Chapter 1

"I can't keep doing this" Lynette thought to herself as she awoke to find her husband gone again. "I can't keep living this lie that has become my life." Tom had been working with his mindless and short lived dream of owning his own pizzeria for only a few months now, and already it had begun to tear the family apart. He was spending more time down at the pizzeria on the weekends then he was with his family. Something had to change. Lynette loved her husband, they had after all, brought four kids into the world. She had to make this marriage work. But in order to make this marriage work she knew she'd have to ask her husband to give up his dream, or at least put it on hold. The kids were still young, and she couldn't always stay home forever with them. She needed time for herself, to be able to sit back, watch TV, or just go out to the supermarket with out having to watch three hyper little boys run around, wreaking havoc everywhere they went.

"Mommy! Mommy! Parker took my cereal." She heard Porter yell up.

Lynette was jerked out of her thoughts and back into reality.

"Boys, knock it off down there! Mommy will be down in a minute" She yelled back, finally getting out of her bed and putting on her clothes to go downstairs. Lynette ran down the hall to her daughter, Penny's, room and picked her up out of her crib, changing her she thought of the chaos that awaited her downstairs. She got downstairs to find her two sons, Porter and Parker, fighting over who got the last of the coco puffs.

"Guys, knock it off now" she said placing her daughter in her play pen then, stepping between the two boys to break them up. Despite her efforts her son's continued to fight. "Okay, you know what, neither one of you get the last of the cereal." she said, taking the almost empty cereal box away and setting it high on the cabinets where she knew none of her children could reach.

Lynette looked at the time and realized she had over slept, it was now almost eight am. The boys had to be in school by eight thirty.

"Come on boys, it's time to get dressed." she said, trying to hurry them up the stairs.

"No, we don't want to go to school today" all three boys yelled back at her.

Lynette thought to herself and tried to figure out what could and would make them go up the stairs and get dressed, just then an idea popped into her mind.

"Oh boys, who ever gets dressed first and is ready first gets to have the last of the cereal." she said, smiling and picking Penny up out of her play pen

All three boys looked up at her, and suddenly dashed up the stairs. She laughed to herself while she began to make a quick breakfast for the family. Surprisingly it was Preston who was ready first, not Porter or Parker. Usually Preston was the calm one, she knew that but she thought that Parker would be the one downstairs first.

"Mommy, can I have the cereal?" Preston asked.

"Of course you can sweetie, you were the first one ready to go." she replied, running her hands through his hair.

She poured the cereal into the bowl in front of Preston and then turned around to look at Penny who was now covered in her breakfast of oatmeal and bananas. Lynette rolled her eyes and picked Penny up from her chair to get her cleaned off.

All of a sudden she heard a loud thump coming from the boys room upstairs.

"Boys! Knock it off, get your dressed butts down here right now, Preston already has you beat. And mommy is beginning to lose her patience."

Lynette waited for a usual reply of either "No" or "Why should we?" but instead she heard silence. Something was up she could tell. She put Penny in the play pen real fast and looked over at Preston who was sitting there eating his cereal happily.

"Preston, keep an eye on your sister for me will you? I have to go upstairs for a minute to see what's taking your brothers so long."

"Okay mommy"

Lynette ran up the stairs and into the boys room where she found Parker bleeding on the floor and Porter just standing there.

"Oh my God! Parker! What happened?"

"Him and I were trying to see who would get dressed sooner and we started arguing so he shoved me against the wall then I hit him and he fell back into the dresser and hit his head."

"Okay, well, Porter go downstairs right now, and sit on the couch, I'll deal with you later, right now we have to get your brother to the hospital.

Just as she reached down to pick up Parker, he awoke.

"Mommy, my head hurts"

"I know sweetie, but just stay still, mommy's going to get you to the hospital." she bent down and picked him up, grabbing the closest towel around she wrapped his head in it.

She had never ran down those stairs so fast in her life. Grabbed her cell phone and called the only friend she could think of who was at home this hour, Bree Van de Kamp.

"Bree? Can I ask you to do me a favor please?"

"Lynette? What's wrong you sound frantic."

"My son Parker is bleeding and I have to get him to the hospital, can you come over and watch Preston, Porter, and Penny for me? Tom is at the pizzeria and I'm afraid I don't have that much time to run the three kids down there."

"Uh, well, I was going to spend today rearranging my garden, but I can see it's an emergency so sure, I'll be right over."

Bree was there within five minutes and out the door Lynette ran with a crying Parker in her arms.