Cupcakes are a Girls Best Friend

Greg's Mom

"Can I play in my soccer game?" Robin asks coming into Maxwell's office.

"Do you feel better?"

"Yes."

"Well..."

"I'm actuallly starting for once!"

"I'm proud of you Robin, but I'd feel irresponsible if I did let you play."

"You don't have to worry about me! I'm perfectly fine, I think the bug left."

"Either your lying about feeling well, or you played sick; either way not playing in your game seems like a sufficent consequence for me."

"Gosh, that's so unfair!" Robin says slamming his door and stomping to her room. She grabs her phone and calls Anya and Jung Hee to tell them she can't make it, then heads to her desk to angrily start some homework. Time passes by in a blur and soon there's a knock on Robin's door.

"Come in." Robin says secretly wishing who ever it was would go away.

"We wanted to talk to you about the doctor's appointmet." Robin's mom says holding Maxwell's hand.

"I ate something weird; end of discussion."

"That''s what you say, but we're your parents and we just want to be sure, so we wanted to weigh you!" Her mom says whipping out a scale from behind her back. Maxwell forehead is crinkled with worry but he doesn't say anything.

"I'm not getting on that thing, so you can just laugh at me again." Robin mutters.

"You laughed at her?" Maxwell asks his wife.

"No, she's just making it up because she's upset."

Robin rolls her eyes then immpatiently taps her pencil,"Anyting else you guys wanted?"

"Robin, we just want to be sure. Please?" Her step-father asks.

"No! And you can't force me to get on the darned thing so get out of my room!"

"You will not speak to us in that tone! We are still your parents despite what opinions you have about us." Her mom scolds.

"Fine. Please leave?"

"Robin, do you know how Greg's mother died?" Maxwell cuts in.

"No." She says surprised at his change in attitude.

"Come here, I think you ought to hear this." They get up and walk to his office, while Robin's mother waits patiently for them to finish. He shuffles in his desk for something, then comes out holding a picture of a pretty blond woman.

"Was this your wife?"

"Mmmhhmm." he says kind of in a daze not removing his eyes once from the photo.

"Greg looks just like her."

"He sure does. But that's not why I brought you here; have a seat it's a fairly long story."

"As you know I've always lived in this city, and back when I was your age, it was considered a small town. Now Wanda, that's her name, was probably the most beautiful girl in hundred mile radius of here. She had platinum hair that shined as brightly as her smile and pale grey eyes that seemed to hold nothing back. Wanda's heart was made of pure gold and it was as if being mean to someone was inhumanly possible for her.", he says stoping to smile as if lost in a memory," she hadn't grown up in a very functional family. Her father was a bit of an abusive drunkard and her mother was to nice to leave the fool, so she put up a fake act of hapiness most of the time. It took me years to finally realize that anything was wrong, and by then I was too late. Instead of cutting her self or becoming really shy, Wanda ate, which was just as destructive. She once told me food was the only thing that never changed when her world was shaken, so after a beating she'd binge and feel just a bit better. But after a while she began to gain weight and soon learned that purging would fix that." He stops and stares at the paper a tear in the corner of his eye.

"It's okay dad, if you don't want to tell me the rest you don't have to." Robin says patting his arm and feeling a bit sorry for him.

"No...I need to finish it. I don't know how I never saw it but soon she just wouldn't eat at all. And after we got married, the problem grew. I-I wasn't the nicest guy, and if she were getting a little tubby or eating a lot I'd pinch her sides and puff up my cheeks, imitating how'd she'd look if she continued this way. And she was always eager to please me, so she just stopped eating. Maybe a salad or piece of chicken every once in a while, but I was to caught up in work to even notice. It wasn't until she was pregnant with Greg that the insane size of her surprised me. She was 5'2 and about 70 pounds now, and like I said I as oblivious to this, she'd hide it too. Greg wasn't getting enough food and I couldn't get her to eat more. She'd faint at random moments from not having enough energy and It didn't look like Greg was going to be born. One day I caught her purging and she'd broken down and sobbed to me, talking about how she wished I had a better wife and that she wasn't good enough. Course I tried to talk her out if it, but she wouldn't listen to me! And when it came time for Greg to be born the effort of geting him out almost killed her. It wasn't until I was away at a business meeting and she was home alone with Greg that she died. I came back to find her laying next to the toilet with Greg tugging on her hair crying for his mom. The police decided she had purged, and was to exauhsted to get up. They say she took a nap to get some energy back and had never woken up." Maxwell says the tear falling down his cheek.

"I didn't even get to tell her that I loved her, one last time." He sobs putting his face into his hands.

"I'm sorry dad." Robin says her voice cracking, hugging him while he quietly sobs.

"So you see, I can't loose another person I love to that rechid disease Robin. I can't and God forbid it happen to Greg again, so please, if you are making yourself throw up, stop. We can't loose another family member."

Robin begins to cry too, then mumbles a silent okay, even though she knows she's much to late to stop now.