Chapter 1
The Beginning
The whiff of lemons overpowered me, but I would take that over throw up any day. Grabbing the last towel from the floor, I threw it into the washing machine, about to shut the door, and stopped. The new shirt I bought didn’t survive a day with my children, and the proof was all down the front of me. “What the...” I bit my lip, keeping the few choice words I wanted to udder from slipping out. I rolled my eyes as my hands went under the hem pulling myself free from the pungent apparel, threw it next to the other casualties, and hit the sanitize cycle.
I leaned on the door jamb, running my hands over my face surveying the damage to my house. Trucks, dolls, bean bags, and blocks littered my front room, along with cereal, crackers, and the good old dependable tipper cups. But the disaster hadn’t stopped there. The white kitchen flooring (that I did not pick but came with the place) had been Picasso’d with permanent markers that my oldest found in the junk drawer. Every pot and pan I owned had been pulled from cupboards adding a Jackson Pollock design alongside the Picasso. My eyes glanced up to the counters covered in cheese, lettuce, and splattered in gobs marinara sauce where dishes piled up on top of it to bring a bit of, train wreck to the mess. “This is going to take me all night to clean up.”
I stood at the kitchen sink, my hands in hot sudsy water that splashed out onto my clean kitchen floor with each dirty dish I submerged in. My eyes watered as I yawned for the fifteenth time when the clock on the wall chimed. “Two already?” Staying up late was becoming a bad habit, and one I didn’t see breaking in the foreseeable future. No sane woman would work, take care of a household, a husband, and three kids on four hours of sleep a night, no one, but I manage, somehow.
Dunking the last tipper cup into the bubbles, I cursed the broken dishwasher under my breath and sighed. “So much for traveling the world, or driving on the autobaud, hanging out with the rich and famous, and speak five languages. But hey, I’m an expert at understanding baby gibberish.” I yawned, letting the water out of the sink. “If my seventeen your old self knew what she was going to be doing at twenty-five… she’d be on the floor throwing a hissy fit.”
The window over the sink had been left open as a makeshift ventilating system to pull the stink out of the house, but the cool breeze that brushed my face woke me from dozing off. I peered out into a darkness that made the stars burst from the heavens. Growing up in suburbia, I never understand how dark a night could get away from city lights. It’s been a short time since we’ve moved across country, but the nighttime, especially on a moonless night, it was unnatural, and gave me the creeps.
I stared out the window, trying to find shapes out in the distance when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. My heart speed up as I surveyed the yard, but in the blackness, I couldn’t make out anything, but I got this overwhelming feeling like someone was watching me.
Never taking my eyes from the outside, my hands trembled closing the window and pulling the curtains shut. My mind raced, scrambling for an explanation of this panic. “Get a grip of yourself, Molly! This isn’t a movie, and you don’t live on Elm Street; it’s New England. You’re tired, and have one hell of an overactive imagination, and way too much city in you to take a tree for the boogie man.” I grumbled, but the chill never left. Call it a sixth sense, or women’s intuition, but this wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to me. I would find myself glancing over my shoulder, or scanning the woods when I was out for a walk, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched; it had been going on for weeks.
I turned around leaning against the counter and shook my clenched hands out to get the circulation working again. I blew a strand of long strand of hair from my face and shook my head at my silliness and finished up my work. The last cup was clean, the floors swept, and the laundry in the dryer, and I was dead on my feet. I dragged myself up the stairs hoping for three hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep.
The lights were off and didn’t bother turning them on to brush my teeth, take off my makeup, or even hit the bathroom. All I wanted was my wonderful bed, and everything else be damned. I curled up under the covers and resting my head on the pillow, whimpers came from my one-year-olds room. I swear babies have some kind of magic mom detector. I only wished they had it for dads too!
Laying in bed, not moving, I hoped Daisy would drift back to sleep. There came a couple whimpers, and some baby talk, then there was silence, making me smile and snuggle back into the blankets. My eyes shut and my body relaxed; earth shattering whales came from down the hall forcing them back open. If I didn’t get myself up, she would wake up the boys, and having three toddlers up would suck balls. But my body didn’t listen to my reasoning, and the wailing continue.
Dean rolled to his side and grabbed my pajama leg and tugged. “Babe, the baby’s crying.”
“You don’t say.” Forcing myself to out from my warm covers, I slouched on the end of the bed sitting there until the next scream had me on my feet. My hand felt for the light switch and then closed my eyes with a groan when the lights came on making me squint. I stepped into the bubble gum pink bedroom and sigh. My little girl eyes were rimmed red, her cheeks flushed, and snot ran down her nose with the added bubble boogers to top it off. Her chubby arms came up reaching out as she gasped for breath. “Miss Daisy May, you’re going to drive your momma to drink baby girl.” But scooped her up into my arms, cleaned off her face, and went to get her a bottle. “Darn it, I forgot to get milk.”
The next morning, my two little guys crawled into my bed, whispering in my ear, shaking my arm, forcing me to open an eye and see it was seven a.m., and I proceeded to ignored them in hopes they would go play in their room and give me another half an hour of sleep. Five minutes later, my darling boys bounced around my head, shouting, or some might call it cheering for me to get up… needless to say, I got up.
It was forty minutes to the nearest grocery store from where I lived. When Dean and me were signing the papers to our house, we didn’t do our research on some of the basic things of what we were used to, like, food, gas, and doctor’s office’s.
