"Does anyone know why there is a middle-aged woman eating my Cheerios in my kitchen right now?"
I look up from my French braiding of Crystal's hair to see Jonas standing at the doorway of the twins' room in just his boxers. "That would be my mom."
He raises his eyebrows. "You have a mom?"
"Yes."
"And she's only visiting you just now?" he asks in disbelief.
I sigh. "She just came back from a trip. And she's staying in the guest house for now thanks to your older brother." I give Elliott a death stare as he sits on Rose's bed attempting to braid her hair.
"Don't pull so hard!" Crystal gasps, wincing as I accidentally tug the strands too tightly.
"Sorry," I mumble.
"Ivy, she's your mom," Elliott argues. "I wasn't going to just let her sleep in her car."
"We have a perfectly fine house that's just a neighborhood over!" I say.
Elliott shakes his head. "She's emotional right now. That'd be too much."
"Oh, are you a mother whisperer now?" I ask, a bit too sassily.
"Stop fighting!" Ethan screams, crawling out from under Crystal's bed.
Elliott nods his head approvingly. "Yeah, Ivy, stop fighting."
I roll my eyes at his childish comeback. "Hey, I'm sorry, Ethan." He comes to sit in my lap. "I didn't get very much sleep last night."
"It's okay. I get it. One time I didn't sleep and I put my shirt and my pants on backwards the next morning."
"You did that yesterday, bud," I say and pat his back gently.
"Oh my gosh, Liott. I thought you said you knew how to braid!" Rose gasps, looking at her knotted hair in the mirror. "Addison!" She leaves the room to go to her older sister.
"Come on, Rosie!" Elliott calls after her. "It's not even that bad!"
"It looks like I could have baby birds nesting in my hair!" she snaps from the other end of the hallway.
The doorbell rings, and I stand up from the floor to go downstairs and answer it. I glance over at my mom who is still in the kitchen, just sitting with a cup of coffee. For a split second, I do feel sorry for her. She really did think Steve would be the one.
"Hey," I greet to Nora and Jett who stand at the front door. "What's up?"
"The sky," Jett responds, stepping past me into the house.
"Is everyone almost ready?" Nora asks as I close the door behind her.
We have a fun day at the zoo planned. I thought it'd be nice since yesterday was a generally boring day for the kids. Plus, I personally love the zoo. I'd often go with the West family when I was younger.
"Yeah. We're just waiting on Mikey to show up," I answer.
"Why is there a middle-aged woman in your kitchen?" Jett asks, walking out of the kitchen with a water.
"My mom is visiting," I answer.
Nora's eyebrows raise. "Your mom?"
I nod. "Yeah. She's back from her trip and needs a place to say. Elliott so sweetly invited her to stay in their guest house."
"Oh!" Nora gasps. "Um...should I go introduce myself? I should." She starts walking for the kitchen.
I grab her arm to stop her. "She's not a morning person. You can meet her after we go to the zoo."
"Is she coming with?"
"No," I answer and start walking upstairs. "She's in her mourning period."
"Geez, Ivy, too much information!" Jett says as he follows us upstairs.
I laugh and open the door to the twins' room where everyone still sits around. "Hey, we can start getting in the van as we wait for Mike."
"To the zoo!" Ethan cries and sprints out of the room with his pointer finger high in the air.
The twins follow after him, excitedly talking about which animals they should see first. Addison crutches after them, her eyes glued on her phone while she texts Mikey. Jett and Jonas go downstairs together. I pick up Bethany from the ground, putting her into her carrier.
"Hi, Beth," Nora says in her high-pitched baby voice. "You're so cute! Aren't you?"
"She's not a puppy, Nora," Elliott snaps. "She can understand you perfectly fine without you talking in that annoying voice."
Nora's jaw drops. "Excuse me?"
"Forgive Elliott. He's just jealous that you're dating his best friend," I joke, patting Elliott's back.
"Am not," Elliott mutters childishly and stomps downstairs.
When I get downstairs, my mom is standing by the front door in her robe. "Do you need something?"
