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"Oh, I can see what's going on. You think you're a better mother than I am. You've made it where he doesn't like me."
"Come on, Claren. You know that's not true."
"Oh, no. Go ahead and play mommy. Try and take him from me. You'll never do it. I'm his mother." She thumped her chest hard as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She grabbed Charlie's chin and jerked his head up. "You hear that? I'm your mother."
Charlie started crying and a concerned-looking woman in scrubs bustled over and placed a comforting arm around Claren, talking low in her ear. Claren burst into tears, her hands shaking. Eva pulled Charlie to her, curving an arm around his small body, wishing like hell they had waited until Claren wasn't so on edge. It had been almost three weeks, and she'd already gone through detox. Eva assumed she'd be back to normal, but the frail, distraught creature in front of her wasn't the strong Claren she knew.
The woman looked up with a kind smile. "I know your mother has enjoyed seeing you, honey. She's missed you something terrible, but she's still getting better."
"I'm sorry, Charlie," Claren said, wiping her eyes, sniffling. "Mama's still not feeling great, baby, but I'm so glad your sister brought you to see me."
Eva nudged Charlie, and the little boy nodded. "Okay, Mommy."
"Come here." Claren gestured, her hands still trembling.
Eva moved Charlie toward his mother. "Go hug your mama, Charlie. We have to get back."
Charlie moved reluctantly to Claren and managed to give her a hug.
"We'll come back next weekend," Eva told the woman whose eyes had refilled with tears. "You take care, Claren. Work on getting better. You have a really good reason."
Claren looked up with watery blue eyes. "I know."
The woman helped Claren stand, giving them another patented comforting smile. "Nice to see you folks."
And then Claren and her guardian angel disappeared through double doors, leaving Eva and Charlie alone in the room reserved for guests.
Charlie looked up at Eva and said, "I wanna go back to your house."
And they had left, quick as spit.
Charlie had barely made a peep the entire journey home. At one point he'd nodded off as Eva mentally flipped through all the various craptastic conflicts in her life.
So as she sat in the car in front of the Beauchamp house, she wanted nothing more than to go home, crawl into bed, and throw the covers over her head. Everything in life felt too hard at the moment.
She looked at the dashboard clock. Charlie had been gone for almost ten minutes.
"Christ," she breathed, shutting the car off and climbing out.
The sound of boys whooping and hollering met her ears.
"Great," she said to the trees dancing in the wind above her. A leaf swirled into her path, reminding her it was the beginning of October.
Instead of jogging up the front porch stairs and going through the house, she slipped through the side yard to the back corner, where Sunday afternoon football and Wiffle ball games were often held. She nearly ran over Jake's uncle Carlton, who was sneaking a smoke behind an oleander bush.
"Oh, hello," the older man said, hiding his smoke around his back.
"I see the cigarette," she said.
He pulled the still-lit cigarette out and studied it as if he wondered how it had gotten in his hand. "Oh, this."
Eva laughed. "It's okay, Mr. Burnsides. I won't tell."
He cracked a shit-eating grin. "Well, they do say it's good for my glaucoma."
"That's marijuana?"
"Oh, I should try that then," the older man said, stabbing out the bud, tossing it into the depths of the bush, and pulling breath spray from his pocket. "I must go help Francesca with the leftovers. She always packs me a nice little doggy bag."
