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“Knock it off. Right. Now!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, making even me jump. Silence followed and she huffed a sigh. “I’ve had enough. The three of you are not allowed to talk anymore until we get to soccer. The next person that says anything will go to bed with no TV, got it?”
With that threat, we managed to make it back to Trevor’s school, where I played with Marlee and Marcus on the playground while Jasmine and Trevor spoke to his teacher. It seemed to take longer than it should have, like almost everything in Jasmine’s life, and she came out running at top speed, even more frazzled than she was before. I could see the tension radiating off her petite body as we raced across town to where soccer practice was being held, miraculously making the trip without any more yelling or fighting. My ears even stopped ringing until we walked into the arena, where the soccer practices were being held. It sounded like an indoor carnival with all of the voices bouncing off the walls. I was no stranger to loud environments, but this was a whole different monkey. I’d take a dungeon full of over-sugared bratty Littles over this any day.
We found a spot to sit and Jasmine helped Marlee with her shin guards, socks, and cleats before sending her off to her team. She sat on the metal bleachers next to me and put her head in her hands.
“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know why I thought they would at least attempt to behave when they saw you, but I did. And I feel awful that I lost my crap on them the way I did.”
“Hey, it happens. You have a lot on your plate, not much help, and you were thrown for a loop at the last minute. It would be enough to stress anybody out.” I put my hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze.
“At least now you know I’m not lying when I tell you that my life is a shitshow.”
“Now, we need to get you to understand that I’m not lying when I say I’m here to help. I want to help, Jasmine. That’s what a Daddy does.”
“You’re my Daddy though, not theirs. And not even mine, technically.”
I smiled indulgently. The end of the Rent-A-Daddy arrangement we had was not something I liked to think about, and I definitely didn't want to talk about it. Luckily, I was saved from having to do either as the teams ran onto the field. “We’ll circle back around to that later,” I told her, pulling Marcus into my lap and settling back to watch the game.
Soccer wasn’t my favorite sport to begin with, and watching it being played by a bunch of eight year olds mostly there to please their parents was especially excruciating. Marlee seemed to have more talent than most of the players, though, and the pride on Jasmine’s face as she watched her was almost worth all the yelling and balls bouncing everywhere. Finally, it was over, and we wrangled the kids and all their things, and got them back into the car to make the drive back home. The drive home was worse than the drive there had been. The kids were tired and hangry, and by the time we got back to Jasmine's she and I weren’t much better off. And if I thought it was bad in the car, then the house was ten times worse. There was so much yelling and crying that I would have sworn I was in a bad dream. Jasmine tried to make dinner and manage Marlee’s homework while the boys played WrestleMania in the other room, and it was a complete and utter mess. Finally, I could take no more.
“Let me finish here and you go take care of the kids.”
“I don’t need you to save me.” She spoke between clenched teeth.
I wasn’t trying to make her mad, but the whole ordeal was so hard to watch, and the kids weren’t the only ones hangry by this point. “I know you don’t, but I’d like to help, please.”
I wouldn’t push any further. If she told me ‘no’, I’d back off. But she didn’t. She handed me the spatula she was using to brown the meat for the spaghetti and stomped off toward the kitchen table, where Marlee was doing her homework.
By some miracle, things actually calmed down. Marlee stopped yelling across the room about math problems, the boys stopped wrestling and got interested in a show, and dinner got done much more quickly without all the interruptions. The evening was still chaotic, with dinner being a more boisterous affair than I’d ever seen a meal be, and baths and bedtime routines taking longer than I'd ever imagined possible. By the time it was over and all the kids were in bed, with Jasmine saying her final goodnights, I was convinced of one thing: single moms were saints.
Chapter Ten
Jasmine
After finally getting the kids to bed, all I wanted to do was collapse in mine. Unfortunately, Bain was waiting for me in the living room. I didn’t want to face him. My life was usually chaotic, but today had been especially crazy, and he’d had a front row seat to the whole disaster. The sucky part was I knew as bad as it had been, it would have been worse if he wasn’t there to help. Or would it have been? Maybe I was stressed and tense because he was there, and the kids felt it? Or maybe I was just a shit mom with no business trying to raise kids. I didn’t know, but it was all I could do not to collapse into a pile of defeated tears right there outside my boys’ bedroom door.
I trudged down the hall and into the living room where Bain stood with two full glasses of wine.
“I thought you could use this.”
He held the glass out toward me. I took it and drained it without a single word.
“Well okay, then.” He chuckled as I handed the glass back to him.
Retreating, I went to the couch, grabbed the blanket off the back, and put it over my head before curling into a tight ball in the corner.
“What are you hiding from, little girl?” I heard the sounds of the glasses being set on the coffee table and felt the couch dip with Bain’s weight. “The kids are in bed. I’ve seen proof that they are way scarier than me.”
“Ha ha ha.”
I pulled the blanket off and glared at him. After avoiding him all week, I still had mixed emotions about him being there, and as nice as it had been to have the help, it made it that much harder to want to keep things surface level. As bad as the day had been, having him there had been nice, and being part of a two-person team had given me a glimpse of what it might have been like if Henry was still alive, or what it could be like if I were to date again, and find love again. The thought that the person I needed could have been Bain all along niggled at the corner of my brain, but I pushed it away.
Surface level. Just because I had feelings didn’t mean those feelings were reciprocated. Bain was just doing the job he’d been hired to do.
I must have sat there in contemplative silence too long because when I looked up, Bain was eyeing me with concern. “Penny for your thoughts?”
There was no way I was telling him what I’d really been thinking, so I pushed my life crises out of the way and settled for the surface stuff, because that was how I wanted to keep it between us. “Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am? I know my life is crazy, but today was so over the top that I feel like I was just watching a train crash and was helpless to stop it. They were so bad, and I wasn’t any better.” I sighed, realizing how exhausted I was. My Bain-appointed bedtime was looming and I still needed to clean up the dinner mess and try to get some work hours in. And I needed to get Bain out of my space before I was tempted to let my feelings get the better of me and kiss him again, or worse. “Anyway, thanks for your help today. I really appreciate it. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been without you there to buffer some of the chaos. But it’s getting late and I need to clean the kitchen, especially if I want to be in bed on time. I’ll text you in the morning.”
I stood, expecting him to stand, too, and head toward the door. But he stayed seated and grabbed my hands, pulling me back down onto the couch beside him. “The kitchen is clean. I did it while you were doing baths and bedtime.”
