Free Going for Kona by Pamela Fagan Hutchins Page B

moment more than ever. He excelled at this stuff. I was a triple-zero failure. Adrian loved celebrations and holidays. Life with him had big blow-up Halloween decorations, over-the-top Christmas lights, tulips on Fridays, and birthdays that lasted all week long. I made sure kids did homework and cleaned their rooms. I booked the doctor and dentist appointments. I straightened up the mess when the parties ended. Adrian brought the fun, I brought the order, and right now I couldn’t deliver either.
    “So it’s fried chicken for dinner tonight. And we need to finalize the plans for your birthday party.” I wanted to keep speaking, but I had nothing to say. I couldn’t remember squat about our plans for his birthday. I remembered that in another life entirely, Adrian, Sam, and I had talked about it. I tried to bring our conversation back into my frontal lobe. A movie and pizza with friends? A guy/girl party at our house? I would never have said yes to that. Paintball wars with the guys? How the hell should I know? I was a little Hot Wheels car catapulting into the double loop, and I was jumping the tracks. Someone screamed, “I should remember this—I am the kid’s mother!!!” Me. I heard me scream it.
    Everyone was staring at me: my mother, Sam, and Annabelle and her grandmother, who had just that moment walked in the door. Precious bolted and Diane followed her, backing up in tiny steps as I crumbled into big, ugly, snotty sobs that would not stop.
    Annabelle reached my side first. Her long hair fell against my arm as she pressed her face into my shoulder. Sam took up what was becoming his regular station on my other side and started patting me. My laboring brain tuned in just long enough for me to realize that my children were doing more to take care of me than I was for them. I was committing a motherhood felony crime, and my mother was an eyewitness. To top it all off, a woman was lurking in my house who wanted to—and could—take one of my kids away from me.
    I summoned words from the depths of my worthless head. “Paintball, right? You want to go do paintball with your buddies. And then you want dinner at Jax Grill, and to go to the movies.” I looked into Sam’s big brown eyes, wanting so badly to see a flicker of redemption, and my sweet boy made it all right.
    “Yes, that’s it, Mom. I understand and you don’t have to—”
    I wasn’t going to let him make any more excuses for me. “Perfect, then. You just need to get me your birthday-week meal selections, and we’ll get this in motion.”
    My mother chimed in. “Your grandfather can take you and your friends to paintball, and I’d love to make you a cake. I used to bake you cakes in whatever shape you wanted when you were a little boy. Remember the Pokémon cake? And the Simba cake?”
    “Yes, Gigi, but—”
    “I’ll make you one this year in the shape of your number on the baseball team.”
    “Thirty-three.” He grinned.
    “I can help, Gigi.” The eagerness in Annabelle’s voice made my heart swell.
    “Thank you, Belle, I would love your help. Sam can get us a menu and after I pack up some of this food for you two to drop off at a shelter, I can go to the grocery store.” My mother turned to me. “Is this all right with you, Michele?”
    The tightness eased. “Absolutely. It’s perfect, Mom.”
    The rhythm of our life restarted, and Sam grabbed a glass from the cabinet and went to the refrigerator for ice. Mother started fussing with the food again. Annabelle leaned her head in to me.
    “Grandmother is here.” Mierda. Yes, she certainly was. “Do you have a minute to talk to her, you know, about me and stuff?”
    The knot tightened again. I had to get it together. I had to do this well. “Of course.”
    “She’s in here,” Annabelle said, and walked into the living room where her grandmother was pacing and talking on the phone. Diane wrapped it up when we entered.
    I passed the table where we displayed our treasures, trailing