40 Something - Safety (7 page)

“Right. Sorry
Davie. I meant to pick some up yesterday on the way home from aunty
Rose’s.”

“What’s for
breakfast?”

“Toast.
Oatmeal. Coffee.”

“Toast I
guess.”

Right then my
toast popped.

“You can have
mine. There should be some peanut butter in the cupboard.”

I sip on my
coffee while making a list of things that I need to do today. The
Granger case needs my immediate attention. The meeting with Doug
can wait until I figure out what Shelly knows and I’ve met with the
forensic accountant.

Doug. What am I
going to do about him? I really don’t want to work with that
ambitious, womanizing jerk. Just being around him reminds me that
I’m not pretty. I don’t like Doug. I don’t want to date him. He is
a player. Shallow. It’s just. Damn. Good looking men never notice
me. God. What’s wrong with me? A hollow pain inside grows. The pain
of loneliness that is my constant companion, and it hurts.

“Hey mom. What
about my lunch?”

Shit. I don’t
have anything to make for lunch. The kid can’t take peanut butter
to class because one of his classmates will fall dead. I open the
fridge, not much there. I pull out a pudding cup, an applesauce cup
and a bell pepper. I find a protein bar in the cupboard and a
couple chocolate chip cookies. I can’t believe I left 2 cookies
uneaten in the bag. I put it all in a plastic grocery bag.

“Mom you know
that I get in trouble for all the packaging and junk food.”

“Bell peppers
are healthy and we’re reusing the bag, should be points for
that.”

His teacher
decided that the class needed a smaller environmental footprint or
some such bullshit. She even made a game of it. The kids get points
for bringing lunches that have zero garbage packaging and points if
it’s healthy. They lose points when they bring a lunch like the one
I just packed for him. She’s even gone so far as to send me a few
notes to inform me that Davie needs healthier lunches and what
packaging is appropriate.

How about she
makes the kid’s lunch if it’s so damn important.

“You’re
supposed to use reusable grocery bags when you shop, not plastic
ones.”

Like I can ever
remember to bring the countless fabric bags I’ve bought when I go
shopping. Isn’t that a great sales gimmick, sell us fabric bags and
if we forget to bring them then they charge us for the plastic
ones. There is no value added anymore. Not even grocery bags.

“Whose the one
who forgot his lunch bag and containers at school and still hasn’t
brought them home?”

“Me.”

“Exactly. We’ll
get healthy food tonight and another lunch bag with plastic
re-useable containers. That way if you forget it, we have a spare.
Does that work?” He nods.

I sit back down
and my coffee is cold. Great. I dump it and pour myself another
mug. Back to my list, now where was I?

Sophie.

Should probably
check up with Lindsay to find out how the two of them are getting
along. We need to figure out where Sophie will go from here. We
need a plan. I need to light a fire under the server and find out
what the hold up is. Craig should have had the restraining order
served to him before he was released. I knew he’d bee line it for
Sophie once he was out.

I got an earful
last night from my mother about how I dragged my sister into this
mess I tried to remind her that Sophie was Rose’s friend and I was
the one being dragged into help. She didn’t buy that argument. It’s
all my fault the Rose feels unsafe. Of course it is.

“I forgot my
science project at dad’s can we stop by there before school?” My
son asks.

“We don’t have
time.”

“It’s due
today.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me this last night?”

“I forgot ‘til
now.”

“Well you’ll
have to go get it after school or text your dad and see if he can
drop it off.”

If I was Rose
I’d be driving to get it. If I was my mom I’d have had it all set
out ready to go the next day. If I was the perfect mother, I’d have
know he had a science project and that it was due today. I’m not
Rose. I’m not my mother. I’m not perfect. How can I be? How can any
career woman be both successful at work and the perfect mother? How
do other women do it?

“Maybe Debbie
will drop it off.”

“DAVIE. What
did I tell you about saying that woman’s name in my house?”

