31
The classic jingle of the Mr. Softee truck grew louder and louder as it pulled up alongside the sidewalk of the playground. Jamie left Harper in the sand and bolted toward Alex, "can I get ice cream?"
She puts her pen down on the pile of papers she brought from work, "ah, that would be a no. You've had enough crap today, your mother's already going to kill me as it is."
"I won't tell."
Alex laughs, "is that what she tells you to do when she gives you something I wouldn't like?"
He looks at his shoes for a brief second before shaking his head, no. "C'mon it's just like three dollars," he says trying to make his case.
"And another three dollars for your sister. I could buy a tub of ice cream on the corner for the same amount of money." Ma? Are you here? It's been a while since your words escaped my mouth.
"But I want the one with gumball eyes."
Oh honey, he's so cute... he's only a kid once. Her eyes look up into her head for a moment, "really James, no, you guys've had enough junk for today." She tousles his hair for just a second too long, embarrassing him, he pulls away. Will you shush? He's gonna get diabetes.
"Fine," he whines and kneels back down next to Harper, who hands him some little rocks she found in the sand.
"Harper, know what that is?," he says directing her attention toward the white truck with the obnoxious looping song.
"Huh?," she looks over to the truck, not having noticed it before, and gasps, "ice cweam!," she whispers.
"Do this...," he says making a pout with his lips.
She mimics him, "nooo, more, and pretend you're sad. Mama said we couldn't get ice cream when I asked her."
She pouts her lip out further, her eyes plead, nailing the face, "ok good," he says helping her up. She brushes the sand off her hands and runs over as best as she can.
"Mama, can I have ice cweam?" Alex immediately looks over at her son who, upon making eye contact with his mother, turns away.
"James," she calls after him. "No," she tells Harper, and unclasps the barrette that's falling out of her curly hair. She rakes the hair from her side part and pulls it back neatly into her barrette. She aches to feel her mother's hand run through her hair: to style it, mess it up, it doesn't matter; its the bare simplicity of the gesture that aids the longing. Harper looks into her mother's eyes, picking up on their momentary sadness. The brunette stares back into the blue of her daughter's, ridding herself of her own ache and James comes over and stands behind Harper. Alex, they're beautiful, she swears she can hear her, as if she's standing right behind her. With a slight shake of her head she tells the presence behind her, don't distract me.
"Didn't I just tell you no?"
"No, what?"
"That you couldn't have ice cream?"
"Yeah."
"So, you didn't tell her to come over here and ask me for the same thing?" "Nope, I didn't tell her to come over here."
"Really?"
"Really."
Harper pushes her hands into Alex's knee and raises up onto her toes, she pouts her lip and gives her those miniature Piper Bambi eyes, "pwease can I have ice cweam?"
"Ugh," Alex laughs exasperated by this face peering up at her. She looks away from Harper and at James, "you didn't tell her to do this either?"
His lips pull to this side, "that part I did."
Alex bites her bottom lip, an unconscious nervous habit each time one of her children do something of the manipulative nature. Oh so you still managed to somehow create a mini- schemer. Well I told you one day, you'll get one just like you, she hears her mothers laughter echo.
"C'mon mom, it's sooo hot," Jamie works the guilt again. Harper leans into her some more.
"Alright, enough with the kvetching! It's really not that hot," she says unzipping the side pocket of their bag, she continues mumbling, "so spoiled... lucky," and hands him some money. They hug jumping up and down. You really are a sweetheart. She almost turns around as she feels the presence leave, don't be a stranger.
They go to run off, Alex grabs his arm, "hold her hand, ask for whatever she wants first and since it's so hot, get a bottle of water."
He nods, "thanks mom."
"Thanks mom," Harper echoes. Jamie grabs her hand, Alex watches him lean over the playground fence and unhook the latch. She puts her pile of papers on the bench and stands up, regardless of the fact that she could see them just fine from her previously seated position. She watches him point to different selections on the truck, bending down to Harper between each one to hear her voice over the music. He goes through half a dozen cartoon figures of ice cream before Alex sees the little curly head nod and reach both of her hands up to receive her snack. He walks her back inside the fence and closes it behind her before returning to the truck to get his own ice cream and the water.
Later that evening, Piper offers to take the both of them with her grocery shopping when Alex tells her she only managed to get a minimal amount of work done. She lifts Harper and helps place her legs into the holes at the front of the cart while Jamie hangs onto the back. As the cart turns down the candy aisle, he jumps off the back and runs up to the wall of candy. "Can we get this?," he asks grasping a bag of Jelly Belly's on the hook.
Piper tries to think back to the last time she let them have junk food and reasons its been a while, "alright."
