When I’d worked every last bit of soap out of her hair, she moved all over again, allowing me to work the conditioner in next.
This time, she didn’t wash that out of her hair, though.
She reached for the razor on the caddy and the bar of soap.
“I need to shave something fierce,” she said. “Today’s a day I plan to wear shorts to the workout…oh, shit! We missed the workout!”
I stepped back so that she could have some room before saying, “ I have a doctor’s appointment today. I can’t go to the workout and make it.”
Her head snapped up as her eyes met mine. “You do?”
I nodded.
“I have an appointment at eight thirty,” I answered. “Do you want to go?”
Mavis swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“I have to be there in an hour. If you’re sure…” I pushed.
“I have Vlad,” she said. “Is that okay?”
I shrugged. “My mom can watch him if you want to go alone with me.”
She started to shave before she answered. “I think that maybe that’ll be for the best today.”
I had a feeling it would be, too.
Because her son watching her cry wasn’t going to be something that she would want him to see.
At least, I didn’t think so, anyway.
Five minutes later, we were out of the shower, she was drying her hair, and I was calling my mother.
“I’m sorry, what?” Mom repeated herself.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, woman,” I growled.
My mother giggled and hung up.
She arrived at Mavis’s place within five minutes.
Truthfully, I was surprised that she didn’t arrive in less than five.
The moment she heard ‘Mavis’ my mother was likely launching herself out of the door.
She loved Mavis.
Even worse, she loved Mavis for me, and that just wasn’t ever going to be.
I opened the door with a blank expression on my face.
“Out of my way,” she ordered, her eyes taking in Mavis’s house with a practiced eye.
My mother was a housekeeper.
Had always been one in some form or fashion.
And Mavis’s place was like the Holy Grail for a housekeeper.
Though you could tell she took care of her place, you could also tell that she barely had time to do half of what she wanted to.
There were piles of baby clothes on the couch, ones that needed either washed or folded and put away.
Her own pile of dirty nursing scrubs were on the floor in her living room, I was sure to be washed yesterday or today for her to return back to work tomorrow.
But those wouldn’t be happening today. At least not by Mavis’s hand.
Yesterday, it was shit going on with her sister. Today, it would be shit going on with me.
And I knew, when she got back to her house later, she wouldn’t want to do laundry then, either.
“I’m ready!” Mavis said as she came out into the living room, a naked but for a diaper Vlad on her hip, and a bottle in her hand that looked like it was half-finished.
Mavis spotted my mother and frowned. “You’re here fast.”
“I am,” my mother agreed. “Now give me that baby. You two head out.” A look passed from me to my mother and back. My mother wouldn’t remain idle while here. Though she was watching Vlad, she would also be cleaning up. I didn’t doubt that for a second. The look that passed between us was a mother saying, ‘Keep her out as long as possible.’
I would.
I’d take her to my house after this and sit down and let her take it all out on me.
Then I’d have to explain.
But until then…
“Let’s go,” I grumbled.
I didn’t want to be doing this.
But last night, we’d stepped over an imaginary line that we wouldn’t be able to cross back over.
I didn’t think I could physically keep up the act anymore.
Hating Mavis Pope was mentally and physically exhausting, and I already had enough fighting to do on my own without having to do that, too.
“Ready.” She pasted on a neutral expression, pressed her lips to Vlad’s head, barely dodged a smack from him in time, and then headed to the door after passing off the bottle and Vlad to my mother.
When we arrived outside, I headed to her butt ugly van since I knew it would be easier to get into the tight spaces at the hospital than mine would.
She tossed me the keys, and I had to all but sit in the back seat before I was comfortable driving in it.
“I don’t know what you have against this car,” she muttered as she settled into the passenger seat.
I grunted out a laugh. “Other than the fact that I told you what to get and you ignored me, I don’t really like vans.”
“Vans are fantastic,” she disagreed. “Do you know how easy it is to get Vlad in the car?”
“Van,” I corrected her. “And yes. But that still doesn’t negate the fact that I told you to buy American and you didn’t.”