Until Cece (Happily Ever Alpha World)

“Did he move into his office?” Sweet, sweet Ruby.

Her question alone chokes me up at the thought of how much time Mike always spent working instead of with his children. By choice too. His job at the advertising agency is supposed to be a forty-hour-per-week job, but he always takes on way more than he needs to, things he has other people to delegate to. Which I realize now has always been frustrating for me, but I pushed it aside. He makes a salary, so no matter how many extra hours of work he puts in, he wouldn’t be paid anything more. So his excuse about working all hours to provide for us never sat well with me. I just never said anything because I was happy at home with my girls.

“No, baby. For now, he’s moved in with Grandma and Grandpa,” I reply, not knowing how to proceed.

“For how long?” Lola asks.

“Why?” Kate prompts at the same time.

I swallow thickly, and Mia reaches over to rub my back. “Um, well… I don’t know for how long. And, well, sometimes mommies and daddies don’t get along very well anymore, so they take some time apart.”

“Does this got to do with you yelling in your room?” Ruby asks, her head tilting to the side, and my own head jerks back. Last week, our fight took place in the kitchen. Our room is on the other side of the house from theirs.

“You’ve heard us yelling in our room, baby?” I croak, my breath coming out in pants through my nose in an attempt to keep from losing it.

“Well, yeah, Mommy. A lot. But my friend says that her mommy and daddy yell in their room a lot too, so I never worried. It’s just what grownups do.” She shrugs.

I bite my lip, wondering if her friends’ parents yell in their bedroom out of pleasure, or if they’re like Mike and me and were having full-on screaming matches about how I needed to be doing more with the girls than what I am already. Instead of arts and crafts, he thought I should be teaching them common core math and shit to advance them to higher grade levels. Instead of snuggling on the couch and watching a movie with them, I should’ve had them in more extracurriculars. Instead of having fun in the kitchen and letting them help me mix ingredients to bake a cake, they should’ve been studying while I did all the cooking, as if it wasn’t important to teach them how.

“Are y’all getting a divorce?” Kate asks, and my eyes whip to hers.

“No! I mean, there’s been no talk of getting a divorce, baby. Right now, we’re just taking a break, okay?” I assure her, and it’s the truth. There hasn’t been one word spoken between us about a divorce. She knows as much as I do, when it comes to actually dissolving our marriage.

“And how long is Mimi here for? Is she here just to keep you company? Were you lonely without Daddy?” Ruby questions, her face turning sad at the thought of me being lonely. God, I love my kids.

“I’m here for as long as your mommy needs me,” Mia assures, giving the girls a big smile.

“And I need her, because I’ve got to find a job so I can take care of us,” I add, and their expressions grow confused.

“But I thought that’s why Daddy works so much, so he can take care of us,” Lola inserts, and I fight the need to roll my eyes. They don’t need to know that the reason their dad worked overtime, at least once, was so he could fuck one of his coworkers.

I nod instead. “That’s right, baby. But it’s just gonna be us for a while, so that means I have to make money so I can pay our bills. Your father isn’t going to be paying for everything anymore. But that’s okay, because us girls can take care of ourselves without the help of stinky boys, right?” I chirp.

Kate and Ruby laugh the way I intended, but Lola isn’t fooled. She’s always been my empath, my little intuitive soul, who can sense when things aren’t quite right, especially with me. She moves her steady focus on me to Mia and then back, and then she tells us, “Mimi, you can have my room. I’ll sleep with Mommy.” She says it in a way that brooks no room for argument, as if she were an adult.

I want to hug her so tight right now.

“You can most definitely have a sleepover in Mommy’s room tonight, but then we’re going to have you bunk with Kate like we usually do when we have a guest,” I inform her. Lola has a queen-sized bed in her room, and Kate has bunk beds for when a friend has a sleepover. They’re full-size, so I’ve never had to hear them argue over the size of their beds. A lot of the time, I find all three girls in Kate’s room anyway, when they’ve decided to play a game on the weekend or watch a movie together. I’ve always felt so blessed my kids are as close with each other as my sister and I are.