Crisis mostly resolved. I sent Billie to her room for a timeout, but mostly to keep her from pulling any more shenanigans while I plated the food.
At dinner, things deteriorated again. Bianca poked suspiciously at the roasted carrots on her plate. “Why aren’t we ordering out?”
“Because,” I waved my hand in the direction of the chicken, “I cooked.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is what concerns me.”
CJ laughed into his mashed potatoes.
“What? It’s good,” I defended.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t good,” Bianca replied. “I just don’t understand why we’re eating this when there are perfectly acceptable prepared meals in the freezer.”
Winnie had spent the previous afternoon filling half the freezer with labeled containers because she cooked like she was preparing for a long, hard winter without electricity or running water.
There was soup, lasagna, pot pies, marinated vegetables and three different desserts. There was also something involving puff pastry and mushrooms that had me considering proposing marriage on principle alone.
Bianca gestured toward the fridge. “She literally meal-prepped happiness. But, for some odd reason, tonight we’re eating mediocre poultry.”
I pointed my fork at her. “Bianca.”
She crossed her arms. “I just don’t see why you suddenly need to cook.”
Because I was trying. Because I wanted to learn. Because every time Winnie cooked for us, I felt both grateful and vaguely ashamed that I’d spent years convincing myself work mattered more than knowing how to feed my own children properly.
“Because I’m your parent, and sometimes I decide what’s for dinner.”
The table went quiet. Old me probably would’ve backtracked immediately to break the uncomfortable tension. New me held the line.
Bianca studied me for a second, clearly trying to determine whether negotiation remained possible. Apparently, she decided against it.
“The chicken is actually pretty good,” she admitted reluctantly.
Victory.
I felt absurdly proud.
Winnie caught my eye from across the table and smiled faintly. It warmed me embarrassingly fast.
The closer Mother’s Day got, though, the more fragile things became around the house. The kids stopped mentioning school projects involving handmade cards. CJ got quieter. Bianca started sleeping with her bedroom lamp on again. Even Billieseemed more emotionally volatile, though with Billie that mostly manifested as trying to decorate shrubs outside with various household items.
The unspoken and heavy tension sat over everything.
Three nights before Mother’s Day, I woke around two in the morning to panicked breathing outside my bedroom door. I opened it immediately. Bianca stood there crying. Her face was blotchy and wet, and it sent me into semi-panic mode.
“Hey,” I said softly.
She tried to speak and failed. Then she launched herself at me so suddenly I barely caught her properly.
“I had a nightmare,” she choked out against my shirt.
I carried her back to bed without thinking about it.
She curled against my side under the blankets while I smoothed hair back from her damp face. “Do you want to talk about it?”
For a long moment, she shook her head.
Then finally: “I dreamed Mom came home.”
