Household Gods

Nicole gave up on psychology and settled for basic hygiene. She coaxed the still shrieking Kimberley over to the tub and got her feet washed, three times, with soap. Then, with Kimberley hopping on one foot and screeching, “Another time, Mommy! I’m still dirty! I smell bad! Mommy, do it again!”

Nicole got the wriggling, giggling Justin out of his wet pajama bottoms and the pulled-down Pull-Ups he was still wearing at half mast. She washed his feet, too, on general principles, and his legs. He’d stopped giggling and started chanting: “Tinkle-Kim! Tinkle-Kim!” – which would have set Kimberley off again if she’d ever stopped.

Nicole’s head was ringing. She would be calm, she told herself. She must be calm. A good mother never lost her cool. A good mother never raised her voice. A good mother -

She had to raise her voice. She wouldn’t be heard otherwise. “Go out in the hall, both of you!” she bellowed into sudden, unexpected silence, as Kimberley finally stopped for breath. She added, just too late: “Step around the puddle!”

Something in her face must have got through Justin’s high glee. He was very, very quiet as she washed his feet again, his big brown eyes fixed on her face. From invisible foot-washer to Mommy Monster in five not-so-easy seconds. She took advantage of it to send him out to the kitchen. Unfair advantage. Bad parenting. Blissful, peaceful quiet.

“Guilty as charged, Your Honor,” she said.

While she was cleaning up the mess, she got piss on one knee of her thirty-five-dollar, lace-trimmed, rose-printed sweats – Victoria’s Secret called them “thermal pyjamas,” which must have been a step up the sexiness scale from sweats, but sweats they were, and sweats Nicole called them.

She emerged somewhat less than triumphant and wrapped in the ratty old bathrobe that hung on the back of the door, to find Kimberley, who still hadn’t had a chance to go to the bathroom, hopping up and down in the hallway. At least she was quiet, though she dashed past Nicole with a theatrical sigh of relief.

Ten minutes wasted, ten minutes Nicole didn’t have. She popped waffles in the toaster, stood tapping her foot till they were done, poured syrup over them, poured milk (Justin’s in a Tommee Tippee cup, so he’d have a harder time spilling that on the floor), and settled the kids down – she hoped – for breakfast. Justin was still bare-ass. He laughed at the way his bottom felt on the smooth vinyl of the high chair.

As she turned on Sesame Street, Nicole muttered what was half a prayer: “Five minutes’ peace.” She hurried back past the study into her own bedroom to dress. About halfway into her pantyhose (control tops, because at thirty-four she was getting a little round in the middle and she didn’t have time to exercise – she didn’t have time for anything), Kimberley’s voice rose once again to a banshee shriek. “Mom-meeeee! Justin’s got syrup in his hair!”

Nicole felt her nail poke into the stockings as she yanked them all the way up. She looked down. Sure as hell, a run, a killer run, a ladder from ankle to thigh. She threw the robe back around herself, ran out to the kitchen, surveyed the damage – repaired it at top speed, with a glance at the green unblinking eye of the microwave-oven clock. Five more minutes she didn’t have.

Once back in the dubious sanctuary of her bedroom, she took another ten seconds of overdraft to stop, breathe, calm down. Her hands were gratifyingly steady as she found and put on a new pair of hose, a white blouse, and a dark green pinstripe suit that not only looked professional but also, she hoped, played up her eyes. The skirt was a bit snug but would do; she’d go easy on the Danish this morning, and leave the sugar out of her coffee – if she got the chance to eat at all. She slid into mocha pumps, pinned on an opal brooch and put in the earrings that went with it, and checked the effect. Not bad, but she was late, late, late. She still had to get the kids dressed, put on her makeup, and maybe even grab breakfast for herself. She was past morning mode by now, past even Panic Overdrive, and into dead, cold calm.

Kimberley knew she didn’t want to wear the Magic Mountain sweatshirt Nicole had picked out for her, but had no idea what she did want. Nicole had hoped to hold onto her desperate calm, but that drove her over the edge. “You figure it out,” she snapped, and left Kimberley to it while she went to deal with Justin. He didn’t care what he wore. Whatever it was, getting him into it was a wrestling match better suited to Hulk Hogan than a working mother.