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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
by
Mary Eve Parker
=== PART TWO ===
I was asleep on the sofa in the girl’s room when I heard a soft whimpering coming from next door.
Why me? I asked myself all the time. I couldn’t believe that I should take care of three kids. Me, a person who was more than unable to control or take care of herself should now take care of three lovely children. Why me?
Slowly I got up and went to Byron’s room. The boy was awake, standing at the window crying. I stood in the doorframe watching him.
“Byron?” I tried to ask softly.
He slowly turned around and stared at me. I haven’t seen a little boy staring like that for quite a long time. Okay never seen something like that before. He seemed smaller than he was in his soft blue pyjamas and more fragile.
Byron was still staring at me. I think it could only have been a second, when I felt him around my legs. Hugging them and crying.
What should I do?
I have never collected any experiences around kids. I think I took care Debbie once, but just for two hours and she was much older than Bryan.
Slowly I got down and he grabbed the straps of my bra. Yeah I was sleeping in underwear. I told myself that I couldn’t wear something that their dead parents had worn, beside Editha was a couple of inches smaller than me. He grabbed them and laid his head on my shoulder, his arms around my neck, when he felt my arms around him, he started to calm down a little – that’s how I carried him to bed.
“So what’s up Byron?” I asked him when I sat down on the small bed. He sat in my lap, his head buried between my breasts, his arms still around me. I started to move back and forth slowly, my hands caressing his back.
But he was still crying and I couldn’t stop my tears. The boy was grieving because of the fact that his mum wasn’t there, nor his daddy and I has had nothing better to do than be angry all afternoon and night because I should take care of them.
What was this with me? I was really not the right person to take care of those kids. Byron was really cute. He was everything I mother could wish for.
He was still crying, his one hand laying about my breast, the other one on my hip. “Do you want to tell me what is bothering you little man?” I asked softly during caressing his back.
“Coming back?” he just whispered during sobbing.
“Byron they aren’t coming back, that’s why I am here now. I will take care of you!” I whispered and my heart was nearly breaking. How should I handle things like that? How should I ever be a good mother?
“Why aren’t they coming back? Are they mad at me because I ruined the vase last week?” He said and sobbed again.
“No they aren’t mad at you, they just cant come back.”
“Why?”
I had thought that somebody had told him, maybe at least a little bit of this story. I mean I didn’t knew any details – till the moment I just knew that they were killed in a car crash.
“Byron they were killed in a car crash” I said and waited for something from him, but there wasn’t a move, a word or a sob.
I looked at him and he was just staring at the lace of my bra, not making a move.
“Will you also be there for Gilly and Dana?” he asked suddenly.
“Sure, we will be together, all four of us.” I answered.
God this was hard. He was so little and such an event, the death of the parents, is very coining – I think I knew that – and he was so much younger than I was when Momma died.
“Don’t you want to go back to bed and sleep a little?”
“Can’t you sleep here with me?”
My heart was broken now. “No Byron I cant but I will leave the door open and the one at the girl’s room too. If you need something you can come in and crawl in with me. Okay? I will need to feed the girls in a couple of minutes and I want you to sleep a little big man."
I think this was all he needed before falling to sleep. I staid sitting there on the edge of the bed for a little while, studying his cute little, sleeping form. God I still couldn’t believe that I was mother not, or at least host for kids as long as the court let them stay with me.
All in all I think I got about two hours sleep in a row. When I woke up in the morning, Byron was laying in front of me, my arm around his small frame. I think I haven’t felt that groggy since I was absolute drunken and stayed in bed for two full days. A bed? Hm ….
You can call the last night “the night of the nights” – the worst one I have ever been through, except puking a whole night at High School.
When Gilly was asleep again, Dana wanted the bottle and this was the rota we were in. And some where in the morning, when both had fallen asleep, Byron must had come over.
He was sleeping like an angel.
But than I heard Gillian softly whimpering and I got up to take her out, not to wake the “big” brother.
I put the baby monitor on and took it with me downstairs. Gilly was softly laying in my arm, staring at me with her baby blue eyes. She was so small. Her breathing was deep and regular.
When I was downstairs, I sat on the sofa with the warmed bottle of milk. It was the first time she wasn’t crying in my arms. Her incredible blue eyes were staring at me, while she sucked on the bottle. Dana was the one with the ash blond hair, Gilly was more reddish. But they were both looking like angels.
