Will You Be Sorry When I'm Gone?

Chapter 8

Before

“Hey, Mom,” Alex said as he came in from school one chilly December afternoon before the winter break from school. He went straight up to his room without stopping in to the study where I was sitting.

“Hi, Mom,” Anna said, also passing right by the study.

“Hello to you two, too,” I called out. “Is that really how you say hi now?”

“Too much homework,” Alex called back.

I sighed.

There was always an excuse. Too much homework, too tired, needing to go do things elsewhere.

But, the twins are fourteen now, and they have their own lives. We had raised them to be independent, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset that they just wanted to get their homework done so they could relax later. No doubt they wanted to get out of their school uniforms, too. I sighed and went over the email that Stella from the golf club had sent.

I’d been attending some of the Ladies’ Auxiliary meetings in the past few months, thinking of maybe getting more involved in the activities of the Auxiliary at the club. I needed things to fill my days.

I heard both kids come back downstairs a little while later and breeze straight through to the kitchen. Mrs. Watkins or Ms. Tomlinson would have a snack ready for them. I was stymied as to why we would still need a nanny for two fourteen year olds, but Matthew wasn’t willing to give her up just yet, and it was nice to know there was a responsible adult in the house if Matthew and I wanted a night away or anything.

I hadn’t been thrilled initially when Matthew hired the nanny just days after we got home from the hospital with the babies. That had been his surprise. He’d hired a nanny to care for the children while I recovered from giving birth. And then it was handy having the nanny when the babies had doctors appointments and Matthew needed to be at work. I had the extra set of hands to take them to their appointments.

But once the children started school, I wasn’t sure why we were keeping a nanny on. I was home most days when they came home. In fact, it was often me who went to pick them up from school when they were small. It was when they were in the fifth grade they started asking to take the bus home. Now that they’re in high school, they don’t need Mom to drive them to and from school. They’re too independent for that. And in a couple of years, they’ll be driving. No doubt they’ll drive themselves to school when the time comes.

I responded to Stella’s email and went through the rest of my emails. I read the legal newsletters I subscribed to, checked in on a couple of former colleagues and then shut down the computer.

Sighing, I got up and went into the kitchen where Alex and Anna were sitting at the island scrolling through their phones while they ate cheese and crackers. I smiled at the two of them, my Prince and Princess.

“How was school?” I asked them.

“Fine,” they both answered in stereo, not looking up from their phones.

I studied them both. Alex was beginning to look a lot more like his father. He had the same chin, the same eyes and I could see his babyish features were starting to disappear. I could see in his face the man he would become.

But for now, he was still my baby boy, and his tousled light brown hair fell just above his eyebrows.

“You’re going to need a haircut soon, Alex,” I said, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

He moved his head away and shook it.

“Mom,” he complained. “Leave it.”

I looked over at Anna and took in her features. She was getting tall. Both kids took after their father in that respect. Anna’s hair was the same light brown as her brother’s and she still had a small button nose and tiny ears. She wore earrings, small hoops, in her lobes and had a small stud on the top part of her ear. Right now, she had her hair pulled up in a messy bun, but she’d had it in a pony tail when she’d come home. She was becoming a beautiful young woman and she was smart. Both kids were.

They got both mine and Matthew’s work ethic and studied hard.

“School was just ‘fine’?” I asked again.

“Yeah,” Anna said, looking up at me irritatedly. “It was fine. It was school. We had classes, we have homework.”

“Did you learn anything interesting in any of your classes?” I asked.

“No,” Alex said simply.

“Not really,” Anna said. “I’m going to go upstairs and do my homework, then I think I might go for a swim, okay?”

She wasn’t asking permission. She got up and started to leave the kitchen.

“Anna, you can put your plate in the dishwasher,” I said.

“Mrs. Watkins can do it, can’t she? Isn’t that her job?” Anna said.

I had a strong feeling of deja vu, having had almost this exact conversation with Seline.

“Since when do you rely on others?” I asked. “Is it really so hard to pick up your plate and put it in the dishwasher?”

Anna looked at me with a look of derision, rolled her eyes and stomped back into the kitchen, grabbing her plate and stomping over to the dishwasher.

“There,” she said as she slammed the dishwasher closed. “Happy now?”