"No, no," she says, eyeing Nora and Jett suspiciously. "I-I just wasn't sure where the sugar was, but Elliott already told me." She touches his arm momentarily.
The small gesture bothers me. "Okay."
"Actually, can I talk to you in the kitchen for a second?"
I nod and hand the car keys to Elliott. "I'll be out in a second." I walk with my mom into the kitchen, stopping near the entrance. "What's up?"
"Who are those two?"
"Which two?"
"The kid with the zebra shirt and leopard pants and the preppy blonde."
"Those are the Kennedy's neighbors," I say. "They moved in later in June."
She nods, biting the nail of her thumb. "I see. Who are they living with?"
"Their aunt," I answer. "Is that all you wanted to know?" I ask, slowly walking backwards.
"Sure." She drops her hand from her mouth. "Yeah, that's all."
I force a smile before turning and leaving to meet everyone else outside. Her question and reaction leaves me with an unsettling feeling in my stomach. Why would she ask about Nora and Jett? Did she know them?
At the zoo, Nora, Jonas and Jett take the twins in one direction and Elliott and I go with Ethan, who only likes the monkey house and the monkey house only. Mike and Addison venture off on their own.
"It smells like monkey shit in here," Elliott whispers when we walk into. "I can't do this."
"Liott!" Ethan snatches his older brother's hand. "Look at the monkeys!"
"I see the monkeys, E." He turns around to look at me with a frown. "Can we go now?"
I laugh and take Ethan's free hand. "Look, E! It's a baby monkey!"
One of the monkeys jumps on a vine that hangs over our heads. Elliott flies down to a squatting position, his hands covering his head.
Ethan and I start laughing. Ethan crouches down and pats his brother's back. "Come on, Liott. Don't be scared. They won't hurt you."
"I'm not scared," Elliott argues and stands up, dusting off the front of his shirt. "I thought I dropped something."
"Right," I say, raising my eyebrows as I look to Ethan.
The little boy giggles.
When Ethan runs a few people in front of Elliott and me, I take his hand and press my nose against his shoulder, inhaling his cologne to avoid smelling the monkey poop. "So, last night you called yourself my boyfriend..."
He looks down at me, his cheeks just faintly red. "Well, I just..I didn't know how to classify myself to your mother."
I smile. "Boyfriend works."
A smile falls on his face. "I can't believe we're officiating our relationship in a damn monkey house, Red."
"I'm bananas for you!" I laugh, my own pun making me laugh harder than it should.
"The fumes of the monkey shit are getting to you already," he mutters, a smile on his face as he shakes his head in embarrassment.
Once we catch up to Ethan, we release each other's hands and stand a decent distance away from one another. The little boy takes my left hand and Elliott's right. We continue looking at the different types of monkeys for another half an hour. Eventually, the smell doesn't even seem that bad.
I take Ethan's picture in front of every single monkey. He poses three times for each photo. One serious, one cute, and one goofy. Every single time. He wants his mom to have options for photos she shows to the people in Haiti.
Finally, Ethan has had enough of the monkeys. When the fresh air from outside hits me, I let out a loud gasp. Elliott has tears welled in his eyes, either from the horrible smell or the freedom of that horrible smell.
For lunch, we meet up with the others at a picnic table by the rhinos. Jett tells a story about the time he battled a crocodile while in Australia. "Nora can confirm," he says at the end.
"I can't," Nora mouths to me alone.
I laugh. "So, what else do you guys want to see today?"
"I want to see the polar bears!" Crystal says.
"We already saw the polar bears," Rosie reminds.
Crystal holds a finger in front of her lips. "It's not like Ivy knew that!"
"I like the monkey house," Ethan says with an innocent smile.
"Oh! I want to see the monkeys!" Jonas cries. "That's always my favorite part."
"Me too!"
"Oh, yes!"
After a chorus of those in favor of the monkey house, Elliott and I were left at the picnic table alone, unable to get ourselves to go back in there for another hour.
"So, are you still mad at me for letting your mom stay in our guest house?"
I shrug. "I'm surely not going to give you a gold star for it."
"Fine. Then I guess I won't tell you that I found out who Jonas went to the movies with last night."
