Runaway Mother chapter 7

Delighted Zach has seen sense and isn’t going to blow the remainder of our money looking for a woman who doesn’t want to be found, I suggest a family night in. Ethan, of course, jumps for joy and asks can we watch Toy Story. I look at Zach and can’t help but smile.

‘We should get take out!’ I suggest.

‘But what cuisine?’ Zach answers.

‘Why don’t we all say what we want on the count of three, ok Ethan?’

‘Ok!’

He counts with me, ‘one, two, three,’

‘Indian’

‘Chinese’

‘Pizza’

We all say at once. Theres only two guesses as to who said pizza!

‘You’ll turn into a pizza soon!’ I laugh and tickle Ethans belly.

‘I’ll get the number!’ Zach concedes as well.

This time I’m kinda hungry and so is Zach so we decide to get two large pizza’s and garlic pizza bread. Zach gets the money ready as I follow Ethan into the sitting room and load Toy Story into the DVD player.

‘We’ll start it when the food comes, ok buddy?’

He just smiles up at me and I put on Paw Patrol in the meantime.

When I join Zach back in the kitchen, he looks like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask with a furrowed brow.

‘Theres not as much money left than I thought!’ he announces.

I think hard for a moment before I can say to him that the check book is now garbage. He agrees and we stand there looking at each other for about 90 seconds.

‘The rent is due next week!’ he informs me.

My stomach feels like a ton weight has just been dropped in it.

‘How much is that?’ I ask realising that even though I dealt with all of the in invoices and receipts, I actually don’t know how much rent we pay!

‘$1,200!’ Zach says matter of fact.

‘And we’re up to date in utilities so if we just have to find the money for rent, we should be good this month at least!’ I say. ‘How much is left from the check?’ I ask not really wanting to hear the answer.

‘About enough to pay the rent!’ he answers back.

‘Our cushion is gone already?’ I wince and begin to pull on my fingers. ‘I have the column money coming in on a Friday!’ I say clutching at straws.

‘That will just skim the edges for next month!’ Zach gets out a glass and pours himself some water.

He gulps it down going back for a second, we lock eyes. We both know it’s inevitable…

‘One of us has to get a job!’ Zach says wiping the excess water from his sorry attempt of a beard.

‘With the scouts coming, I don’t want to miss an opportunity of a lifetime and give up basketball.’ Zach says with puppy dog eyes.

I retaliate with, ‘well then who’s going to pick Ethan up from school?’

Zach puts down the glass. ‘I can do drills here! That way we can pick up Ethan, I can still compete for the scholarship and we’d have some steady money coming in!’

With my eyebrows raised I can see that he’s thought this through. I open my mouth to say something when the food arrives. Zach goes out to pay for it and I’m still speechless in the kitchen. ‘When did I turn into the family dogsbody?’ I ask myself but smile instead when Ethan comes hurtling towards me, his hands in the air, shouting ‘pizza, pizza, pizza!’ I decide to put my feelings to one side and try to enjoy our family night in.

Ethan decides we should all sit on the floor and so that’s what we do. He crawls in between my legs, my back to the couch, like he did on Saturday and Zach presses play. All the worries of money and other grown-up things whiz through my brain, but I decide not to listen to them. I put them in a compartment and enjoy my time with my brothers, my two best friends!

 

Zach carries Ethan up to bed with ducky when the movie is over and I open the computer to update my resumé. It’s not impressive by any means, but I print and staple the information I stretched to two pages by increasing the font size and the space between each line.  ‘It’ll have to do!’ I say under my breath, my eyes wide.

I look at the clock, its just after nine so I take advantage of the fact Ethan is tucked up in dreamland and take out Romeo and Juliet again. I hope to get past the prologue this time. ‘I’d better!’ I think to myself as there is an assignment to be handed in by next Monday on the play. I can’t keep putting my homework off like this. I need to take advantage of when Ethans in bed. Now we have him in a sort of ‘routine’, I have to try to keep up by studying at night. I’m even considering pushing the alarm back to 5:30 in the mornings to get an hour in before I have to wake the little man.

I get as far as act three and decide that’s enough for tonight, that I’ll finish it tomorrow. Shakespear is a hard read, no matter the play! Next on the list is algebra. I decide to do the bare minimum there as I’m so much further along in the textbook than what the teacher is teaching that I decide to skate by on that one.

I look up at the clock and its past midnight. No wonder my eyes felt itchy. I decide to call it a night and look in on Zach who is sprawled out on the couch, basketball playing on the tv. I turn off the tv and place a blanket over him so he doesn’t get cold.  