While she was drinking, I started to think about a way to handle this. My job and taking care of the kids. We would have to leave the house on Monday.
Suddenly my mobile phone was ringing softly. I had turned the sound down, but it was still loud enough to break the silence, and to get Dana cry again.
“Hello?” I asked softly, not wanting to disturb Dana’s drinking.
“Where is the usual ‘what?’” the familiar voice asked me – Jarod.
“Well I think the ‘what’ has a nice weekend, like I have.” I said sarcastically.
“Hm well Parker … what about being in Renton? “
“Well everything is fine so far.” I looked down at Dana and tucked the little blanket more around her. “Why are you so interested into Renton?”
“I know why you had to show up.”
“Fine … whatever.”
“Will you take them?”
“Hm….?”
“You know as well as I do what I am talking about Parker.”
“Well I am not sure what you are talking about.”
“Editha’s children.” he said and made a pause “Gillian, Dana and cutie Byron.”
“What?” I asked harshly. How could he know so much about them?
“I thought this word is on holiday” he teased me.
“Its your fault that this word is back.” I said aggressive.
Than there was a big silence. Dana’s sucking was the only voice. God I was tired. The shock from yesterday morning and than the nearly sleepless night was tiring me out.
Than I heard a knocking on the door. I jumped. I went to the door, Dana still suckling in my arms. I opened the door. Guess who was standing there with his mobile in his hand? Guess? I couldn’t believe it. Jarod.
In a fast move he stepped in. I wasn’t able to say a word. Without saying something he took Dana out of my arm and told me “Get decent Parker and take a shower – you need it.”
Thanks Jarod. A woman needs a shower, what a compliment. I was just standing there, staring at Jarod. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Somehow unfamiliar light for Jarod.
“Thanks” I just said and went upstairs. In front of the bath mirror I realised that I was just wearing black lace underwear.
When I came back downstairs again, he sat at the kitchen table with Byron and Gilly in his arm. He smiled at me.
”Thank you Jarod.” I whispered when I got myself a seat and took a gulp of the coffee, which was waiting for me.
Byron was eating cereals and drinking cacao, Gillian sleeping in his arm. Where was Dana? I looked around in the room and noticed the sleeping form on the sofa, in a softly made bed of cushions. I had to smile. I couldn’t resist.
“Wanna more” Byron said and pointed to his cacao.
“Sure honey.” I said and got up to make some more.
“Don’t Parker, I will do it. Just take a seat and relax.”
“Thanks Jarod. I don’t deserve this help.”
“You do and you know that.”
“I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve these kids either.”
He turned around and faced me.
“You do Parker. I will not be easy but you will be a good mother to them.”
I smiled at him. Byron was staring at me, somehow shocked. Jarod had used the word mother in connection with me in this sentence in front of this little boy. Byron jumped down from the kitchen chair and ran into his room. His short legs made him nearly fall over a couple of stairs, just to be faster than me.
I followed him. He was standing at the window, crying.
“They will never come back?” he asked me, his eyes red from crying.
“No Byron, unfortunately not. But they are taking care of you in another, special way. Look up into the sky” I knelt down beside him to be at the same height. “At night when you see a star, you know that they are looking down at you.” I said and tears were building up in my eyes. “They are angels now, looking down from haven.”
I don’t know how long it took me till I was able to calm Byron really down. Since this minute, I told him that his parents would be angels, he never moved away from my side.
I slowly went downstairs. Maybe it was already lunch time. Byron was asleep. After crying he fell asleep in my arms and I brought him to bed. God, I knew how hard these days are.
Downstairs I found both babies asleep, Jarod was away.
M.M.P,
You know that the truth is out there
J.
I smiled and started to clean up the kitchen.
Time was running. Sunday went over like water is running down a waterfall. It was night and I haven’t had the change to do any packing. Or at least thing what to do next. Plan my next step.
Just one thing was sure – the Centre will not be allowed to decide what to do for me. I will hide this kids as good as possible. Life has to go on. Also for these kids.
The night was like the one before. Only Byron was sleeping with me all night long. He was frightened and shuddering when he went to bed, so I told him to go to the sleeping sofa in his sister’s room.
In the morning I called for a packing company and arranged some important appointments in Blue Cove.
I was still wondering how Jarod could know all those things and why he was there to help me so suddenly and that I felt somehow uncomfortable around him. He wasn’t the guy anymore who was my friend when I was a child.