"You what?" I gasp. "Elliott, if you don't tell me, I'm dumping you for Abraham!"
He laughs. "You can't throw this back at me. You're the one who needs to do the forgiving. I was only trying to be the good person that you deserve."
I smile softly. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just worried about what she might do."
"Ivy, she's keeping to herself," he says. "You're the one who told me she's not one for talking and blowing things up. What do you think she's going to do?"
"I don't know." I frown. "She's different after a breakup. She's unpredictable. I just don't want another person to look after, you know?"
He nods. "I get it. I can kick her out on the street if you want. I've never been the type of guy that made good impressions on parents anyway."
"You called her ma'am," I point out.
"I said a lot of things."
"I think my mom likes you," I admit. "She touched your arm this morning."
He laughs loudly, but closes his mouth when he sees that I'm serious. "Ivy, you have to be joking. All she did was touch my arm."
"My mom isn't an arm toucher," I say. "I can't remember the last time she gave me a hug." I shake my head, wanting to change the subject from my mom. "Want to go see the penguins?"
Elliott nods, a frown on his face as he looks at me carefully. "Sure."
We leave the zoo just before dinner time. Ethan made us stop at the Walgreens to develop his photos in the monkey house so he could mail them to his mom tonight. We drop Mikey off at his house before arriving home. The kids sprint in the house as soon as we park the car in the garage. Addison is the last to crutch inside.
"Come on, Ivy. Get out of the car," Elliott demands.
I shake my head. "I can't feel my feet," I whine, tired out from all the walking today. "Carry me!"
He rolls his eyes and walks over to the passenger's door and stands with his back towards me.
I laugh and jump on his back, my arms wrapped around his neck and my legs around his waist. He places his hands under my kneecaps to hold me up. I kiss his cheek when he starts walking into the house.
He stops in his tracks, dropping his hands from my legs and letting me slide down his back to the ground. "Hi."
I look at my mom, who sits at the kitchen table with a glass of wine in her hand. Where did she even get the wine? If she went sneaking through their wine cellar, I'd be mortified.
"Was the zoo fun? The kids looked worn out from the long day."
"Yeah, just the way I like them," I say. "What did you do all day?"
She shrugs. "Not very much. I just came over here because the guest house doesn't have any glasses. There's just a lot of pasta sauce in the cabinets."
"We store our pasta sauce there," Elliott explains.
"Elliott, don't call my mom pasta sauce," I mutter and cross my arms over my chest.
Elliott and my mom just give me plain looks, clearly not understanding my hilarity. I roll my eyes, more annoyed with Elliott for not laughing than my mom.
"You always had such a strange humor, Ivy," my mom says judgmentally.
"Yeah," I mumble. "You should probably head back to the guest house now. I don't want you drinking around the kids."
"They've never seen a legal adult drinking a little bit of wine before?"
I sigh and walk out of the kitchen, not up for arguing with my mom right now. I find the kids upstairs in each of their rooms. Jonas invites me to play FIFA with him.
"What's up with you and your mom?"
"Nothing's up," I lie and attempt shooting the ball from centerfield. "I just don't want a distraction from work."
"You just called your own mother a distraction. Something is up." He pauses the game to look at me. "What's up?"
"I'll tell you what's up between my mom and me if you tell me about the girl you like."
"Conniving. I like it," he comments briefly. "But fine. Her name is Brianna. She and Addison aren't friends anymore because of an incident. But one day Brianna messaged me on Facebook to ask how Addison was. We talked. She knows some of the guys on my team. We're friends. She's hot."
"Brianna...why does that name sound familiar to me?"
He shrugs. "Beats me. Now, tell Papa J everything you need to get off your chest."
"Well, Papa J," I pause, "my mom and I have never been that close. She recently got out of a breakup and I'm her last resort as a shoulder to cry on."
"And it sucks being the last resort."
"Exactly," I say. "So that's that. You can resume the game now. I'm ready to beat you."
"We could just start over... My head isn't in the game anymore. I'm just thinking about how I can mend your broken relationship between you and your mother."
