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Easing into the twins’ bedroom, she saw the source of their discontent. Her cell phone chirped with a missed call on the rocking chair tucked into the corner. She must have forgotten it in the room after tucking Harry and Heather in. If she was a betting woman, she’d guess there was also a message from Mark that he was running late.
The twins quieted, watching her as she grabbed the phone. It felt like they were mocking her, teasing her, playing a game that Anne would forever lose. At once, Anne felt guilty as she looked at her babies. Her eyes welled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, then grabbed her phone and disappeared from the room.
Once safe in the hallway, Anne expelled a breath. Her fingers worked the screen, unlocking it to find a missed call from her husband along with a text message to match. Perfect, she thought. Not only was he not home, but he was also the very reason the twins had woken up from their miracle early bedtime.
Anne opened the message from her husband, confirming what she’d already expected. He wasn’t on his way at all. As she read the text a second time, her scalp prickled with dismay. Her very core trembled.
Mark: Sorry, hon. Really behind at work. Tried to swing it but can’t. Do you mind canceling with Olivia? We’ll reschedule for next week. You feeling okay?
Anne briefly wondered what she would say if she told her husband the truth. Was she feeling okay? Ha, ha, ha. Poor Mark couldn’t handle the truth. If only men knew what it was like—motherhood, the insane wave of chaos and hormones and sleep deprivation, along with new baby mouths to feed and hearts to love. She struggled while Mark floated through it all, oblivious, content to contribute happy little paychecks and consider his duties fulfilled.
Anne began to type a response then deleted it. She typed another one, deleted that. What could she say? Mark had sent the babysitter home twice in one month, and Anne would be an idiot not to be suspicious at this point. Especially when she’d called his partner last time at the office to see what the holdup was, and his partner had said that Mark had gone home early due to a stomach bug.
The doorbell rang downstairs. The twins screamed. Anne looked down at the blank message on her phone. She couldn’t bring herself to respond, so she tucked her cell into a pocket and returned to the twins’ room. She performed a Cirque du Soleil–type maneuver to get both babies secured in her arms before hustling downstairs to open the front door as the bell dinged a second time.
Those Vegas acrobats had nothing on her. After nursing two babies at the same time and singlehandedly maneuvering a stroller with several small children in tow through a grocery store, she deserved some sort of accolade. A trophy. At the very minimum, a big, fat gold star.
Harry spit up all over Anne’s neck. She closed her eyes. That was the sort of accolade she was used to getting.
“Olivia,” Anne gasped, unlocking the screen door so the young woman could let herself in. “Actually, I’m so sorry. Mark is not able to—”
Olivia’s face began to fall. “You don’t need me…er…again?”
Without waiting for a response, Olivia reached for one of the twins. Anne handed Harry over and sighed with relief. The silence, the simple pleasure of having to hold only one child at a time swept over her as she studied the young college student.
“Actually…” Anne spun around and saw Gretchen on the couch. She could hear Samuel on his tablet upstairs. Suddenly, she didn’t want to deal with any of it. She wanted to tuck her children (safely) into someone else’s arms and disappear. For a long, long time. But that would be impossible. She couldn’t run away and not come back. He’d find her.
Anne cleared her throat. “I was just going to say that Mark’s running late, so I’m meeting him at the restaurant.”
“Hooray!” Olivia’s face brightened. “I was looking forward to babysitting. Plus, I imagine you could really use a night out.”
“I suppose I could,” Anne said.
But the truth weighed heavier on her. A night out was too small. Anne dreamed bigger.
“Let me just get the kids—”
“Stop!” Olivia raised her free hand, waved Anne away. “Go get ready. You’ve got spit-up on your shirt, and we can’t have that for your romantic dinner.”
Anne snorted with the irony of it all. Olivia merely smiled, missing the funniest part of the joke.
When Anne had married a cop, she’d known the drill. The long hours, the weekend shifts, the lifestyle that came with it. But after twenty years on the force, Mark had finally gotten enough seniority at the LAPD to move to day shifts. That meant he was supposed to be home at night.
Olivia set Harry down, took Heather from Anne’s arms. Olivia was an olive-skinned beauty with long, dark hair and gorgeous almond-shaped eyes. Better yet, she was a magician with the children.
Heather and Harry each latched on to one of Olivia’s fingers. Gretchen peeled her skinny limbs from the sofa and finally managed to find the Off button on the television remote. From upstairs, the sounds on Samuel’s tablet went mute.
Samuel’s curious voice called down, “Is that Olivia?”
“Only if you’re in your pajamas,” Olivia called back, tittering with laughter. “And what about you, ma’am? Those don’t look like jammies to me.”
While Gretchen heaved with laughter, Anne shot a grateful look over her children’s heads to the babysitter. Olivia tilted her chin up, directing Anne upstairs to get changed.
Anne did so, taking a luxuriously long shower. It was seven minutes in total, start to finish, including time for shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, and the removal of one nasty ingrown hair. She spritzed her best perfume onto her bare skin and studied her reflection in the mirror.
Anne wasn’t gorgeous by any right. She’d been cute, once upon a time. But her long, chestnut hair had since been chopped into a bob, and her once-plump hips now carried an extra twenty pounds that were no longer cute but quite saggy. Her breasts had also joined the saggy club, along with her biceps, her ass, and her thighs. They were a stubborn bunch.
