What you need to know:
The war of a thousand paper cuts begins. Jennifer has finally managed to get Rick out of the house and away from her kids, and now works to create some normalcy in the home. But Rick keeps the pressure on. He takes legal action to include the threat of criminal charges. What is Jennifer going to do? Does she need to tell the kids?
Chapter Eighteen
I’ve Got Your Back
Buckman Elementary is a two story, red brick building with gray stone and wide stairs at the entry.
Standing at my usual spot next to the old cedar, I check my watch. I’m five minutes early, which is good. Jo detests when I’m late.
Both kids have been moved out of Montessori now. Spencer’s over at DaVinci. Jo’s here at Buckman, one of the most highly sought after elementary schools in Portland. An Arts Magnate. Jo, being a future Georgia O’Keefe, fills her days with painting, beading, sewing.
The bell clangs.
Three sets of doors open.
At the middle set, Jo shoves through the sea of kids. Rainbow poncho trimmed in fuzzy pink baubles. Pink velour bell pants. Love beads around her neck. Sequined bangles at her wrists.
“Mommy,” she calls.
She ducks under the safety rail of the handicapped ramp. She races across the lawn. Dropping her things, she dives into me.
“Hi, baby cakes,” I say, try not to wince. “How was your day?”
“I hate math,” she says, shoving back.
From my purse, I tug out a wax paper bag stamped with the words Great Harvest Bread.
“Maybe this will help,” I say.
Jo snaps the bag out of my hand, peers inside. “Yay,” she says. She lifts out the star-shaped cookie with spiderwebbed rainbow icing, snaps off a corner. “Mommy Tax,” she says. Hands a bit of the cookie to me.
“What that?”
“Fran taught me on our art day. You always give your Mommy a bit of your treat to thank her.”
Palming the bit of cookie in my hand, I feel a twinge in my chest. Fran. My friend taking a break from…everything.
“Eat it,” Jo says.
I pop the bit of cookie into my mouth. “Good,” I say.
Jo, mouth full, makes a yum sound.
Gathering up her stuff, we we stroll down the sidewalk while she eats.
“So tell me about math,” I say.
“Everyone else seems like they understand,” she says, kicks at a rock. It skitters along the sidewalk. Stops. “I don’t get it.”
“What part?”
“All of it.”
“Are you asking questions?”
She gives me a stern look which means no. Jo doesn’t ask questions. She’s the quiet one.
We continue past old craftsman houses built at the turn of the century; Double hung windows. Wide front porches. Front yards of rose bushes. Sidewalks lined with overgrown horse chestnut trees that drop spiked golf ball-sized pods onto the street.
Jo steps off the curb, studies these for a long moment.
I keep watch for cars and bikes.
Eating the last of her cookie, Jo squats, picks up a pod, works the chestnut free, holds it up to me.
“Nice,” I say.
Jo sets the single chestnut on the curb, frees ten more. Burnished brown and shining. All in a row.
Jo shakes crumbs from the empty bag, methodically drops in the chestnuts.
I search for a way to make this a math lesson, but I’m too tired. Besides, she’s way beyond simple addition.
“You’re on long division?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, drops the last of the chestnuts into the bag. Standing, she passes it to me to hold. Mommy-the-sherpa.
“What will you do with these?” I ask.
“Maybe make a diorama,” she says.
She shakes the street dirt off the baubles of her poncho. Back on the sidewalk again, she slips her hand into mine. We continue to the corner. “Can we have a sale tonight?” she asks.
A sale is Jo setting up a table and chair out front. On the table, she arranges all her handmade creations. Right now, that’s a series of cloth-pin dolls made of flower petals—two for a dollar.
I study the afternoon sky which seems clear enough. “Maybe,” I say. “If it doesn’t rain but how about this? You agree to raise your hand in class, and I’ll make fresh chocolate chip cookies to draw in more customers tonight.”
She pulls her hand free. “No way,” she says. “Besides, the teacher is always in a rush. He talks too fast.”
I stop and shift to a squat so we’re eye to eye.
“How about I chat with Mr. Trent and see if he can explain how they’re doing long division. Then, I’ll tell you. Would that be better?”
She looks past me. Thinking.