I smile to myself as I ascend the stairs in the knowledge that when Ethan see’s Zach on the couch in the morning, he will jump on him! ‘Karma’s a bitch big brother!’ I mutter under my breath.

I look in at Ethan and can’t help but stand in the door frame and watch the little man sleep for a few minutes. He is clinging onto ducky for dear life and I wonder what he dreams about. I close the door when I feel myself dropping off. He has a very calming effect on me.

I get into bed and can’t help but wonder if me getting a job will change the relationship I have with Ethan. Will he think I’m abandoning him like mom did? All of this responsibility is taking its toll.

I see myself standing at an ATM machine. I put in my card and it swallows it whole before chains come at me from every angle. I look to my right and see my mother’s face. She has on a stupid grin and is pointing her right index finger at me, her nail long and pointy.

‘You have to pay if you want to stay together!’ she says before cackling like a witch. I look at her, pleading for her to help me!

Then Ethan comes into view. ‘No, Ethan, go back to bed!’

She turns and looks at him. ‘Come here my child!’ she hisses snakelike and quickly grabs ducky from his grasp.

‘Will I?’ she asks, ducky’s head in one hand, his body in the other.

‘I want ducky!’ Ethan cries. ‘Mary get me ducky!’ he wipes his tears in the sleeve of his jumper.

I pull at the chains with gusto and try to go to him, but the looser I make them the shorter they become.

‘Ethan, turn around!’ I cry but he doesn’t hear me.

The cackles get louder and Ethan begins to run to ducky, but before he gets there, my mother rips off his head and starts to take the stuffing out. Ethan stops and cries, scared. The cackling suddenly stops and a hand goes out to Ethan.

‘Run Ethan, run! I scream but again, he doesn’t hear me.

My mother grabs him by the arm and pulls him in close. He is hysterical, and I don’t blame him after seeing his security blanket been torn apart. She holds him so as he’s facing me and rubs the long nail across his cheek and down towards his neck.

‘Noooo!’ I scream.

Beep, beep, beep, beep!

I sit bolt upright panting. My hand touches my chest and I am dripping in sweat, never happier to hear an alarm in my life. I run into Ethans room and see him still asleep, ducky intact…. finally I can breathe freely again. I have a quick shower, eager to wash the nightmare away.

As I predicted, Ethan jumps all over poor Zach, waking him up. Zach always needs a minute in the morning to himself to plan out his day so I pour rice krispies for Ethan and ducky. No matter how many times he hears them pop, he laughs, making me laugh as I drink my coffee.

As we’re so organised today, Ethan and Zach leave five minutes earlier than usual, giving me time to swipe ducky from the telephone table and throw him in the washing machine along with other clothes from the hamper. My resume’s are sitting on the counter, ready to be distributed around the town later that day. I’m going to have to bring Ethan with me and close my eyes for a second to pray. I’m not a religious person in any form or manner, but there’s no harm in giving the big guy upstairs some kind words.

 

Ethan bounds out of school and runs into my arms. I spin him around as per usual before going down to his level and button up his coat telling him were going on a little adventure, something he’s delighted with.

Just as we’re walking away, I hear the words ‘Miss Fisher’, being called after me. I turn around and Miss Megan is trying to get my attention. My heart begins to beat outside my chest and I swallow hard before she catches up to us.

‘I’m glad to have caught you, Miss Fisher! I just want to highlight that Ethan hasn’t been doing any of his homework.’

I try to hide the fact that I’m rolling my eyes.

‘The homework is assigned to the students for a reason and it would be gratefully appreciated if Ethan could turn his in so I can see where he is in relation to the curriculum.’ She smiles down at Ethan and then looks back to me.

‘We’re going to definitely try harder to get it done!’ I say to her and smile back.

‘Ok so,’ she says, ‘have a nice evening, Ethan!’

‘Bye Miss Megan,’ Ethan says and waves at her before we turn around and take a different route to our normal one and head down town.

 

I want to go into every shop, restaurant, coffee shop, in the town. I end up filling out numerous application forms and fire my resume at anyone who’s willing to take it. Ethan starts to get a bit fussy as we hit the halfway point. I buy us donuts with my last $5 and we sit in and eat them. We both had picked the Nutella one and by the time he had his polished off, I had to take him into the bathroom to wash his face. I made a note to self to wash his coat as it was covered in Nutella. I didn’t mind however, because it’s very rarely he went down town with mom and his coat was dirty anyhow.