I roll my eyes. "Oh, suck it up and let me beat you in this game."
As I continue to destroy Jonas, I start thinking more about my mom. I've always said that I love her. And I'd like to think I do. She's my mom. I'm supposed to love my mom. But when I looked at that woman sitting at the kitchen table this morning, I didn't want to consider her my mom. She left for her trip to Alaska and never cared to ask me how I was that entire time. But as soon as her heart gets broken and she has nowhere else to go, she's back in my life.
I've always wondered if she even cared about me. I would see the way the Wests cared for Mikey, their eyes sparkling with love as they held him in their arms. All I was to my mother was a memory of another lost relationship. Is that all I'll ever be? Just like our house is now, a bad memory?
I leave Jonas' room after our game to go lie in bed, my stomach churning. With not even ten minutes of a nap, Elliott walks in.
"Hey." He sits down at the end of my bed, resting his hand on my blanket covered calf. "Are you okay? I called Martin because I knew you wouldn't feel like making dinner with your feet in so much pain from all the walking and stuff."
I smile softly. "Thanks, Li."
"Do you feel alright?" he asks.
"I'm totally fine. Just super tired!" I say in the most upbeat way I can muster.
He nods, clenching and unclenching his jaw. "I don't know whether to ignore your blatant lie and let you continue keeping things from me or to ask you to tell me the truth. At the zoo, I just ignored it when you immediately changed the subject from your mom, but now I don't think I can ignore it."
"Ignoring it is okay for now," I whisper, shutting my eyes and pretending to fall asleep.
He laughs shortly- the brief kind filled with anger and annoyance- and stands up from my bed.
I frown when I hear the door close behind him. I don't want Elliott to be mad with me, but I also don't want to talk about everything right now. He shouldn't be so demanding. Why would he want to listen to my problems all day anyway? We're supposed to be having a nice relationship, a happy one with no drama attached.
I sleep until I hear the doorbell ring and Martin's familiar, "that will be thirty dollars and twenty-nine cents! Until next time, Kennedy's plus Ivy!"
Downstairs, my mom is no longer in the kitchen, nor in this house all together. Elliott said she went back to the guest house after I told her to. He's distant during dinner, even more so than usual when we're around the kids. There's not much I can do because of the multiple pairs of eyes on us.
After dinner, I go to the basement to find Elliott playing ping-pong by himself. He serves the ball, lets it hit the ground on the other side, and goes back to re-serve it. And repeat.
"This is one of the saddest things I think I have ever seen," I say, making myself known after a few minutes of watching.
He turns to look at me and sets his paddle down on the table. "I thought that once we were dating you'd feel comfortable and safe with actually telling me things."
"I didn't want to talk."
"Then you could've just told me that!" he argues. "I would've been fine just lying next to you in silence until you were ready."
I frown. "Since when did you become this perfect person?"
"What? Is my perfection too much for you?" he asks with a smile. "Would you like a little more 'sup, bitch' and a little less 'hi, baby?'"
"If you called me baby I think I'd be more thrown off than if you called me bitch," I admit with a laugh. "I'm sorry. I just want us to keep the drama away from our relationship."
"Well, it's not much of a relationship if it's all sunshine and rainbows the whole time," he says. "I happen to think a bit of drama can only help make a stronger relationship, even though it makes us more vulnerable."
"I hate vulnerability," I mumble, sitting on the floor with my back against the couch.
Elliott sits next to me and places his hand on my knee. "I think you might like it...if you give it a chance."
I look down at his hand and let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding in. "Can we just sit here for awhile? No talking?"
He nods and lifts his hand from my knee to wrap his arm around my shoulders and pull me closer. I shut my eyes, resting my head on his shoulders and eventually losing myself in a comfortable dream.
I don't know how many hours we sat there. It may have only been a few minutes; I wouldn't know. But just at the climax of my dream, Elliott wakes me up by shaking my arm.
"I get it! Because I said that's where we store pasta sauce and that's where she's staying. Now I get it! That was kind of funny!"
I shake my head, unable to hide a smile. "You couldn't have made that connection when I made the joke?"
