by Tricia Goyer
Allyson thought she heard the cell phone chiming in the living room. That and the sound of Bailey riding her trike . . . in the house.
Then she heard it. The crunch of the trike hitting the trash can. The sound of it spilling over. Its contents . . . the egg shells. Dozens of egg shells that she’d just picked up, splaying over the floor. Then came the quiet.
***
Sean rushed through the double doors of the airport with his carry-on bag in one hand and his document tube flung over his shoulder. His mind raced with excuses, but there were none. He told Allyson he’d try to catch an earlier flight. She’d wanted him to be home for Mother’s Day. He hadn’t promised her he could, but he still felt bad for not being there.
He’d tried to get his work done faster, but design issues had caused a delay. Then there were the canceled flights. At least he’d get home today. Maybe after dinner, and the kids were asleep, but that still counts as “today.” Sean used his thumb to push Allyson’s number on speed dial as he raced ahead, weaving through the people crowding the terminal.
He listened for Allyson to answer as he pushed forward. He pictured his family. His beautiful wife. What had he done to deserve her? And the kids. Maybe they were all snuggled up in bed. A happy little family on a beautiful Sunday morning. He rushed forward, telling himself that he couldn’t miss this flight. A soft smile touched his lips.
I will get home today. Home to my wife. Home to my family.
Just when he prepared to leave a message on Allyson’s voicemail a small voice answered.
“Hello. How may I Field. Hello the Field. Hello Field residence please?”
Sean hurried up an escalator toward a packed line in security. His bag tugged on his arm. He wedged his phone between his ear and shoulder as he hurried faster. The sound of his daughter’s voice. His daughter’s voice brought a smile to his lips.
“How about you try this, ‘This is the Field’s residence. How may I help you?’”
“Daddy!” Bailey squealed.
“Hey, baby. Is Mommy there?”
“MOMMY!!!!! PHONE!!!!” Bailey’s voice rung out, right in his ear, and he was certain then, that Bailey got her vocal chords from her mother. Sean cringed and pulled the phone away. Loud. So loud.
And as he heard her clomping up the stairs he couldn’t help but smile, picturing his wife’s angelic face. Picturing the home and kids she worked so hard to care for.
***
If there was only one reason to believe that evolution wasn’t true, it was that moms only had two hands. Allyson definitely needed more than two hands to wrestle Beck into his church clothes.
She heard her small daughter’s squeal and laughter downstairs.
“Daddy!” Bailey called into the phone. It was hard when Sean was away. Each day the excitement built for his return. Today was the day. She couldn’t be more thrilled. Then again her husband had no idea what he was walking into. No parent ever did. From day one nothing had gone as she’d expected.
Beck wiggled faster, attempting to break loose. In all her years of daydreaming about a husband, a family, Allyson hadn’t expected this. The tangle of mess, that family was.
“Bailey! I’m up here.” She turned and called out over her shoulder. Turning back she scanned her bed—a mess of rumbled sheets. Beck was gone. How had he disappeared so fast? He’d fled, vanishing into thin air.
“Beck, Beck, where did you go?” She scanned her room, looking for him.
A soft giggle emerged from the other side of her bed, a small form darted past her—too fast for her to snag. She rushed toward Beck, and then paused as Bailey skipped in with the phone and handed it over. “Here’s Daddy.”
Beck or the phone?
She reached for the phone, desperate for Sean’s voice. Even more desperate for his assurance that he’d soon be home.
“Sean?”
“Hello. Hey, Hon?”
“Sean? PLEASE tell me you’re on a flight right now.” She could hear that he wasn’t. The sound of the airport din rose through the phone.
“It’s Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day. That’s where we should have started.”
“Yes, thank you, fine,” Allyson interrupted. “I just, why . . . I need you on a flight.”
“That’s alright. That’s alright. They canceled three flights on me, I changed airlines. I’m taking care of it. I got a direct flight.”
Home. He’ll be home soon. Allyson released a breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Bailey reentered her room with arms outstretched with a drawn picture in her hands. She tugged on Allyson’s arm with her free hand.
