35

Over the course of the year, Alex embraced 50. She only seldomly regarded her tattoos with regret when she wore a sleeveless blouse or when her kids' friends came over to play. She toned her arms with free weights and left a streak of grey through her otherwise dark hair, after Piper's insistence that it would look adorable and Jamie's confirmation that she'd still be a badass if not still "super weird." Piper adjusted her schedule in order to be home earlier on the days their kids didn't have afternoon activities. She was often found dabbling with oils and items of inspiration from around the house to create new scents for the store. Harper took dance twice a week, completing the school year with a three hour dance recital that the whole family endured to watch her six minutes worth of ballet and jazz routines. Jamie completed elementary school and was getting ready to start Junior High. His summer was filled with baseball and soccer camp, figuring out the right amount of hair gel in order to perfectly spike his hair and throwing around in Harper's face that he was the proud owner of a new cell phone, a privilege that his moms emphasized came with earned responsibility. As the end of summer neared Piper repeatedly nagged Jamie to get off his phone and choose electives for the 6th grade but she was often met with a glare or silence; it was a futile discussion as she realized she was on the brink of raising a teenager accompanied with the inevitable trait of selective hearing. Her palms feel clammy as the bag lunch she prepared for him is rejected as he's been informed by older siblings of friends that everybody who's anybody buys their lunch at school. Alex tells her she'll give him money as they split ways and she accompanies him on the subway ride to school. As they're walking up the stairs of the station, his nose is down in his phone as he begins his series of texts to friends. Without looking up, he gently asks if he can walk the rest of the way on his own; she stands on the steps as the commuters of the city brush past her, she watches her son tuck the ten dollars into the pocket of his jeans and run up the stairs leaving her behind.

Piper eagerly awaits his arrival home, hoping his first day at a new school went well, especially after his proclaimed need for independence that she had to read via devastated text from Alex. The clicking from the front door's locks cause her to perk up and meet him at the door. He closes the door with more force than necessary and glares at her.

"You signed me up for French?," he says sloppily kicking off his shoes by the front door.

Her mouth opens but she doesn't know what to say. The blasphemy, how could I do something so heinous? "I'm sorry? Should I not have?"

"Nobody speaks French!"

"Actually entire countries speak French sweet pea. Did everything else go alright?"

He argues with her, his side is laced with attitude and commentary that is completely unacceptable.

"Gimme your phone and computer...now." He'd tried her patience and she'd had enough.

Alex comes home with Harper, Piper is vigorously scrubbing the kitchen counter as she does when she's peeved.

"Bad day?"

She moves around the kitchen opening the fridge to wipe down items that were cleaned the week before when they were originally purchased and catches Alex up to speed on the latest drama. She snatches the dishtowel that's looped through the refrigerator door handle, unfolds it, then refolds it and replaces it through the handle.

"Not to fall into the complete stereotype of conventional 50's marital bliss, but is there any dinner? I'm kind of emaciated."

"You know Al, I'm so freaking pissed right now!," she says as she lifts Jamie's laptop with his phone piled on top and wipes off the counter. She places his electronics back on the counter, she braces herself along the edge and sighs, "I ordered Chinese."

Alex pecks her on the cheek and gently massages her shoulders, "did you get his iPad?," she asks with a slight waver in her tone.

"Ugh! That little shit," she says and tosses the sponge toward the sink.

Alex cant help but chuckle, she assures her she'll get it as she walks toward his room.

She knocks twice while simultaneously welcoming herself into his room.

"Um hello? What's the point of knocking if you don't wait til I say 'come in'?"

"Um hello. Nice to see you too," she says as she pulls his desk chair away from his desk and sits down.

"You're supposed to knock, it's my room," he says defensively.

"Actually it's my room, you're just a temporary inhabitant."

He looks up at her unamused.

"It could be more temporary than originally intended if you look at me like that again," she raises her glasses on top of her head. "Are you serious with that look? I invented that." She folds one leg over the other and massages one of her aching feet that have been mashed into heels all day.

