Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,58

God Bless.

Or:

Dear Reader,

I noted from the misspelling of my name on the card that you were looking for a Mrs. Bartellet. As my last name is Bartlett I can understand the confusion and why your concerned letter was mistakenly forwarded to me. Am returning it with best regards and faith that you will in time find the object of your dissatisfaction.

Or:

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your frank and forceful letter wherein you called my work intellectual garbage and referred to me as a glib-talking airhead who has only made one valid point in her entire writing career—that her readers should all be praying for the welfare of her children.

As I sit here rereading your thoughts again and again, I cannot escape the reality. It’s true. All true. You have given voice to the suspicions I have long harbored but would never let myself fully embrace. I am no writer. I came to the craft much as I did foster parenting—by default. I once foolishly thought that maybe God had guided me into these things for His higher reasons.

I wonder if I had convinced myself of that because I so longed to hope, just a little, that I was worthy. That someone wanted me. But now…

Of course I’ll only send these to you and thank you and thank the Lord for your understanding and prayers.

Love,

Hannah

“You’re not eating your pizza.” Payt pushed the stark white plate toward her. “Your idea, you know, to come here and celebrate your big payday.”

“Celebrate?” She lifted the crust and let it drop. “I don’t feel like celebrating anything anymore.”

“Over a letter? One lousy, almost unreadable letter?”

“I could read it.” Every word.

He reached across the table to help himself to her slice. “Yeah, well, I wish you hadn’t.”

“Me, too.” She spoke in a small voice. It fit. She felt small. Insignificant.

“Ask ’em. Ask ’em.” The boys returned from the game room. The friend Sam had asked along for pizza nudged him in the shoulder. “Go on, ask.”

Payt leaned close to Sam. “I think your friend…Stilton?”

“Hunter,” Hannah hurried to correct, giving the boys a what-can-you-do?-the-man-never-listens eye roll for good measure. “I can’t believe you got that wrong.”

She couldn’t. Not after she had rattled on and on gushing her gratitude that Sam had picked Hunter over Stilton. About how she felt crummy enough this evening without the offspring of the world’s greatest mom sitting at the table telling her his mom made pizza at home, without cheese on account of his lactose intolerance.

“Bet she brews her own root beer, too,” Hannah muttered.

“Hmm?” Payt’s brow crimped downward.

“Nothing. I was just…” Acting petty. Normal. Small and petty. “It was nothing. I think Hunter wants to ask us something.”

Sam held his hands up in the universal language of kids that says “Don’t ask me why” as he said, “He wants to hear your talk.”

“My talk?” Payt frowned, a big phony, perplexedlike frown. He really hammed it up. Scratching his head and pulling on his ear like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Would you like to attend a lecture on pediatric endocrinology, young man?”

The dark-haired child about to explode into a shower of giggles at the end of the table let out a long, loud “No-o-o-o.”

“Well, maybe I misunderstood you then. You say you want to hear my sock?” He raised his leg and tugged at the red socks he wore to work to amuse the children. “People have told me they were loud, but I don’t think you can actually hear them.”

“No-o-o-o,” Hunter managed to eke out between giggles.

Giggles. Not little, sweet, endearing ones, either. But great trying-to-hold-it-back eight-year-old-boy gulping giggles, like when one accuses the other of unleashing…an obnoxious odor.

Sam joined in.

Payt shook his head.

Hannah clued him in. “He wants to hear our accents.”

“Accent?” Only Payt pronounced it more like aixssent. He proceeded to lay on the hokum extra thick, proclaiming, “We ain’t got no accent. Y’all the ones got the accents.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re the one with the accent.” Hunter pointed at Payt while the boy shifted from foot to foot. “You and Mrs. Bartlett. She says Nacho Mama’s house when she means not your mama’s house!”

“Oh, dear! Do you do that?” Payt put on regal British airs this time. “Shocking!”

“Keep making fun of me and I’ll show you shocking, Bartlett. Knock those red socks right off your feet.”

He leaned in close to her, close enough that she could feel his breath when he whispered, “You always knock my socks off, Nacho Mama.”

“Come on, Hunter. It’s going to get mushy around here.”