The next few days flew by. The guys had grown into a routine but I think they adjusted it so they could see the kids in the morning before they got onto the bus. They don't start training until after Dennis and Amy are off to school. That left me with the free time I needed to work, since I work from home that was a blessing. Once the kids come home we do the usual homework shuffle. I aparently got ditched as the favorite homework helper, Donnie filled that roll now and I'm ashamed to admit it he is a lot better at it than I am.
Mikey and I then work on supper. I enjoy his company in the kitchen and I have yet to hear any cmplaints from my kids on anything he has a hand in making. I wonder if I could clone him before he leaves. Sometimes getting the kids to eat something is like trying to tell Shredder to be nice, it ain't happening. Some how Mikey has that magic touch though, if he makes it they will eat it.
Getting them ready for bed is still the same challenge, maybe even worse now, they don't want to miss a minute of the turtles. Leo and Raph usually bribe them with bedtime stories to get them to bed. I still think that's kind of cute, the two brothers that butt heads the most working together to defeat the 'I don't want to go to bed!' monster. Sure my house was cramped but god it was so good to have them here.
Donnie had still been trying to figure out what had brought them here, but the poor guy still wasn't having any luck. I'm guessing my limited technology doesn't help him much in that aspect. Compared to what he has back home, my place must feel like the stonage to him. I still felt bad about them being stuck here. I know it was just a freak accident but still, I just felt like it was my fault somehow. Why would they end up in my house if it wasn't? I know, I know I'm being to hard on myself, I can't help it. It's the way I am.
By now it was Friday night. We spent the evening outside gathered around a fire pit, sitting in lawn chairs and of course roasting marshmellows, or smashshmellows and my kids call them, and making smores. Mon, Dad and Jim were out there with us enjoying the late summer evening. As the sky grew darker the fireflies started to come out and of course the kids had to go catch some. It was a wonderful night, cool, no breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The moon was full, and it's light filled the air with it's luminous glow. Now if the stupid goats would shut up and go to sleep...I suppose the kid's laughter didn't help the mood either. They had dragged Mikey into catching fireflies with them, and Jim. The rest of us were just gathered around the fire pit talking.
Finally I heard the tell tale arguing of tired children. "Time to go in and get cleaned up guys!" I called to them and got the usual "I don't wanna!". The evil eye got them running towards the house though, to the chuckle of all gathered. After bath time I got them snuggled in bed and the story readers came in to take over. Tonight it was Donnie and Mikey, by request. Finally they were settled down and sleeping and I went back outside to enjoy the night. It was just to pretty.
By now my family had already went home, Raph and Mikey were watching tv and Donnie was doing something with my computer. I had no idea where Leo was. Probably floating around somewhere practicing his ninja skills on those pesky coyotes, they were a pain in my dad's goat loving ass. By now the fire was out, either it had burned down or someone put it out. I didn't mind, I could still look at the moon. I walked away from the house to a little hill about 200 feet away. It's the perfect spot to stargaze I think. I go there often on pretty nights like this, just to watch the stars, or moon in this case. I love nature so I really don't mind being out and alone like that. Hey, I told you before, I'm weird. Standing there I watched the night sky, enjoying the peaceful night.
"Why are you out here all alone?" I jumped, sneaky ass ninjas! I could never get used to that. Leo came up beside me. "Sorry." Yeah right, suuure he was. That's why he had this big shit eating grin on his face.
"No, your not." I gave him my 'I'm mad at you but not really mad at you' look. Don't ask me, I don't know what it looks like either. That's how I felt though. "I just like being outside on nights like this."
"It is a wonderful night." He looked up at the moon. "I don't think I remember the last time I've seen such a nice night like this. So quiet and calm."
"Well you live in a busy city, I expect quiet doesn't happen often." Well duh. Smart observation there again. I mentally kicked myself, why do I always say stupid crap around him.
"No, it doesn't." He sighed. He was then quiet for a few moments. "I really enjoyed tonight. Thank you."
"Your welcome. We try to do this every once in a while. It's not often we get together like that, even though we live so close together."