“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t raise you to be a spoiled brat who expects others to clean up after them.”

Anna rolled her eyes at me again, turned away and left the kitchen.

“That goes for you too,” I said to Alex.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, leaving the kitchen.

He had left his plate on the island.

“Alex!” I called after him. I heard his bedroom door slam closed and sighed.

“They’re teenagers,” Mrs. Watkins said, coming up behind me and picking up Alex’s plate to put in the dishwasher. “They’re testing their limits. Just like they did when they were two.”

I smiled.

When the twins were two, they had decided they no longer needed anyone’s help getting them breakfast. Luckily, they didn’t think they could cook, so we didn't have to deal with burnt food, burnt cookware or burnt children. They’d poured themselves bowls of cereal and milk. However, the milk they’d spilled had gotten under some cabinets and we’d had to replace them because the smell of spoiled milk permeated the wood.

“Well, that doesn’t change the fact that they are capable of putting their dishes away, Mrs. Watkins,” I said.

“I know. But it’s a small thing. You’re doing well by them. They’ll appreciate you being on top of them. Unfortunately, it’ll be when they’re older, and possibly when they have their own families. But they will eventually appreciate it.”

“I hope so,” I sighed.

Mrs. Watkins continued on with her tasks, getting dinner started and leaving me to my own devices. I didn’t really have anything to do, and didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought I’d call my husband and see how his day has been going. Christmas was coming, and we hadn’t decided what we were going to do. We had toyed with the idea of going to an island for the holiday. But we hadn’t booked or planned anything specific.

“What do you want?” Matthew answered, sounding exasperated.

“If it’s a bad time, I can call back later,” I frowned. “Or wait until you come home.”

“I won’t be home tonight,” Matthew said simply. “We have clients in town and we’re taking them out for dinner. I’ll be staying at the apartment at least for tonight.”

“I could meet you at the apartment,” I suggested.

“No,” he said, quickly. “Sorry, no. I don’t know what time we’ll be done with dinner, and I have to be back for a meeting at seven in the morning. You could be waiting until well after midnight and then I’m up and out early. It’s not fair to you.”

I had a feeling I knew who the ‘client’ he’d be ‘entertaining’ really was. But I’d learned long ago that questioning Matthew on his ‘business responsibilities’ was a step too far over the line.

“I was hoping we could discuss Christmas,” I said. “We haven’t decided if we’re going to go back to the Caribbean or if you wanted to go somewhere different this year.”

“I thought I told you, I’m taking Alex and Anna to Colorado to ski,” he said. This was news to me.

“You’re taking them to Colorado? Am I not invited?” I asked.

“You don’t ski,” he said. “You wouldn’t have any fun. You’d be stuck in the chalet all day and then we’d be too exhausted from skiing all day to be of much fun or company for you. You can go to the islands if you want. Take your sister.”

“What if I don’t mind sitting in the chalet by myself, reading and waiting to spend the evening with you three?”

“Amelia, you wouldn’t have any fun. Everyone there will be skiing, the kids and I will be exhausted by the end of the day. Honestly, I was thinking how bored you’d be after just a couple of days of doing nothing. Seriously. Call your sister. See if she wants to go away for Christmas, and take her with you.”

“I was hoping to spend the holiday with my family,” I argued.

“Your sister is your family, too, isn’t she?” Matthew said. “Amelia, I don’t have time to argue this with you. I’m sorry I didn’t think that you’d want to come to Colorado to sit in a chalet all day by yourself. Your friends and everything are at home. Or, like I said, you can go to one of the islands and take your sister. Or go alone and have a nice quiet vacation. But I don’t have time to discuss this right now. I have to go into a meeting and you’ve made me late for it.”

He hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief.

He’s taking the kids to Colorado to ski? And he specifically planned for me to not join? It made me wonder who was going to join them in Colorado.

I wasn’t naive. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what was happening between Matthew and Seline, no matter how many times Matthew insisted nothing was going on between them. Seline had never remarried after she had gotten divorced when her son, Daryl, was two. At nine, he was a handsome looking boy. Unfortunately, he was also a lot like his mother.

