Trailer Park Heart
Page 28
Max tumbled back through the door, tripping over the door jam and falling on his knees.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
He jumped back to his feet and brushed off his sweatpants, totally unbothered by his fall. Six-year-old boys were so rough and tumble. He was like a little pinball that bounced back and forth through life. “Grammy said a naughty word.”
“I heard her,” I sighed. “She shouldn’t say that.”
“It means something bad,” he agreed.
I caught his eye and gave him my mom stare. “Don’t you say it. Be better than Grammy.”
He grinned at me. “I love Grammy.”
“I do too. But I don’t talk like her and you shouldn’t either.” It wasn’t that I had anything against the words she said. But we were already from a trailer park. I would die of mortification if my six-year-old showed up and started dropping F bombs in first grade.
“Uh, mom?”
It wasn’t exactly a promise to refrain from cursing publicly, so I let him keep my full attention. “Yeah?”
“We never went on the nature walk. Remember?”
In my head, I said, Son of a bitch! But out loud, because I’d just given him a lesson on language and I was a good mom, I said, “That would be a perfect thing to do today.” Okay, good-ish mom. But the important thing to remember was that I wasn’t a total hypocrite. Okay, I was. But a hypocrite in the way only parents get. The parent hypocrisy that promises their child needs to know all their math facts, even though you are acutely aware they’ll never use it in real life. Or the parent that makes your child make super healthy meal choices and then sneaks Oatmeal Pies in the pantry. I had thus far been able to hide my hypocrisy from Max.
Which shouldn’t have been a victory, but it was.
“Really?” Max asked, his eyes narrowed with distrust.
“Sure. We can walk around here, can’t we? We don’t have to go somewhere specific?” He shrugged. “Will you get me your homework assignment paper? It’s hanging on the fridge.”
He brought it over to me and I read through his homework thoroughly for the first time. His teacher wanted us to go for a walk in a nature-rich environment and record all the different things we saw. It was due Monday.
We’d had the homework assignment for at least two weeks, so it wasn’t like this was news, we just hadn’t found the time to do it yet.
I swung my legs around to sit up and rolled my neck. So much for a nap. “Okay, I’m going to change while you get your shoes on and then we’ll head out.”
He made a holler of delight. Mom guilt instantly clawed from inside my chest. I hated how this small thing that required my minimal participation made him so excited.
I should do better, playing and doing things with him, but it was hard when I worked so much. My feet were always tired, and I’d started to have a sore back in the last two years thanks to all the waitressing.
My mom did the fun things with him and sometimes Coco would take him to a movie or on a lunch date. But I was just mom. I nagged him about homework and made him go to bed on time.
He was this wild boy that wanted someone to wrestle and play catch with. By the time we got through homework at the end of the school day, it was all I could do to make dinner and read him a few books before we both dozed off.
Behind my closed bedroom door, I quickly changed out of my waitressing uniform into a pair of black yoga capris, a sports bra and a long sleeve workout tee. Pulling on some worn tennis shoes I’d had since high school, I threw my long hair up in a messy bun on the top of my head and grabbed my phone.
Ajax had texted wanting to go out tonight. I quickly sent him a message back that I had Max and was stuck at home, but thanks for the offer.
The truth was, you couldn’t have dragged me out of the house tonight. I was way too tired to dance. Or get dressed in real clothes. Or do anything but curl up with Max on the couch and binge watch cartoons and movies all night.
I had never been the kind of girl with exciting weekend plans, but things had decidedly taken a turn for the bland ever since Max.
Not that I was complaining. Netflix and chill was my love language.
Netflix and chill in the literal sense, obviously.
Besides I was officially avoiding Ajax for the rest of time. Amen and amen. If he was on drugs or even abusing alcohol there was no way in fiery hell that I would ever let him near my son. And since I was always near Max, goodbye Ajax. Hello, single and celibate life.
“Ready?” I asked him just as he finished velcroing his shoe.
“Ready!”
Our neighborhood, as rundown and poverty-stricken as it was, was nestled at the border of town next to wide-open country. Having positioned itself on the other side of the railroad tracks from the town proper, there wasn’t any civilization interested in building around us.
