Page 1 of Falling Again
CHAPTER 1
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“Come on, kiddo. Youdon’t want to do this.”
“Yes, I do!” a shrill voice replied.
Natalie Snyder was used to getting her way. She commanded a room as soon as she walked in. She could negotiate and play politics better than anyone in Buckeye Falls—and most of Ohio—and she certainly did not negotiate with terrorists. But at the moment she was involved in the stare-down of the century—with a five-year-old.
“Give me the bottle, Maddie,” Natalie urged, her hand outstretched toward her daughter.
“No!” Shouted the little girl, her blonde curls shaking in protest. “Mine.” The last word came out as a whine, and Natalie fought an eye roll. Whining was the first step in a five-alarm meltdown.
“Maddie,” Natalie said, her voice light but firm. “Let Mommy have it.”
Madeline looked at her mother, her small head tilted slightly in concentration. She looked like that scrawny dinosaur inJurassic Parkjust before it spewed venom. “Mine,” she repeated, her arms raising the chocolate sauce higher. Never in her five years had she shown such a desire for chocolate milk.
Natalie saw the sauce oozing from the nozzle, and she held her breath. “Please, sweetie. I’ll make your milk if I can have the bottle.”
Madeline’s expression shifted from determined to woeful, but her fingers still clenched the bottle. “I want to do it,” she cried, tears pooling in her big, blue eyes.
Breaking eye contact for a second, Natalie looked for reinforcements. Anthony was upstairs getting ready for work, and Otis was nowhere to be seen. Usually their toddler liked to join the chaos, not avoid it. His silence made Natalie nervous, as a silent toddler was never a good thing. But she didn’t have time for that now.
As if taking her mother’s broken eye contact as a sign of victory, Madeline raised the bottle of chocolate syrup and squeezed with all her might, her chubby hands shaking from the force. A fountain of chocolate sprayed into the air, covering Madeline, the kitchen, and Natalie in chocolate ribbons. Natalie tried to hold back the profanity that escaped her lips, but it was no use. The words left her mouth with the same force as the sticky syrup.
“That’s what I get for designing a white kitchen,” she groaned as she stomped forward and snatched the now empty bottle from her daughter’s hands.
Madeline cried immediately, waving her arms and spreading the chocolate in a three-foot span around her. “My bottle! It’s mine!” she wailed.
“You are in deep trouble young lady,” Natalie said as she scooped up her daughter. With her free hand, she tossed the offending bottle into the sink and marched upstairs. Each step toward the bathroom brought a fresh kick from Madeline, but she ignored the pain. She was a mother on a mission.
Anthony appeared at the top of the stairs, looking handsome in his gray tailored suit. He was better prepared for a day on Capitol Hill than a food fight with a Kindergartener. The charcoal of the fabric brought out the flint in his eyes, but Natalie didn’t have time to enjoy the view.
“What the hell happened?” Anthony asked, sidestepping the duo and raising his hands like they were about to rob him.
Natalie plopped Madeline on the edge of the bathtub and pointed. “Don’t move a muscle.”
Madeline looked back and forth between her parents and said, “Mommy and Daddy both said bad words. You need to put a quarter in the swear jar. Each,” she demanded from her perch. “That’s one, two, three, four—” the girl started counting while Natalie peeled off her ruined blouse and tossed it in the laundry basket. It landed with a sad, soggy thud.
Anthony stood still, taking in the sight of his wife in her bra, but he didn’t offer to help. Natalie looked down at herself, back at Anthony, and frowned. It was the first time she’d been shirtless in front of him in longer than she cared to admit. She caught her reflection in the mirror and hurriedly wrapped a towel around her torso. Was it still considered baby weight if her baby was nearly two years old? But Natalie didn’t have time to dwell on that now.
“Can you please go find Otis? I haven’t heard from him in five minutes, which can only mean something bad is happening.”
Staring at her for a moment, Anthony finally nodded and headed for the stairs. Over his shoulder, he said, “I can have my mom come over if you need to get out for a meeting or anything. I can’t be late for town council.”
Natalie looked at her watch and groaned. “That’d be nice. I need to get cleaned up before I meet Ginny. Thanks.” Turning back to her daughter, she took off her dirty dress and added it to the chocolate-stained heap in the laundry basket.
“Now Maddie, you need to be a good girl today, okay? No more messes, and you need to listen to Mommy, Daddy, and Grammie.”
Madeline smeared the chocolate syrup from her hands all over her cheeks and giggled. “Look, I’m a mud monster.” She raised her hands and growled. If Natalie wasn’t already late to work and covered in sugar, she would have laughed. Now all she could muster was a smirk before turning on the faucet and plopping her mud monster into the warm water.
Reaching out, Madeline asked, “Can I have some toys, please?”
Natalie squirted some shower gel into the water and shook her head. “No Maddie. This isn’t playtime. You need to get ready for school. Don’t you want to see your friends today?” In response, the little girl stuck her foot under the faucet, causing the water to spray all over Natalie’s face. Great, now she’d have to reapply her makeup.
“Maddie, stop!” Natalie hated shouting at her kids, but now wasn’t the time for games—or impromptu facials. “You need to sit still and wash off that chocolate. Do you understand?”
“Hold that tub,” Anthony said from the door. Held out in front of her husband was Otis, caked in mud and looking like something found under a doormat. Dirt was smeared all over his chubby cheeks, and he was laughing like he’d heard the funniest joke in the world. Unlike Natalie, Anthony had managed to hold their son at arm’s length, his tailored suit safe from kicking feet. Even his wingtips were clean; not a speck of dust to be seen. If he wasn’t battling a toddler, he could’ve been on the pages of a glossy fashion magazine.
