The Lost Boys

When I arrived at the coffee shop with the knowledge that the kids were with their no-good son of a bitch father for the afternoon, I spotted a seat beside the window. I pulled out the rickety wooden chair that creaked under my weight and got comfortable. I took my bag off my shoulder and placed it in the spot opposite me to signify I wanted some alone time.

I bent over to pick up the laminated menu that was held up with a piece of heavy plastic, the chair creaking under me, and perused it slowly. The idea of a meal to myself was breath-taking. I went down the sandwich section, and then the soup section before the ham and cheese panini caught my eye. The waitress, a slight girl who identified herself as Wendy, came over to take my order. As my youngest, Sean, was teething and had me up all night, I decided to reward myself with a double shot latte to go with the panini. Before Wendy walked away, I asked for a portion of chips to boot. She smiled at me and wrote it down on her little notepad.

As I was waiting on my food I relaxed and started to people watch. I stretched my legs out under the table before crossing them at the ankles. I put my hands in the pockets of my burgundy hoodie and felt my eyes start to close. I jumped when Wendy, a skinny little blonde girl, brought over the latte and informed me that the panini was on its way. I wondered if she was attending college and was a barista at the weekend. My mind wondered about a lot of things.

I took a sip out of the coffee and licked my upper lip with my tongue. I heard a phone chirp and immediately thought it was mine. I rolled my eyes and looked at my watch. ‘Great!’ I said to myself, ‘not even an hour!’ I fished in my bag and could find everything but the chirping phone. I found pacifiers, dinosaurs, cars and a batman action figure. When I finally located my phone, which was in the front right pocket of my jeans all along, the chirping stopped and someone nearby said; ‘hello?’ Someone who was sitting at the next table had the same ringtone. ‘Phew!’ I sighed with the knowledge that I could relax and relinquish my parental duties for another two hours and twenty-two minutes.

I took the phone out and saw my four little angels staring back at me. I laughed derisively and put the banged-up phone on silent. ‘It’s my time now!’ I reminded myself, time that I rarely got. I was so used to either changing nappies, feeding the kids, cleaning up after the kids, and most importantly…keeping the kids alive, that it was nice to just have these three court mandated hours once a week all to myself.

Steve, my ex, proved that he couldn’t be trusted as on the day I told him I was pregnant with Sean, he told me he had gotten another woman pregnant and was leaving me for her. At that stage, it was hard being in a partnership with three kids, I never realised how hard it was being on your own with four until…well until it happened. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my kids to death…but most of the time I want to kill them. They are a handful to say the least, and having four boys under seven would be impossible without the help of my parents. Steves parents don’t seem to give a damn. They have a new granddaughter now with the other woman and she is the one they dote on. I feel sorry for my four when I drop them off at the park every week, knowing the five foot seven, skinny blonde who is my replacement wants nothing to do with them.

I didn’t notice but I was scowling into space, that was until the lovely Wendy brought me what turned out to be a delicious meal. It was visually stunning, much better than fish fingers, and I was confident it was going to really tickle the tastebuds.

I looked at my watch, I still had two hours to bask in the glorious silence….no ‘mom he hit me,’ or ‘mom he bit me,’…. just silence which was aided by the fact that the dinner rush was over and the coffee shop was almost empty.

After I finished my meal, I decided to order another latte…sure why not? Just as the order went in, a couple of women sat at the table next to me and I couldn’t help but listen to their conversation. The only conversation I got nowadays was about the kids.

‘Did you hear about Siobhan O’Neill?’

My ears perked up. Siobhan O’Neill was the woman my ex ran away with.

‘No, what about her?’

‘She’s pregnant again!’

I nearly spat the coffee in my mouth out but managed to catch myself and swallow it down before commencing to cough. They looked at me. I just mouthed that; ‘it went down the wrong way!’

‘Again?’ the pair continued conversing not knowing who was sitting beside them.

‘Yea,’ the bigger of the two nodded as thanked Wendy for their coffee.

‘Is she still with that prick Steve?’

I leaned over the table cradling the coffee cup in my hands. All I could think was how was he expected to financially support six kids?

‘Yea, but she thinks he’s having an affair!’

I rolled my eyes…been there done that!

‘And she’s going to stay with him?’

‘Well, I heard that she didn’t want anything to do with him first but when she found out she was pregnant her whole opinion of him apparently changed.’

‘Really?’

‘Well who wants two kids on their own?’

‘Didn’t he do that to his ex-wife?’

 My ears perked up again…they were talking about me!

‘According to Siobhan, they never got divorced…she has been begging him to get one for years!’

‘How long were they going out before the wife realised?’

‘Well they got together when she was pregnant with their third child, and ended up staying long enough for her to get pregnant again….so maybe three years….’

‘And the wife had no idea?’

‘No,’ the heavier one sipped her coffee again, ‘she was blindsided!’

‘God…’ the smaller one tutted…’that must have been awful!’

‘Oh, and I heard that Steve also has an older child, an eleven-year-old with his previous girlfriend!’

I couldn’t help but cough again. I had never heard about an eleven-year-old. It was as if a ten-ton weight was dropped into my stomach. I began to feel dizzy and nauseous. I had heard enough! I couldn’t take anymore! Part of me wanted to join the women and get answers, but the rest of me was paralysed.

I jumped as my phone started to vibrate on the table making a buzzing noise….it was Steve. I looked at my watch and when I saw that it was three minutes past three, when I was supposed to pick up my little monsters, I rolled my eyes and ignored the call. I didn’t want him to think I would come when he beckoned.