Again he got quiet. "You love them very much, don't you?"
"Yeah, they can be an annoying bunch but I wouldn't trade them for anything. I've learned over the years that they are pretty much the only ones I can really depend on. I just wish I could do more for my kids."
He lowered his gaze from the moon to look at me. "You do great with them, they are very happy children. You do a good job."
"I don't think so." I replied very quietly still looking at that round ball of soft light. I could still feel him looking at me and I got those now familiar jitter bugs inside me. Was it sad that I was getting used to them?
"Why are you so hard on yourself?" He finally asked me. He didn't even try to sugar coat it, right to the point with this one.
I thought a bit on how to answer. Wasn't sure how to put it into words. "I don't know. I just feel like I could have done better. They have been through so much." I felt the tears starting to form, making the picture perfect moon fuzzy. "I feel like I failed them somehow." Great, now I was crying in front of him and he knew it too. My big tough, nothing bothers me attitude crumbling around me. I never let anyone see me like this anymore, the last one I let in like that tore my heart out of my chest and stomped on it.
He moved closer to me and stood in front of me, then I felt his arms a round me pulling me close to him. I lost it, something about him made me open up and let all of my pain and frustration out. Feelings I didn't even know I was trying to bury came to the surface. I collapsed against him and cried. He just held me close to him until I got myself under control again.
"Your not a failure, far from it. You are doing a wonderful job. All you can do is the best you can, don't beat yourself up for what you can't give them. They are happy with what they have." I listened to him as I was still wrapped in his arms, already starting to feel better. I guess I've been keeping that bottled up for so long that I didn't even notice it was bothering me but deep down those feelings of not being able to do enough had eaten a hole in me. I didn't notice it until now. How was it that he had seen right through what I had been hiding from myself? Damn, he's better than any pshychologist. "Now, why don't you tell me why you feel like a failure."
"Why on earth would you want to know that?" I still had my head on his chest and his arms were still around me. I did have to admit it felt nice.
"So I can take all your reasons and tear them to little shreds."
"Your going to insist aren't you."
"Yes, I think I am."
I sighed as I pulled away from him. If he only knew the can of worms he was trying to open. I sat on the grass and once again looked up at the moon, it's glow once again filling me with peace. "You might as well sit down, Leo. This story goes back farther than you think it does." He sat down next to me on the grass, close but far enough to give me space to think. I pulled my knees up to my chest, trying to find the words to explain to him a lifetime of issues that lead me to feel failure. The main problem of this whole thing was, could I bring myself to tell him? Could I bring down the walls I had built around myself? After my ex and I split I vowed never to let anyone else know me that intimatley again, never let anyone know about my failures in life, mainly because the one I had let in became part of the my problem now. Sure I knew Leo was a good guy, but honestly what did I know except from what I've seen on tv? And how much of that was the real Leo? I wanted to talk, to get this all off of my chest, but I kept running headfirst into the wall I had built myself around me.
He was watching me, I could always feel it when he did, quietly reading me like an open book. I guess he figured I was having problems opening up because he started talking first. "You know to much about us not to know about Master Splinter." I nodded, I just never brought it up. I think he knew that already though. "We lost him years ago." Leo looked up at the moon again himself. "That was the hardest thing we have ever faced. It almost tore us apart. I could feel us slipping further away from each other and nothing I did seemed to help." I looked over at him in shock. There was so much I didn't know about them after all. "My family was growing apart when we needed each other the most. We knew it would happen one day that he would leave us but when it finally happened, he just didn't wake up one morning, none of us were really prepared for it and none of us knew how to deal with it." He looked at me again. "I struggled trying to keep us together but I had failed. Raph went out on his own, Mikey just shut down and Donnie never came out of his lab anymore. I was so overcome with grief, for my father and for the fact I couldn't keep us together, that I made a huge mistake while out one night looking for Raph. I got careless and I got caught. In my mind I had failed once again but with that failure something else had happened. I had been held for about three days in a research lab. I'm not going to go into detail about what kind of lab." I shuddered, he didn't have to. I know what the human species was capable of. "You have no idea how happy I was to see a very angry Raph barge into the room, Donnie and Mikey right behind him. That last mistake I thought I had made brought us back together, made us all realize that even though our father was gone, we still had each other. Sometimes your failures work out for the better, then that means it's not a failure after all. Even if the road that gets you there is hard to understand that, it's a path well taken to learn about yourself."