There was something in Bailey’s bright eyes. Joy? Excitement? Mischief? Allyson couldn’t tell, but she pulled the phone back slightly from her ear, giving Bailey her attention. “Yes, baby?”
Bailey’s grin widened. “Hey, Mommy, I made you this.”
Allyson took the picture from her daughter. Flowers and stick figures represented her family. For a four-year-old this was a Rembrandt.
“You made this for me?” Allyson leaned down, her face crinkling up into a smile. The eggs hadn’t turned out well, but this . . . this was thoughtful. Her heart filled with joy as she scanned the figures again—her big stick figure body and three small images with circle heads and three fingers on each hand.
“Do you wanna know why I made you so big?” Bailey’s voice was almost angelic. “Because you love us the most-est over everybody.”
Still something didn’t seem right. Allyson frowned, realizing what was missing—who was missing. “Where’s Daddy?” she asked.
Bailey pointed to an orange shape with wings on the top left of the page. “Up on the plane in the sky, where he always is.” Bailey’s wide-eyed gaze looked serious.
“Ouch, that’s not right,” Sean’s voice echoed from the phone, and Allyson’s heart pinched.
Bailey reached down and picked up a marker she’d dropped before rushing off again. Allyson was about to call to her, telling her to put all her markers away, and reminding Bailey that she wasn’t supposed to have them out without supervision, when Brandon’s voice shot through the air.
“Mom! Beck’s playing in the toilet again!”
“Oh, no, no. Not the potty. Not the potty!” Sean’s voice called out over the phone. Loud, really loud, as if expecting Beck to hear him. Allyson smiled, imagining the curious looks on the faces of his fellow passengers at the airport.
“BECK!” Allyson raced toward him, and scooped him up. His hair was completely wet, dripping wet. He dripped on her. He dripped on the floor.
Pretend he was diving in the tub instead, yes, pretend that, she told herself. Allyson let her eyes fluttered closed for a brief instant, trying not to think about it.
And you call yourself a mother?
Allyson tucked Beck under one arm and then hurried downstairs determined to get those markers from Bailey before she made a bigger mess. She pressed the phone tighter to her ear as she took each step. Beck bounced on her hip.
“Sean, I don’t know. I’m thinking, baby, that I don’t want to celebrate Mother’s Day ever again.”
He gasped. “Why would you say that?”
She stepped down further and looked around again at the cyclone of her living room and kitchen. The very rooms she’d
just cleaned a few hours ago. Obviously taming this home—these children—was beyond her control.
“You don’t need to celebrate me, because I’m terrible at this. Really terrible.” She paused at the bottom of the stairs, and Beck felt as if he weighed a hundred pounds on her hip. Or maybe it was her heart that weights her down. “In every single way. Do not celebrate me.”
“What? Come on.” Sean seemed impervious to her words. “You are an awesome mom, but kids get messy. Kids are messy.”
From the corner of her eye Allyson spotted movement. Her daughter. The wall. Markers. Not the kid kind of markers.
Then as if realizing she’d been spot
ted, Bailey raised her hands like a bank robber who’d just been caught. Bailey’s high-pitched voice rang out louder than Sean’s voice on the phone. “I ran out of paper, so . . .”
Allyson’s jaw dropped at yet another picture Bailey had drawn.
“. . . so I did the rest on the wall,” Bailey continued, her tiara cocked to the side.
“On the wall. On the wall?” Sean’s voice rang out through the phone. “What kind of markers is she using? The come-off kind?” Then Allyson could hear him talking to someone in line next to him at the airport. “Do you have kids?” he asked. “Want mine?” But Sean’s voice as coming through as if he was at the end of a long tunnel.
Allyson dropped her hand with her phone to her side. She dropped her chin to her chest, letting her hair fall over her face. Beck tugged on her ear and she let him.
Where can a mom go to wave a white flag? To surrender?
CHAPTER THREE
Allyson released a heavy breath as she parked her van into one of the last parking spaces at church. Clusters of families moved toward the front entrance. Girls in pretty dresses. Boys in coordinating outfits. The children nearly skipped with glee as they frolicked with happy smiles toward the church. And their mothers . . .
