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“Should we play with these blocks?” I asked him, still lining up the ABC letter blocks. “Or should we maybe read a story?”
“Aunt Hadley!” Annalise cried from the kitchen.
I sighed. Just another day in a household with two kids. I quickly stood and scooped up Benny, hoofing it back to the kitchen. I came to an abrupt halt, my mouth dropping open as I saw orange goo splattered all over the white cabinets, the counter, the floor and even Annalise’s hair and face. It had to be the pureed sweet potatoes.
“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.
I hadn’t secured the lid on the food processor before I answered my call from Liz and she must have pushed the button while I was in the family room with Benny. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point. The kitchen was an absolute nightmare. Think slasher horror film but more orange and less red.
“It’s okay honey,” I said. “It was just an accident. We’ll get it cleaned up. You aren’t hurt, right?”
Annalise shook her head and I buckled Benny back in his high chair even though he was crying again. If only I had two hands for each child.
Lauren kept cleaning cloths in neatly folded stacks in the laundry room. I grabbed several as well as some hardcore cleaning supplies. On my way back to the kitchen, the doorbell rang, and my laugh was half amused, half crazed.
“That better be Mary fucking Poppins coming to my rescue,” I muttered.
Benny had stopped crying and was trying to fit his entire hand into his mouth now. At least he wasn’t upset anymore. That was something.
“Aunt Hadley!” Annalise cried from the foyer.
“Yeah?” I set the cleaning cloths down and headed in that direction, praying there wasn’t another disaster waiting for me.
“My Gram and Gramps are here!” Annalise said.
Oh God. In the few moments it took me to get to the foyer, I sent up a silent plea to God that it wasn’t Patrick and Susan Whitmore.
It was. Annalise was grinning at me from her grandpa’s arms.
“Hey,” I said weakly, forcing a smile.
“Hi, Hadley. I hope you guys meant it when you said we could visit anytime,” Patrick said. “We just really wanted to see the kids, and maybe help out if you need it.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to think of a way I could get the kitchen cleaned up before they saw it.
“You really shouldn’t let Annalise open the front door like that,” Susan said, frowning at me. “It could have been anyone.”
“We…she’s not supposed to open it.”
“It was my Gram and Gramps. Mommy and Daddy said to always open it for family,” Annalise explained.
“Where’s Benny?” Susan asked.
“He’s in the kitchen.”
“Alone?”
“He’s buckled into his high chair,” I said, not in the mood for her snap judgments. “Why don’t you guys go up to Annalise’s room so she can show you her tea party set and I’ll bring Benny up so you can spend some time with both of them?”
“I want my Froot Woops!” Annalise cried, scrambling from her grandpa’s arms and running into the kitchen.
Her grandparents followed, but I waited a moment, dreading the reaction the sweet potato massacre was going to get.
“What in the world…?” Susan exclaimed with pure shock as I walked into the kitchen.
“We’re making baby food, and Annalise forgot to put the lid on the food processor,” I said. “But everyone has accidents and I’m going to clean it up. It’s not a big deal.”
“Want a Froot Woop, Gram?” Annalise offered, holding out her bowl.
“What is that processed garbage?” Susan demanded. “Lauren didn’t feed our grandchildren this way.”
Annalise’s happy expression fell away, and I despised Susan a little bit more than I already had.
“I think you should spend some time playing with Annalise,” I said. “I need to clean up the kitchen and make lunch.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Patrick said. “Can we take Benny off your hands, too?”
I gave him a grateful smile. “I’d appreciate that, thanks.”
Annalise walked over to her brother and gave him a bright smile. “Benny, Gram and Gramps are here!” She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, I think he shit himself again, Aunt Hadley.”
I needed a humongous glass of wine and a five-minute break, exactly in that order. Unfortunately, neither of those things was going to happen.
“This is the language you’re teaching our grandchildren?” Susan cried. “Patrick, we need to expedite the lawsuit. We can’t have them around her.”
“Actually,” a deep voice from the entrance to the kitchen interrupted Susan’s rant, “any bad language the kids heard came from me, and I’m working on it. Hadley’s a great role model, and she’s busting her tail taking care of the kids.”
I turned, so happy to see Wes I could have cried. My heart hammered with excitement as I took him in, his hair damp from a post-practice shower. He wore a Mavericks T-shirt and gray jogger sweatpants, a day’s worth of dark stubble on his face.