‘Ethan,’ I said to him in the bathroom, ‘we have seven more places to go ok! And I want you to be a very good helper and count the amount of places we go to because I won’t be able to remember. Ok?’

‘Ok!’ his little voice says with a clean but cheeky grin.

By the time the fifth place came along, I could tell he was bored and on a sugar high. ‘Maybe the donut was a bad idea!’ I thought to myself.

‘Two more places Ethan, two more!’ I tried to explain as he moaned and hung out of my arm.

He called the owner of the last shop a ‘poo-poo face’, so I was certain that they were going to throw the resume into the bin as soon as we turned to leave.

I was wiped as we walked home, but Ethan jumped over the cracks in the pavement as usual. I was happy he was getting so much energy out before we got home and leave me stuck in a contained space with a sugar junkie.

I found myself at a crossroads. To my right was the green that would shave off ten minutes from our journey, and to the left was the long way.

I looked down at Ethan and asked, ‘do you mind getting wet feet?’

He looked up at me as if I had two heads and chose to go over the green as that was how I envisioned him getting more sugar out of his system. I took his bag off his back and told him to run to a tree that was still in my sightline, but enough away to start to tire him out. When he came back, I sent him to another tree, and another, and another, until we were finally home.

We walked in the door and took off our shoes and socks. I could feel the bottoms he had on were wet up to his knee so I told him to take them off as well and gave him back the PJ bottoms he had worn the night before from the hamper.

It wasn’t long before Ethan was asking for ducky, so I grabbed his coat and went to the washing machine putting ducky in the dryer without him seeing.

I began to empty the multitude of pockets that was in his jacket. I found rice krispies, a quarter, two toy cars, a small dinosaur and a half-eaten lollypop. I was just about to empty the rest of the washing machine when I heard Ethan scream. I ran to his aid.

He was standing on the couch pointing towards the corner where his toy boxes lay.

‘A spider,’ he screamed, ‘a spider!’

I went to investigate and grabbed a glass from the kitchen to put over it before screaming and joining Ethan on the sofa. We were stranded there mere minutes before Zach arrived in the door. He looked in on us and had an odd expression on his face as we squealed and pointed.

‘If ye squeal any louder only dogs will hear you!’ he said and took a look at the eight-legged monster in the glass. He looked from us to the glass and back again shaking his head and smiling at the silliness of it all. 

Zach took a piece of cardboard from his book bag and slid it under the glass. He picked it up like there was nothing to it and brought it out the front door where he walked down the driveway and put it in the neighbours wheelie bin.

Me and Ethan were trembling and holding each other as Zach returned laughing at our foolishness.

‘It was just a spider!’ he laughed and slowly I loosened my grip on Ethan and he did the same. We finally got off the couch, Ethan was eager to inspect that he hadn’t wee wee’d on any of his toys. I tried to explain that spiders don’t do that, but he had to see for himself.

‘For a kid who loves spiderman I am amazed at how frightened he was, especially for a four-year-old!’ I say to Zach softly.

‘Like sister like brother I guess!’ Zach said still laughing.

Just then, the dryer dinged…ducky was ready. I never witnessed a time he was happier to see ducky all clean and warm. He cradled him in his arms and all was right with the world again.

Zach and I did rock paper scissors as to who was cooking dinner. Unfortunately I lost, meaning we were having noodles again…my speciality. It was good tonight as I remembered the flavour packet and added some soy sauce into the mix alongside them. Even Zach enjoyed them.

‘You’re definitely getting better Mare!’ he said as his plate was almost licked clean.

‘I have to say that I am!’ I smiled, happy to have produced something Zach approved of. He’s usually a hard man to please when it came to food.

It was Zach’s turn to bathe Ethan and I took advantage of the twenty minutes by continuing to read Romeo and Juliet. It so happened that as I finished the next act, Ethan was ready for bed. I liked putting him to bed so Zach let me at it.

We read Goodnight Moon and Mr. Bump. He looked up at me and said, ‘I love you!’

I felt like the grinch at Christmas when his heart grew three sizes.

‘I love you too buddy!’ I said not able to take the smile off of my face and kissed him goodnight.

I managed to keep it together until I got downstairs where I grabbed one of Ethans cuddly toys and cried into it. Zach came into me and asked me what was wrong?

‘How can someone not want him in their life?’ I questioned my mother’s actions.

Zach kissed the top of my head and said, ‘who indeed?’