We were boxed in by gravel roads and corn fields and if there was anything redeeming about living in a trailer park, this was it.
Max and I walked along the gravel road that led toward the highway, noticing the grasshoppers that caused my mom to cuss, along with butterflies, dragonflies and mosquitoes and all the other forms of creepy crawlies that populated the planet. We’d stop every once in a while, so I could help him mark things down on his homework sheet. He was getting better at writing and spelling, but he still needed my help to make it make sense.
When we were about twenty minutes from home, we’d covered the homework front and back and had a great time together.
“Okay, should we head back and start thinking about supper?”
“No!” he said adamantly. “I like this walk.”
“Me too.” I plopped my hands on my hips and turned in a circle. “We could go this way for a bit. Go all the way around the block.”
“What’s a block?”
I blinked at him. I guess we didn’t really have that concept in our neighborhood. “Um, well…” Before I could answer, a runner turned the corner up ahead of us in the direction I’d told Max we could go. His shirtless body moved with athletic expertise, his long legs stretching out before him, eating up the road between us. His muscular arms pumping and pushing him to work harder, he would be in our space in seconds if I didn’t think fast.
I blinked at him, trying to make him make sense here, in my part of the world. Why was he running these roads? As far as I knew, people around town used the high school track or the treadmills in their basements. Or just didn’t run.
There were a lot of people in this town that did not run.
I was proudly one of them.
Apparently, Levi Cole was too good for any of those options. Apparently, he was stalking me. For the love.
“Like a building block?” Max was asking.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. “No,” I answered absently. “Let’s go… this way.” I practically threw him in the opposite direction of Levi. Grabbing his hand, I hurriedly tugged him after me.
“I thought you said we could go around the block?” he asked as I tugged him after me. “Whatever that is. Is this the block?”
“We’re going to find a different block. Any other block.” I glanced at the tall stalks of corn to my left. They would be plowed soon, but right now they would make excellent cover.
Heavy footsteps pounded behind me. He was getting closer. Making a squeaking sound I wasn’t proud of, I quickly turned Max and I down a dirt inlet that led to the corn. “I think I see a toad, Max. We haven’t marked that down yet.”
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
He jumped back to his feet and brushed off his sweatpants, totally unbothered by his fall. Six-year-old boys were so rough and tumble. He was like a little pinball that bounced back and forth through life. “Grammy said a naughty word.”
“I heard her,” I sighed. “She shouldn’t say that.”
“It means something bad,” he agreed.
I caught his eye and gave him my mom stare. “Don’t you say it. Be better than Grammy.”
He grinned at me. “I love Grammy.”
“I do too. But I don’t talk like her and you shouldn’t either.” It wasn’t that I had anything against the words she said. But we were already from a trailer park. I would die of mortification if my six-year-old showed up and started dropping F bombs in first grade.
“Uh, mom?”
It wasn’t exactly a promise to refrain from cursing publicly, so I let him keep my full attention. “Yeah?”
“We never went on the nature walk. Remember?”
In my head, I said, Son of a bitch! But out loud, because I’d just given him a lesson on language and I was a good mom, I said, “That would be a perfect thing to do today.” Okay, good-ish mom. But the important thing to remember was that I wasn’t a total hypocrite. Okay, I was. But a hypocrite in the way only parents get. The parent hypocrisy that promises their child needs to know all their math facts, even though you are acutely aware they’ll never use it in real life. Or the parent that makes your child make super healthy meal choices and then sneaks Oatmeal Pies in the pantry. I had thus far been able to hide my hypocrisy from Max.
Which shouldn’t have been a victory, but it was.
“Really?” Max asked, his eyes narrowed with distrust.
“Sure. We can walk around here, can’t we? We don’t have to go somewhere specific?” He shrugged. “Will you get me your homework assignment paper? It’s hanging on the fridge.”
He brought it over to me and I read through his homework thoroughly for the first time. His teacher wanted us to go for a walk in a nature-rich environment and record all the different things we saw. It was due Monday.
We’d had the homework assignment for at least two weeks, so it wasn’t like this was news, we just hadn’t found the time to do it yet.
I swung my legs around to sit up and rolled my neck. So much for a nap. “Okay, I’m going to change while you get your shoes on and then we’ll head out.”
