Page 54 of Served
“Honey, you’re not insufferable. You just haven’t lived. Things change. People grow up. I never imagined I’d be a child taxi and be happy about it, but here I am. Do you need to think before you speak sometimes? Perhaps.” She squeezed my hand and smiled at me as the kids came running to us practically leaping into my lap.
Their unconditional love didn’t extinguish the pain but lessened it greatly for now. I squeezed them both as they chattered over one another asking if I saw their kicks and told me all about their instructor. Ann stood so the kids let me get on my feet, but both grabbed my hands to walk me out to the car.
We stopped at a local pizza shop on the way home and ordered several for takeout.
“I know I look like I can eat a whole one alone, but do you think we need that many?” I asked Ann as she ordered four large pizzas.
“You need to stop with the self-deprecation. And we can snack all night or have cold pizza tomorrow like we used to after partying all night! Do you remember those days?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t long ago that Amy and I stood in the kitchen eating cold pizza from the box after a late night out. She was having a nice moment down memory lane according to the look on her face.
Chapter 27
Lucy
We pulled up at the same time as Ethan, so he walked to the car and grabbed the pizza. He made no comments, but he seemed to look how I felt about the amount of pizza for three adults and two small children. Clearly, he had learned the tact I had yet to understand. Until this week I always thought Amy was the crass one.
We got inside and the kids immediately started begging to go to the beach. They were yanking folders from their bookbags and shoving them in Ann’s face.
She grabbed the folders and meticulously read over them before looking over the top and giving the kids a nod to go change. They ran squealing upstairs.
“You feel up to the beach? I should have asked you before I told them it was fine. But they did get good marks today!”
I nodded, “That sounds great. I’ll go change.”
“We can take the cooler and some pizza with us! C’mon, Ethan, let’s go get ready!”
Ethan looked at me like he wanted to kill me but followed Ann upstairs.
I went to the guest room and chose the black and white polka-dotted two-piece for today. I rubbed some sunblock on my face and decided to take my bag to the beach so I could carry the papers with me. I looked over at the phone and it still wasn’t charging properly and was now almost dead. There were no messages so I jiggled the charger again and saw the lightning bolt so I put it back down, willing it to stay in place so it could charge. I put my hair up in a clip and then grabbed the bag and headed back downstairs.
Ann had already gotten a wagon loaded with the cooler, towels, and strapped two pizza boxes to the top. She was slathering the kids with sunblock and Ethan walked downstairs in his bright tropical beach attire with a less-than-excited look.
“I love your trunks, bro. Very fashionable.”
“Ha, ha,” he said sarcastically. “I hope you know this is to keep the wife happy. Otherwise, I’d be chilling on the couch.”
“Smart man!” Ann said as she finished up the sunblock on the kids. “Here, let me spray you down.” She was talking to Ethan, and he reluctantly took his shirt off and she sprayed him down before walking to me. I let her apply the sunblock even though it seemed odd to need it so late in the day.
We went down to the beach, and I was surprised that it wasn’t very crowded. We setup our chairs close to the water and the kids spread out towels around us. It was still hot out and bright, but the sun was getting closer to the water. We all fished drinks from the cooler; the kids grabbed juices and the grown-ups grabbed Blue Moons.
“Do you have any cups or anything? Not sure we should have glass out here,” Ethan said as he opened our bottles for us.
“Oh, just don’t wave them around and act obvious and we’ll be fine,” Ann said as she waved her arms around as example. “The beach patrol doesn’t come down much this time of day. But be careful. I couldn’t find them in a can, so I just grabbed these.”
Ethan nodded and said, “Bottle is better anyway.” We all nodded in agreement and sat chowing down on pizza and drinking. The kids barely ate one slice before they were ready to get in the water.
“C’mon Aunt Luce, come with us!”
I shoved the last bite of the slice I had into my mouth and took a swig of beer before shoving the bottle down into the sand. I took off my cover-up and trotted to the water with the kids.
Playing in the ocean with kids was a special kind of freedom. No judgement. No cares. No worries, except maybe sharks or jellyfish. I was much more scared of jellyfish than sharks having been stung several times in my life. But in the light of the day in the warm saltwater crashing around us, there was nothing but fun and laughter. They showed me how well they swam. They showed me their headstands which was impressive considering the waves were still going strong even though it was later in the day. They took turns climbing on me while I swam around. We jumped the waves and splashed each other, somehow managing to keep my hair mostly dry. Eventually the kids wore me out, though.
“Hey guys, I’m going to take a rest with your parents. Do you need to come up?”
They both yelled, “no,” simultaneously so I put my hands up to show my surrender and walked back to the chairs.
“They said they’re okay out there. Is it okay I came back up?” I asked as I sat back down.
“Oh, they’re fine. They know not to go out too far out and have had lessons for years.” Ethan was looking out at them as he spoke. He then passed me a cold beer. “Here, have another. I’ll go out and keep them company.”
