CHAPTER 4 - EMILY
“Mommy, you said only medicine.” James stands in the cart, hovering over Ben who is seated in the front.
“I know, Buddy. I just need to grab a few things.” I run my hand over his soft brown hair. “Promise, now have a seat.” He sits and grabs his toy jeep, trying to squeeze it through the holes of the cart. I have just picked him up from pre-school. He is usually tired and hungry and it’s best to go straight home. But getting my circus in and out of the clown car is not easy, and I need to minimize these trips. “Oh, I almost forgot bananas,” I say as I pull into the produce section. My mind is in a million places, and for once, I forgot my list. I live and die by my lists and with three kids, two dogs, a cat, a hamster, and an iguana, there is no way I can survive without a reminder to breathe. It’s chaotic organization at its best.
“Nano,” my two-year-old, Ben, says and points.
“Yes, sweetie, that’s right.” I rub his little dimpled cheeks. He is a mirror image of Eric—dark eyes encased in olive skin. James is a combination of both of us—my chin and blue eyes, but his father’s skin tone. My seven-year-old daughter Sophie, on the other hand, must have been the product of some telepathic surrogacy because she doesn’t look like either of us. “Do you know what color those bananas are?” I say to Ben.
“Pease,” he says, indicating that he does. “Please” means yes.
“What color, Benny?”
“Lello,” he says. He points to the bananas as we roll toward them. “Lello, lello, lello.” He loves to say things in threes.
“No! No bananas!” James’s voice is fearful, not defiant.
I pull the cart up next to the offending fruit. James gets to his feet and grabs my hand. “No, Mommy! Please, no bananas!”
“What’s wrong, Buddy? Don’t you like bananas?”
“Yes, but I don’t want them!”
“You had one for snack today at school didn’t you?”
“No, I threw it in the trash.” He sits back down with a pout, examines his jeep in his lap.
“Now, why would you do that?”
James considers me a moment. “Jaden and William were calling me monkey. They made funny noises and scratched their armpits.”
I take a moment to formulate the best response. It’s always hard when someone takes your child’s happiness. You want to tell them to fight back, to stand up for themselves. But you never know how far they will take it. I decide to be politically correct. “That wasn’t nice of them. Next time you tell them to please stop.”
“I told them this time and they didn’t. They called me a baby.”
“Oh,” I say, stalling for time. My brain stutters, working on two hours of sleep. Ben had me up five times with his fever. Thankfully it broke, but only in time for us to get up in the morning. “Well, maybe you should play with someone else.” The little bastards don’t deserve to play with you, I wanted to say. “They don’t sound like very good friends.”
“But they’re the best at mini-basketball,” he says with concerned eyes.
Growing frustrated, I grab a bunch of bananas and put them in the front next to Ben.
“Nanos, Nanos, Nanos,” he says.
“James, sweetie, I won’t make you take a banana to school.”
A wide smile materializes on his face.
“But…don’t let your friends tease you and remember something for me.”