I can feel the
sudden anger take control of me. Her name is like a knife, cutting
at my very soul. It isn’t fair. She took everything from me. I hate
her. I hate everything about that woman.

“Ah. Sorry mom.
Didn’t think.”

“Of course you
didn’t. How could you? I’m just the mom after all. I mean what do
my feelings matter?”

“Mom. I’m
sorry.”

I look at my
son. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, it had slipped, how could
it not? He lives with her half the time. She’s been his other mom
for five years. Something sharp cuts me deeper and a hot pain
radiates from it. I know it’s not Davie’s fault. It just hurts so
damn much knowing that my son has another mother. A woman who stole
my husband’s affections. A woman who moved into my life,
seamlessly. A woman who seems to be able to do a better job of it
than I ever did. It’s not Davie’s fault. It’s hers and that
cheating piece of crap I call an ex-husband.

“No Davie. I’m
sorry.”

“I don’t really
like her.”

I smile. I know
he’s lying. At least he tries.

The house is a
mess.

I'm not
exaggerating.

There are piles
of dirt up against the walls on the floor, food, dust, dirt. The
kitchen is piled up with dishes and there is no food in the
kitchen. I have laundry in various stages piled around me. It's
been weeks since I really cleaned.

I look at the
piles of crap on the counter, on the desk, in the living room,
family room and do you know what, I don't care. I just don't.

Instead of
cleaning and sorting through the mess I'm working. I create
content. I market my client’s businesses to increase the traffic to
their websites, so they can make money. I am a lead generator. It
challenges me. It uses my mind. I have to analyze data. Figure out
how people interact with content. I have to virtually engage others
on my client's behalf. This all takes time. Lots and lots of
time.

I get lost in
the work.

You know how
people have junk drawers? Well I have a junk room. When someone is
coming over for a visit I'll run around the house at full speed,
completely stressed out, in a panic of epic proportions. I'll grab
everything that's lying around and throw it into the junk room,
then I'll shut the door. Once that's done I'll do a quick
superficial clean, so the house looks perfect. It's not. If someone
looked close enough they'd see the dust, the dirt, the grim.

My mother looks
close and I've stopped even trying to get the house perfect for her
visits, she is coming over tomorrow and will yell at
me. How could I live like this?

"This is how
your aunt Meridith started out, with a house cluttered
and messy like yours.  Now her place is so bad that she has
stuff piled everywhere, there is no room in her house, no one will
visit."

My aunt
Meridith is a first class hoarder, I don't think she's ever thrown
out anything. I don't know how she got so bad, mom seems to think
she's just lazy because there is no reason for it. I'm not so sure.
There has to be more to why people end up like that. A deep
sadness? Loneliness? Self hatred? A hole so deep that only stuff
can fill it?

I don't have
stuff. I don't shop. I work.

My mom will
come tomorrow, muttering about this and that. She will start
cleaning and I'll start feeling guilty because I didn't get it
done. I will feel inadequate because I chose to work instead of
clean the house. I will feel like a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad
daughter.

I will feel
like the failure that I am. All because I couldn't keep the place
clean.

How does one
keep a house perfect with a family running it amuck? When I do
clean up, two minutes later the kids have gone through it and the
place is a disaster again. What was the point? Where is the data
that shows me I'm doing something right? The proof showing me that
I'm getting somewhere? That each brick I put into place is building
something?

I have two
kids. Do you think they can help out? Clean their rooms? Change
over the dishwasher? Pick up their toys? Nope. No way. No how. They
just add to the mess. When they make a mess after I clean, why
bother?

I give them a
list of chores. When I raise my head up out of my work I yell at
them to get it done. They never do. The place stays a disaster and
I somehow just don't care enough to make them do it. How does one
make a preteen and teenager do anything? When they were little I'd
say do this, they'd either do it or went on time out. Now what?