Before she has a chance to ask about his side of events, he takes off with his mother's temper, "She's so unfair... She's so...uptight! Everything I do is wrong."

"Not true."

"She drives me crazy!"

She exudes a small laugh, "me too."

He nods quick, he's always been able to vent to her when he felt Piper made an unfair call, "I don't understand how you deal with her shit."

"Hey, watch your mouth," she snaps in seriousness.

He sinks to the floor in quick defeat, after a while he opens up, "why would she sign me up for French?"

"I believe she asked you to pick electives three times this summer and to keep the school from dropping you and bringing in some other grateful child, she signed you up for stuff she thought you'd like."

He looks at her momentarily, slightly ashamed with himself. He looks away, but nods his head in agreement that she's right, he should've signed himself up. He crawls over to his backpack and exhales,

"seriously though, who speaks French?"

"Uh, I do."

His face contorts before he remembers, "yeah but you speak Spanish too. You both do!"

"Um, neither of us speak Spanish...I can order us dinner, and figure out how to get what I need. Your mom understands much more than she can say, there's a difference."

"Whatever. Anyway, I would use Spanish more."

"I agree, you should take Spanish."

He unzips his bag and pulls out his French workbook and tosses it aside in frustration.

"Why do you really wanna take Spanish?"

"Because I'd actually use it?," he says this with obviousness as if this was entirely ridiculous question.

"You wanna save the attitude?," she takes a pen off his desk and chucks it at him. "I get that you're all testosteroney, but check yourself...before you wreck yourself." She grins cheezily at her own line, she's met again with an unamused glare. "Tell me why really and I'll get your phone back."

He stands up and replaces the pen in the cylindrical jar on his desk before flopping down on his bed. He contemplates telling her...there's no use in lying, he reasons. She can smell bullshit like a shark smells blood his aunt Nicky always reminds him and his sister when they try to hide the evidence of their variant forms of mischief. Either he tells her or he stays mute. But if he tells her, he can have his phone back and maybe just maybe he can find her number or text people to find out other stuff she likes. Dammit.

"Lauren Dolger?," he mutters as he looks up at her with his uncertain, embarrassed blue eyes that match his mom's.

"Ha."

"Ah c'mon," he leans back into his bed and covers his head with his blanket.

Alex squints for a moment while she jogs her memory, "the blonde?," she smirks, "that always has two braids? Dad's a lawyer?"

"She only has one braid now," he mutters. Damn it to hell, he should've stayed silent. She stands up and goes through the books above his desk,

"what're you doing?"

She turns around and looks at him as though she has every right to rummage through his things. "Simmer," she says with a flick of her hand as she pulls his elementary school yearbook from the shelf and returns to a seated position.

"Oh my God, ma!"

She takes her time flipping through pages, pausing every now and then when she finds one of him and turns the book to point him out. She finally finds the girl and smiles,

"nice choice," she nods out.

"Ma!"

Sorry," she hands him the book, "you don't have to tell me anything else," she pauses and looks cocky. "I just might know a thing or two about luring cute blondes."

"Gross."

She laughs smugly and stands up, "I need your iPad."

"What?"

"Hey dude you're the one who spoke back to your mother, that doesn't fly here sorry. Take some time to reflect."

He looks astonished, first he got grief over his new love interest and now more of his personal belongings are being confiscated.

"You'll get everything back at the end of the night, okay? Promise."

He nods his head, while he reluctantly hands over the tablet, "can you at least turn off my phone until I get it back?"

"Why? So we don't see all the suggestions regarding your Rapunzel recruitment from your baby friends?"

"And Finn."

"Finn already knows? Fucking technology," she curses. "Go wash up, were having Chinese, it'll be here soon. Please make sure you apologize to your mother."

Piper sets the bag of Chinese food down on the table while Alex passes out plates from the stack in her arms. Jamie's unusually silent, Piper notes. He doesn't dive into the bag like he normally does and she attributes this to him being pissed at her inability to read his mind. Alex pulls the two cans of free soda from the bag on the table, she offers him the blue can,

"Pepsi?", she asks, and then pulls it back and offers the orange can,

or you'd probably prefer "Crush."