Allyson turned her attention to a group of women circled up, talking near the front steps. They were no doubt chatting about their wonderful Mother’s Day breakfasts in bed, minus the egg shells and salmonella.
Sun backlit them, highlighting hair that perfectly framed their faces. Those moms looked rested, happy, and put together. Allyson doubted that any of them had wrangled with a toilet-diving toddler or interrupted a miniature Rembrandt-in-the-making who’d used permanent markers on the wall.
She focused on one woman with long blonde hair in perfect beach waves. The woman laughed as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Now that’s a mom. Talk about perfect.
I bet she has a nanny.
What’s wrong with me? Why does everyone have their act together but me? She didn’t even have her makeup on yet. At least she’d had enough foresight to toss it into her purse before she’d left.
Bailey climbed from her car seat and stood next to Allyson’s seat.
Allyson pulled her mascara out of her purse. “Okay everybody, best behavior. It’s Mother’s Day!” She quickly dabbed her mascara onto her left eye, peering into the rearview mirror.
“Mommy, let me do it.” Bailey said, leaning in close.
“No, baby, we’re running really late today.”
“Let meeeee!” Bailey’s voice screamed out. “Let meeeeeeeeee!”
Allyson sighed. She was sure those other mothers could hear her daughter’s screams.
“Shhh . . .” She handed Bailey the mascara wand. “Just one dab, okay?”
Maybe later she’d laugh about this morning. Maybe she’d be able to decompress with Sondra—Pastor Ray’s wife. Sondra had been the first to welcome them into church six years ago. Allyson knew a good thing when she saw it, and she’d turned to Sondra time and time again. Sondra was her Catcher in the Rye, her crutch, Dr. Phil, Oprah, and Gandalf all rolled into one ball of goodness. Sondra’s only perceived flaw was that the woman had no idea what autocorrect on her cell phone was.
Allyson held back a chuckle as she remembered the last text exchange Sondra’s sixteen-year-old daughter Zoe had shared with her. At least it was something to brighten Allyson’s spirits as Bailey dabbed the mascara on her lashes—well, mostly on her lashes:
Zoe / 7:31 AM Mom, I feel sick.
Sondra / 7:31 AM Just take some typhoid.
Zoe / 7:31 AM WHAT?
Sondra / 7:32 AM
And a bowl of chicken noodle poop.
Zoe / 7:32 AM Mom stop!
Ah, technology.
***
Sondra reached into the maintenance closet, without turning on the lights, and pulled the extra set of keys off the hook on the wall. With quickened steps she hurried down the church hallway. If she would have known Ray had bought her a red Mother’s Day corsage she would have worn her red pumps. No matter, she walked with a quickened pace with her clipboard in hand. How a pastor’s wife would survive without one she didn’t know.
Her daughter Zoe, sixteen, bright, and way too adorable for her own good kept pace with her. Sondra had assumed that when Zoe came to be a teenager she’d stop trailing after her. Wrong. She’d walked these halls more times than not with Zoe chasing after her. Zoe used to chase after her and ask if they could eat out after church or maybe go to the park. The questions hadn’t ceased, they’d just changed in nature. If Zoe was anything, she was persistent.
“Mom, slow down!”
“Walk with me, Zoe, just walk and talk.”
Zoe huffed. “Mom, you’re like the fastest person in the world.”
Sondra unlocked the door and rushed into her husband’s office. Piles of books and papers covered every surface. She didn’t know how Ray kept track of anything. How he found anything. Actually, he didn’t. That’s what he needed her for.
She grabbed a solid blue tie from the back of his chair and zeroed in on his sermon notes on the corner of his desk, scooping them up.
“Mom, it’s really, it’s just a dance. And there’s going to be some laser lights and some glow sticks and that’s it.”
Sondra shook her head, turning back to the doorway she’d just entered. “A rave is not a dance. Trust your mother.”
