the call. Zoey knows we can’t start dinner without her, especially on family night. She’d kill me, and so would my girls. We’re not really ones to celebrate traditions, but we do have one, and we stick to it religiously. No excuses.
“What are you cooking?” Zoey questions as I hear her nails tapping away on the steering wheel.
I resist scoffing at her question. “Spaghetti,” I tell her. “What did you think we were having? It’s spaghetti every week. That hasn’t changed in two years.”
“Did you make my garlic bread?”
“Hold on,” I tell her before calling out to Ryan. “Can you come help Mommy set the table, please?”
I hear a low growl coming from the living room. “Whyyyyy?” Ryan whines. “I’m real hangry Mommy.” That kid cracks me up. Smirking to myself, I continue stirring our food. It would only make this situation worse if she realized I was laughing at her.
I pass Ryan two plastic bowls while putting mine and Zoey’s on the table myself. “Hello?” Zoey yells through the line. “I’m still here.”
“Oh, yeah,” I laugh. “What was your question?”
“Garlic bread. Did you make it?”
“Yes. There’s garlic bread. You know I cooked garlic bread. I might have even cooked extra, but if you don’t get here soon, I’m going to give it to the girls as your punishment for being late.”
“Your threats won’t work on me, Amelia DiGiorgio. You won’t let the girls fill up on garlic bread before dinner, and you know it.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, placing the garlic bread on the table then handing a small piece to Ryan with a devilish grin on my face. The animal practically rips the food out of my fingers with her teeth causing her to drop the plastic bowls across the floor.
Geeze, maybe she’s hungrier than I thought.
“Shit, Zo. I gotta go,” I rush out.
Zoey laughs. “Okay, okay. I’m about to turn onto your street.”
Zoey disconnects the call, and I turn to find Ryan. “Ugh, Monster. Quick, pick up the bowls. Zo Zo is almost here, and it’s time for dinner.” I watch my child dive under the table trying to collect the bowls on the floor with the garlic bread hanging out of her mouth. If anyone was watching this situation play out, they would think I had no control over these kids.
One by one, I watch all our chairs wobble and then hit the floor.
“Whoops, Mommy,” Ryan says as she starts hysterically laughing under the table at the mess she’s created. I stand and watch in horror. How did that just happen in the space of thirty seconds?
I focus on the child under the table as booming laughter continues to pour out of her. That’s not good. The next stage will be tears, un-freaking-controllable tears if she doesn’t get food in her belly soon, and nobody is prepared for that.
This will turn ugly very quickly if Zoey doesn’t walk through that door in the next two seconds.
As if hearing my silent plea, the door swings open, and I find Zoey gawking at the sight before her. “Shit, Mills. Get that kid away from my garlic bread,” she hollers from the doorway, prancing through the house as though she isn’t the cause of all this destruction. “What are you doing, Monster? Get out from under there, you crazy kid.”
I laugh. “She’s like a little mini-you. She sniffed out that bread as soon as I pulled it out of the oven. I’ve held her off this long, but I’m not Superwoman. There’s only so much I can do.”
I head back to the stove to try and salvage what’s left of this mess, groaning to myself. “Fuuuuck,” I whisper. I try to move the food in the pan and look at the dial. I must not have turned the stove down as much as I thought. The food is sticking to the bottom of the pan. “Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?” Zoey questions.
I whip the wooden spoon to point at Zoey, not once taking my eyes off the spaghetti sauce and accidentally flicking shit everywhere. I cringe as I hear the splattering of sauce against my kitchen wall.
Shit.
I look up, and it’s like a scene from a horror movie. How the fuck am I going to clean this up?
Oh well. I’ll deal with it after dinner, that is if I can get to it before Coby licks it off the walls. “You, my friend, have got a lot of splanin’ to do.” There’s an absolute look of horror on Zoey’s face as she looks