5



"Hey. How are you?" I said to the ladies of the North Crescent Church of God as I pushed past them to reach Drew.

"Well," said one of them who had what appeared to be some sort of green bean concoction all up in her bun, "not great, obviously, but better than the drunk hippy in the helicopter. We were on our way to deliver meals to our shut-ins when she rammed us."

"That drunk hippy is my best friend," I countered.

"Well, drinking is evil," said Green Bean Bun.

"Yes, the stuff of the devil," said another one.

Drew stood up, clutching the kitten to his this chest. He had dirty tear trails down both cheeks.

"Well, flattening a poor kitten isn't so nice either, Lady," he said accusingly, glowering at the ladies. "Plus, you have a bunch of crap in your hair."

There was a unified Church of God breath intake.

"THAT is not a nice word, young man," scolded Beanie.

Oh, no no no, lady. Oh no you di'ent.

Just before I went all snap on them, I caught myself. I turned to Beanie and her posse.

"I think you nosey nellies need to back yourselves up out of my yard and leave my kitty-saving son alone."

"Well," said Beanie, and 14 of the 15 crossed to the opposite side of the street. The one who stayed looked about twenty.

"Ma'am, can I help you with your younger son?"

Joe?

I had put him down to help Drew.

Where was he?

Behind me Joe stood "watering" the Japanese Maple in full view of each and every person involved in this fiasco. He had quite an impressive stream. I was pretty sure Drew and I were the only ones present who would think such a thought. I watched as Joe waved to his brothers standing inside the window. I looked back to the kind girl who had offered her help.

"I've got him, but thank you," I told her. She went over to the rest.

"Joe! Come here!"

He laughed and shook his naked booty at me but for once, listened. I was still wearing the Moby Wrap, so I picked him up and tucked him inside the wrap so the cops didn't call the Department of Child and Family Services. He was heavy and it hurt my back.

"Drew," I breathed a loud sigh. "What happened?"

"Okay, I came out of the garage and I saw this kitten on the other side of the street. I looked both ways, I swear, Mom," he promised, "before I started to cross. I didn't see anybody. The kitten started to cross, too, and I looked up the hill and here came that big van going fast down the hill-"

"We were NOT going over the speed limit, young man," cried Beanie from across the road.

Drew faced her.

"Ma'am, you went air born over the speed humps right at me," he replied and turned back to face me. "I heard a horn from the other direction. It was Astrid. I grabbed the kitten but I was too scared to move. Astrid plowed right into the side of their van like they said but I think she was trying to keep them from hitting me and the kitten. When she got out of the van, she had blood all down her face and she couldn't talk so good and fell down. Dickie and Jim called 9-1-1. I stayed with Astrid."

Suddenly a stench meandered up from the Moby Wrap.

"Hey, Mama, I farted on you," Joe snickered.

A gasp from across the street accompanied by head shaking. 

Drew and I laughed. The two older boys joined us after I waved to them to come out. I was having a hard time figuring everything out. So, Astrid was probably not "driving under the influence". It sounded like she had saved my son's life as most best friends would do. She very well could have been driving "without a license" because she was Astrid and was as scattered brained as I was most of the time. But the "blatant religious intolerance?" What did that even mean?

I turned to Dickie, the oldest.

"Okay, tell me how all this happened," I asked him.

"I heard Drew yelling and came to find out what happened. Astrid was bleeding. Those ladies were screaming," he told me.

"But why the helicopter? We're like 3 minutes from 3 hospitals," I said.

Dickie looked at Jim who looked at me, very sheepishly.

"Jim?" I said through gritted teeth.

"I might have exaggerated some when we called 9-1-1," he answered.

"I heard him call, Mom," Dickie tattled. "He told them that there was blood everywhere. People crushed and laying all over the place and his brother had been run over by a church bus."

"Well, he ALmost was," Jim said and punched Dickie. "You snitch."

Officer Mangina who had been questioning the church ladies crossed the street to talk to us.

"Ma'am," he said. "I have a few questions for you and your brood."

My milk let down in fear. Thank goodness I had a flatulent, bare assed toddler hiding my leaking boobies from Mangina.

4

I stared past Joe's four year old penis to the front window. Taped to the inside of the window hung an extremely crooked sign which read:

WE LOVE YOU MOM

WE'RE SORRY

.  .

*

Just below the sign waved Dickie and Jim. Shirtless as usual. I pointed and yelled for them to stay inside. The only one left unaccounted for was Drew. I grabbed the nudist off the mailbox and power walked towards the stretcher.

Please, ohplease, ohplease don't let it be Drew.

