Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this. Sadly, there is no real reason except that I went to college and have neglected a lot of my writing since graduating from high school. I intend to finish these stories, so the updates will continue sporadically. I hope everyone likes this chapter. The next chapter is already in the works, so hopefully there won't be an 17 month gap between updates this time.

Also, I don't know if anyone is going to notice after all this time, but for anyone who does and might want an explantion, here it is: Yes, I eliminated the chapter titles and the song quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I don't feel the lyrics fit as well as I'd like with this story, and the titles weren't so good. I'm really not so good at making up titles...so as a result, both those things are gone. But there is a new chapter! So, yay! Enjoy!

-Kristine

Chapter 8

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After not getting to bed until about 3:30, I got up at about 11:30. I had trouble falling asleep and trouble waking up.

I remember that I had woken up to shut the alarm off at 9:45. It goes off on weekends because I feel like I waste the day if I don't get up early enough. This day, however, I shut it off and rolled over. Considering I'm usually awake by 9:30 or 10 o'clock, Jack and Chase came in around 10:30 to check on me.

"Mom, you okay?" Jack had asked, poking me with a finger.

"Fine, I just didn't get to sleep 'til late, I'll be up a little bit later," I said. They must have bought this because I remember hearing them muttering and walking away. I also remembered glancing at the clock and reading 10:28. This registered, and I must have gone back to sleep because when I opened my eyes again the clock said 11:33.

When I finally come out of my bedroom at around 12:15, Jack and Chase are both lounging on the couch in pajama bottoms and laughing at the TV. They both sit up when they see me.

"You okay, Mom?" Jack repeats his question from earlier.

"Fine, sweetie, why?" I ask. Their concern for me in the last few days has increased ten-fold.

"Because the last time you slept this late you had pneumonia and your breathing was so labored we were afraid you were going to die so –" Jack starts, and as what sometimes happens with twins, Chase finishes his brother's sentence,.

"– We called an ambulance and Uncle Fulton and you got really embarrassed and tried to shout at us and had a coughing fit and had to stay at the hospital for three days while Uncle Fulton stayed with us."

I grin sheepishly at this memory, though it is quite possibly one of my least favorite memories, if only for the reason that I scared my children. A mother isn't supposed to scare her children. Well, there is another more selfish reason I dislike this memory. Having an ambulance show up at an apartment building – or anywhere, I guess – attracts a rather large crowd, which watches as the paramedics put you indignantly on stretcher, shove on an oxygen mask, and push you into the back of a glorified bus that flashes lights, makes very loud noise and runs stop lights. I was very embarrassed.

"Well, fortunately, I'm fine this time. I just had trouble sleeping, that's all," I explain, though the two of them still seem doubtful.

"Did you have trouble sleeping because of yesterday?" Chase asks. Chase was always a little bit more perceptive than Jack when it came to my feelings, though I don't imagine that it would be hard for them to guess that yesterday shook me up.

"Yes," I answer him honestly. I've found that occasions are few and far between where lying to my children was the correct way to handle a situation. I was never brutally honest, I always did my best to let them down gently if need be. But flat out lies I've only ever told them a couple of times when the truth would have really hurt them, or if they just weren't ready for the information yet.

I've never been a very good liar either, and my twins have always been very good at knowing when they're being lied to. Not always, but they usually have a way of knowing when they're being given the run around. This is a prime example of how while they're very much the same, they're also very different. Chase, in spite of knowing when he's being lied to, most of the time chooses to think the best of people while Jack is much more suspicious of people's motives.

"You shouldn't let it bug you, Mom, you did great. We're very proud of you," Jack says seriously.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if it had been me, seeing my ex after all this time, I'd have wrung his neck," Jack smiles.

"Excellent display of self-control," Chase grins.

"Thanks," I say. I'm still not sure they believe me but I don't really want to talk about it, so I change the subject. "Have you guys eaten breakfast yet?"

"Mom, it's like…lunch time," Jack points out, glancing at the clock.

"Still…do you guys want pancakes?" I ask them, smiling. Both of them get the same look on their faces that dogs get when they smell pot-roast, and I know the answer is yes, even if it is lunchtime. Pancakes are a weakness Jack and Chase inherited from Portman. The three of them just go nuts over pancakes…all breakfast food, actually. I typically make a big breakfast on weekends, with French Toast on Saturdays and pancakes on Sundays. Needless to say we go through about a bottle of maple syrup per week in this place.

Forty-five minutes later and we're all settling down and the table to eat with pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. The pancakes turned out really good, though Jack and Chase pointed out that my pancakes are better when I make them from scratch rather than the mix, but today they had to settle for the mix.

"So, are you going out with him tonight or what?" Jack asks and I nearly choke on my eggs.

"I wasn't planning to tell you until later, how did you know about that?" I ask them.

"Mom, only unintelligent people answer a question with a question," Jack says smartly. I am reminded of my tenth grade English teacher for the second time in two days. I must have given Jack a look because he quickly adds, "Just kidding," and shoves a particularly large bite of bacon into his mouth.

"We know because we have a phone extension in our room and picked it up when we heard you call Uncle Fulton," Chase explains, grinning.