Friends and
family tell me to take their phones away, their video games,
anything they value. I just don't care enough to do it. I mean
really. Is having a clean house so important that I have to punish
them for not doing it?

I go back to
work.

My husband,
Gary, he does what he can. He either cooks dinner or brings home
take out. He helps the kids with their homework and gets them
settled while I work. I work all the time. I start first thing in
the morning and I don't look up until it's time for bed. I work
everyday

I'm not looking
forward to my mother's visit. She'll lecture me on how I have to
have dinner ready for Gary when he gets home and how I need to
focus more on keeping a clean house, an organized house, a perfect
house. I know that I'm supposed to. I know that. I just can't seem
to care.

I tried
cleaning up this morning. I started in the living room and all I
could do was think of work. How to get more traffic to the
contractor's website. What should my next blog post be about and
exactly how do I motivate someone to stop looking and buy. When the
ideas come to me I stop cleaning. I start working.

You'd think
Gary would get mad. He doesn't. He brings me coffee in the morning.
He asks me how my latest campaign is going. He tidies up on the
weekends. Once, he offered to hire a cleaning lady. The thought of
it loaded me down with guilt and I cleaned for a week. The house
was perfect and I barely slept, as I still had to work.

After a week, I
got tired. So tired I couldn't get out of bed for two days. I was
sick. Not sick as in cough, cough, puke, puke, but sick in a
different way. I didn't care about anything. Not even work. Every
muscle in my body ached and my brain was shutting down. I couldn't
hold a thought, I couldn't string a sentence together without
loosing words and going blank. I couldn't focus. I just couldn't
move.

Two days later,
I woke up and went back to work. Sitting on my ass, at my computer,
never moving. I should be the size of Rose by now, but I'm not.
Thank you mom for a fabulous metabolism. I am completely out of
shape, you just can't tell that from looking at me.

One day I'll
get it together. One day I'll be able to do everything. One day.
Just not today. I just don't care enough to.

I am getting an
alarm installed in my house.

I should have
done it years ago and I can’t believe I was so irresponsible as to
not have one. Gus says we don’t need one because there is always
someone home, but that’s why we need one. What if a crazy mad man
broke into the house and Gus wasn’t there to protect us?

The Banners had
their place robbed a few years ago while they were away on
vacation. The guy broke a back window, gained access to the garage
and had a moving truck come and take everything. Don Maynard said
he saw a moving truck late in the evening when he was out walking
his dog. He just didn’t think it was something to call the cops
about. It didn’t look suspicious. He thought the people who lived
there were moving or something. No, he had no idea that they were
on vacation in Florida that week.

He should have
called the police. The Banners weren’t home. Why would they have a
moving truck come if they weren’t home? I knew they weren’t home. I
just wasn’t outside when the truck was there.

If they had a
working alarm system then they wouldn’t have lost everything. It
won’t happen to us. We’ll have an alarm system. If we ever go away
I’ll tell Don Maynard that we are gone and no we are not expecting
a moving van to be at our house.

The newspaper
is filled with terrible stories of rapists breaking in and
assaulting a poor, vulnerable woman before stealing all her
valuables. If some weirdo broke in here and harmed the girls I’d
never forgive myself. We’ll figure out how to pay for it.

Good he’s
here.

I open the door
and a young man in a golf shirt and slacks with a clip board an id
tag is standing there, a big smile on his face.

“Hello Mrs.
Fischer, I’m Adam.”

“Come in Adam.
Come in. Please. Call me Rose. Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea,
iced tea, juice, water?”

“I’m fine thank
you. How ‘bout you tell me what you would like and then I’ll take a
look around for vulnerable security areas in your home, afterwards
we can sit and have a chat.”

“I want my home
to be secured. To make sure that my children are protected when
they are home alone.”

“Sounds like
what most people want. Do you mind if I take a look around to
assess the potential spots someone can get in?”

“Please,
please, go ahead. I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

I pour myself a
cup of tea and the phone rings.