He made a holler of delight. Mom guilt instantly clawed from inside my chest. I hated how this small thing that required my minimal participation made him so excited.
I should do better, playing and doing things with him, but it was hard when I worked so much. My feet were always tired, and I’d started to have a sore back in the last two years thanks to all the waitressing.
My mom did the fun things with him and sometimes Coco would take him to a movie or on a lunch date. But I was just mom. I nagged him about homework and made him go to bed on time.
He was this wild boy that wanted someone to wrestle and play catch with. By the time we got through homework at the end of the school day, it was all I could do to make dinner and read him a few books before we both dozed off.
Behind my closed bedroom door, I quickly changed out of my waitressing uniform into a pair of black yoga capris, a sports bra and a long sleeve workout tee. Pulling on some worn tennis shoes I’d had since high school, I threw my long hair up in a messy bun on the top of my head and grabbed my phone.
Ajax had texted wanting to go out tonight. I quickly sent him a message back that I had Max and was stuck at home, but thanks for the offer.
The truth was, you couldn’t have dragged me out of the house tonight. I was way too tired to dance. Or get dressed in real clothes. Or do anything but curl up with Max on the couch and binge watch cartoons and movies all night.
I had never been the kind of girl with exciting weekend plans, but things had decidedly taken a turn for the bland ever since Max.
Not that I was complaining. Netflix and chill was my love language.
Netflix and chill in the literal sense, obviously.
Besides I was officially avoiding Ajax for the rest of time. Amen and amen. If he was on drugs or even abusing alcohol there was no way in fiery hell that I would ever let him near my son. And since I was always near Max, goodbye Ajax. Hello, single and celibate life.
“Ready?” I asked him just as he finished velcroing his shoe.
“Ready!”
Our neighborhood, as rundown and poverty-stricken as it was, was nestled at the border of town next to wide-open country. Having positioned itself on the other side of the railroad tracks from the town proper, there wasn’t any civilization interested in building around us.
We were boxed in by gravel roads and corn fields and if there was anything redeeming about living in a trailer park, this was it.
Max and I walked along the gravel road that led toward the highway, noticing the grasshoppers that caused my mom to cuss, along with butterflies, dragonflies and mosquitoes and all the other forms of creepy crawlies that populated the planet. We’d stop every once in a while, so I could help him mark things down on his homework sheet. He was getting better at writing and spelling, but he still needed my help to make it make sense.
When we were about twenty minutes from home, we’d covered the homework front and back and had a great time together.
“Okay, should we head back and start thinking about supper?”
“No!” he said adamantly. “I like this walk.”
“Me too.” I plopped my hands on my hips and turned in a circle. “We could go this way for a bit. Go all the way around the block.”
“What’s a block?”
I blinked at him. I guess we didn’t really have that concept in our neighborhood. “Um, well…” Before I could answer, a runner turned the corner up ahead of us in the direction I’d told Max we could go. His shirtless body moved with athletic expertise, his long legs stretching out before him, eating up the road between us. His muscular arms pumping and pushing him to work harder, he would be in our space in seconds if I didn’t think fast.
I blinked at him, trying to make him make sense here, in my part of the world. Why was he running these roads? As far as I knew, people around town used the high school track or the treadmills in their basements. Or just didn’t run.
There were a lot of people in this town that did not run.
I was proudly one of them.
Apparently, Levi Cole was too good for any of those options. Apparently, he was stalking me. For the love.
“Like a building block?” Max was asking.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. “No,” I answered absently. “Let’s go… this way.” I practically threw him in the opposite direction of Levi. Grabbing his hand, I hurriedly tugged him after me.
“I thought you said we could go around the block?” he asked as I tugged him after me. “Whatever that is. Is this the block?”
“We’re going to find a different block. Any other block.” I glanced at the tall stalks of corn to my left. They would be plowed soon, but right now they would make excellent cover.
Heavy footsteps pounded behind me. He was getting closer. Making a squeaking sound I wasn’t proud of, I quickly turned Max and I down a dirt inlet that led to the corn. “I think I see a toad, Max. We haven’t marked that down yet.”