While I drank my cup of coffee Byron told me what he would like to have in his new room. I have had managed to tell him that we have to leave this house and move to the other side of the States. He didn’t seem to be very disappointed, just wondered.
I packed the toys and cloths of Byron, and some books I have found in the parent’s room. Books telling me how to deal with children, books who should be able to help me.
Byron packed his stuffed animals into boxes, taking care that none of them could get hurt – so we needed more boxes than I had counted. There was only enough room for about 8 animals per box because they couldn’t stay one on top of the other. I just had to laugh about this.
It was harder with the girls. I told the company to take only their cribs with them, and I also wanted to get rid of them. I don’t want that Byron is reminded all the time, when he goes into his sisters’ room, that his parents were dead.
Out of a catalogue Byron and I ordered some furniture for his room and his sisters. He told me that he doesn’t like blue walls, so we decided to let them be paint in yellow. And the walls in the room of Gillian and Dana should be in crème with little teddy bears.
He wanted a race car bed and he got it. I wasn’t good in sports or stuff like that so we decided to take simple things. He just wanted a Bulls t-shirt and he got it. Why not?
For his sister’s room I ordered a classic changing table made out of oak and in the same wood new cribs, a rocking chair, two drawer systems and a bookshelf. I also got the fireplace re-activated.
Many things had to change. I asked a friend a friend who worked at the CIA if he could take care of the fact that there could be bugs and hidden cameras in my house.
And on Monday evening, shortly before I started to pack the kids into their travelling cloths – he called me to tell me that he had found several bugs, hidden in sockets.
I told Byron that we would leave now and he didn’t say a word to me. I just looked back once to the house. There was no tear and now grieve.
Maybe all this was happening this way because the funeral had taken place on the day after the accident and the kids were left alone at home with another babysitter.
I got the twins in two special carrying seats, Byron on my hand and so I went to the airport. All the luggage was carried by the taxi driver. He had seen that it was impossible for me to carry them all. He tried to flirt with me, and normally I would have flirted with him too because he was the type of men I liked. Normally. But now I wasn’t alone anymore. I was mother of three kids now. Suddenly.
The stewardesses shot me some strange looks when I got on the plane. Maybe because the girls were just eight weeks old, or because of Byron. He didn’t say a word from Seattle to Blue Cove.
At home everything was arranged. I signed the papers and went into my new house, new because nothing was as I had left it on Friday night.
My life had changed. And it was one more chance to do the right things instead of living a life who wasn’t mine.
It had been a long day and I brought Gillian and Dana to their room. It was the one next to mine, so that I could hear them cry if they would. Byron’s room was my old guest room. It was the room near the second bathroom. There was now still one room left, one nobody was sleeping in. I had planned to turn this one into the guestroom. It was too small for a nursery even if it was the lightest rooms of all.
When I came down to get something to eat, Jarod was standing in the doorframe.
“What do you want here Jarod?” I asked him tired.
“I want to help you.”
“Why should I trust you.” I said harshly and tied my robe tighter around my small, tired frame.
“Just do it Parker, trust me once in your life.”
I nodded and got myself a glass of milk.
“No Vodka today?” he asked me sarcastically and eyed me with a smile.
“Doesn’t look like Vodka to me lab rat.”
“Oh we are back in Blue Cove and so your behaviour – typically. How could I even think that children would change you.”
Jarod turned around and while he went out of the house he said laud, “Well Max we’ll see in Alaska.”
When the door closed behind him, I threw the half full milk glass against the front door. How could he talk like that to me? How could he …
I went to the kitchen and got myself my bottle of Vodka out of the freezer and some eyes and sat down in front of my TV set. I don’t know when I had turned it on the last time. I found the controller and zapped around a little while I was drinking my usual portion of liquid.
“Fox Mulder” the man on the TV told a lady next to him, “Special Agent Fox Mulder.”
“Cute but not funny, honey” I said in my not anymore clear headed state of life.
And a couple of minutes later he told this red head “The Truth is out There.”
I could only thing about the fact that tomorrow was a working day like every other day and that I had to deal with it. I got a Nanny for the kids and told Byron about it. He didn’t seem to care about it. I was afraid that he could go to much into himself, not telling me what the matter was but on the other side this kid was just three years young. How could he deal like an adult?
Nearly half the bottle was gone, Mulder was still telling the red head, I think Scully was her name, something about aliens and reality – and when he told her that they are on earth now, trying to test the human race - I decided that it was time to go to bed, with the knowledge that it would be another sleep less night.
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