“They’re eating on the bed?” I asked, tossing out the towel. They had their seats before the towel fully floated down.
“With lots of rules,” Beau teased, not giving me the hundred percent win. He placed the pizza boxes on the dresser as he listed the conditions. One finger popped out to indicate the first. “They have to act like regular human bein’s or we’re done.”
No argument from me. Joyful laughter erupted from the girls.
A second finger popped up. “No roughhousin’.” That sounded reasonable.
A third finger followed. “Drinks stay on the nightstand. If you want a drink, ask quietly so your dad can hear everything you said.”
Wow, three out of three. Beau and I were in sync again.
“We don’t roughhouse,” Livie said, her happiness laced with a tinge of her Paw being ridiculous. “We’re girls.”
“Really?” Beau asked, giving her a silly obvious look, and pointed to Ava. “I think y’all could show boys how to roughhouse properly.”
“Paw’s funny.”
Beau went through the process of opening all the juice boxes, allowing everyone to take a sip before they went to his nightstand. I got to keep mine on my side. Plates and napkins were distributed, and small sliced pizza was passed around. He gave me two slices of pepperoni.
I realized Beau’s plan of attack for my health was to parent me. How had I not figured that out before? And I acted like a child. Oh my god, we were dysfunctional. Thoughts of Daddy spanking me just turned yuck.
When everyone had what they needed, Beau plugged his cell phone into the television’s input panel and navigated the touch screen until the still video of a crowded pre-school auditorium filled the screen.
“Daddy, we come in on the right,” Ava said, staring at the screen.
Livie instantly corrected her. “The left.”
“We look the same though,” Mia interjected. “Nobody could tell us apart.” Yeah, that was going to be a real problem someday too. Beau took his place in a side chair close to me. “I sometimes tell people I’m Mia and they don’t know I’m not. Livie won’t do it, but me and Mia change bows too. Nobody knows.”
And there we go. They were officially naughty and figured out a major life hack that was going to make Beau and I crazy.
“Only me and Mia. Livie’s not fun. She’s smart and bossy,” Ava popped out with hints of insult. “She can’t be a little bad ever.”
“So you know that what you and Mia did was wrong?” I asked, all three heads turned my way, no remorse on their pretty faces and nodded. They were so dang confident.
“We only do it at school,” Mia added, as if that made it better.
“Remember, you never pretend to be each other to adults or in important situations,” Beau explained and pointed us toward the television.
How about they never pretend to be each other?
The volume elevated then instantly lowered, the screen paused when Linda came to the open doorframe, holding West on her hip. “We came to say goodnight.”
“Come join us,” Beau said, lifting out of the chair, motioning for his mom to take the seat. “Pizza’s on the dresser, extra juice boxes are there too.” As he took West from her, the little guy was growing so fast, he headed for his side of the bed. The space between us became West’s play space. When Linda took her seat near me, Beau started the performance again. Tears developed in my eyes with pride for my girls. There were perfect performers. I wondered if everyone envied their greatness.
15: The December
Dash/Beau/Dash
Dash
Twelve Days Later
“You’re killing me, babe,” I said, breaking the oppressive silence in the vehicle. “Your obstinance isn’t going to change anything. I’m going back to work.”
Bossy Beau was chauffeuring me at a snail’s pace, at least five miles per hour below the speed limit, to protect me from… Well, I didn’t know what. The weight of his displeasure hung heavily in the air. And the regular fifteen-to-twenty-minute journey from our garage to my parking space in front of my office had stretched into a torturous thirty-minute ordeal.
I bet everyone who had ever known my husband understood what a pain in the ass he was when the micromanaging surfaced.
