. He’s brushing his teeth in the bathroom. “Kale wants you to say goodnight.”
I turn to go and hear him ask, “Did he take a shower already?”
“No, he’s too tired. One day won’t hurt him.”
“That’s gross, Everly. Maybe you’re okay with our kids being stinky and doing their homework for them, but I’m not. Is this how nights go when I’m not around? The kids just do as they please and then go to school with greasy hair?”
I stare at him and seriously want to charge him and punch him in the face. I settle on, “Screw you, asshole!” and huff loudly down the stairs.
Fuck him and his words. I do the best I can.
I wasn’t giving him the answers. I was trying to teach him.
Well, maybe I told him the last one. I know I should have made him do it, but he was so tired.
And I’m so tired. Maybe I should have let him fail the assignment, but I want him to do well in school.
Should I have made him take a quick shower?
Will he smell tomorrow? Will people say, “There’s that Haley kid.
His mom does his homework for him and she doesn’t even care that his shirts are worn and he smells.
Someone should call child welfare on that woman. ”
I feel a tear slip over my lashes. I try. I try to be a good mom. Am I failing them? Is Mike right? Am I a lousy mother? Would they be better off if I wasn’t around to yell so much?
“Dad… you coming?” he bellows from his room.
“On my way. Don’t worry. Daddy will take care of you.”
Motherfucker. He’s never home, and the one day he is he becomes the hero.
How dare he put me down in front of Kale!
I know I yell. I know I lose my temper and I shouldn’t.
I suck at being a mom. I yell too much. I’m not good at this parenting stuff.
They deserve a better mom than me. I don’t deserve anything I have.
I begin to sob. It’s my ugly, I’m-tired-and-feel-worthless cry. It’s been happening more and more frequently lately. I stumble over to the couch, fully aware that I left the lunch stuff out and Roscoe still needs to be fed, but I need a moment.
That ache in my chest returns and it consumes me. I know I’m feeling sorry for myself, but it hurts and I need to cry. I want my mom. She was always so patient. As I think of her, I imagine Mike and her shaking their heads at me. She’d be so disappointed in me. I’m nowhere near the mother she was.