“Or, we can bring Spencer in on the deal,” I say. “He figured out long division on the internet. He’s great at it now.”
She shifts her cool blue eyes to me again. “Talk to Mr. Trent, ” she says. “If that doesn’t work, then Spencer.”
“Deal,” I say, hold my hand to her to make it official.
Uncrossing her arms, she shakes my hand.
At the house, Jo hurries up the steps, throws the door open. “We’re having a sale,” she calls out.
In the entry, she kicks off her boots, flings off her poncho.
“Spencer,” she calls up the stairs. “SPEN-CER! Hel-lo. A sale!!”
“Kitchen,” Spencer says from the kitchen.
Jo slip-slides over the hardwood floors on socked feet. Through the living room, then the dining room.
“It’s probably going to rain,” Spencer says to her.
“Mom says it will be nice,” Jo says.
“Check the weather,” Spencer says.
I close the front door, tidy Jo’s things, then tug a paper bag from my purse. Stopping at my desk, I check the forecast on the computer, then take up the handset, listen for the beeps that mean a message waits, but it’s only an even tone. Cal probably got busy.
“I’ll bet you five bucks it won’t rain,” I say to Spencer, crossing into the kitchen where he sits on a stool at the island. He wears tennis shoes, jeans, a gray T-shirt with a green dinosaur in profile. Huge head. Tiny arms. It reads: T-Rex Hates Push-Up’s. Before him, on a plate, is a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich.
“Did you check your phone?” he asks me.
“Computer,” I say, snap my fingers. “Dang! I was this close to winning a fiver.” I kiss the top of his head. He smells of boy, sweat, jam. I slide the bagged Great Harvest treat next to his plate.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“A cookie,” Jo says from where she stands at the refrigerator, the door open wide. From within, she grabs butter, then a carton of milk.
I set the oven to 350.
Spencer opens the bag, looks inside. “A brownie,” he says. “Cool. You were downtown?”
“Yep. We met the accident attorney by Great Harvest,” I say.
“Yuk,” Jo says, frowns at the fact of a brownie, nudges the refrigerator door closed with her hip. “I hate walnuts.”
“That’s why you got a cookie,” I say.
I tug two baking sheets from an open shelf next to the stove, slide them over the burners on the stove top.
“How’d that go?” Spencer asks.
“Fine,” I say. “What do you have to sell tonight? Maybe some old Transformers? Legos?”
“No can do,” he says. “I’ve got an auction with dad.”
“Right. I forgot.”
Steve is bringing Spencer to the local charity auctions. Teaching him the business. “A boy needs to work,” he says. “A boy needs a purpose.”
I unroll sheets of parchment, line one and then the other cookie sheet.
Behind me, on the counter, Jo arranges the wet ingredients.
“We’re out of eggs,” she says, hops on one foot back over to the nook, pulls a chair from the table, shoves it up to the pantry.
“No way I’m going out there,” Spencer says, eyeing the back window with a view of the coop.
“Me neither,” Jo says.
The issue is that the chickens have gone a little nuts. I suppose they miss Rick.
Jo clambers on the chair, tugs open the glass doors to the pantry. She pulls down the jar of flour, two kinds of sugar. Reversing herself, she jumps off the chair. In a moment she orders the dry ingredients next to the wet.
“Why don’t you start with the butter,” I say to her. “Pull the paper off, drop the cubes into the mixing bowl, then turn it on nice and slow.”
“I get to do it?”
“Sure,” I say, open yet another drawer. From this, yank out a bag of chocolate chips. “Read the recipe on the back. You can measure the ingredients.”
That will get her going with her math, I think.
Thrilled at the chance to cook, Jo unwraps the butter, drops it into the bowl, turns on the mixer. The thunk, thunk of the cold cubes.
Measuring out the sugar, she adds both to the bowl.
“Eggs,” Jo say over the mixer. “I need eggs.”
I look out the window at the boxy coop. Chicken wire around a rectangular wood frame. A nesting box in the back. Several roosting perches.
For a moment, I consider walking to the store but then Spencer swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “If you lead,” he says. “I’ll cover you.”
“But you just said…”
“I know, but we can do it together.”
“You sure?” I ask.
“They’re just chickens,” he says.
“Crazy chickens,” Jo says.
