****Jeff****
I was awoken around seven by a noise and I sat straight up
and my heart raced as I frantically looked around the room. I sat perfectly
still as I stared at the door, wondering if I was soon going to see Rosamund
barge through it. I felt relief wash over me as I heard Maggie making
sucking noises from her crib and I smiled as I got up from the bed. As I
reached the crib, I looked down and watched her thinking that she had to be the
most beautiful baby girl on the planet.
I was about to pick her up when heard my phone notify me
that I had a new test message and headed to the nightstand to check it. I
prayed that it wasn’t Rosamund and was relieved when I saw that the message was
from Mom.
Should be there in the
next two hours. Cant’ wait to see you and Maggie!
I stood blankly looking at the text. After the fiasco a
couple of hours ago, I had completely forgotten that Mom was coming to visit.
What was I going to tell her? How would she respond? I had never heard Mom
complain like others that I had married Rosamund, but in the last year I could
tell that even she thought it hadn’t been the wisest decision. Would she tell
me that now? How would others respond? Would they pity me or would they say
they told me so about her?
Maggie made another noise and I looked down at her. It was
about time for her feeding and I needed to get her a bottle. I quickly put on a
shirt and then picked her up. As I walked out to the kitchen I didn’t hear any
indication that either Star or Peter was up and I was again relieved since I
really didn’t want to see anyone at that moment.
I stood in the kitchen as I
waited for the bottle to heat up and my thoughts went to Mom and how I wished
that she wasn’t coming; all I wanted was to be alone with Maggie and to shut
out the rest of the world. I knew that wasn’t going to be possible once Mom got
there though; I hurriedly heated up the bottle and rushed to the bedroom,
hoping to get some time to collect my thoughts before Mom showed up. Right as I
opened the door, I heard footsteps starting to come down the stairs and I
promptly closed and locked the door.
****Star****
I started to walk down the stairs and thought I heard Jeff’s
bedroom door. As I peeked around the corner I saw the door closing and then heard
it lock. To say I was relieved would have been an understatement. I knew how
uncomfortable Jeff was going to be around us after what happened hours ago, and
to be honest, I was going to be uncomfortable; some of the exchanges that had
occurred were more than embarrassing for me. The actual reason why Peter and I
broke up hadn’t been revealed, but it was obvious now that it somehow involved
Jeff. It had to have been since the three of us knew and he didn’t. But with
all that had happened, I wasn’t sure if Jeff had caught on to that or if he was
too engrossed in what he had gone through to notice.
