APOV
"Where are you" I laughed, walking through the house, searching every room along the way. I knew where he would be but I took my time getting to my bedroom, ignoring the little lump in the middle of my bed before opening the closet, listening for his giggles when I stated he wasn't there. "Oh, I'm tired. I think I'll lie down, it will help flatten the lump in my bed," I said aloud.
"No, no no, Mommy" I heard before my son's head peeked out from beneath the duvet, his arms wrapped around all his stuffed animals, his zoo.
"Theodore, I nearly squished you then" I laughed, flopping down on the bed beside him. Closing my eyes, I felt him move from beneath the covers before he climbed onto my chest, his little fingers trying to pry open my eyes.
"Me a pancake then" he giggled, resting his head next to mine.
I sighed, my arms coming around to hug him as tightly as his little body could take. This boy, this little man, my son was what got me through every day.
"Mommy go to work today," he asked.
"Only while you're at kindergarten. Mommy will pick you up and then we can go and see Auntie Dora and have dinner there."
"Yeah" he cheered, clapping his little hands.
"And what are you going to eat," I asked him, knowing what his answer would be. While I tickled him though it came out as something I had not heard for years.
"Pannnykak" he giggled, making me stop my tickling.
"What," I whispered, feeling like I had been hit in the chest.
"Pancakes Mommy. Why Mommy sad," he asked, seeing my smile drop, one I immediately tried to put back into place.
"I'm not sad, I was just thinking of how much sugar you are going to have, eating pancakes for dinner as well as those special ones that I have made for you downstairs."
"Pancakes" he squealed trying to get up from my chest before I pulled him back down again.
"Hold on there little man, don't we have something to do before you devour those pancakes," I asked, hearing a little sigh from him.
"I need to be pricked," he told me as I looked at the display on his pump.
"Pricked" I replied, amused, wondering where he had heard that word before.
"Grandpa calls it that. He called a man that after he nearly scratched grandpa's car so maybe he has beties too."
"Maybe" I smiled, knowing his grandfather would have called the man a prick for another reason entirely but my five-year-old son didn't need to know that.
"All done, now get dressed first before breakfast" I smiled, kissing my son's finger as he groaned before he was soon running from my bedroom to his. It was only moments later that his little feet were rushing down the stairs so god only knows what he'd put on. For myself, breakfast would have to wait for a few moments too as I'd been left with a messy bed.
I picked my son's zoo up and started for the door. Before I got there though, I opened the top drawer of my dresser, removing the photo that was there.
It was one of Christian and me, taken by my dad on the day of our prom. That seemed like a lifetime ago now, I'm a different person from the one he'd left behind. That girl, that teenager that thought her world had ended grew up quickly when she found out she was pregnant.
I hated Christian for a long time when he didn't return until my son was placed in my arms. He had left me with the perfect parting gift and feeling that hate and anger turn to love for our son, I just wish that where ever Christian is, he's happy and he can live with himself for leaving me without any reason for walking away.
Entering the kitchen, I watched Theodore for a few minutes, loving the little sounds he made as he enjoyed his breakfast. He was getting so big and looking at the door frame, I could see all the times we had marked the wood with his height joining mine just like my dad had done when I was little. How much he has grown this year, we will find out on his birthday.
"Don't eat them all" I said, putting the kettle on for tea. "And more pancake than syrup on the plate please."
"The lid fell off" he stated so matter of factly that he made me laugh. At the weekend when he'd had pancakes, they were like an island in an ocean of syrup.
He doesn't need to know though that his pancakes are made in a different way to his friends, that the syrup he loves so much is different too. My son can have whatever he wants, just his way.
As I ate my pancakes, I listened to my son, Theodore Raymond Steele chatter about what he would be doing today.
"Bag and lunch, shoes, pouch," I said, it being my day to remember everything and for him to check. This was our game every morning he left for school, making sure something important didn't get left behind.
"Got and on Mommy and my pouch is in my bag, my lunch too" he replied, showing me the sneakers on his feet before pointing to his school bag. "Well done" he congratulated, making me giggle this time.
"Kisses."
"Only for you Mommy as other girls have cooties" he declared, before kissing my cheek.
"I'll tell your grandmother you said that" I laughed. "Auntie Dora too."
"See Granny, she coming for my birthday," he asked hopefully.
"She would love to be here, grandpa too but remember what I told you."
"That we fly" he replied, holding his arms out like a bird.
"Yes sweetheart, we fly… When you finish next week for the holidays, we're going to fly to Georgia to see Granny and Grandpa and do you know what the best thing about going there is."
"The beach" he smiled, looking forward no doubt to building sandcastles again with my dad.