In the mud room, a cramped space where we store yard supplies, winter coats, boots, tools, I pull on a pair of leather gloves, then unhook a broom. Spence grabs a mop, slides a rectangular lid from behind a shelf. He raises both as if ready for battle.
In the kitchen, Jo—our damsel in need of eggs—peers out the back window. She holds up two fingers, meaning she can see two of the three chickens.
Side by side, Spencer and I peer out, too, but the railing on the back deck blocks most of our view.
“Where exactly are they?” I call to Jo.
“One at the back fence,” she says. “Wait.” She grabs the chair, slides it to the window. Climbing up, she keeps looking.
“Who’s Calvin Wagner,” Spencer asks. His brownie and peanut butter breath into my face.
“What?” I ask, looking over at him.
“He called when I got home. Told me to write down two names which I did. I thought you already had a lawyer.”
“Oh,” I say, look out the window again. Think. Think. “Yeah…I do but for the car accident.”
“Is it Rick?” Spencer asks. “He wants a divorce now?”
I look at him again. Those dark eyes. “Did Cal tell you that?”
“I saw the letter on your desk.”
I let go a hard puff of air I didn’t know I was holding. We continue to look at each other. Mother. Son.
“Are we going to have to move?” he asks. “Am I going to have to change schools again?”
“Okay. Okay. I see another one,” Jo says. “Behind the coop. Next to the composter.”
I look from Spencer to Jo, back to Spencer again.
One of the reasons I asked Rick for three to six months was about the kids and their schools. Finishing the year in one place was important. Rick agreed. Or so I thought.
“We are not moving,” I say with more confidence than I feel and it’s at that moment I know I’m going to fight this thing with Rick. Not for myself yet, but for the kids. “What about the third?” I call out to Jo, voice raised.
She peers out the window again. “I can’t see another one,” Jo says. “There are only two.”
“It’s probably under the deck,” Spencer says. “Stupid chickens.”
We both look out the windows again.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s do this.”
I rotate the door handle, pull it open.
Across the deck, I lead. Spencer lags behind, wide plastic lid raised before him, mop at the ready.
The missing bird, the massive black Jersey Giant flies at us—wings wide, yellow eyes crazed.
I sweep the big bird aside. “Scat,” I yell.
The other big bird, white with a long beak, charges from the fence line.
Spencer shoves his shield at it, flops the strings of the mop.
The third chicken, honey-colored and smaller than the other two, darts into the coop.
I close the door on her.
Trapped, she flaps, clucks, pecks at the chicken wire.
“Can you hold them both?” I ask Spencer, who has the two bigger birds under a bush and keeps them there with his shield and mop.
“Yeah, but hurry.”
Jo, at the window, stares wide-eyed.
Broom handle under my arm, I open the hatch to the laying box. On a pile of straw, three eggs encrusted with poop. One bluish, one brown, one small and greenish.
The bird inside the coop hustles into the nesting box, comes at me beak first.
I snap the eggs up fast, close the hatch. “Got ‘em,” I say.
The white bird flies at Spencer’s shield. The black one pecks at his shoes. “Get the fuck back,” Spencer yells.
Usually I’d call out the profanity but this is not the time. Passing him, I re-open the coop door, kick the rock in place to hold it open.
“Come on. Come on,” I say.
Together we hurry to the porch and up the steps.
I open the door to the mud room for the both of us, set the eggs on a high shelf out of harm’s way.
Spencer, truly covering me, continues to swat at the two attacking birds.
Back out the door, I pull him by his t-shirt and step around, sweeping them back with my broom.
Spencer darts into the mud room.
With one last sweep, I’m in, too, door closed with a slam.
We bend over in the small space, breathe hard.
It’s been a long day. One of the longest ever but I cannot help laughing. I laugh so hard, I start to cry.
Spencer’s laughing, too. “Every time,” Spencer says, shaking his head. “Every single time. Those damn chickens are nuts.”
Like everything about Rick, I want to say but only wipe my eyes because this is our life right now. We’re picking up the pieces as best we can.
Coming Next:
Chapter Nineteen - The German
Jennifer makes the decision to fight Rick for the house, and now it’s time to find an attorney to take the case. Can she get Fran back on her side to help pick the right representation?