Falice Oneshots

March 23rd

This morning, she wished she had.

Her mind drifted quickly from Hal and onto a set of baby blues eyes that she'd been shocked weren't brown. She wondered what those little eyes had seen. Whose face he looked up at as he fell asleep at night. She wondered if he was walking yet, and if his first steps had been caught on video. She wondered if he ate his vegetables, or if he'd taken after a certain someone who preferred his food in a take-out bag. She wondered if he slept through the night, or if he woke up crying every four hours. She wondered who kissed his boo boos, and whose heartbeat he heard when he laid on his mother's chest.

And she couldn't help but wish with every fiber of her being, that it was her.

*

March 23, 2006

"Mommy! Polly messed up my braid!" Four-year-old Betty called as she slammed her tiny fist against Alice and Hal's bedroom door.

"I did not! I was trying to fix it!" Polly screamed back, adding her fist to the drum line that was taking place against the wooden door.

"Alice, can you please deal with them?!" Hal yelled from the bathroom, peaking his head out to see that his wife had not moved from her place in the bed. If he didn't know any better, he would think she were still asleep. But he did know better, and he knew that Alice could be fast asleep and still hear Betty sneeze from downstairs, somehow showing up with a tissue and a dose of allergy medicine before he even made it off the couch.

He sighed going to the door and yanking it open.

"Both of you need to stop, right now. Go brush your teeth." He ordered, pointing a finger in the direction of their bedrooms.

"But Mommy needs to fix my hair." Betty whined, stomping her foot on the floor in front of her.

"Mommy's...sick, just go brush your teeth and your hair. You can wear it down today." Hal said hesitantly, glancing back at the woman in their bed for just a moment.

"But Mommy never gets sick." Polly countered, peering around Hal to try and get a glance at her mother.

"Please just go finish getting ready." He demanded, putting a hand on each girl's shoulder and pushing them towards their rooms.

When their little heads disappeared into their rooms, he turned around and stared a hole into Alice's back.

"You have two children right here that need you. Maybe if you could stop wallowing for a few seconds, you'd see that." He spit out, turning back around and shutting their bedroom door.

Alice's blood was boiling. The nerve of that man still managed to shock her every now and then. She thought that after her breakdown in the Register last year, he would've done anything to keep her cooped up for this day every year. If there was one thing that he hated more than the fact that she'd had a baby in high school, it was anything that soiled their perfect family persona.

A mom and a dad. Two beautiful little girls. All blonde hair and pastel sweater sets. But underneath all of that, were more secrets than Alice really knew what to do with. A boy who wasn't so little anymore, turning 13 years old today.

It was hard to imagine that 13 years ago, she'd brought a life into the world. He was a teenager now. Somewhere in this world, she had a teenage son, and that fact was so hard for Alice to wrap her head around. He would be in middle school now, and she wondered if he liked to write. If he preferred math and science or English and the arts. She wondered if he played any sports, football maybe, it was in his blood after all.

She hoped he was old enough to understand now, why she gave him up. Why he was better off without her.

But just like this day every year, Alice couldn't help but wonder what it would've been like if she had decided to raise him herself. She pictured the birthday cake she may have baked for him, the eight 13-year-old boys that would be running around her living room, his father grilling on the back porch maybe.