Matthew came home from ‘late meetings’ or ‘dinner meetings’ with Seline’s perfume lingering around him. He’d brush it off as someone in the office, but it was Seline’s specific perfume that she had been wearing as long as I had known her. It was the same perfume I smelled sometimes when I went to clean the apartment in the city every couple of weeks. It was the same perfume I smelled on his coats and in his car.

I put my phone in my pocket and went upstairs. I could hear music coming from Alex’s room. I smiled. Like his mom, he studied better with music. I had always played music while I was doing homework, from the time I was young. My kids did the same.

I knocked on Alex’s door first and pushed it open. He was sitting at his desk, his computer open and a textbook in his lap.

“What?” he said, exasperated that I had interrupted him.

“First of all, that was rude,” I said. He rolled his eyes. “Second, your dad won’t be home for dinner. Mrs. Watkins is cooking. Third, I didn’t know you guys were going skiing with your dad over Christmas.”

Alex looked at me with a bored expression.

“Whatever,” he said.

“That’s all you have to say?” I frowned.

“Yeah. Sorry you thought I was rude, I’m not hungry, so I don’t know if I’m even going to eat dinner and yeah, Dad’s taking Anna and I skiing in Colorado. No big deal.”

“No one thought to tell me? Or ask if I wanted to come?” I said.

“You don’t ski. You’d be bored,” Alex said. Exactly the way his father had.

“I see,” I said. “I’ll come back and check on you before dinner, and see if you’re hungry.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll come down if I get hungry,” Alex said. He knew dinner would be ready at six thirty.

I closed his door after letting him get back to his homework and knocked on Anna’s bedroom door.

“Yeah?” she called out. I opened her door. She rolled her eyes when she saw it was me. “What?”

“Is everyone in this family in a bad mood today?” I asked.

“No. You interrupted me. What do you want?” Anna said.

“A little respect for starters,” I said, frowning and crossing my arms.

“Mom, I’m trying to get my homework done,” Anna said, annoyed.

“I get it. Dinner will be ready at six thirty. Dad’s staying in the city tonight,” I saw a look flash across Anna’s face that I wasn’t quite sure I could decipher. “And I didn’t know you guys were going skiing with your dad for Christmas.”

“You don’t ski,” she said. “Dad thought you’d be bored all day.”

“So he said. As did your brother. At some point was anyone going to let me know about your plans?”

“Mom,” Anna rolled her eyes. “It’s not a big deal is it? Dad figured you wouldn’t want to come because you’d be bored stuck inside all day and so he didn’t say anything. It’s not like we had plans anyway. Can I get back to my homework?”

Sighing, I closed Anna’s door and went back downstairs by myself.

Anna came down about an hour and a half later, in her bathing suit and breezed through the den out to the pool. Anna had joined the swim team and would practice in the evenings at home between meets and practices at the school.

She came in about an hour later and started to head upstairs.

“Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes,” I said to her.

“I’m not hungry. Eat without me. I’ll grab something later,” she said, and went upstairs.

I went into the kitchen where Mrs. Watkins was finishing dinner preparations.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Mrs. Watkins. The kids claim they aren’t hungry, and Matthew won’t be coming home tonight,” I said. “So it’s just me for dinner.”

“Well, you need to eat, too. So dinner isn’t a total waste,” she smiled at me. “And the kids can heat some up for themselves later, if they get hungry. I’ll put a couple of plates together for them and leave them in the fridge.”

“You don’t have to do that. They can put plates together themselves,” I said.

“It’s no trouble,” Mrs. Watkins said.

She dished me a plate and was about to put it on the table.

“I’ll just eat at the island,” I said, taking the plate from her. “Why don’t you join me?”

Mrs. Watkins and I sat together in the kitchen eating the dinner she had lovingly prepared for my family.

I helped her clean up, as much as she would let me, anyway. Once done, I went into the den and turned on the TV.

Neither of the kids came downstairs and I went upstairs to bed early, with nothing else to do. I thought I might take a bath before turning in.

I looked in on both kids, let them know there were plates for them in the fridge, and that I hadn’t made them their snack since they hadn’t had dinner. They could warm that up if they got hungry.

“Mmhm,” Alex waved me off.

“Thanks, Mom,” Anna said, without turning away from her computer.

Sighing, I went to my own room, drew a bath, put in my favourite bath oil and bubble bath and relaxed from my completely stress-free day.

I was asleep before ten o’clock.