Lacoura, Lacey to her friends, fought a battle she couldn't possibly win. She had tried tactic after tactic, used advice from friends, family, movies, books and even the daytime talk shows. She had tried defence, offense, bribes, threats, and had finally resorted to screaming. Sitting at the kitchen table, her wet face cradled in her hands, she had to finally admit defeat. The enemy was far too good at what she did.
Lacey's not-quite-two-year-old daughter Emma stood in the living room. She was still dressed in her long shirt and little pink pants. Her hair was up in pigtails, plastic hair-ties sticking out of her dark hair. The Wiggles – an Australian show that had Lacey disturbed on quite a few levels – was blaring from the TV and her little face was pressed right up to the screen, a strictly prohibited activity. Lacey watched her from where she sat, looking through the archway that led into the other room. The headstrong child would have been a handful for a village to raise, but for a single working mom, it was seemingly impossible. The haggard mother looked over at the neon stove-top clock. It was ten thirty, and the little girl was still out of bed. Not even in her pajamas. The battle continued.
Deciding an outright order would work better than anything else she had tried this night, Lacey squared her shoulders. She was unable to comprehend the ability of her child to cause such anxiety.
Marching around the corner, Lacey grabbed hold of the duct-taped controller that was sitting on the armrest. Pointing it at the little TV, she braced herself and hit the little red button. The TV flicked off. Emma whined and looked back at her mother.
"It's bedtime, Em," Lacey said firmly.
Em pouted. When it was clear her mother wouldn't budge, she turned around and pressed the power button on the screen. She kept her back to Lacey, watching the Wiggles sing about a party and a nap in Spanish.
"Emma Jane. It is bedtime. Now," Lacey said again. When her daughter didn't respond, she hit the power button again. This time when the TV turned off, Emma didn't bother to look at Lacey. A pudgy little hand reached out and turned the TV back on. Then it covered the shiny black sensor that allowed the remote to work.
Gasping at the action, Lacey threw the remote down on the couch. "I will count to three, young lady!" she said, her voice raising. "One." There was no movement. "Two…" The tiniest shift and whine from the child told Lacey that her child wasn't deaf. She would have considered it a blessing if she wasn't so frustrated. "Two and a half. Two and three quarters. Friggin' three." Lacey stomped forward and hooked her arm around Emma's waist. She lifted the girl in the air and got only a step before Emma loosed her own battle tactic. A shrill scream that just wouldn't stop rang through the room. Lacey struggled with the now kicking and screaming child. She got up the little set of stairs without falling and hurting both of them. She carried Emma into the little room across the hall.
It was the bigger room of the little house, and Lacey had painted it lavender when she was pregnant with Emma two years ago. A big old-fashioned window was to the right of the door, taking up the whole wall and filling the room with moonlight. Unable to turn on a light and hold on to the screaming mass of angry toddler in her arms, Lacey attempted to manoeuvre the room by this light. She turned to the pretty bed that was to the left and dumped her kid on it. Emma turned, kneeling on the covers.
"NO!" she screamed at her mother. "No bed. NO BED!" Four small chairs had come in a set with the little drawing table set against the far wall. Now, two sat around that table, one sat on the far side of the bed, and one sat in front of the window, holding a blue basket that was filled with blocks and little toys. Lacey grabbed the chair, knocking the basket on the floor, the toys spilling out behind her as she stormed from the room. She slammed the door, putting the chair in front of it.
Emma continued to yell and carry on in indistinguishable baby-babble. Lacey could understand nothing of it, even though she was often the only one able to understand the kid. Something about a monster and the closet.
Lacey sat on the top tiny chair, crying. She felt too overwhelmed. Up until now, even through the fighting and the divorce, Emma had always been such a gift of a child. She was easily amused, happy to sit and draw or play hide-and-seek and peek-a-boo with Lacey. She had hardly ever cried and had gone to sleep in a heartbeat. Quite suddenly, a few weeks after Derek moved out, she had become unwilling to sleep through the night, or in her own room. Even though she had loved her 'big girl' bed at the beginning. She became harder and harder to put to bed. At the end of her rope, Lacey didn't know what else to do.
Isn't it just like Derek, she thought bitterly about her ex, to leave just as she goes through a difficult stage.
A pounding on the door that led to the basement apartment caused Lacey to draw her hand over her eyes, wiping away the tears. Bracing herself for yet another confrontation, Lacey unlocked and opened the door at the bottom of the stairs.
"Yes?" she asked, her voice still wavering as she opened the door.
"Miss Dael," her nosey new neighbour snapped. "When I agreed to rent this apartment from you I didn't except the nightly inconvenience of a screaming kid!" Lacey tried not to snap back. As if having to rent out her basement and dealing with her child wasn't enough, she needed to deal with this woman's 'inconvenience'.
"I'm sorry, really," Lacey assured her. Emma's screaming stopped, and Lacey smiled at the woman, "See? There she is." The woman continued to scold Lacey on her parenting, but Lacey was hardly listening. She looked towards the stairs, straining to hear over the woman's complaints. She had sworn she could hear something…. Voices?
"And I will have to report you to someone if your child keeps disturbing the peace like this. Every night this week! Every single night!-"
Lacey heard a laugh that she recognized and a door slammed. She shut the door on her neighbour's face. Leaping the stairs, she grabbed the door handle to her daughter's room and pushed. Her legs hit the small chair that she had left sitting against the floor and she sprawled face-first onto her daughter's bedroom floor, the kiddie chair tangled in her legs.
She looked up. The room was in disarray, the mobile gone and a blanket missing from the otherwise still made bed.
"Emma?" Lacey asked the empty room as she pushed herself to her knees. "Emma!"
Thanks to WanderingPirate and Tantalize who helped me work on the second which will never be posted. You were a great help and I'm sorry I lost the thread of this fic because you had excellent ideas. Edited 12/01/10