"I knew I shouldn't have put a phone in that room," I mumble. I put a phone extension in their room when they were about ten. I figured that by they were old enough to handle it. It also made them more likely to pick it up if it rang while they were playing video games. They didn't even have to move.

"Oh come on, Ma, what you don't know won't hurt you. How do you think we've been picking out gifts for you all these years? We listen in on lots of your conversations," Jack says easily, grinning too.

It was in that moment that I truly appreciated how sneaky my children could be.

"Well…don't do it anymore," I sigh. "I'd rather you didn't hear everything I say."

"We don't do it a lot. Only when it's necessary, like when you refuse to admit that perfume you kept spraying at the mall was what you really wanted for your birthday," Chase says matter-of-factly, shoveling yet more eggs on to his plate. "Jack, pass the ketchup, will ya?"

"Please," I correct him.

"Please," Chase repeats.

Jack hands the ketchup across the table and then turns his attention back to me. "So are you going to go out with him Mom?"

"What do you two think of him? You're meeting him all over again for the first time. He's your father, what do you think?" I ask them, completely ignoring Jack's question.

Both Jack and Chase mumble incoherently into their food and shove more into their mouths. They have always avoided questions they don't want to answer by eating a lot, or sometimes they're just stalling for time while they take a minute to come up with the truth. I wait patiently for them to answer.

"He seems okay," Chase says after swallowing. "But the jury's still out."

"Why's that?"

"Well," Jack says, "Sure, he's being nice to us now, coming back and talking about hockey and everything, but why is he doing that? Why now? It's a little late to be trying to win Father of the Year. And –" Jack hesitates, but Chase nods him on, and I have the strangest feeling they rehearsed this before actually saying it to me. "–Well, we don't like anyone who treats our mother badly."

"What do you mean? He never treated me badly," I tell them.

"Mom, we consider leaving you flat with two toddlers treating you badly," Jack says.

"It wasn't that bad," I lie. Wow, there's one of those blatant lies I don't usually tell.

And I can tell both of them know I'm lying to them. "You think we don't remember," Chase says, "But we do, Ma. We remember the way you used to cry. One of my earliest memories is of you crying to Uncle Fulton and saying you wish he'd come back."

"And we remember, Mom, when you had to work two jobs and were hardly ever home. It really wasn't that long ago," Jack adds. "To us, that's treating you badly. And there's also Uncle Fulton. Wasn't Dad supposed to be his best friend and then just took off without even saying goodbye? That couldn't have felt good."

"Your Uncle Fulton and your father will work out their own problems," I mumble. I look down at the table, I had no idea they remembered when I used to cry. I can actually feel tears welling up in my eyes now, but I blink them back. Hopefully Jack and Chase don't see them.

"Which brings us back to our original question. Are you going out with him?" Jack asks. They don't seem to have noticed that my eyes aren't quite focused and I'm blinking a lot. Or they have the good grace not to mention it. Either way, I appreciate it.

"Well, yes, actually I was going to go out with him," I say slowly to make sure my voice doesn't accidentally crack and give me away. "But what do you guys think I should do?"

"Go with him, and then after he's paid for the meal, wring his neck," Jack grins, but Chase doesn't answer right away, and seems to be thinking about something.

"Do whatever makes you happiest, Mom," Chase says finally. "If you don't want to go, then don't go. If you want to go, then go. You deserve an explanation."

"What is with you two?" I ask them. "I don't ever remember you two being this concerned about my feelings. And don't you want an explanation too?"

"Of course we do, Mom," Chase says. "But we think you should settle things first."

"Why?"

They both look at me, then at each other, and to my surprise, it's Jack who answers. Jack isn't always the quickest when it comes to picking up my feelings. "It's just that his leaving and his coming back now after so long…it's not hurting us the way it's hurting you. We never knew the guy, we didn't love him like you did. We never knew what we were missing, so we didn't miss him. He may have stepped all over us, but we were too young to feel it or know what it meant. And we've turned out just fine…so far anyway," he smiles.

"The point is that you gave him two boys and your life and he just left you. You did a good job taking care of us in spite of everything. And you gave us everything we wanted," Chase says. "It's up to you, Mom. Don't worry about us, please. We can settle things on our own terms and on our own time. But we're worried about you. It's hard for you, and we'll do whatever you need us to do and be as supportive as you need us to be."

I begin to clear the now empty breakfast plates from the table. I'm touched by this display of affection. I had no idea they had given this much thought regarding how I would feel. I thought they'd be more wrapped up in their own feelings, the way teenagers typically are.

"I'm flattered you think so highly of me," I smile, only half-teasing. "I really do appreciate your concerns, but don't worry so much, okay? It'll be all right." I'm not sure I really believe everything will be all right, but I do hope it ends up that way.

"Okay. We love ya, Mom," Jack says, and he flushes slightly. He doesn't usually say these kinds of things out loud. "And we want you to be happy. That's all."

The boys help me finish clearing up the kitchen quietly. I guess they feel that they've said everything they need to say. I follow them down the hallway to where our bedrooms are.

As they're about to enter their room, Chase says, "Oh, and Mom, if he hurts you again –"

"–We'll kill him," Jack finishes.

I smile weakly and shut the door to my bedroom. I make sure I hear their door click shut before bursting into tears.