He glares at her, while she pulls her lips in and looks away and tries not to blatantly blurt out his secrets at the table. Harper talks a mile a minute, going on about how much better first grade is compared to kindergarten. Like her brother she was reading above age level and was proud to have been grouped with the other advanced readers during silent reading time. Jamie's phone continues to buzz behind her head, she takes it and looks at the list of texts that clog up his home screen. He all but leaps across the table in attempt to snatch his phone back, the table rocks causing the drinks to slosh. Piper puts her arm across his chest, as if this would do anything to hold him back while Alex takes his phone from Harper.

"Can we just have a nice freaking family dinner?," Piper says annoyed as her kids settle back down and look at her apologetically.

She points her fork at them, "I slaved over this meal," she says with sarcasm.

Later that evening Piper goes through the closet trying to pick out what to wear for the next day, while Alex removes her earrings and sets them down on their bureau.

"So he likes a girl," she tells Piper.

"What? Who?"

"Lauren? The little blonde, she was in his class for a couple of grades."

"Aw, the one with the braids?"

Alex nods with a smile, "mmm hmmm."

"Oh she's so cute!"

"Well apparently she only had one braid today which makes her more mature and appealing and she takes Spanish, hence why being assigned to a French class was the end of the world."

"Crap, well I didn't know."

"We just have to sign some paper saying it's okay that he gets swapped into another class and it's resolved. This has been made into a far bigger deal than necessary. I was thinking I'd barter my John Hancock for his approval to chaperone the 6th grade dance."

Piper starts cracking up as Alex gathers all of his tech stuff and heads to his room to mess with him further. Piper listens for the wail, 5,4,3,2,1.

"Maaaaaaaaa!"

Piper settles lower into their bed, she is beside herself in hysterics. -

After guaranteeing them he'd be home by ten, Jamie set out to meet a group of friends from school to see a movie.

Ten o'clock arrived and as the minute hand on their kitchen clock ticked passed the 6, Piper tried calling him again but was met with several rings followed by his little voice on his voicemail message; the brunette once again presses her hands flat against her temples.

"Al he's fine, he's probably somewhere loud and doesn't hear it ringing."

Alex glares at the blonde. She knows she's nervous too, but she's doing her best to keep her calm. "It's after 10:30! He knows better, he knows he'd be better off calling to say he's going to be late to be granted some sort of leniency, but to just have no regard for the time," she exhales and runs a hand through her hair, "it's not like him," she says with another pace through their kitchen. "Pipes what if something happened to him? I should call the movie house and see if they remember seeing him." She couldn't help but think of all sorts of horrendous scenarios.

Piper's mouth twitched involuntarily, she was completely right. But what were the chances of something bad happening to a group of 12 kids?

"Alex relax."

"Don't tell me to relax," she yells and raises a hand apologetically, "that just makes me more tense."

Piper gets up and sets the kettle on; she removes a box of tea from the cabinet and questioningly gestures to the ranting brunette, inquiring if she wants some.

She pauses to tell her "no."

Harper trudges in and looks up sleepily at Piper while Alex comes to a halt once she notices she woke up their daughter.

"Why are you yelling?," she asks Alex. Piper sits at the table and pulls her up onto her lap; she strokes her hair back before reclining slightly and rests her chin on Harper's head.

"Sorry baby."

"She's just nervous because Jamie is still out with his friends." Her eyes light up, she smiles widely, "is he in big trouble?"

"Yes!," Alex snaps too quickly, causing a rapid erasure of the six year old blonde's grin. She turns around slightly to look back up at Piper having only heard this tone from her mother sporadically.

The kettle whistles, Piper stands up and sits Harper back onto the chair and swaps the earl grey for two bags of chamomile. She contemplates plunking in an Ativan minutes before setting the mugs on the dining room table, and forces the brunette into a chair to sit.

