The Motherhood Intervention: Book 3 in the Intervention Series Read online

  ***

  “The little shit pooped on me!”

  Summer stopped in her tracks, her heart racing and her breath coming fast.

  “That’s what you were yelling about?” she said.

  “Yes! What did you think I was yelling about?”

  “Icky!” Hannah said, covering her mouth with one hand and pointing at Willow’s skirt with the other.

  Willow stood up, leaving Olivia on the couch.

  “Why are you panting like that?” Willow said.

  “I thought something was wrong.” Summer concentrated on bringing her breathing back to normal.

  “Something is wrong! She stained my skirt. I love this skirt. This stuff doesn’t come out, either.”

  Summer shook her head and took the baby off the couch. “You can’t just leave her on the couch like that. She could roll off.”

  “How about, ‘Sorry about your skirt, Mom’?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry about your skirt, Willow, because your skirt is so much more important than my daughter’s skull remaining intact.”

  Summer flounced down onto the couch and began to feed Olivia. She saw hazards to her children’s health everywhere. What if Olivia rolled off the couch and landed on the remote control truck one of the boys left on the floor? Her skull would be crushed. What if Hannah tripped over the truck and hit her face on the corner of the coffee table? Stitches, for sure. Summer should get some of those foam pads immediately. The coffee table was really dusty. What if Luke’s incision became infected after his surgery? She’d have to be much better about dusting and vacuuming and disinfecting.

  “We need to go to the store,” she said to Willow. “Right now.”

  “What? Why? You just went. We have food. Want me to cook something?”

  “Icky!” Hannah yelled again. Summer guffawed, and then hated herself for doing so. Willow just shrugged.

  “It’s not for food,” Summer said. “I need to get some disinfectant spray and vacuum bags. And maybe one of those duster things with the replaceable heads. I think we need a steam mop for the kitchen floor.”

  “I don’t understand why a clean house is suddenly so important to you,” Willow said.

  When Summer blanched, she quickly added, “That didn’t come out in the way I meant it to. I just meant, you’re worrying me. The house is fine. You seem a little … obsessive.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Summer said. Willow had been the complete opposite of obsessive during Summer’s childhood. Half the time, Summer doubted Willow even noticed she was there.

  “Probably not,” Willow agreed, and Summer hated herself even more.

  If her mother was going to be here, she should probably at least make an effort.

  “So, have you ever tried contacting Dennis again?” she said.

  For a moment, Willow didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead at the wall, and Summer thought she might have gotten too personal. Then Willow spoke.

  “I haven’t,” she said. “I was so cruel to him the last time we talked, I’ve always been afraid he’d reject me.”

  Summer nodded. She could empathize. She still hadn’t recovered from the first time Willow had rejected her. Summer was little, just four. A bad dream woke her up. Something about a monster truck. She’d seen one parked in front of the high school earlier that day, and it had terrified her. Its tires were taller than she was. Willow could have driven their junky car underneath it. The electronic marquee had advertised a monster truck show, and Willow explained to Summer that during a monster truck show, the big truck would smash a bunch of cars.

  Willow demonstrated with her hands, and the thought of the destruction it would cause gave Summer terrible anxiety. What if the truck tipped over and the driver was smashed right along with the cars? What if the driver lost control of the truck and it smashed the people in the audience?

  When Summer asked why people called it a monster truck, Willow had laughed. “It’s like a big monster, with a mind of its own, and it’s bent on widespread destruction.” Even at age four, Summer knew what destruction meant.

  So the nightmare consisted of a monster truck roaring up the driveway of their trailer and smashing the entire house to the ground, with Summer and Willow inside it.

  She woke up screaming, and ran into Willow’s bedroom. The bed was empty, and in her irrational four-year-old mind, Summer was terrified that the monster truck had already gotten her mother. Destroyed her.

  Panicking then, she ran into the living room. Willow sat on the couch, a glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Summer flew to her side, desperate for her mother’s embrace, for proof that she was alive and whole and hadn’t been smashed by a monster truck.