I put the phone back into my front jeans pocket and took my purse out of my knock off Michael Kors bag. I tentatively got up, wondering what other information these ladies could have unveiled for me, but an agreement is an agreement, so I paid my bill, leaving a €5 note in the tips jar and slowly walked out of the coffee shop contemplating what I had just heard. Being honest the whole pregnancy thing wasn’t as big a surprise as the eleven-year-old illegitimate child was. Who can be married for almost ten years and not mention that they have a kid?

My phone continued to buzz the whole five-minute drive to the park where the pick up was arranged. As much frustration the kids brought me, my heart grew warm when I saw their smiling faces running towards me. I knelt down on one knee and caught them, pulling them in tight towards my chest.

When I finally let go, I saw my little angel Sean, fast asleep in his pram and couldn’t help but feel the overwhelming love a mother naturally feels towards their children. I gave Steve an evil stare as he handed me the changing bag and walked away. He never said bye to his kids or anything…he just walked away.

I sat on the information the ladies in the coffee shop provided that day until our next mediation session. I brought up the eleven-year-old and asked him ‘and when were you going to tell me about your eleven-year-old?’ He was taken aback by that question. His mouth moved a few times but no words came out. The mediator asked him directly if he had an eleven-year-old. Once again, he couldn’t form any words so he just nodded.

I felt like bugs were crawling under my skin and my stomach was consumed with a kaleidoscope of butterflies. I had to stand up and ended up screaming at the wall out of frustration.

‘I only found out last year!’ finally, Steve found his words.

‘Don’t you think that the mother of your four beautiful boisterous boys should know?’

‘It’s just that….’

‘…. that….’

‘…. we only ever talk here and I didn’t know how to broach the subject!’

‘I am not an unreasonable woman. I love my kids more than life itself and if they have a half brother or sister out there who they are more than likely going to find out about sooner rather than later, don’t you think preparing their mother for all the questions that will come from that information would be good?’ I took a deep breath in and tried to ground myself. I engaged in my deep breathing exercises that my therapist wants me to do in times of heightened agitation.

I walked back over to my seat beside the open-mouthed dumbass I married and grabbed my bag. I began to search inside. I knew that I kept a small childproof bottle of Valium in the zipped part of the back of the bag. The bag was abnormally full so to get to the zipped pocket I had to take out a digger, a truck, a couple of cars, a tractor, and not one, but three dinosaurs. I unzipped the pocket, reached into the small compartment and took out the bottle. I only kept two 5mg tablets in it at a time, something my councillor advised. I carefully teased one out of the bottle and onto my hand before leaving the room and getting a glass of water from the fountain in the hall and devoured the yellow elixir. I re-entered the room and simply asked, ‘have you anything to say?’ to which Steve shrugged his shoulders in indifference so I threw all the kids crap back into my bag and swung it over my shoulder, leaving the room with condemnation.

Low and behold, the next court mandated time slot Steve had with the kids, he told them that the blonde was pregnant and that they had a big sister, Maddie. The car ride home was full of questions that I just couldn’t answer. Steam began to escape my ears as question after question after question was being fired at me.

In the end I turned the car around. I knew where Steve lived and this was his mess so he was going to clean it up. I left the kids in the car killing each other as I strutted up to his front door where I was met by the blonde and their daughter and demanded to speak to Steve. When Steve showed himself in the hall finally, after standing behind the door for what seemed like ages, (I could see his shadow), I grabbed him by the arm and led him towards the car. Screw mediation, these kids had real questions and I wasn’t the one who was going to be responsible for them to grow up to be hooligans, yes, I would play a part, but I didn’t want the full responsibility.

Steve eventually reluctantly brought the three oldest kids into his home, somewhere they had never been before, and answered all of their questions while I rocked the sleeping Sean, smiling down at how he could still suck his pacifier whilst sleeping.

Thirty minutes passed before the blonde took the baby out of the house and put her in her car seat before driving away….an hour passed before Steve brought the kids out of the modest four bedroomed, red bricked, semi-detached house, each of them crawling on him at a different angle…well all except Shane, my eldest. He followed behind his father with his head down. I quickly put the baby back into the carry tot and met them in the three-car driveway.

‘Are you ok buddy?’ I asked Shane.

He nodded ‘yes,’ and got into the car alongside his brothers.

I was conscious of the fact that Shane was quiet for the rest of the evening, not even wanting to read a book when his younger brothers fell asleep. We were on book two in the Harry Potter series and were about to start the chapter about the whomping willow. Shane, however, turned onto his side facing the wall and closed his eyes.

I shut the book, keeping the bookmark in the same place I had gotten it from. I lay down beside my seven-year-old and held him as he cried. I cursed his no-good piece of shit father. I knew when I heard those two women chatting that it would come to this, the moment no mother wants her child to feel…. replaced.

‘Dad has a new family now!’ Shane managed as he wiped his eyes obviously ready to talk.

‘Yea, but he will always love you!’ I tried to reassure him.

‘He’s having another baby and I have an older sister!’ Shane sat up and did that quirky little thing he did with his fingers when he became uncomfortable.

I did the only thing I knew how, I just nodded and pulled him in close rubbing his hair until he fell asleep.

I cursed Steve under my breath and left my confused beautiful boy sleep. Before I closed the door fully, I looked back at my angel and thanked god for blessing me with such a beautiful soul. I did the same for all of my kids. They all looked so peaceful when they were asleep. I looked at my watch. It was nearly ten. I quietly descended the stairs, careful to miss the third step from the bottom as it squeaked and proceeded to do my daily chores all the while cursing Steve with each breath.

 

 

picture from pixabay