I thought about that, resting my head on my knees. I understood what he was trying to tell me but my problems were a bit different. Well he wouldn't full understand if I didn't tell him but I wasn't sure if he would understand. I sighed, well there was only one way to find out. I looked up again at the sky gathering my strength to tell my tale. It started when I was about Amy's age, 6-7. Around that time I was being molested by someone who was a good family friend, this went on for about a year and I never told anyone. How could I? Even at that age it was hard to talk about. The only reason it came out was because we had moved away to another state and he had went after a childhood friend of mine. She wasn't going to have any of it though and she fought back and was rewarded for her courage with a hammer to the head. My failure to speak up when I should have had cost my friend her life and I spent years dealing with that. Hell even today I still feel that pang of guilt. He was eventually put into the slammer after a long trial. A trial where I had to testify, even as young and scared as I was I did it for my friend. I failed her before, I wasn't going to fail her again, I did it for her.
I did what I could to lead a normal life after that. The only really big difference was I stayed away from the boys. I just couldn't bring myself to trust them. I never had a boyfriend by the time I left home at 18, joining the army. Then it got harder to avoid the guys, I had to work with a majority of male soldiers. In a way this was good, it helped me come out of my shell. I had always been the shy quiet kid growing up, my time in the service changed that. I learned how to communicate and work with others. That didn't mean I had experience though, I was very clueless about a lot of things. Naive, if you will. My new found confidence was shattered when I had entered a relationship, my first one, and was dropped like a hot potato right after our first, and only, time of having sex. I found out later he only wanted to be with me to win a bet. I had a reputation of being hard to get close to and some guys put a bet out to see if one could 'get me in the sack'. My dumbass fell for it. I had failed to see him for what he really was and I spent months glueing my heart back together.
When I had finally picked up the pieces of that episode, another man entered my life. This time it seemed to work out better and we dated for almost a year. I fell for him hard and I was so happy, right until the day I found out he was married and had been sleeping around with other girls. Once again I went looking for the super glue, once again I had failed to see what was really going on. At this point now I just cut back completely from men, I didn't want to go through this anymore.
I finished my time in the service and took on a civilian job. It was here that I met David and this time it seemed I hit the jackpot. He was everything I had ever wanted. Loving, kind, stable, he made me fell alive. The relationship progressed, I met his family he met mine, got engaged and finally married. I was on top of the world, or so I thought. When I found out I was expecting Dennis that was when I was on top of the world. Everything was going so well, we were happy. Dennis came into our would like a comet that needed lots of bottles and diapers but we didn't mind the chaos. Amy was on the way shortly after Dennis turned six months old and the thrill of a new baby filled the family once more. Things were going great, until I got laid off. This cut our income in half but we managed. We couldn't do a lot of the stuff we used to do, or buy stuff that we took for granted before, but we had food on the table and a roof over our head and each other. I kept looking for a job, not really easy to do in this small town, and finally found one. It didn't pay as much but we were still ok. By the time Amy turned 2 things however began to change. David would disappear for hours on end and come home with a lot of crap we didn't need, mainly stuff for himself. I can understand wanting to splurge on yourself every once in a while but it started to get to the point where the money was gone almost as soon as it came in and I had no idea where it went. Not from lack of trying to figure it out either. I would spend hours going over our monthly budget only to discover that half the time I went grocery shopping the money wasn't there that was alotted for it. We began to argue a lot more, my main concern was getting the bills paid and food on the table, his had shifted somehow to his wants before the family.