  Instead of holding her, though, Willow blocked her from climbing up onto the couch. Instead of setting down one of her vices, she’d turned her body so Summer bumped up against her forearm rather than curling onto her lap.

  “Back to bed, young lady,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Summer was traumatized and in need of comfort. “You shouldn’t be up at this time, no, ma’am.”

  Her voice sounded almost gleeful, which made Summer feel even more rejected. So she put her head down and walked slowly back to her bedroom, where she slept under the bed, just in case.

  Now, Summer looked over at her mother. Willow rejected her years ago, just as Dennis rejected Willow. But now Willow had come back. Was it possible that Dennis could come around, too?

  “You never know what might happen,” Summer said. “He could come around, especially after all this time.”

  “That may be true,” Willow said. “It may be.”

  “I’m going to go for a walk,” she said after a few quiet moments. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  Summer nodded, but Willow remained standing there behind the couch, deep in thought. In that moment, Summer felt a tiny stab of pity for Willow, who ended up spending her whole life alone because she felt rejected by her high school boyfriend.

  Well, not alone, exactly, Winter chimed in. She had you.

  People always said forgiveness isn’t a gift to the forgiven. Rather, it’s peace for the person doing the forgiving. But Summer wondered how a person actually did it. How did you genuinely forgive someone who had caused you so much hurt? And more importantly, someone who didn’t even realize she’d caused that pain?

  Summer and Willow sighed at the same time.

  Willow shook her head. “Sorry, lost in thought. I’m off.”

  Summer didn’t remind her to change her skirt.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since we saw Miss Olivia,” Josie said as she breezed into Summer’s house the following Thursday, her arms loaded down with reusable grocery bags. She dropped the bags on the kitchen table. “Give me that baby right away.”

  Delaney came in a minute later carrying a bakery box. “Let Happy Hour commence!”

  “Speaking of Happy Hour, I notice Willow is absent this afternoon,” Josie said. “Where is she?”

  “She said she had errands,” Summer said. She had visions of Willow in the bourbon section at the liquor store, squinting at labels. The now-familiar pressure in her torso began to build, taking up the space meant for her lungs.

  “I think she dislikes us,” Josie said.

  “Doubt it,” Summer said. “You’re part of the reason I let her stay here. Let’s change the subject. Delaney, how’s the house hunt going?”

  “I have big news,” Delaney said.

  “Aunt Dee brought us donuts!” Nate, following his donut radar, made the announcement and the kids stampeded to the kitchen.

  “Contrary to popular belief, that is not the big news,” Delaney said after handing Hannah a pink sprinkle donut.

  Summer winced as Hannah immediately started dropping crumbs onto the carpet.

  Delaney noticed, too, rolled her eyes at Summer’s reaction. “I’ll vacuum.”

  Summer immediately felt guil
ty. “No, it’s not that. It’s just—” It’s just that I feel like Sisyphus, rolling that gigantic boulder up the hill, only for it to roll back down again. “Tell us your big news.”

  “Oh, yes. Okay. Our big news is that we’re buying the house where your water broke. Jake and I both believe it’s an omen that Olivia liked it so much she threatened to be born there.”

  Summer and Josie laughed.

  “Does it fit all the criteria?” Josie wanted to know.

  “Believe it or not.”

  Hannah climbed onto Summer’s lap, and Summer sat quietly, listening to Delaney and Josie talk about the house, escrow, paint colors and nursery themes. She wanted to tell Delaney that nursery themes didn’t matter, that healthy children were more important than curtains. If Delaney asked, she would just give one of her usual answers, the ones everyone thought were so deep, but were actually non-answers designed to keep anyone from getting mad at her. “Imagine each pair of curtains hanging in the nursery when you walk in. Which ones feel right?” Fortunately, Delaney didn’t ask her opinion, likely because she was falling asleep on the couch.

