Easy (Chicago Blaze 6)

Max shakes his head. “Fine, but I’m leaving now.”

Hazel grabs a banana and picks up her lunch bag from the kitchen counter. “Let’s go.”

“You need to be ready to leave for hockey at 4:10 this afternoon,” I remind her. “Gear packed, ready to walk out the door. We won’t have any extra time.”

“I will.”

She will. Hazel is always on time. She’s my tomboy, preferring sports and fishing to boys and makeup. I wouldn’t believe she and Vi were twins if I hadn’t witnessed them both coming out of my older sister at birth.

“Love you,” I call as Max and Hazel walk out the back door.

“Love you, too,” they return at the same time.

Vi looks over at me, face scrunched, as soon as we’re alone in the kitchen. “Ugh, I can’t believe you’re letting her play hockey. What if she gets her teeth knocked out?”

“They wear mouthguards,” I remind her.

I’m not thrilled about Hazel’s newfound love of hockey, either, but my reasons are different from Vi’s. For one, it’s crazy expensive. It also reminds me of someone it hurts to think about, but I don’t want the kids to know about that.

“Still.” She stares into the open fridge as I dry the breakfast dishes. “Are those apples organic?”

“No, Your Royal Highness, they’re just run of the mill Honeycrisps.”

“You should get organic food, it’s healthier.”

I suppress a sigh. We’ve had this conversation so many times. I tell her the organic stuff is too expensive; she tells me it’s worth it. The kids don’t know just how tight my budget gets sometimes, and I don’t want them to. But the arguments are so exasperating that I sometimes want to pull out a bank statement and show them.

“Pack your lunch,” I say as I hang up the dish towel. “I don’t want you missing the bus.”

I sneak a glance at her outfit as she makes a sandwich. The late April Wisconsin weather is warm enough for kids to wear shorts, and Vi chooses formfitting ones that push my comfort zone. I don’t want boys admiring her long legs. She grows more beautiful every day, and it makes my heart hurt. She looks so much like her mother, and I don’t want her making the same mistakes Jenna did.

“Let’s go shopping this weekend,” I suggest lightly. “You need some new shorts.”

Vi shakes her head. “I’ve already got plenty, Aunt Allie.”

“Yeah, but…you’ve grown a lot since last year.”

“They still fit.”

I don’t want to battle with her before work, but I am the adult. “They’re a little short, Vi.”

“No they’re not.” She laughs. “The school has rules about shorts, and all mine follow the rules. I’m not wearing those shorts that come down to my knees.”

I can feel my blood pressure rising. My main goal in life is to raise these three children to become high school graduates instead of teen parents with addiction issues. My parents never imagined their oldest daughter would get pregnant at age fifteen, and then again, with twins, at age eighteen. Three kids from two different dads and no interest in raising them. Mom and Dad had to start all over again as parents to do the job themselves. And they were amazing at it, until a car accident took them ten years ago.

“Can we just…find a compromise?” I ask Vi. “Maybe you could keep some of what you have and get some new ones, too?”

“New ones I pick out?”

“Well…”

She packs a bottle of water and her lunch into her bag, zips it and shrugs it on.

“Maybe,” she says. “But I’m not dressing like a nun.”

“I think we can find a happy medium between nuns and those,” I say, gesturing at her shorts.

She looks down. “They’re not even that short.”

I cringe. “I know, but they’re so…formfitting.”

“Aunt Allie, relax. You’re the one always telling me boys don’t have a right to anything because of what a girl is wearing.”

“I know, I know. But Vi, attention from boys is flattering. And now that you’re in high school—”

The honk of the bus horn outside our house stops me short.

“I’m fine, I promise,” Vi says, rushing over to the front door. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” I say, tired even though it’s only 7:40 a.m.

I used to chat with our cat, Bellatrix, in the ten minutes between the kids leaving for school and me leaving for work. But she passed away last year, and the vet bills from her illness made me decide not to get another pet.

At least now I have Kelly. She moved to Greentree Falls about six months ago and is the bakery manager at Fox Foods. We became close friends immediately. I’m the daytime shift manager, so our schedules are the same.

I grab my car keys and my purse and begin my five-minute drive to work, wrapping my damp hair into a low bun as I walk inside the store.