Page 38 of To Save Him

“What do you have against the Whopper?”

JR took a few things out of his backpack and started working on his homework while Annabel got a glass of lemonade and played on her phone.  Both sat at the table, customary of a great many afternoons after school, quietly doing their own thing.  I leaned up against the counter, praying Mel wasn’t going to be an asshole and ditch the kids, planning to call me later in the evening with a lame excuse.

Brandon trekked through the kitchen, giving me a brief but quiet smile.  I prayed to the deities to help me, because he was driving me out of my mind.  He wore a pair of ripped jeans and his black boots along with a black tank top that showed off half of the tattoo on his chest.  His hair was getting a little longer too, making me want to grab it into my fists.

I smiled back at Brandon as he passed me, hoping my way-past-naughty thoughts weren’t obvious.

I decided to be productive and boiled some water for iced tea.  I wanted something cool to drink after working outside, but I didn’t want to head out there until Mel had the kids and they’d gone.  Then again, I’d have to call him shortly if he didn’t get here to find out what the hell was going on.

I continued to lean against the counter, silently looking at my children.  I was proud of the people they were becoming and I didn’t tell them nearly enough.  I was getting ready to wax poetic, even at the risk of interrupting JR’s homework, when I heard the front doorbell ring.  Finally.  I was starting to worry that Mel was going to make his kids feel as rejected as he’d made me feel all those years ago.

“I love you guys,” I said, walking out of the kitchen.  I took a deep breath, hoping to act as neutral as possible.  I glanced down, remembering I was still wearing my exercise outfit from this morning, but I didn’t care.  Mel was the last person I cared about impressing.  He’d seen me at my best and worst.  He’d even seen me splayed out on a hospital bed, my legs spread wide along with my birth canal as I pushed our babies out of my body.  I always would have thought those kinds of experiences would bond us together forever…but I’d been wrong.

Of course, witnessing firsthand the kind of sneaky snake Mel had become since deciding to cheat on me made me glad we had severed those ties.

I opened the front door, still prepared for Mel to give me a lame excuse for why he couldn’t take the kids to dinner as he’d promised the night before, but he instead asked, “Are the kids ready to go?”

I nodded.  “Pretty much.  Do you want to come in for a second?”

He seemed unsure at first but then nodded.  “Yeah, sure.”  It was at that point that I was glad Brandon had made the choice to go outside.  Even though I figured they could both behave themselves, I knew I would have felt a little weird.

As Mel followed me through the living room and into the kitchen, he said, “You’ve changed things quite a bit.”

Um, yeah…  I wanted to tell him it was because I’d finally decided to erase all reminders of him back when I’d been struggling with depression—but he didn’t deserve that kind of satisfaction…or guilt, if he even dealt with that.  JR was zipping up his backpack as we walked in and Annabel was placing her glass upside down on the top rack of the dishwasher.

Damn, I had good kids.

Mel clapped his hands together and then rubbed the palms. He was nervous.  Wow.  I hadn’t expected that.  Maybe he knew just how much his kids hated him nowadays.  But maybe they could start building a real relationship now.  That was my hope.  “You guys ready?”

JR stood, the smart aleck look on his face hard to miss.  “Yeah.  I’m gonna do homework on the way, and the only way I’ll be able to finish it is if we eat in Colorado Springs.”  Mel laughed.  “No, really.  I wanna go to Red Lobster.  We never get to go there.”

Mel looked at me and I just smiled, shaking my head.  He looked back to JR.  “Are you—?”

“Yep,” Annabel interrupted.  “He’s dead serious.  JRneverjokes when it comes to food.”

Mel sucked in a breath and JR said, “Got that right.”

The smile on my face was genuine when I said, “Have fun.”

I couldn’t wait to hear the stories my kids were going to tell me later.

 

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