Alex looks at Harper, "consider this your advance warning, if you go out and cannot be bothered to call to tell us you're going to be late, you will regret it. Do you understand me?," she says to Harper and doesn't wait for her daughter's response, as she sips the tea that she could've sworn she didn't need.

Once they've finished their tea, Piper brings Harper back to her room and then rejoins Alex who's now reverted to doing laps around their living room. The locks unclick and the door slowly opens, "crap," they hear him whisper when he notices the lights are on.

Alex all but runs over to him, her hands wander his body to ensure he was unharmed before backhanding him across the back of his head. Piper gasps, "Alex!"

His body stills as his eyes go wide. She'd never laid a hand on him before. "Hope it was worth it."

The back of his head where her ring hit the bone throbs, he brings a hand up and rubs the space underneath his hair.

"I...I'm sorry," he starts but is abruptly cut off. He feels the wind wisp by as Alex hauls toward her bedroom, "go to bed," she shouts from down the hall.

He looks up at Piper, "go," she encourages him and turns the living room light off leaving him in the dark.

His hand traces along the wall for guidance as he walks down to his room, he flicks his light on and gets ready for bed.

A knock on his door causes his heart to drop into his stomach. He begrudgingly walks over to his door, where Harper is found on the other side; she walks in, "you're in so much trouble."

He exhales annoyed but is also relieved it's just her, "shut up Harper," he says not needing a reminder.

She could tell he was upset but she couldn't resist, "mama's really mad."

"I know," he looks at her, "she hit me," he says with a smidgen of disbelief.

"She hit you?," she says completely shocked, "where?"

He rubs a hand from his neck over the back of his head and eventually over his face, he tilts his head back ashamed.

"Sorry," she offers, not knowing what she's supposed to say after watching her brother's face be consumed with remorse.

"I'm gonna be grounded forever."

"Where were you?," she asks with the same fascination she asks with every aspect of his life.

"The movies," he says as he sinks down on his bed next to her.

"Your movie ended at 9," she says repeating what she'd heard 19 times over the last hour.

"Ugh, shut up," he tells her again and rubs his hand messily through his hair. She turns her head to look at him properly and he ends up feeling even worse knowing he was more upset with himself than he was with her.

She feels bad seeing him this way, "did you get to see Lauren?," she asks him, knowing full well more than she should having spent her free time eavesdropping on as many of his conversations as possible.

He looks at her curiously, "yeah," he says and rests his head in his palm, "we were racing cars in the arcade at the movies. I lost track of time."

"Oh," she offers.

"And it looks like I'll be savoring that memory for quite some time," he says miserably.

Piper knocks on his open door and looks at him, "you scared your mother half to death, do you know that?"

He looks up at her, again grateful that it wasn't Alex, but then wrinkles his forehead, "and not you?"

"Nah, I figured you were fine," she says trying to downplay her own fear. "Besides, we still have Harper."

He looks at her, momentarily thankful for her humor while Harper grins up owning her place as the assumed newly favorite child.

"And you," she says pulling Harper off his bed, "need to-go-to-bed." Harper scampers off, while Piper sits on his bed.

"I know you already feel bad, but be prepared," she warns him, having just tried to talk Alex down out of her anger. "You have no idea, the thoughts that ran through her head, both of our heads, but especially hers."

"I was fine," he starts.

"But we didn't know that. You should've called. "

He nods already knowing this, but once he'd realized how late he was, he decided to delay the inevitable.

"Her mind is going to go to places that we never want you to even be aware of. Don't do this ever again."

"Why do you automatically assume the worst?"

"She's seen things," she corrects herself, "we both have, that we can't avoid automatically thinking that someone bad got a hold of you. You don't know what that feels like."

"And are you guys ever going to tell me about those things? You never tell me anything."

"Today is not the day," she says patting his knee and stands up, "don't do it again."