  Sometimes Summer wished she could go back to that time in her life, just after she had Sarah, before everything felt so hectic and scary. Things were so simple, then. Not that she ever regretted the choices she and Derek had made together, but right now, she just felt so tired.

  Although she was only half-listening, she noticed the girls’ conversation had switched to Josie’s upcoming anniversary. “After everything that happened over the past few months, I wanted to plan something special, just for the two of us.”

  Summer nodded absently, thinking about Josie’s quasi-affair with her secret ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be her boss. Summer and Delaney stepped in with The Marriage Intervention, helping Josie ditch the slimy ex-boyfriend and repair her marriage.

  Josie ticked potential vacation spots off on her fingers and Delaney exclaimed about each one. San Diego, Denver, Zion.

  “A vacation would be really nice,” she said to the girls, as she pictured herself and Derek on some hot beach. He’d be wearing his swimming trunks, and she’d admire the muscles in his stomach and back. She’d be wearing a muumuu, obviously. He’d lay down next to her on a blanket, and breast milk would leak out of her boobs.

  “Summer!” Josie’s harsh voice interrupted her daydream. “Snap out of it, woman. Your baby is hungry and you’ve obviously left planet Earth.”

  Oh. Her breasts really were leaking. She took Olivia from Josie. “Sorry, guys. Just daydreaming about my own vacation. On a beach.”

  “Look, Summer,” Josie said. “We’re worried about you. You need a real vacation.”

  “How can I take a vacation?” Summer demanded. “Please give me some advice, here. I have five children. One of them is a newborn and one of them is about to have major heart surgery. One of them is a pre-teen and the other two are probably developing psychological problems as we speak, because they’re not getting enough attention.”

  A clock ticked, and Summer thought the sound might make her crazy. Her eyelid twitched.

  “Let’s talk about something else. Again.”

  Delaney and Josie looked at each other. Josie shrugged one shoulder and continued talking about vacation options. Spa versus skydiving, beach versus mountains, flying versus driving.

  Summer closed her eyes, returning to her mental vacation. Beach, sand, waves, her husband. Peace and quiet. The sun on her skin. The coconut scent of the sunblock. Seagulls. Maybe she couldn’t leave the house, or her life, right now, but she could certainly enjoy little trips to the beach in her mind. Maybe sometime in the near future a brilliant scientist would invent a way to experience a beach day from your couch, surrounded by dust and whining children.

  ***

  Willow’s return to the house jarred Summer out of her meditative state. She blinked a couple of times, noticed a huge chunk of donut already ground into the carpet and saw Delaney elbow Josie. Willow looked breathless and excited, her lips pressed together as if she was trying to hold in a big secret. What now?

  “I got a surprise for you,” Willow said.

  This is a first.

  “Is it that coconut-scented sunblock?” Summer asked.

  Willow looked slightly perplexed. “No. It’s a book. I saw it at the grocery store. I didn’t even realize they sold books there, it’s been so long since I actually stepped foot in one of those places.”

  She handed the gigantic hardcover to Summer.

  “The Secret to Thinking Positive,” Summer read aloud. “What is this?”

  “Uh oh,” Delaney said. “That is her deadly-calm mom voice.”

  Josie plucked the book out of her hand and turned it over to read the back: “Ten percent of life is what happens to you. Ninety percent is how you react to it.”

  Oh, perfect. A book is exactly what I need. Not a vacation, but a book.

  “Deep,” Summer said.

  “I just thought, you know, with your recent attitude, this might help,” Willow said.

  “My attitude? You want to talk about my attitude? Why don’t you take a look at my life. I don’t need positive thinking. I need a damned holiday. Or a personal chef. A housecleaner. A designated laundry-washer and folder. Only, guess what? I can’t have any of that. Instead, I get you. One more mouth to feed, one more set of clothes to wash, one more person to cater to.”

  “She’s just trying to help, Summer,” Delaney said, and Summer was horrified to see a tear leaking out of one of Delaney’s eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” she said.

