Mrs. Avery

Chapter 35

She did have a text from him though: Cancelling the appointment with the landlord. We can talk when I get back.

She put the phone down and just stared at the ceiling for a while. She felt much more stable, but still not quite like herself. She got all of about 4 minutes of that before she heard screaming children downstairs. And then she felt startlingly close to the state that she was in yesterday. She put a pillow over her face and just waited, but it didn't stop so she begrudgingly crawled out of bed. In the living room, they were fighting over the remote for the TV.

"No one gets the TV, if you two are going to be screaming over it."

"I had it first!" Juli screamed.

"It's my turn!" Liam said reaching for it.

"Juli, how long have you had it." Agnes asked.

"For hours." Liam whined.

"Like one hour." Juli rolled her eyes at him.

"Then why don't you give Liam a turn and we'll finish up your homework from yesterday."

"Why do you always take his side?" She said her voice getting weepy.

"I'm not taking anyone's side. Let's give Liam a turn while we do homework and then we can work it out from there."

"It's not fair." Juli said moving towards the kitchen table.

"I know. I'm just a huge fucking monster." Agnes muttered under her breath.

And from that point on Juli was full of sighs and frowns, but she did her homework. Agnes helped her through the first one and then sat there providing minimal guidance while she disappeared into a cup of coffee. She considered making breakfast while providing intermittent help, but couldn't drag herself to do it. She could see the kids had already helped themselves to cereal. When it was finally done, Juli was given control of the TV again and Agnes convinced Liam to play his video game.

All the while, Agnes was becoming more and more unhinged with every sound. She had her hands well mixed into her hair while she hovered over her coffee. She was focusing on breathing and not freaking out to the sound of some horrible dialogue on a kid's show. She didn't realize how successfully she was tuning everything out until a hand tapped on her shoulder and almost sent Agnes's spirit out of her body.

"Are you okay?" Pam asked.

"Yeah, sorry." Agnes said. She rubbed her face to wipe off any crazed look that might be there and give her heart a chance to get back into rhythm. "I just wasn't expecting you." She said flipping her head back up. Big Chris was coming through the door.

"We knocked." She said almost apologetically.

"You're absolutely fine." Agnes threw on her most convincing smile, which Pam returned.

"We didn't mean to surprise you and I probably should have called, but we're headed to the fall festival in Clemons." she paused and Agnes was processing. "We were thinking that the three of you might like to come with us." Agnes thought her head might explode if she had to play nice in public all day and it must have been written all over her face. "Or we can take the kids..." Agnes's dismay vanished and she looked up calmly at Pam. "Actually, why don't we just keep the kids overnight and just make a weekend of it. Even see if Larry wants to join us." Agnes thought she might cry from relief and guilt.

"I think they would love that, but I don't want you taking on more than your comfortable with." Agnes said thinking of Big Chris.

Pam placed a hand on her bicep and leaned in. "I think we're going to be absolutely fine. Chris is more and more like himself everyday." Agnes turned and looked at him as he was giving the kids a hard time about something. She ran a hand through her hair, letting out a long sigh. She looked back at Pam.