"Yes but I mean like you'll have a birthday party here with all your friends, and you'll have one there too. Two cakes, two lots of gifts but more importantly two lots of birthday kisses" I stated, holding his little cheeks between my hands before kissing all over his sticky face.
"Not my birthday yet" he giggled.
"I'm just getting some practice in, now eat up otherwise we'll be late and you will miss out on getting the best car."
"Danny can keep the best car. Billy and I bang the broken ones to make them work again."
Just like your father, I said to myself before telling my son he will have so much fun then.
Leaving the house with a happy little boy, chatting away a mile a minute like he always does, my steps faltered when I saw something lying against the windscreen of my car.
A brick, where the hell did it come from. None were missing from any of the walls around that I could see. That shouldn't have been the question I wanted an answer to though, I should've been asking myself who put it there but I didn't want to cause any panic in front of Theodore as this wasn't the first instance of something happening outside of my home.
A broken flower pot, maybe next doors cat had knocked it over when it came around taking a shit in my yard instead of its own. I highly doubt a cat could put a brick on the windscreen though.
Looking around I saw no one other than the old lady across the street who was putting something in her bin. Ushering Theodore into the car, I removed the brick and threw it below the hedge before he could see it.
Backing out of the driveway, I was looking everywhere to see if anyone was hanging around. Seeing the brick there had unnerved me and for the first time in my life, in the only home I'd ever known, I felt unsafe.
As I said goodbye with hugs and kisses at the door of the kindergarten, returning Theodore's wave before he ran off to play with his friends, I felt a knot in my stomach wondering what the hell was going on.
So before I went to work, I stopped at the sheriff's office just to ask if there had been anyone passing through that had gained their attention, anyone causing trouble in town.
"Good morning young lady, what can I do for you today," Luke asked as I walked into the building.
"Young lady, we were in the same year at school together Luke and if I remember correctly, you're younger than me."
"I'll call you old woman then from now on" he teased before getting tapped on the side of the head by Kate when she emerged from her office. "Assaulted, in my own building, what is the world coming to" he fake sobbed.
"Are you going to arrest your wife then?" I laughed.
"Are you kidding, I value my life… I'm just about to go out, did you want me or the good wife" he asked.
"You" I sighed before he pulled out a chair for me to take a seat, knowing something must be wrong for me to visit him here. "I'm going mad" I stated.
"Can happen easily in this town. Is there something specific that is sending you loopy?" he asked.
"Last week when I was parked outside of the store, I came out to find my front right tyre deflated and a big scratch down the side of my car. The scratch, I can understand because how some in this town got a licence beggar's belief but the tyre, it had what looked like a skewer pushed into the valve. It was around the time that you arrested those bikers that were causing trouble at the bar, some were parked outside of the store too so I put it down to them."
"You know, the worst thing you can do is brush things off as innocent" he stated, in cop mode now, but I knew he was speaking the truth.
"I know, it's just easier to think that way other than to think someone is purposely targeting my car. With the brick this morning though, all logical thought has gone out of the window and been replaced by panic instead."
"Brick, what brick," he asked so I told him about finding the brick lay against my windscreen, and even though I felt silly to think about such a simple thing as being sinister, about the broken flowerpot too.
"Can you just, I don't know. When you're out in town, just drive past my house and see that no one is there. If my car's not there then I'm not. I feel like someone's playing games with me and I don't like it."
"Don't worry I will... Do you still have it?" he asked.
"No she doesn't, I do," Kate said of the handgun my dad had left with me. "Ana didn't want it anywhere near our godson, so it's locked away in my office safe."
"If someone comes near my son, a gun will be of no use as I will rip them to pieces."
"I will make sure to keep a lookout for intruders and body parts then" he smiled. "I'll inform the rest what is going on and we'll keep a lookout, drive past your house and I'll put the feelers out too, see if this has been happening to anyone else."
"Thank you, Luke. I hope I'm just being paranoid" I stated.
"Better to be safe than sorry Ana, don't worry about it. If anything else happens, no matter how small, call it in or call my cell, I'll be over, even if it's in my jammy's."
"That's a sight I don't need to see" I smiled. "Thanks."
As Luke left, I was pulled into Kate's office, the kettle on, tea being the solution to everything as far as she was concerned. Talk as always turned to my boy, my favourite subject and his upcoming birthday before I left Kate and headed off to work myself.
….
"Move it, girl, move it" Ros laughed as I danced to Usher's Scream while setting up the bar.
Who would've thought that after leaving high school I was to go to Regent, the local college before earning money working at the diner before starting at Ros's Bar when she moved into town after buying the rundown place two years ago. My plans changed quickly once he had left, Harvard no longer having the appeal that it once had. Did he go, I sometimes wonder if he did, did he realise then that I wasn't there. Finding out I was pregnant with Theodore, a gift I worked out I'd been given on prom night, my focus, my need to pull myself out of the dark place I had found myself in was all that mattered as he needed me and I him.