I entered the intersection and saw a scene that earlier had been hidden from the front of the house. Drew was not the patient on the stretcher. Astrid, my insane hippy friend, rolled by right in front of me. Her eyes found mine.

"Help. Forgot purse. No license. Wreck. Cat. Church bus. Hair. Drew. Skirts," she pinged from one word to the next making zero sense. She had a massive cut on her eyebrow.

I put my hand out to stop the gurney.

"Ma'am, please remove your hand. This ingrate is under arrest," Officer Mangina said.

Seriously, the guy had a facial hair formation that resembled a wild au naturel hoo-ha. The type that could cause an emergeny Roter Rooter call if tampered with.

"Why? Why is she under arrest?" I demanded grasping for Astrid's hand.

"Driving without a license. Driving under the influence and blatant religious intolerance," Mangina answered. "Now get out of our way. We have to get her medical attention."

They sped her away into the helicopter. The pilot prepared for take off and turned the blades on full speed. Astrid was gone. I had no clue where they were taking her. I stood in the midst of pure chaos, holding a a naked toddler as one of my best friends was being rushed to the hospital under  police guard.

I had accounted for three quarters of my young male population.

Where was Drew?

After the trees ceased blowing from the helicopter's take off, I caught my breath and continued around the corner. I found Drew, finally, squatting under a crepe myrtle holding a ratty black kitten and surrounded by women in long denim skirts--15 of them to be exact. Behind them I saw Astrid's mini van crunched into the side of a 15 passenger North Crescent Church of God bus.

"Drew!" I managed to get out. "What happened?"

3

I uncoiled the mile of fabric cocooning Brighid. Lyd took her from me  immediately, as was usually the case with my friends. I sat my phone down on top of the Moby mound. Lyd opened the sliding glass door leading to her balcony. Out I went, sucking down half of my wine as I passed through the doorway.

Lyd gave me a look, snorted delightfully and returned back inside. When she reemerged, with her came a newly opened bottle of red which she placed purposefully close to me. Where her kids were I had no clue and didn't really want to know. Silence flowed throughout her house and out onto the balcony.

Far below us, down the crazy steep and twisty, driveway cars sped past. Lyd dropped into a chair balancing Brighid on her lap. Brighid smiled a smile so big, so precious, so perfect that I couldn't keep looking at her. It hurt. At one time, each of my babies had melted my heart with fat, chunky toothless smiles.

"What kind of mother walks away from her kids, Lyd? What kind? I just can't take it anymore. All they do is fight and argue and do EXACTLY the opposite of what I need them to do."

By this time tears had started falling. Brighid smiled. I cried. Lyd poured wine and listened, as all great friends will do.

"They hate me," I swore to her.

"They don't hate you," she promised. "Not all the time anyway. Not from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. when the little effers are nestled all snug in their beds."

I had to laugh.

"I love them. I do. But they're killing me. I can't figure out how to deal with it."

"You'll figure it out. And when you do, please share with the rest of us, okay?"

I downed the rest of my vino and re wrapped Brighid.

"You sure I can't take you home?" she asked.

"Nah," I told her over the noise of a helicopter flying low over her house.

I picked up my phone to shove it back down into my bra. I had 12 missed calls! WTF?! They were all from home. I tried to call but there was no answer. I meant to call them. I'm a terrible, horrible mother. I suck. I worse than suck, I uber suck.

"Crap! Crap! Crap! Yes, drive me home," I ordered unwrapping the baby as I went. 

I jerked open the rear door of Lyd's station wagon and placed Brigid, 4 months, into the most gigantic car seat on the planet.

"Seriously, that thing's like a big BarcaLounger. Who sits in this thing?"

"Me. There's a mini-fridge on the side where I keep my beer."

I finished snapping the tiny baby into the illegal, front-facing car seat. We took a left out of her driveway and a quick right onto my street. We came to a screeching halt due to police presence and yellow caution tape. My house was at the bottom of the road.

"Drop me off and take the baby back to your house before the fuzz sees the damn, huge-ass front facing car seat," I said.

An officer tried to stop me as I ducked, shaking, under the caution tape.

"Where do you think you're going, ma'am?"

When did I become a ma'am?

"My home. My children are down there," I said and continued.

"Ma'am, there's a situation down there-"

"I have to go, officer," I responded quietly and ran like the mad woman I had become all the way to our mailbox, where I stopped. The helicopter we had heard at Lyd's was parked, blades churning, in the middle of the intersection. It was a LifeForce helicopter. The hospital helicopter.

Oh, mother.

I had stopped directly in front of the mailbox to stare into the intersection.

"Hey, Mama," said a voice slightly above my head.

