“Hey, Clydes,” my mother said while staring off into the distance, hours after our escape. It was nearly dark, and we were hungry, but neither one of us mentioned it. I hated that far-away tone. It meant something bad. Something that would get us in more trouble.
Needless to say. Izzy and I spent the next four days on a train. That’s what she saw in the distance. That and Izzy’s request that hadn’t been fulfilled yet. Once we’d made our rounds in two different gas stations, looting what we could without being caught, we set out. A long walk across an open field.
This is how crazy our mom was. We were almost there. Almost to the empty car, when it started to move. My mom ordered us to run, tossed our stolen food, and jumped in first. Izzy fell, but she was okay. She actually still made it before me. She always was the faster runner.
Those were the best four days of my life. Riding in a train car is an adventure I never thought of as fun, but it was. It was so much fun. Not only did we have stolen junk food, we had an endless supply of walnuts. Crates of nuts occupied a quarter of the car. Izzy and I occupied the rest. We played walnut baseball, danced on stage, watched shooting stars fall from the sky, and we danced some more. A lot. Even my mom danced. Actually, she danced more than Izzy and me. I didn’t care. She could be crazy all she wanted. We were together. Jonnie and her Clydes.
~~
“Gabriella, wake up. Gabriella.”
I stretched my legs, grunting as my eyes focused on Paxton. “What?” I rolled away from him. I didn’t want to wake to this. I wanted to go back to the train. Back to eating walnuts for days. Where my mom and Izzy were.
“Go make something to take to this barbeque. You’ve only got a couple of hours. Get up. We’re going to walk down to the beach. Make something good,” he ordered.
“I want to go to the beach,” I countered. I sat up when I realized how much I sounded like eight-year-old Gabby. Whiny.
“You can go to the beach when you learn how to be my wife again. Go do your wifely jobs and make us something to take.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. That’s your department. Figure it out.”
My eyes frowned, leaving me with small slits to see him through. “Are you the same guy who rubbed my feet right before I fell asleep?”
That pissed him off. Big time. He scowled and grunted.
My little angels saved the day. “We’re ready,” they called in unison, both carrying sand buckets and toys.
“I thought we were taking boogie-boards.”
“You carry them, Daddy,” Ophelia said. They were taking them. They just weren’t carrying them.
“Mommy, you come, too. I want to show you what I can do,” Rowan said as soon as she saw that I was awake. They both wore blue and white bathing suits, matching by color only. Rowan’s was blue and white striped. Ophelia’s was blue with white lilies. Both out-of-this-world cute.
“Mommy doesn’t feel like it yet. She’s going to stay here and get ready for the cookout that she’s too sore to go to.”
Both girls missed the sarcasm of the last remark. I did not. He wasn’t hurting me by keeping me away from my neighbors. I didn’t feel right around them anyway. Go. See if I give a shit.
I waited by the pool with the girls while Paxton retrieved three boards from the garage. I was sort of pouting about not being allowed to go, and sort of panicking about cooking. For whatever reason, that terrified me, taking precedence over my internal pout. That part of my memory was completely gone. I couldn’t recall one dish that I had made in my past. Not even one.
I made the girls grilled cheese in the waffle-iron. They loved them. Maybe I could get away with that. The iron cut them in cute little triangles. Hmmm. I pondered, liking the idea.
“We’ll be back in a couple hours. I’ve got my cell phone if you need me,” Paxton said as he stood in front of me, pink, princess boards thrown over his shoulder.
“Bye, Mommy,” the girls called over their shoulders, leaving their dad behind, ready for some beach fun.
“Have fun,” I called back.
Paxton had to take my hand before I knew enough to stand. “Make something good and I might think about taking you later.”
“I’m fine here. I don’t need to go.”
“I’ll decide that. Now be a good girl and go take care of your family,” he ordered with a kiss. I turned my head out of spite, but he turned it back. “You don’t want to do this, Gabriella. I promise you. You don’t.”
“Because why, Pax? Because you’re going to send me to the bathroom?”
His eyes darted to the girls first and then back to me. I grimaced in pain when he grabbed my jaw and squeezed. “Back down, girl. Back down now. You got it?” he asked through gritted teeth.
I couldn’t speak. All I could do was nod. Paxton let go and shoved my face, forcing me to step backward two steps.
“Get the fuck away from me before I hurt you.”
I did. I cowered away like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Gah! Why did I keep doing that? I did get it. I did understand what he said. I just had a hard time abiding by his ways. My mouth kept getting in the way. Paxton stood in a firm stance with a glare until I was inside. I turned to close the door, catching his cold glare, and moved my eyes to the floor. He walked away.
“Dickhead!” I yelled through the glass, to his back.
I sighed while I watched my family walk away without me. “Bastard. Dick. Fuckface. Jerk-off,” I said aloud to no one but me.
After securing the boot back to my foot, I went to the kitchen in search of something to cook. There was plenty of food. That wasn’t the problem. I just didn’t know how or what to cook. I found one cookbook, but it wasn’t really food. It was mixed drinks. Hmmm, that sounds more like it. I could make some sort of exotic drink for the adults and something else for the kids. But what?
“Oh, the tablet,” I said when I remembered Paxton’s comment. Now if I could just find it. I didn’t remember seeing it anywhere. After searching the front rooms, high and low, I moved to my room. Where the hell would I keep a tablet? I scratched my head while I stood in place and looked around.
The nightstand on the right held a kids’ book, a bottle of nasal spray, a notebook, and a pen. I picked up the yellow notebook and looked around the room with an eerie feeling. I always felt like I was snooping in someone else things when I opened drawers. Like it wasn’t really my stuff to be meddling through, or like I was being watched. Nonetheless, I opened it.
“Wow,” I said through a sigh. This was my life. Expectations. That’s it. I had half a notebook full of to do’s. Extracurricular activities for both girls, what day I went to the grocery store, things to do for Paxton. Like new shirts. I was supposed to go shopping for him two days after my accident. I did everything by time and schedules. Somehow that didn’t feel right. I felt more like the type to move forward without clocks or calendars. Not this. Wow. I closed it and searched the other nightstand for the tablet. I’d come back to that mess another time.
The drawer to my left housed the white tablet. The one I presumed I’d used to make loving meals for my family with. Blah!
I spent at least twenty minutes learning about me from my tablet. I liked to read. I had countless books on there, most of them already read. Hmmm. Who would have thought? I didn’t feel like a reader. Evidently, I was a writer, too. Poetry. I liked poetry? Really? File after file of poetry filled the different folders. All marked by subject. I opened the first three, skimming through them until I stopped.