Miss Me Not

"Hey, Thing 1 and Thing 2," Dean said, ruffling their hair. "Have you two been driving Mom nuts today?" he chastised as a slightly flustered looking woman bustled out of the kitchen.

"Ashley and Dora, get in your playroom and clean it now," she said, putting her hands on her hips.

"But Dean's home, and he bought a fend," one of them said with a cute lisp as she dropped her R's. I had next to no experience with kids, but I had to admit, Dean's sisters were pretty cute. Their hair was made up of platinum corkscrew curls that bounced every time they moved. Rounded cheeks and rosy lips gave them the appearance of cherubs you'd find in some Greek painting.

"I see that. Room, now," she said, pointing beyond the kitchen.

"Hi, I'm Dean's mom, Sarah," she said, holding her hand for me to shake after the identical twins had torn away through the kitchen.

"Madison," I said, holding out my hand, taking the plunge into actual contact. I waited with bated breath for her to judge me when she took in my tattooed wrist.

"The writing on your tattoo is lovely," she said, surprising me as she flipped my hand over to study it more closely.

"Thanks, it's called Elegance," I said self-consciously.

"What does 'forget' mean?" she asked, finally releasing my hand that had grown clammy.

"Um, it goes with this," I said, flipping my other wrist over to reveal the word "Me."

"Oh, I see. Sometimes the past can be quite trying. I'm sure all of us would like to be forgotten at times," she said uncannily.

I waited for her next comment. Surely, now would be the time she'd tell me in no uncertain terms about how great her son is and how he needs to stay focused so he can continue on to bigger and better things. I waited for her to tell me I didn't belong in this house filled with its large comfortable furnishings, family pictures and welcoming pumpkin spice smell. She'd be right.

"I baked some chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin bars if you two want to have a snack before dinner," she said, shocking me as she smiled warmly.

"Heck yeah," Dean said, grasping my hand once again as he dragged me to the kitchen. >Dean looked at me with an expression that was hard for me to discern. "You have an amazing laugh," he said softly.

"You should really stop taking drugs. They're seriously screwing with your brain cells," I retorted, unsure how to accept his compliment.

"You know, it's okay to accept a compliment every once in awhile," he chided. "Anyway, so why does your mom go to church so much?"

"I don't know. She always has. When my parents were still together they'd both go. I spent the majority of the evenings when I was little in some form of daycare. I put my foot down when I hit junior high. I flat-out refused to step foot in the church again. I'm pretty sure they were relieved. I guess you could say not being as devoted as the other members was a thorn in their side."

"That's whack. Any church that requires their members to attend every night borders on crazy."

"Truth," I said, sitting on the floor beside him. He grinned at me before turning back to his book so he could work on some sample problems. Following suit, I opened my own math book. It'd been years since I'd actually done any homework. It didn't count in the grading module the school district had adopted, so I took that as my excuse to bow out. Teachers still assigned homework to help prepare students for the summative testing, but they couldn't force the issue. They pretty much relied on the parents to police the homework. Needless to say, Donna didn't police anything I did.

Dean and I worked in compatible silence until the pizza arrived.

I grabbed a twenty from the kitchen drawer and headed for the front door. Dean was already there handing over his own twenty.

"Hey, Chuck," I said, taking the pizza from the delivery guy.

"Hey, Madison, see you in a couple days."

"Count on it," I said, closing the door. "You don't have to pay for the pizza. It's on Donna," I said, trying to hand him the twenty that was clutched in my hand.

"Nah, it's good. I didn't realize that I was eating your dinner though."

"That's why I ordered a large. I'm a two-slice kind of person," I said, setting the pizza on the coffee table. "I'm going to go get us a couple sodas. Is Coke okay?"

"Sure," he said, sitting back down on the floor.

A few minutes later, I joined him with a couple of plates, napkins and the sodas. Dean asked me inane questions while we ate. I answered all of them, smiling slightly at the ridiculousness at some of them. I couldn't remember a time I'd been as content as I was at that moment. If I didn't know better, I would say I was happy. But that was impossible. Happiness wasn't in my DNA makeup. Was it?

We studied for a couple more hours after I cleaned up the remains of our dinner. I was slowly getting used to having him around and found myself wishing that time would slow down.

"I guess I better head home," Dean finally said, stretching the kinks out from sitting on the floor so long.