I tried so hard to get him to come back around. By this point our utilities kept getting shut off and I had to do payday loans to get them turned back on, another burden, if you have ever done one you can understand. To make matters even worse I got laid off again so that put another dent in our income but still he went out and splurged on movies, video games, guns, car upgrades you name it he bought it. I can't tell you how many times I just took the stuff back just so we could have money for food and every time I did resulted into a huge argument. I know it was hard, hell there were so many things I wanted to buy for myself but I couldn't. I just sucked it up and took care of my children as best I could as I watched their father distance himself more and more from us. I begged him, pleaded with him, tried to explain to him over and over again that this wasn't working and something needed to change. A few weeks later it did change, but not in the way I had ever wanted. He left one day and never came back. Took the car and all the money we had left with him. There I was with 2 small children, no job, no money and no car. Once again, I had failed. This time I didn't fail myself, I failed my children and that was the hardest thing I ever had to face. They were heartbroken and there was nothing I could do to fix this.
He eventually filed for divorce and I, with the help of my family, got back onto my feet again. I found a job where I could work from home so that saved me from having to deal with the whole childcare issue and was able to keep the lights on and food on the table. It doesn't bring in as much as I was used to but it was enough. But I still had to stare that failure in the face every time the kids asked for daddy. He never comes to see them, he gets every other weekend and holiday with them but he never comes to pick them up. How do you explain this to your kids when they ask you why? This was my ultimate failure, I let children be brought into this world from a father that don't give a rats ass about them, and this is what eats at me all the time. You would think that after everything I had been through I would have seen something, somewhere that all wasn't it what appeared to be. That was when I built those walls. I told myself never, ever would I let someone get close to me like that again. I have had enough for one lifetime.
By the time I was done talking my face was wet with tears. Leo however sat next to me and listened quietly to every word and his face was lost in thought. "You have had it rough, haven't you..."
I smiled a small sad smile. "That's not even including all the bullies I had to deal with in school. I was the poor shy kid that always got picked on. I guess that's why I just chose to stay away from folks. I don't trust anyone anymore. It seems to me like there is no good in the world anymore so I distance myself from the world."
"But yet you let us in your life." He looked at me.
I shrugged. "I grew up watching you guys. Like I said before I could always depend on you to cheer me up. I could always forget about my problems, for a little whiles anyway. That didn't change as I got older. I always held onto the one thing that I really enjoyed as a child and brought it into adulthood with me. I would spend hours sometimes loosing myself in your adventures after I put the kids to sleep for the night. I feel comfortable with you four." I looked at him. "You have done so much for me you don't even realize. Especially you, Leo."
"Me? And why is that?"
"Because I felt the struggles you face trying to lead your brothers echoed my own struggles to raise my children. I connected with that. I wished so many times to find someone like you."
His blue eyes met my brown ones, sending the now familiar chill up my spine. "Maybe you have." He whispered. Before I knew what was happening he leaned in and kissed me. After the shock wore off I felt myself returning that kiss. Was this really happening? Was I really sitting here lip locked with a Ninja Turtle? One who I had been secretly crushing on for years? Somebody pinch me...I had to be dreaming.
After a few moments I pulled away from him and turned my head to the side. My feelings were having a hard time trying to make their way around that wall I had put up. "I'm sorry..." I choked out once I realized I might have hurt him by doing so. Damn I was an emotional mess. He reached out his hand and turned my face back toward his.
"It's ok. I fully understand. There is nothing to be sorry about." He stood up and offered me his hand to help me up and I took it. "Come on, let's go back inside. It's getting chilly out here and I can tell your cold." Huh, my cold lips must have given it away... Still holding hands we walked back towards the house. He pulled me to a stop before we went inside and turned me to face him. "You know, I wish you could see yourself as others see you. You are not a failure. You are a strong person and you did everything you could to make it right. It's not your fault." He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. "I have a lot of respect for you, even more now from listing to you earlier. What happened to your friend and your marriage was not your fault, you can't control other people. The rest were mistakes. It's time you respected yourself. Now go get some rest." He opened the door for me and followed me inside, leaving the now chilly night behind.
