Eileen remembered the day she got it.
“Mom?”
Startled, Eileen jumped in her seat and turned to see her sleepy youngest child, Cameron, nowhere even in the ballpark of ready for school. “You’re not dressed.”
“I don’t have any clean shorts.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. Cameron’s load of clean clothes was still sitting in a damp lump in the middle of her washing machine. “I know, I’m sorry.” She racked her brains for some alternative. “We’ll just put what you’re going to wear today in the dryer. It’ll be faster.”
“School starts in five minutes.”
Defeated, and obviously with no good solutions for anything this morning, Eileen nodded at her son.
“Is that Aunt Clare?” he asked, his eyes focused on the screen behind her.
“Yes.”
“Why’s she so dressed up?”
“One of her books was made into a movie, and she went to the premiere last night.”
“Another movie?” Cameron beamed, his excitement erasing the last traces of sleepiness from his face. “Can we go see it?”
The pain—it was a real thing. Jealousy wormed through her gut like an infection. Eileen gave him a weak smile. “Of course.”
Cameron, her most sensitive and emotionally attuned kid, narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She turned in her seat and closed the internet browser on her screen so her glamorous sister was replaced by Eileen’s tangled mess of desktop icons.
“Are you sick?” Both of his hands landed on her cheeks and drew her face back to his.
She looked into his bright blue eyes, took a deep breath, sat up straight in her chair, and conjured a real smile. “I’m only a little sick.”
“Are you going to stay home today?” The hope in his voice gave away where this questioning would lead.
“No. And neither are you, or your brother, or your sister. We are all pulling it together and getting on with the day,” she declared. She stood up and went to drag Ryan and Paige out of bed. “Go pick something to wear out of the washer and put it in the dryer.”
Cameron, giving up any last hope that he might spend the day at home playing video games instead of at school, slumped his shoulders and moved like a snail toward the laundry room. “You know, class starts in two minutes,” he called back to her.
“Just keep moving,” Eileen yelled back. “Faster.” Her own slippered feet raced up the stairs. “Paige! Ryan!”
An hour later, and after a frantic search for her car keys, which were eventually found in the sink of the downstairs bathroom, Eileen herded the last of her kids out the front door.
“I forgot my ID,” Ryan said, rushing back inside the house.
Eileen closed her eyes and took a breath. Something was wrong with her… It simply wasn’t this hard to get three kids to school and herself to work. She knew it. Every day, millions of families all over the world seemed to pull this off, on time.
Ryan finally came barreling back down the stairs, “Got it!” he said as he raced out the door. Eileen remembered to close the front door and lock it—something that hadn’t happened yesterday.
She adjusted her tote and camera bags on her shoulder, leaning to counterbalance the weight, and pressed the unlock button on the key fob several times as she walked down the porch steps. When she rounded the edge of the house and could see the drive, she was surprised to see all three of her children, not inside her car waiting for her, but standing next to Eric’s car.
Paige was pulling a large manila envelope from underneath one of the wiper blades on the windshield.
What is going on? Where is my car? Hasn’t Eric already left for work? Then it hit her—their fight, her assignment for him. “Will you please take my car and get the oil changed?”
Ryan snatched the envelope from Paige and turned away from her, protecting the prize. “I’m opening it. It’s probably for me!”
“I’m expecting something,” Paige countered, trying to snatch the envelope back.
“I saw it first.” Ryan clutched the envelope to his chest, his body turning and twisting against his sister’s every attack attempt.
“Mom?” Cameron asked. “Can I open it? Please?”
They were about to get into a fight—a real one. She could practically smell kid fights rushing in, seconds before someone shoved just a bit too hard, initiating a return strike that actually hurt, leading to a defensive kick—running, arms flailing.
“Stop!” she commanded, rushing into the fray and grabbing the envelope from Ryan. “What is wrong with you two? Get in the car, now!”
“But—”
“Now!” Eileen finished. “For God’s sake, we don’t have time for this.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Paige added in a withering tone as she sauntered to the front passenger door.
“I’m sitting in front,” Ryan called, rushing to get between his sister and the door. “I called it.”
“You did not!”
“I did! Ask Cameron. I called it before we came outside.”
“You can’t call it when everyone’s not there.”
Movement across the street caught her attention. Her neighbor with her erect spine and size-two body was pretending to not hear this “poor parenting” episode unraveling. Eileen watched as she slipped into her shiny black Mercedes. Her children were already at school. The nanny got them there on time every morning.
“Stop it,” Eileen hissed. “Get in the back, both of you. Cameron’s sitting up front.”
Paige turned on her. “Cameron’s not even old enough—”
“I. Don’t. Care. Get in the back. Now!”
Cameron beamed.
“It’s not fair,” Ryan whined.
Eileen ignored him and unlocked the doors. Finally, everyone got in the car—all unhappy except Cameron.
“What should we listen to?” he asked as he reached for the radio, defining the battleground for the fight that would happen on the drive.
Eileen put the key in the ignition and started the car, the envelope from the windshield still in her left hand. Eric’s full name was handwritten across the front in black Sharpie.
“No!” Paige declared from the back. “We are not listening to country music, Cameron!”
Eileen turned her body in her seat and stuffed the envelope down the side of her tote so she could give it to Eric later.