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I roll my eyes. “You just need a little cup of the beans. Not actual coffee. Although…nope, nope, nope. I’m fine.Fine.Continue doing it your way then. See if I care.”
After five more spritzes, bile is rising in the back of my throat and my eyes feel like they’re bleeding. “George, I love you man. I do. But I can’t be here anymore. I’m going to puke or pass-out or something.”
“You can go then. I’m almost done here anyway. I may head over to the mall and try the fragrance counters. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I grab my bag and head for the door, but on the way out, I turn my head to call over my shoulder, “We’ll be in the dojo tomorrow so this place can air out. I command it!”
And we are. Well, for the part of Thursday I’m here, we stay in the dojo, working on drills to improve my strength and speed. Then I head home early so I can wash, sort, and fold all of our laundry so we can pack tonight. With most schools in the state having off this Friday as a giveback because we didn’t use any snow days this winter, we want to be ready to go when the sun comes up. It’s no easy feat to get a family of six ready for vacation, even if it’s just a long weekend.
By the time the luggage is stacked by the front door, the kids don’t want to fall asleep. Big surprise. They’re running back and forth between each other’s rooms, comparing their weekend bucket lists, fighting about where we need to go first on the boardwalk, finally agreeing, then running into the next room to start the cycle all over again. Their excitement makes me feel like a shitty parent, honestly. Their friends go to the shore as a regular part of their lives. Their big vacations are to Cabo, Aruba, even Europe. Meanwhile, for us, between timing and our family’s innate ability to anxiously talk ourselves out of anything, driving somewhere a couple hours away for a long weekend is all we can seem to manage, such that it becomes the most exciting thing ever to my poor, sheltered children.
Once they’re all at least settled into bed and I’m lying in my own, looking up at the blank ceiling and drifting off to sleep, I make a mental note to plan more exciting family vacations, and soon. After all, none of us are getting any younger.
Chapter 13
Miranda
“Uggggh.Dad!Canyoustop with the Korean lessons? Please! It’s been forty-five minutes.” Sammy can’t tolerate the sensation of any type of headphones. So, while his sisters ignore Jake’s language learning app for their own devices, Sammy is left listening to Jake trying to ask for a bus.
“Beoseuneun eodie issnayo?”
I smile to myself but reassure him, “It’s only been twenty minutes, Sammy. But I think it’s almost over. Afterwards, you’ll get to pick whatever you want to listen to.”
“Can that whatever be silence? Silence would sound so good right now!”
I laugh. “Yes, silence is allowed. I would make him turn it off, but you know your father signed that K-Pop band this week and will be their US-based manager. He needs to get some basics down.”
The man on the app says, “Now try to ask your companion, ‘Do you drink a lot of coffee?’ Dangsin-eun keopileul manh-i masinda?”
Jake taps my arm excitedly while repeating, “Dangsin-eun keopileul manh-i masinda.”
I smile back at him and answer, “Yup. I sure do.”
He smiles a goofy grin at me, and I pat his cheek before looking back up at the ceiling in a feeble attempt to stop my motion sickness. It isn’t working. I see a familiar blue sign pass my window. The white writing says"Service Center 1 mile. Next Service Center 27 miles."
“Ooh, and speaking of my coffee habit, I need a refill. Also, a restroom.”
Jake pauses the audio. “Seriously? We’re making such good time!”
I scrunch up my face and look at him with my head tilted to the side. “Are we though?”
We woke up at our usual 6:15 a.m., hoping that if we got on the road early enough, we could avoid the bulk of the traffic. A foolish thought, really. As soon as we get on the aptly named Garden StateParkway, the sea of cars told us we are not the only shmucks with this idea.
Jake eases the car into the parking lot at the rest stop and finds a spot near the door, which I consider nothing less than miraculous.
“Hey kids, who else needs the bathroom?” When I’m met with nothing but muffled sounds through headphones, I turn around in my seat, look at my progeny all staring down at their respective screens, shake my head, and raise my voice. “Hey kids!” They all jump a bit and at least give me the recognition of pulling their headphones down momentarily. “I’m going to the bathroom. We aren’t stopping again for a while. Who else needs to go?”
Three sets of shoulders shrug as the kids replace their headphones.
“I’ll come!” Sammy chimes in, looking at his sisters as if they’re literal zombies, not just tablet zombies successfully ignoring my reminder to empty their bladders.
Of course, I give them a similar, wilting look when we have been back on the highway for ten full minutes and Jessie throws her headset to the side, screeching, “I need to pee!!!”
Even with our seven-thirty departure, between the morning traffic and the millions of stops we have to make (seriously, why can’t everyone in the family just pee at the same time?), we pull into the driveway close to noon.
Eliza’s parents cut no corners when they decorated their beach house. The modern farmhouse color palette of grays and whites makes this one of the most relaxing places we frequent. That’s not to say I don’t add my own splash of anxiety when we come. The living room has an entire wall of full-length windows, a couple of which are doors, that look past the large gray deck and over the beach to the Atlantic. The scene is breathtakingly beautiful, but also completely nerve-wracking for a mother with undiagnosed postpartum anxiety, which I had during our visits when the kids were babies and toddlers. We would be having a wonderful escape from our everyday chaos, and my horrible fears would come knocking on my mind’s door.
Jessie can totally open that door. Do you think you can get to the bathroom, pee, and get back here faster than it would take her to wander into the ocean and drown?