He lifts the bag off the hook, she grasps the bag, "wait, did you have any candy today with mama?"
"No."
She lets the bag go, but he gives it back to her so she can open it. He gives one to Harper, looking at her hoping she knows better than to mention the ice cream, and leans onto the back of the cart once again. Harper twists around and he continues to give her more jelly beans, sifting through the bag as she only eats the red ones.
Piper is about to scoot past the cereal aisle when Jamie hauls down toward the section shelving boxes containing more than twelve grams of sugar. She pulls the cart over toward the side, so as not to block other shoppers, and walks briskly toward Jamie before he starts his debate as to why he should incorporate an additional food devoid of any nutrition into his diet.
"No," she takes the box of cereal and puts it back on the shelf, "you're literally mid-chew of jelly beans, this isn't food."
He obtains the box again, while choosing another healthier cereal and makes his points, trying to compromise alternating days of the week between either choice of breakfast. She's already decided, she gave into the jelly beans, she will not cave, but lets him continue and she gets lost in thought: determined, persistent, charming; the similarities... constantly multiplying. She watches his mouth move, his facial expressions exemplifying how passionate he is, trying to make this case; his voice seems far off in the distance, when his words rip her back to current time,
"Do you have sex?"
"What?," her pitch is high, she's completely unprepared to hear this question.
He asks again plainly, "do you have sex?," not understanding the taboo nature of the question; his head turns toward the teenagers kissing at the other end of the aisle.
"Shhh," her hand covers his mouth impulsively, despite the fact she asked him to repeat it for clarification. His hand comes up to her hand to move it away from his mouth.
"Where did you hear about that?," she asks at a whisper leaning into him. He answers in a regular tone, "Joey's sister told him about it."
Her hand runs nervously over her face and over her hair, her lips part, but no words come out. She hears Harper, "ouchie!" Her head snaps toward her daughter who's frantically throwing her head back and forth, when she yells louder, "OUCHIE!," and starts to cry.
She starts quickly walking down the aisle and then picks up to a run as her daughter sounds more and more distressed, her breath catches, her heart rate increases as she sees red from her daughters nose. As first she thinks it's blood, but soon after, focuses on the red jelly bean lodged in her toddler's nostril.
"So...?," he asks waiting for an answer to the question that got his mother so flustered.
"Jamie not now... Harper how did you...," she looks back down at Jamie, "... in the car, alright?" He nods and curls his lips, getting a good view of the underside of the ruined treat.
"Harper, why did you stick... stop," she says grasping her thrashing daughter's head with both of her hands, "does it really hurt or are you scared?"
"Scawed."
"Okay, we'll get it out." She uses her index finger to put pressure on the outside of the tiny nostril to squeeze it down from the outside.
"Ahh," the mop of spiraled curls pulls away as she whimpers.
"Okay, breathe in through your mouth like this," she demonstrates and then presses her index finger to the opposite nostril and tells her to blow out from her nose. She does once but then quickly inhales through her nose bringing the jelly bean further up. Her daughter screams attracting the attention of other shoppers and then starts crying again.
She calls Alex, but after several rings the phone goes to voicemail. She calls Polly and explains the situation, while Jamie tries his best to calm his sister down and make her smile.
"I have to what?," she asks into the phone as the combination of salty tears and snot accumulate with the dyes from the red jelly bean and make an artificially gooey paste on her daughters upper lip. OhmyGodthisistheworstdayever.
Her eyes are slightly glassy with fear, sadness and a tiny bit of is-this-really-happening conspiracy, as she puts Polly on speaker and sets the phone down in the cart next to Harper's leg. "It's either that or you need to take her to the emergency room, because let me tell you, trying to bring a tweezer towards her face, bad idea."
Jamie continues to "raise the roof," keeping Harper focused on him instead of her nose, he looks at Piper nervously as she turns Harper's head from side to side, "you're on speaker Pol."
"Hi muffin, are you okay?"
"Uh huh."
Piper holds her head still between her hands and bends down a little. She pinches the opposite nostril down with her thumb, "open your mouth Harper."
"What?," Polly asks.
"Polly shut up, not you. You," she says slightly tilting her daughters face down.
"Huh?"
"Open your mouth," she repeats, and before Harper even knows what happens Piper mouth covers hers and blows causing the jelly bean to shoot out and land beside their feet.
"Ew!," Jamie yelps stepping back.
"It's out!," she yells into her phone excitedly. "thank you!"
"No problem, fifty bucks is the going rate. Love you."
"Love you too."
