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CHAPTER ONE
Klarice
“Kids!” I call. “Come downstairs now!”
I hear a crashing noise followed by laughter, then another crashing noise. I hear one of the twins, Aaron, I think, say, “Oh my God, you broke it!” and close my eyes and press my hands to my temples.
I’m going to have to go get them.
The thought is almost crushingly unbearable and I chuckle softly as I think about how exhausting my life is that the thought of walking upstairs to shuttle my kids to the car can be so daunting that I seriously consider just giving up on the entire trip.
“Mom, Aaron, and Andy won’t come downstairs!”
I look up to see Kaitlyn, the owner of that tiny little voice, looking up at me with a pout. Tomorrow is Kaitlyn’s fourth birthday and today I am taking the kids to the aquarium as one of her birthday presents. Tomorrow will be entirely consumed with relatives and friends and cooking and cleaning and more herding of children and today were supposed to be the nice, fun, easy family day.
You’d think I would stop expecting things to be easy after ten years of raising children.
“Where’s Michael?” I ask Kaitlyn.
“He’s playing video games with Annie,” Kaitlyn says.
Michael is my ten-year-old son. Kaitlyn is my almost four-year-old daughter. Aaron and Andy are my seven-year-old niece and nephew and Andrea is their fourteen-year-old sister. I took them in after my sister and brother-in-law died in a car accident three years ago and since then, I’ve been their mother in everything but name. At first, I had my husband to help me but he was killed in the line of duty six months after my sister died and I’ve spent the past two years plus taking care of five growing children by myself.
And I am utterly exhausted.
“Michael!” I shout.
“What?” comes the irritated answer.
“Get your butt downstairs this minute! Annie, you better come down with him. Aaron, Andy,walkdownstairs, don’t run. If you aren’t all down here in less than ten seconds, I’m coming upstairs, and believe me, you donotwant me to do that.”
I don’t hear the sigh that I’m sure comes from the older two children, but I hear the exaggerated stomping as they comply. They’re halfway down the stairs when two streaks of color barrel past them, nearly knocking Annie over.
“Aunt Klarice!” she shrieks. “Did you see that? They hit me!”
“It was an accident, Annie,” I say.”
“They still hit me!”
“Oh my God, you’re fine! Relax. All of you, it’s time to go to the aquarium!”
“Mommy, the fish are going to go to sleep if we don’t hurry!” Kaitlyn whines.
I glance at the clock which proudly displays the time as eight-twenty-three in the morning. “I don’t think the fish are going to sleep yet, honey,” I say.
“Yes, they will!”
“Aunt Klarice,” Aaron says, struggling to turn his grin into an apologetic look. “Andy accidentally broke—”
“I didn’t break it! You did”
“You know what?” I say. “We’ll deal with it later. Can we please get to the car in one piece?”
“I don’t know, can we?” Michael offers sarcastically.
I fix him a glare that would melt dry ice and feel a touch of guilt at the pleasure I feel when he turns white and hurries to the door. Annie meets my gaze a moment, then lowers her face in a pout and—miracle of miracles—actually helps Kaitlyn into her booster seat before getting in after her.
The ride to the aquarium is more of the same. The older kids alternate between sporadic bouts of maturity and long periods of shouting and fighting with the younger kids. The twins continue to show amazing dedication to the goal of irritating their older siblings and Kaitlyn waxes eloquent about the many ways she intends to express her displeasure with me if we get to the aquarium and the fishies are asleep.
