Mrs. Avery

Chapter 11

Aggie woke up and rolled onto her back. She let out a heavy sigh and ran her hand over her face. It was Sunday and she was expecting it to be a long, hard day. This would be the day the kids really transitioned to staying with her. She had a million things to do. She needed to find out how long James needed her help and figure out what that meant for her current living situation in the city. She needed his schedule to figure out where she needed to fill in the gaps. She knew there would be paperwork for the school depending on if this situation lasted into the new school year. On top of that, she was hoping she could avoid any kind of break down in front of the kids, but felt there was no guarantee now that she would live here... with them. Today was going to be a mess. And she immediately felt guilty for asking Larry to stay. Aggie was never like this. She never relied on someone like she had allowed herself to rely on Larry this week, but here she was all the same. She rolled over and looked at him.

The air mattress had a hole in it somewhere and the final result was Larry getting half of the queen bed. They both questioned how wrong that was. She felt particularly nervous as his superior and he was worried about his job. But after so many attempts with the air mattress they decided that sharing a bed was logical and not a big deal as long as they each had their own covers. Larry tried to argue for sleeping on the floor, but Agnes wouldn't allow it. She knew he had a tricky back and plus the extra layers would surely block out the awkwardness of it all.

Either way here they were, sharing a bed, and overnight it seemed that Agnes just stopped caring. She rolled onto her back again. Larry was still sleeping and she was swimming in her own thoughts. She had quite a bit of time to do that.

"Good morning." He said groggily as he started to wake. He ran a hand over his own face to wipe the sleep away. He was shocked by his own indifference at sharing the bed.

"Did I make a mistake?" She asked.

"If you're referring to the kids, I don't think so."

"I just don't think I'm cut out for this and James hates me as much as I had expected him to."

"You're cut out for motherhood or rather guardianship, temporary or otherwise, if that's what you mean. I've never seen someone stifle conflict like you do at work."

"That's different, they're adults-"

"Debatable." He chimed.

"You know what I mean, I'm not responsible for keeping them alive."

"Miss Aggie, you have mom written all over you. And not just mom, but 'good mom', like a really good one."

"I don't though. I would've had my own kids by now."

"Well, you also have wanderlust beaming from your eyes, but the mom thing is there for sure. The wanderlust just set you up with a timeline."

"How would you know?" She brushed him off.

"Because I've seen it before." He said peering at the ceiling.

"In your almost-wife?"

He paused for a long time. "Yes, in my almost-wife."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," He said. "I just... I know what I'm talking about. I get you don't feel that way, but this is all going to be fine. You'll have them for a while and James will come around and by the time he takes full custody... it'll all be okay again. Like all those years didn't even happen."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes like she was trying to breathe in the hope that he was putting out into the air.

They both let the silence settle, Aggie and Larry were both wandering through past years in their mind, both filled with pain and questionable regret. Larry finally broke the silence.