They finish up their shopping, Harper's head bobs dozing from her ordeal as Piper pushes the cart toward the back of their car. She gets Harper strapped into her booster, Jamie climbs in next to her, somehow, his appetite is not turned off by the boogery massacred jelly bean, and continues to eat handfuls from the bag. Piper loads the groceries into the back of the car, climbs in and shuts the door. Before her key turns in the ignition he starts,
"so, do you have sex?"
She feels the temperature rise in her face, her butt cheeks automatically clench, "yes," she says and exhales. Did my intestine just fall out of my butt? She starts the car.
"With who?," he continues around a mouthful of assorted beans.
Yep there's the intestine. She imagines sticking it back in her butt; that would actually be more desirable than this right now, "your mom." OHGOD! "What did Joey tell you, sex is?," she asks desperately hoping that he thinks its what he saw the teenagers doing in the aisle. She eyes the collapsed shopping cart lying across the passenger seat and wonders if she'd have the strength to squeeze her head in the middle of it.
"When people rub their privates together and they make babies."
I'm gonna fucking kill that kid, what is his number?! "Okay," she grits through her teeth. Her hands grip the steering wheel tightly, she puts the car into reverse and backs out of the parking lot and starts to head home.
She eyes each traffic light, gliding past the consecutive streets; she hears dinging as if she's collecting points, if she gets enough maybe she'll win a ticket out of this car. After they're more than half way home she slowly sits up straighter, allowing her eye to just creep into the rearview mirror to see if he's awake. When she sees him looking out the window, she sinks back lower, maybe that's all he need to hear?
As they're rounding the corner of their apartment building she hears his voice, "but you need a man and a woman to make a baby." He says this factually without question, she notes. She hears her breath pick up the pace again, as if its coming from someone else, why is this happening to me? Really?!
"How am I here?"
She bit the bullet, and turns around to face him, "you actually just need one sperm and one egg. I had an egg, I had lots of eggs...," she said this now looking a little sad. He picks the jelly bean remnants out of his teeth and hears him sucking on his fingers; he nods, willing her to continue.
He's so calm about this, why are you freaking out? You knew he'd ask you one day. BUT I didn't think it would be now. She took a breath, "we wanted a bigger family, your mom and me, and we needed help. I had my egg, so we found a donor, someone with a very big heart, who gave us a gift so we could make you."
"Oh...okay," he says opening the door and gets out onto the sidewalk and shuts the door sending a jolt through his mothers body and waking up his sister. So I'm still alive. I survived?!
She gets out and loads up the groceries in the cart before removing a drowsy Harper from her seat and stands her on the sidewalk next to the cart.
As they enter the lobby of their apartment building he continues, NOOO, she screams internally. "But when you have sex you can't make more babies because you're two girls?
She takes inventory of anyone else within earshot before responding out of hesitancy that he might continue with this theme of more questions, "right."
"So..with Harper?"
"The same donor gave us another gift."
"I get it." Bless your heart. He leans back against the wall of elevator satisfied.
"Do you know him?," he starts again, she's suddenly aware of how small their elevator is, she walks the perimeter of the rectangle as the elevator lifts them higher and higher, Harper follows the pattern of her feet, there's nowhere to run.
"No...but I know something's about the donor." Ugh why didn't you just leave it at no?! They walk down the hall and into their apartment,"ALEX!?" There's no response.
"Like what?"
ALEX WHERE ARE YOU?! "Well, they like art and science...and it was important to them that they helped ladies who wanted to be mama's, ladies who needed help to have a bigger family."
He leaves seeming like he received the answers to his questions, but she knows not to get too comfortable with the thought that this conversation is over. She runs over to the kitchen sink, cups her hands together to fill them with water and splashes the water over her face, she hears the excess water hits the floor behind her.
Alex steps in concerned, "are you okay?" Her head shakes, no.
"He had this almost empty bag of jelly beans, Harper literally just shoved like twelve into her mouth at the same time. Pipes?...," her thoughts are interrupted by the sounds of their kids bouncing off the walls, while Piper's eyes remain transfixed on the water on their kitchen floor. "I gave them ice cream earlier," she confesses, "and fast food," she cringes, "sorry, I should've mentioned it. Did you ask them if they already had sweets today?" Her wife's eyes are dazed, "and what happened to Harper's nose?" The blonde remains virtually unresponsive other than the trance like shaking of her head, "Pipes?," the brunette's cool hand wraps around her forearm; the blonde's eyes look up finally break contact with the floor.
"Sugar, so much sugar, and the jelly bean in her nose and he...he asked me about... oh, everything, he wouldn't stop."
"Babe," the brunette squeezed her arm again, "what are you on about?"
"He asked me about sex," her jaw drops down, as Alex pulls her into her body, squeezing her eyes and lips shut tight trying to hold in her maniacal laugher with every fiber of her being.
"I wasn't ready."