"I'm sorry. But maybe you should try to make jokes that you don't have to think about. That's why no one thinks you're funny."
"Who says I'm not funny?" I ask offendedly.
Elliott's face flashes with panic briefly. "Oh, no one does. I've never heard that. All my friends think you're hilarious."
I gasp. "Is it Jase? I knew he was fake laughing when I told him my apricot joke!"
"Well, that joke sucks, Red," he says and stands up from the floor, offering me a hand to help me stand up.
I grab his hand and he tugs me up. "You laughed so hard at that joke though. I could tell you really thought it was funny."
"Did I though?"
Upstairs, the kids in bed. Addison did most of the work, getting Bethany to sleep as well as Ethan and the twins. Just Jonas is still awake playing his FIFA. I take his remote and tell him to read a book, sure that he'd choose sleep over reading any day.
Elliott and I decide we're ready for bed as well. Still extremely tired from the trip to the zoo, I fall asleep immediately. At around midnight, I wake up to the sound of loud music coming from the backyard. More specifically, it's coming from the guest house.
I stand up in my short pajama shorts and my t-shirt and head downstairs to put an end to this. I don't want to risk having any of the kids wake up, though I'm certain Bethany with her super-hearing must already be awake and surely set to start crying.
"Mom!" I bark, knocking aggressively on the door. "Mom!"
She opens the door to the guest house, the music even louder. She's dressed in just some sheer lingerie. "Do you need something?"
"Yeah. Turn down the music. We're trying to sleep in there," I say in annoyance. "You're going to wake up the whole neighborhood."
"It's not even that loud. You've always been a stickler for having no fun!" she giggles, the alcohol on her breath filling my nostrils.
I huff and cross my arms over my chest. "Just turn off the music okay."
"I will. I will. Wouldn't want to wake up your family, would I?" she asks, a hideous smirk on her face.
I frown and storm across the backyard and back to the house. Your family. Please. I'm not emotionally connected to the Kennedy's like that, not even Elliott really. I don't do those types of things. Of course my mom would plant that in my head, knowing the thought of intimacy bothers me just as much her.
Slamming the sliding backdoor closed, I go upstairs to Bethany's room to soothe her tears. She calms down pretty quickly once in my arms, her cute nose wrinkling one last time as I set her back down in her crib.
"Goodnight, Beth," I whisper and poke her nose, leaving to go back to sleep.
"Mama."
My eyes widen when I hear her baby voice. Mama. "No, no, Bethany. I'm not your mom. Your mom isn't home right now."
"Mama," she repeats.
Oh, why am I freaking out about this? She doesn't know any other words. I'm overreacting. I hate myself for letting my mom get to me this quickly.
"Mama."
"Stop calling me that," I snap, my heart rate speeding up.
"Mama!" she says louder this time. "Mama! Mama! Mama!"
"Ivy!"
I spring up from my lying position, whipping my head around the guest room. Elliott is sitting on my bed, his face full of concern. It was just a nightmare.
"Oh, thank God," I whisper to myself. I hear a baby crying from across the hall. "Is that Bethany crying?"
"Bethany?" He looks at me like I've completely lost my mind. "No, honey, that's Jake."
"Jake?" I ask, my eyebrows pulled together as I study Elliott's face more closely. I look down at his hand to see a gold band on his ring finger.
"Our son," he answers simply.
I gasp, toppling out of my bed in horror and running to turn the lights off. A nightmare within a nightmare? I didn't sign up to be an extra in Inception, especially when I don't see Leonardo anywhere.
"Ivy, are you okay? I heard you talking quickly and then a loud thud," Elliott says as he walks into the guest room in just boxers.
I take his left hand, looking for a ring. He is ringless. For my own sake, I make sure that his abs are real too. They're just like I remembered.
Elliott laughs, taking my hand in his. "What happened?"
"Listen, we are never naming our son after Jake Acker."
~~
AN:
lol I love dream sequences
I know you guys look forward to Thursday/Friday updates but now that school has thrown me off the schedule im going to say expect more Saturday/Sunday updates from now on
hmmmmm so many things to discuss from this chapter....
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