Free Toward the Sound of Chaos by Carmen Jenner Page A

we just got to talkin’.”
    I
try and fix my hair, but it’s unruly this morning and won’t stay down without a
ton of hairspray, so I pull it all up on top of my head in one of them top knot
thingies, which I have to say pains me immensely. As a hairdresser who takes
great pride in her work, the top knot is like the crazy cat lady equivalent of
just givin’ up. It’s an offence to all my years of studying cosmetology, but
then, I don’t normally have a man sleeping on my couch this early either, and I
don’t know what the heck to do so to hell with fixin’ my hair.
    “Is
the same changing now?” Spencer asks quietly. The same is what he calls
the routine; he doesn’t like words that have a “roo” sound to them, and I guess
it’s the simplest way he can name the order of the motions we carry out every
day.
    I
turn away from the mirror, recognizing that I’m being somewhere else when my
child needs me to be present, and I squat down to his level. “No, Spence, the
same is not changing, but would it be so bad if it did?”
    He
frowns. “The same wouldn’t be the same then.”
    “That’s
true, the same would be different, but we’d have a new same, and new isn’t bad,”
I say. Spencer’s brow furrows and he fidgets with the neck of his pajama top
where the tag should be, a sure sign he’s getting agitated. “New isn’t bad,
Spencer. It’s just different, and it’s okay to experience different.”
    I
think it’s enough talk of change for one morning, so I tell him to run to the
kitchen and pull out the green bowl he likes to use on Thursdays while I change
into a floral print dress. I’ll have to fix myself up later because I have
clients today, but for now I just really need to tackle the man sleeping on my
couch.
    ***
    “If
you boys are about done; I can drop you off before I take Spencer to school?” I
say, interrupting the male bonding session that’s going on in my living room. Despite
how perfect a day it is after last night’s storms, we had an awkward start.
Jake shoveled grits and bacon in his mouth—more than likely to avoid talkin’
about last night—I pretended that I wasn’t weirded out at having a man sleep
over, and Spence ate his Cheerios in stunned silence as he watched a real-life
Marine eat at the same table. After that, Spencer pulled out all of his toy
trucks to show Jake. He about floored me when I told him that he’d miss the
beach if he didn’t hurry up and he just shrugged and said, “We’d go tomorrow.”
    I’m
not sure if Jake knew how monumental a thing that was, but he’d raised his brow
and glanced at me when Spencer had said it, so I was going to take a wild guess
and say he understood.
    “You
don’t have to take me home,” Jake says, his eyes meeting mine. “My legs work
just fine.”
    “Are
you crazy?” I shake my head and check Spencer’s school bag has everything he
needs in it. “How many miles is that?”
    “A
little over two.”
    I
blink in surprise.
    “Give
or take,” he says sheepishly.
     “Well,
two miles or not it’s still too far after walking here in the rain last night.
So as long as you don’t mind entertaining Spencer for a few minutes more while
I get his lunch packed, I’m taking you home.”
    “No,
ma’am. I don’t mind at all.”
    “Stop
calling me ma’am,” I warn him.
    “My
mamma’s kinda bossy,” Spencer whispers, and I chuckle to myself and head into
the kitchen.
    “Can
you keep a secret?” Jake asks, and my ears prick up. I may have even stopped
rummaging through the pantry in order to hear him better. “That’s what I like
about her.”
    I
don’t catch my son’s response, because I’m too busy floating away on a cloud.
     Twenty
minutes later, I wave to an especially grim Mr. Williams and buckle Spencer
into his seat. I’m just about to open the driver’s side door when I’m
intercepted by Jake. He muscles in, closer than I thought he’d be comfortable
with, and holds his hand