  “I don’t know. It’s just so … so—I don’t know, okay? I just am!”

  “Oh, my God,” Josie said. She rubbed a hand over her forehead. “The hormones in this place are just too much for me. I brought you a bunch of stuff.”

  “I’m not hormonal,” Willow said, her voice too loud, which Summer knew meant her feelings were hurt. “I’m just fine.”

  She took the book out of Josie’s hand and tossed it onto the couch next to Summer. Then she walked out of the room, her movements brisk. Summer could have sworn she saw her brush a tear out from under her eye.

  “I don’t think she really meant attitude,” Delaney said, sniffling, as Josie went back into the kitchen to retrieve her bags. “I think she meant, like, how you’ve been, you know, down, or whatever.”

  It was probably true. For the umpteenth time, guilt overtook Summer. “I’m sorry, Delaney. I really am. That was a really nice gesture Willow made. The first one she’s made, ever, in my entire life. I just wasn’t sure how to respond.”

  In her mind, Winter whispered, It’s a stupid gesture. Don’t get me a book. Get me a personal assistant.

  Josie came back into the living room. “So I made you some lemon chicken. You can keep it in the fridge until you’re ready to eat it, then cook it at three-fifty for an hour. Also, chili. Just heat it up. And I brought you chocolate.”

  She dug out an oversized chocolate bar, and handed it to Summer.

  “Plus, I know you don’t drink a lot when you’re nursing, but I brought you this wine anyway. A glass a night. It’ll be fine.”

  Summer could tell Josie was nervous. She was probably afraid Summer would bite her head off like she’d done to Delaney and Willow about the stupid book.

  “This looks delicious,” she said, admiring the chocolate, hoping her gratitude showed. “And of course I’ll drink the wine.”

  “Magazines, too,” Josie added. She held up a stack of them. “These are the ones I’ve read already, so I’m passing them on. Plus one I stole from the coffee shop and one I stole from the dentist’s office.”

  “I thought Paul talked you out of stealing magazines,” Delaney said.

  “He thinks he did,” Josie said.

  “Perfect,” Summer said. “A cop’s wife, stealing magazines to give to her wine-drinking, nursing best friend who has five soon-to-be delinquent children.”

  Josie dropped the stack o
f magazines on the couch, on top of “The Secret To Thinking Positive.”

  “You know,” she said, “I think it’s time I make my exit. Are you coming, Delaney?”

  ***

  Willow took Delaney and Josie’s departure as a signal, and swept back into the living room.

  “You need to get out.” She said it with forced cheer, and Summer, still slightly stunned at Josie and Delaney having left, shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  “I think you guys should go on a date,” Willow said. “I’ll watch the kids. Just a short date.”

  When Summer didn’t respond right away, Willow spluttered. “Just two hours between the little shit’s feedings. Dinner. A movie. Whatever.”

  “First of all, I’m not leaving my kids with you. Second of all, don’t call my child a little shit. Third, just out of curiosity, why do you care?”

  Willow sighed. “You’re my daughter. That’s why. It’s what mothers do.”

  “You know what mothers do?”

  “Summer. I raised you, didn’t I? You turned out fine.”

  “Thanks. That’s a real compliment.”

  Willow sighed again.

  Very dramatic, Winter said in Summer’s mind.

  Go away, Summer thought. I’m bordering on crazy as it is.

  The clock ticked. From somewhere in the back of the house, Summer heard the boys yelling, and Hannah squealing in response.

  Summer could stand a night out with Derek. In fact, hadn’t Josie and Delaney included date nights in their Motherhood Intervention rules? It didn’t have to be anything fancy. Maybe they could just grab a quick ice cream or go for a walk. They wouldn’t leave the kids alone with Willow for too long. What if they went after the kids’ bedtime? Then Willow would just serve as a warm body at the house in case the smoke detectors went off. If one of the kids got up, she could probably convince him to go back to bed. But what if someone cut off a finger? What if Nate got into the matches?