I stood there, my blood pressure accelerating and I didn’t know how to feel about this. Who was guardian to these kids anyway, Mitch or me? I didn’t like the honest way he went about telling them all of this. Though they had to be told, I would have liked to have a discussion about what we intended to do about it. What I didn’t like was Mitch charging in, giving the kids bad news, making Billie cry and then deciding the kids were going to the Station with him without conferring with me.

I was about to suggest we retire to the breezeway and I didn’t care if Brent, Bradon, Derek and LaTanya saw us out there in our sleepwear while I gave Mitch what for when the day’s plans were sealed without me able to utter a word.

“The Station?” Billy breathed, his tone not mildly curious or angry and hard but awe-struck. Clearly a visit to a police station was a treat for a nine year old boy.

At the same time Billie whispered, “Po-lice station?” Then, her little girl brain catapulted her out of unhappy, criminal, drug-addled Dad in jail world into another world entirely. Her torso shot straight in Mitch’s arms, her fists went up into the air and she cried, “Yippee! I can’t wait to tell my friends at school I get to go to the po-lice station!”

And equally clearly, a visit to a police station was a treat for a six year old girl.

I clenched my teeth at the same time I put my hands on my hips.

Then I asked Mitch in a tone that could not be mistaken, “Is the kids’ oatmeal done?”

Mitch and Billy’s eyes came to me, both of them not mistaking my tone.

Billie’s eyes went to her brother who she informed, “Guess what, Billy? Mitch is activaking our brain with oatmeal so we can be super smart!”

“Cool,” Billy muttered quietly, treading cautiously as I continued to glare at Mitch.

“Yeah, it’s done,” Mitch answered me, his eyes alert and amused at the same time.

“Excellent,” I decreed, stepped back and turned to Billy. “Jump down, buddy, and take a stool.” My eyes went to Mitch and I ordered, “Put Billie on a stool. She needs to eat so I can get her in the shower. Then we’re chatting in the breezeway.”

Mitch stared at me a brief second then started to round the counter to put Billie on a stool, saying, “Baby, maybe you haven’t got this so I’ll say it straight. We gotta talk, we’ll talk but we’re never doin’ it in the breezeway.”

“Fine,” I snapped, yanking open the microwave door to find steaming bowls of oatmeal in there. I pulled them out and continued, “Your bedroom.”

“Now that definitely works for me,” Mitch muttered.

I slashed him a look as I dropped the bowls in front of the kids who were both now at stools. I yanked a couple of drawers open until I found spoons and when I did, I grabbed two and dumped them into the kids’ bowls.

Then I stomped around the counter, through the living area and right to his room. I stood with my hand on the door until he cleared it then pushed it to. I turned around, my mouth opening to give him what for and then closing when I suddenly found myself in his arms, my body plastered to his bare-chested one.

On a normal day, this would have made me paralytic. At that present moment, it made me apoplectic.

I put my hands to his shoulders and pressed, hissing, “Let me go.”

Mitch ignored my hands except to lean into them as he observed, “You’re pissed.”

“Uh…yeah,” I snapped. “Your one-man show in there, um…” I shook my head, got up on my toes to get closer to his face and finished, “No.”

“Sweetheart, they gotta know and they gotta help us out if we’re gonna stop whatever the f**k is happening,” Mitch explained.

“Maybe so, but I’m their guardian and you are helping out and therefore we make decisions about how we communicate with them and what they’ll be doing to help us out before we communicate with them and tell them what they’ll be doing to help us out,” I retorted.

“We don’t have time to chat or wait for you to consider what’s the best way forward, Mara. In the immediate, we got two kids to get to school. I gotta talk to the people at the school then get to work, you gotta get to work and we got a bad guy who ripped your place to shit. That’s just the immediate. I don’t have to remind you of all the other shit swirlin’ around you and those kids.”

“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t talk before decisions are made.”

“Baby,” he said with what sounded like somewhat annoyed patience, “I just said, we don’t have time.”

I lifted up further on my toes, my face an inch from his and returned, “Honey lumpkin, when it comes to what we do with those kids, we make time.” Then I ignored one side of his mouth hitching up at my sarcastic endearment and drove my point home by accusing, “You made Billie cry.”

“She loves her Dad. There was no way to avoid makin’ her cry and I get that you get that since you’ve had them a week and neither of them knew their father was in jail. It had to be said no matter how old they are and there is no way to sugarcoat the fact that someone’s drug addicted, drug dealing, thieving father is facing some serious jail time.”

Damn, I hated it when he was right.

“Okay, so, you’re right,” I allowed and this got an arm squeeze and a lip twitch then I went on. “But, you’re also wrong. I’m not a bystander in this situation. The fact that they’re told and how they were told should have been discussed and understood between us before they were told so we could be prepared to deal with any fallout. Or, I should say in this instance, I could be prepared for any fallout. We can’t do this if you make these decisions on your own and leave me blowing in the wind. We can only do this if we do this as a team so we’re both prepared to offer the best support we can because, knowing Bill, my mother and Aunt Lulamae, this is only the beginning. Do you get me?”

I wasn’t paying attention and therefore his hand had drifted up my back, neck and into my hair to cup the back of my head before I clocked its movement. I also didn’t notice the change that had come over him while his eyes held mine; a change that I sensed was significant, so significant it was downright important but even so, I couldn’t put a finger on it.

He took my mind off all of this when he replied quietly, “I get you.”