The month goes by and Jamie is all too familiar with every paint chip on the wall, crack in the ceiling, and could swear he could give an almost exact number of the planks of wood that line the floors of their apartment. He approaches Alex with hopeful resistance, as she prepares dinner in their kitchen.

"Ma?"

"Hmmm?," she says without looking up from her cookbook.

"Since I have to come straight home and I'm not allowed to go over anyone's house, can Lauren come over tomorrow?"

She opens her mouth to almost immediately protest about the nerve he has within himself, when he continues,

"just to work on a project for Spanish."

She looks at him skeptically, "you got paired together?"

"We were able to choose partners."

"Like you chose to not call when you were going to be late?"

He turns on his heel and begins to walk away, he fights the burn in his eyes brought on by guilt that still seemed so recently present.

"C'mere," he hears her call him back.

She honestly hadn't decided when his grounding would be over, but he hadn't been home late all month and she knew in general, the added grief that she'd given him, really hadn't been necessary.

"Yes, she can come over after school."

His face lights up, have the clouds finally parted?

"Your door is to remain open, and you call me when you guys get here," she says as tomorrow is a day that both she and Piper both get home later than him.

"Well she has violin lessons right after school so she won't come until after that."

"Even better," she concludes, "is she having dinner with us?," she asks with a look that makes him feel like she's up to something.

"Yes?"

"Okay," she tries to calmly say to him, hiding her excitement.

He thanks her and calls the girl he's been deprived of having any social time with over the last four weeks. His phone call is nearing an end when he hears the Boriqua Anthem playing from his parents bedroom.

He walks through their open door, and stares at both of his mothers who try to look at him more seriously but fail miserably through their hysterical laughter. He doesn't even want to ask and walks back out.

"Al," Piper tries to reason with Alex who is practically giddy.

"I'm doing this," she says as she continues to create a playlist of music created by various Hispanic artists.

The following evening he sits at their dining room table doing homework making small talk with Piper as Alex comes home with several bags and...

"what is that?!," he says standing upright.

"A piñata," she says with a wide open mouth mocking his expression.

"Oh my God, you're not."

"Oh but I am," she confirms and practically skips to their iPod dock and begins her playlist.

Enrique Iglesias' "Rhythm Divine," pumps through the speaker, this has to be a coincidence, he thinks as he hurries over to the iPod dock. He hits the next song, Shakira's "Rabiosa," Pimpinela's "Dimelo Delante de Ella," Juanes' "La Camisa Negra."

"You've got to be kidding me!," he says still squatted by the blaring music.

"I wish I was," Alex replies sarcastically.

He continues flipping through the music, Daddy Yankee's "Rompe", "Bailamos," "Loca." "How many of these are there?!," he demands to know with panic in his voice.

"Enough to get through the evening," she responds, "can you help set the table?," she asks him motioning to one of the bags that she set next to his unfinished homework.

He peers into the bag, "you got tacos?," he asks through gritted teeth.

"I did," she says proudly, "you know to keep with the theme."

She starts unpacking various cultural tchotchke's to fill the piñata.

"You cannot do this to me!," he protests as he watches her pull a Spanish/English dictionary from the bag and place it into the piñata.

"Excuse me, did we get you transferred into the Spanish class you just had to be in?," she asks while withdrawing a Barcelona soccer jersey from the bag and adding that to the piñata as well.

"Yes but..."

"Did we even take away your phone or your laptop or your iPad this time? Ugh you're so spoiled."

"No, but...," he says with hyperventilation as a Chilindrina DVD, and Latin American candies are added to the piñata.

"Then zip it," she says drawing her fingers over her lips and raises her arms in a Flamenco stance.

His hands grasp his face as she lights two tall candles with saints plastered on the side, and sets them on the table.

"Those are Catholic saint candles!," he says two seconds from losing his mind, "they're not even Spanish!"

"Are you trying to educate me?," she asks. "They're popular in Latin culture. I got them from El Mercado Latino," she says flicking her hand in justification.

"Why are you trying to kill me?," he begs now leaning into her.

"To make sure you never forget to call home again."