"I feel like screaming" Gwen laughed, joining Ros and me.
"Me too" I stated, my mind going to leaving the house this morning and the waiting brick.
"Ok, I don't like the sound of that" Ros replied, muting Usher and any other song that would come after. "What's happened."
I told them about the brick, wondering now if I wasn't being silly and it was just one of the stupid teens who passed the end of my drive on their way to the same school I'd attended. No matter how many times I ran it around in my mind, despite what Luke had said, that is the answer I came to because thinking of the other with the quiet life I lived, why would someone want to hurt me.
"Have you been to the sheriff's office?" Gwen asked, taking a seat on the other side of the bar.
"That's why I was thirty minutes late" I stated. "You can dock that out of my pay."
I was immediately shushed before the chatter grew, Charlie's Angels forming in front of me with my colleague Bree, ready to take down anyone who would threaten me. That was before sanity prevailed above insanity and they agreed with me, that it was probably a stupid kid.
Once open the bar was busy, regulars coming in not just for the company and a happy face but for the food we served here as well.
Dora didn't like that when it opened serving food, in direct competition with her lunchtime trade. That was before Ros and Gwen, knowing that just the lunchtime bar sales wouldn't make them much, not even half of the evening takings, had asked for Dora's help. Neither of them could cook really so a chef was needed, all of who were either already working in the diner or expensive restaurant down the street, so instead of poaching one, they came to an agreement with Dora to boost the lunchtime trade.
You can eat here but most of the food, the menu and the ingredients came from Dora's, an arrangement that serves them both well. Joe who worked at Dora's when I was younger, also helped them learn how to cook properly.
…
"Eat up, eat up, eat up," Dora told Theodore happily, encouraging him to clear his plate. "I have one slice of your very special chocolate cake in the kitchen and if you don't finish soon, Larry will eat it all up."
"I'll eat Larry up, or hit him with my hammer. I'll do that to Billy tomorrow too."
"What" I spluttered, sending some of my tea onto the table and down the front of my shirt. "Theodore, we don't hit people and especially not with something."
"Thor does" he stated and I realised what he was talking about then, dress-up day tomorrow.
"How do you know about Thor," Dora asked my son, knowing I would never let him watch a movie like that at his age.
"Billy told me. His big brother has Thor comiii."
"Comics" I suggested as he got stuck on the word.
"Yes, them. Mommy got me a Thor owfit and Billy's going to be Loki" he told Dora.
"The gods of thunder and mischief in one room, I feel sorry for your teacher" Dora laughed.
"I think Miss Marchant is an expert in keeping what must be thirty children in line. I struggle with two when Billy comes around, I need to ask her for tips."
"I'm sure you will have a good day. Now Master Steele, have you decided what you would like me to get you for your birthday."
"A surprise" he laughed as she shook her head calling my son a strange child.
I know some children would have a list when it came to birthdays and Christmas but Theodore isn't like that, he's happy with what he's given and loves nothing more than playing outside in the mud. I had ordered for him a new bike as he had outgrown his first wheels. I had also got him his own garden spade and fork set, a watering can too so he can help me with the gardening.
After dinner, I sat and watched my son run around with the brush. Help Auntie Dora he had asked of her, hindrance is more like it, especially when she does make a pile of discarded fries and other mess, and he just brushes it the opposite way.
"Finally, I can continue" Dora laughed, sweeping again and clearing away the pile.
"What have you done with my son," I asked, sipping my tea.
"Put him to work."
"What" I laughed, getting to my feet. "Where."
"You worked here, he can too" she smiled, pointing through the door that led to the kitchen and just beyond it at the sink, I could see my son, hands submerged and his arms completely covered in bubbles.
"He doesn't have that many bubbles in the bath" I laughed.
"He won't need one tonight then" she smiled, continuing to sweep up before I started to mop the areas she'd done.
Whether wet now or not, Theodore will not go to bed without his bath, without his chance to splash Mommy or to have one final play with his toys before going to bed. My son has a routine and we stick to it, that's how we make his diabetes part of our day, make it normal, normal for us.
Leaving the diner, it dark now, I drove us home, a tired boy yawning in the back. One who said he was not tired at all and was looking forward to bathtime.
Pulling into my drive just as someone was walking down the steps from my front door, for just a moment, my heart skipped a beat seeing someone here, especially with what had happened this morning. That was before a smile came to my lips, happy that he was home.
Thank you for reading and to those who review. I'm glad that you're enjoying it.
All I will say with regards to the final paragraph is that Ana hasn't moved on.
Until next time when Christian is finally free and heads home, take care.
Caroline.