Joe, the 4 year old, stood buck naked atop the big, brick mailbox. I take that back. He had on a pilot's hat. It fit him perfectly.

Two paramedics rolled a stretcher into view.

2

According to the fireball in the sky, the clock would read at least past noon. Five o'clock somewhere. I emptied the dregs of the Malbec Bota box last night at dinner. The liquor store was too far away to walk. I didn't think I could face the boys just to retrieve the van keys. Plus, it's always so classy to take your five kids into the liquor store around lunch on a Thursday.

The sun beat down on top of the baby's fuzzy head. Baby Brighid. The only one of them who made me feel important. And she would turn on me like the rest of them, by two or three years old after sucking me dry of any real importance. She sunggled up against my chest, her left thumb half-in, half-out of her perfect baby mouth.

I pulled my iPhone from my bra, wiped it clean of boob sweat and texted Lyd who replied the same way every time I texted "Is it 2 early?"

She faithfully answered, "Never 2 early."

"I'm out of vino. R U?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"On my way."

Through the front windows I saw nothing but the couch, the ratty old rocking chair, three cats, and a reflection of an aging girl with tired eyes and a perfect baby in a wrap. No sign of my sons, ages 11, 8, 6, and 4. How could my house so full of boy spirit appear so devoid of life? Normally the silence would scare me, but today, I couldn't muster up enough of myself to even care. Deep down I knew that somewhere not far from the windows, there was fighting, hitting, name calling, or (d) all of the above.

I turned and headed up the hill, over the speed humps. Lyd's boxy modern house sat high on the side of a ridge just  outside the neighborhood. A five minute walk at most. I sighed the sigh only mothers know and left for Lyd's.

Had I chosen to wait my frustration out in the swing, the windows eventually would have framed a giant magic makered sign that read:

WE LOVE YOU MOM

WE'RE SORRY

.  .

*



But I didn't. I walked away and missed it.

Lyd sat watching for me on her balcony. She held a glass of wine out to me when she let me inside. 

"You're so much closer than the liquor store," I told her. "And way better looking than that creepy dude behind the counter."

"That's what friends are for," she laughed and snorted. Lyd can be counted on to snort when she laughs too hard. Her husband's a snorter, too. It's almost touching when they snort in sync.

I pulled my phone back out of my bra thinking about calling the kids to tell them where I had gone. But honestly. Did I really believe they had even noticed? Noticed only if they needed something they couldn't reach or ran out of toilet paper and "forgot" there were twelve rolls just beneath the sink five inches from their legs.

            Since partaking in one too many gin-and-tonics on Memorial Day 2010 and birthing my last child, Maeve, my sanity has taken a direct hit. Writing helps me feel worthwhile. At this point in my life, it is one of the few things that connects me to the person I used to be. This novel will be an attempt to rediscover the beauty I first saw in motherhood. My life is beyond hectic. I wanted five kids and I got them. Apparently, though, five is my limit. At 36, I am done with birthing babies, Miss Scarlett, and now, I have to figure out a way to love being a mother…again. Motherhood has it's Everests as well as it's Death Valleys. I want to try an experiment. Help me write my own Happy Ending. At the end of each post, I will leave the main character in a situation. Point her in a direction. Let's see where she ends up.

                        --July 5, 2011

1

I fixed grilled cheese and sliced apples for their lunch, placed the plastic plates and mason jar juice glasses on the table, and walked out the front door, Baby Brighid suctioned to my chest in her Moby wrap. I didn’t tell the boys. I just left, wondering vaguely how long it would take them to realize I was gone. They are not bad children and I am not an always bad mother, but something inside of me, the me-me, in the last year has, I don’t know how to describe it...changed, died, been annihilated, weakened, hidden, crashed?

I can no longer find the right words to describe anything. Part of my brain is no longer functional. A close friend of mine swears she has early on-set Alzheimer's. She's 41 and I always reassure her that it happens to all of us.

Us. Mothers.

Those poor, romantic souls blinded by the beauty of babies and bassinets, or who counted wrong or drank too much, any combination of the three, it doesn't matter, we're all in motherhood together.

I closed my newly painted front door. It had dried a rusty orange after the second coat. It was called Uptown Girl and I chose it over another color, simply out of my deep love of Billy Joel.  Like choosing a book for its cover. We all do it.

I avoided the buckled concrete of the sidewalk leading to the house and crossed the yard to the mailbox. Faking opening the mailbox, I stole a peak into the front windows to see if any of the four looked out. No one. I eyed the swing in the side yard as a possible place to try and recapture my sanity. I looked up the street, speed humps one after another, leading out of the neighborhood.