Did Zoe think she was born yesterday? If her daughter only knew. Sondra pushed that thought from her mind. She didn’t want to think of that. . . not now. Not here. Sondra tucked the back panel of her white blouse, deeper into her skirt with her free hand and continued on.
“But, Mom, a lot of the kids from church, they’re even going . . .” Zoe looked to her with puppy-dog eyes. That worked when Zoe was five and she wanted a donut, but not now. Not for this.
She waved her hand her daughter’s direction. “Uh-uh, no way.”
Sondra rushed out of Ray’s office and hurried down the hall, toward the back of the sanctuary. She smiled and waved as they passed the Johnson family in the hall—dear, faithful parishioners.
“Com’on, have a heart.” The exasperation in Zoe’s voice was clear, but that was her job, being the voice of reason when her daughter didn’t have any.
She shook her head. “Zoe . . .”
“You always do this. You’re going to murder my social life.” Zoe’s wide eyes and perky nose resembled the three-year-old she once was. Where had the time gone?
Sondra blew out a breath. She didn’t have time for this—this conversation. Her internal clock sensed the minutes were ticking down until her husband was ready to take the pulpit. She quickened her pace. “Well, maybe your social life deserves to die. You know you’re not allowed to date until you’re seventeen. We have a winner.”
Zoe paused beside her, lifting her hands in frustration. “And a loser.” She motioned to her head. “I have ‘preacher’s kid’ stamped on my forehead.”
Sondra hurried into the atrium where Ray was being mic’d up by one of the technical guys. “Ah, there you are.” He smiled. “Did you find my notes?”
“Right here.” She handed Ray the notes. “Now, just one more thing . . .” She ripped off his checkered tie, replacing it with the solid blue.
“Where were they? I looked everywhere—” Then, as if realizing what she was doing, he glanced down at his tie. “And what’s wrong with that tie?”
“The video guys say its strobing, so this is better.” Sondra efficiently knotted it and then stepped back to eye her work. “Okay, looks good.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “And the notes were on your desk. Corner pile.”
“Oh.” Ray returned the smile and winked. He was the most respected man in this church—a fine preacher—but he could still cause her heart to skip a beat with that playful look of his.
Unaware of her father’s flirting, Zoe sauntered up to her daddy with her hands clasped behind her back. Sondra knew what she was up
to, and she waited to see this unfold.
“Hey, Dad. You were awesome in the first service.” Zoe batted her eyelashes. “And I was just wondering, uh . . .”
Ray slipped his arms into his suit jacket and shrugged his shoulders so that it slipped on with ease. “Sweetheart, I know what you are doing, but I’ve already talked to your mother and we agree.” He pointed his finger at her and grinned. “Points for trying though.”
“I didn’t even get a fair shot.” Zoe huffed and paced off.
He turned back to Sondra and a look of understanding passed between them. “Love you,” he said.
“Love you,” she whispered back. And she did love him, and loved this life as a pastor’s wife . . . if she only had time to breathe. It was hard holding their little world together.
Sondra paused in the empty hallway, took a breath and composed herself. Putting on her best smile, she then waltzed into the packed lobby.
“Good morning.” She shook Dave Piper’s hand. Then she waltzed passed Bonnie Sue Johnson with a wave. “Somebody has a birthday, right? Nice to see you,” she called to one of the choir members.
She motioned to Zoe to follow her. “Hey, did you get that recipe I sent?” she called to Tiffany, one of the young women in the college group. Tiffany nodded that she had.
“Nice to see you. Thank you for coming,” Sondra called to a new couple that she’d seen for the first time last week. She moved their direction and then paused as another sight greeted her.
A frazzled and disheveled looking Allyson struggled through the door, holding Beck on her hip and dragging Bailey with one hand. Brandon trailed behind, but as soon as they got inside he darted away to play with friends.
Allyson wore shades, even inside. Large dark shades, and Sondra wondered if she’d gotten any sleep. By the way Allyson looked Sean had to be out of town. She’d seen that desperate, frantic Allyson before.
“Ally, hey, oh are you having a tough morning?” Sondra reached up and stroked Allyson’s arms, and she brushed a few strands of red curls out of her friend’s face.
