Single Lady Spy 01 - The End of Me

Chapter One—Not quite the end of me

    "Mom…Jules spilled her juice."
    I looked in the rearview for a second and clenched my jaw. The thousands of errands didn't go away. The thousands of obligations felt like they had doubled. Nothing was ever going to be small again. This wasn’t the plan, not that there had ever been one.
    I sighed and turned around. "Mitch, clean it up for her," I said trying not to be angry. She was five and my temper was short fused.
    He gave me the look his father always gave and rolled his eyes, "With what?" The shitty-tween attitude was the icing on the cake of doom, that I was currently being force-fed.
    The traffic slowed, giving me a chance to reach around in my yoga bag for the sweaty towel, I still had not taken out of the van. I flung it over the seat at him.
    "Jules, no spilling. Mommy can't stop." I could, but I was scared of what would happen if I stopped the van and thought, for even a second. Stopping had been bad, thinking had been worse.
    She smiled her bright face and nodded, "Uhmkay." It was more of a sound and less of a word, but she was five and sounds were still huge for her.
    Her bright-blue eyes, and the way she looked up at me through her lashes, the way he used to, brought it on. The tightening of the chest was first. The tears were unstoppable. The minivan didn’t feel as big as it actually was. I was sure it was closing in on me.
    He hadn’t loved me. That also hadn’t ever been part of the plan. I knew we had taken a risk getting married, but the fact he hadn’t loved me, never crossed my mind.
    My body pulled forward, as the need to rock filled me.
    My broken heart wouldn’t stay hidden much longer; it wouldn’t let me be okay in front of them. It forced its way, bursting tears from me and ripping at my chest. A sob slipped from my pressed lips. Everything felt like an avalanche of bad things, and all I could do was watch, as they rolled down the hill and buried me.
    I made the mistake I feared making. I stopped moving. I swerved the van into a motel parking lot on the side of the road and collapsed into the steering wheel. The moving van was keeping my mind moving.
    No sounds escaped my lips. The tears blinded me; at least the van was stopped.
    I heaved, but managed to hold back the noises. Slight whimpers slipped past the hold I had, that trembled like a twig about to snap.
    "Mommy, you said you couldn’t stop," her squeaky voice broke the silence.
    I moaned slightly as I pressed the button for the music. Philip Philips sang loud and clear, filling the van with fun and fast music.
    I shook for the second I needed and wiped my face. Mitch never looked up from his iPod and Julie colored on her tray, nodding her head to the music. I rocked, ever so slightly.
    I was struggling to get some semblance of control as my body fought for gasps of air. I wiped my face clean and agreed with my brain’s demand of alcohol. I needed a drink.
    I needed so many things… too many.
    I drove back toward the road in silence. The song ended and when a new one came on, I braved a glance at them. Mitch's bright-blue eyes caught mine. He frowned, but I shook my head and smiled at him. Nothing could hide the breakdown , I was about to have . Nothing would make any of it better. I just needed to be alone and let the dam break.
    He had cheated our family, and instead of facing the music like a man, he had died. He didn’t even have the consideration to let me find out, the way I deserved. He had made me the object of gossip. He had made me a fool.
    The funeral home looked exactly how it should. I drove into the parking lot and looked back at Mitch, "Be right back, okay?"
    He nodded. I locked the van and handed him my cell phone. My parenting skills were slowly diminishing. They too, were being smothered by the avalanche of bad things .
    I walked up to the funeral home door where a man with dark hair and dull eyes answered the door, "Mrs. Evans, I presume?"
    I nodded. He glanced back at the kids in the van and smiled. It didn't improve the lifelessness in his dark stare, "They are more than welcome to come in."
    I shook my head and walked past him, "Do you have an office that I can sit in a window and watch them?"
    He held a hand out, "Of course we do. This way." I walked the way he was pointing and turned to the right, past the doorway.
    He opened the door to an office just past the main area with the pews and podium. I walked in and sat in a small wooden chair. From the window,