Enough!

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Enough!

By Plot Roach

The day had started well enough. Though it had started with the three month old crying at five in the morning. Mother picked him up and began to nurse him, while she looked over at the toddler in the playpen on the other side of the room. Their father, Charlie, was still snoring away and would be for another half hour until Jacob, the child in her arms, would wake his older brother by yelling. And sure enough, as the time clicked by, Jacob screamed and Max woke with a start. His cries in turn waking his father. But Charlie merely rolled over, pulling the covers over his head and pretended to be asleep. They played this game every day.

Mother changed the diapers of both boys, set them in their respective seats in the kitchen and went to work. By the time their father came into the room, he was dressed and ready for work. Both boys paused in their screaming long enough to shoot smiles at their father as he kissed cheeks already grubby with food and dirt.

“How do they get so dirty so fast?” Charlie asked.

“Don’t you know?” Mother asked. “Little boys are made from dirt. No matter how much you wash them, more oozes out.”

About that time, Max threw a bagel at his younger brother, making Jacob yell at the top of his lungs. Mother stooped to pick it up, a spasm traveling through her back like lightning. She gasped and held her hand out to the kitchen table to keep from falling. Both boys were yelling now, their father babbling at them to make them laugh. It didn’t work, as the boys only yelled louder. In the meantime Mother was trying to pull herself upright and get enough air into her lungs to call for help from her husband.

Then the phone rang. “Hello?” Charlie asked over the din his sons were making. “No, we paid that already.” he said into the phone. A brief pause. “No I’m quite sure of it. I’ll check with my wife, hold on.” He looked into the kitchen and upon seeing her doubled over asked: “Honey, what’s wrong? Is it your back? I told you that you needed more exercise. And the phone company is on the line saying that we didn’t pay the bill. Didn’t you pay it earlier this week?”

Anger, pain and frustration brewed in the heart of the Mother. She had paid the bill. Just as she had every month. But with the boys’ screams, the pain that raced through her body, and her husband’s ‘I told you so’ echoing in her brain, she lost her temper. A great and mighty power flowed through her, from the bottom of her toes to the tip of her head.

“Enough!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She dried her eyes and looked around her once she realized that everything was quiet. Almost too quiet…

Everything had frozen in place. Her son Jacob in mid yell, the older child in the process of spilling his juice onto the floor. Even Charlie, a hand on the phone and his face frozen in the question he was asking. The clock behind them was frozen in place. She took a deep breath before taking the dropped bagel, dusting off the hair that had clung to it, and took a big bite as she enjoyed the first bit of silence that she received in longer than she cared to admit. She slipped into the chair next to her and waited for the spasm to release her.

“If I had more help around here I COULD exercise and not be in pain, you enormous prick!” she yelled at her frozen husband.

“And you two” she yelled at her sons. “Maybe if you didn’t wear me out every morning, I could make you laugh like your dad tries to.”

She finished the bagel, adding a scrambled egg and a cup of coffee to it before she uttered a sigh and ended the frozen moment. The juice spilled to the floor, her husband stood there with his question still unanswered. “Yes, I paid the bill online two days ago. I have the confirmation number written down on the calendar.” Mother said, dropping a kitchen towel onto the spilled juice.

Within a few minutes Charlie was out the door and both children were cleaned and sent into the living room where their eyes were glued to the television screen.

“My lunch?” Charlie asked. Mother simply handed it to him along with his briefcase, cell phone and car keys.

“I don’t know how you do it all.” he said, and then kissed her as he left for work.

Mother simply smiled and closed the door. Screaming was already coming from the living room as the toddler was pulling Jacob’s hair in retaliation for the baby puking on him. Mother took a deep breath and forced herself not to freeze time again. This was just a little mess, after all. There was no need to overuse the Mommy Voice, or she might be tempted to leave her family stuck in time forever.