100 Things 24/100: For My Babies
Title: For My Babies
Fandom: Original Fiction
Series: 30 Days of Flashfic
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 580
Prompt: Love Bingo Fill: “Motherhood”
30 Days of Flashfic Prompt 1: “Write a scene saying ‘hello’”
Emily knew she was being small and petty, but she couldn’t help it, she still hurt over everything, she was still so angry with Bill for not being the man she had thought he was. She refused to look their way, fussing with the hair ties on Annabelle’s pony tails, playing horsey-ride with her, feeding her animal grahams. She waved and cheered for Todd as he bounded past on the court, chasing the boy with the ball.
For Todd’s sake, she had forced herself to come tonight, even though it was Bill’s week, and even though she knew that Peg would be there. When he called to tell her the time to be here, Todd had let it slip on the phone that Peg was excited to be going to his very first basketball game at school.
It wasn’t Peg’s fault; the marriage had been over long before the woman had come into Bill’s life. Emily bore no real malice towards her children’s stepmother. Stepmother, God, her children had a stepmother. Still so new, it had yet to sink in and become part of what Emily knew and accepted about Bill. When she had first presented Bill with his infant son and later their daughter, they had been so overjoyed and so in love, she had never expected that one day she would have to share custody of them with a stranger, a stepmother.
There was jealousy, she admitted it. Her children loved Peg and according to everyone she spoke to, the feeling appeared to be mutual. They came home from their stays at their father’s house clean and happy and bursting with tales of how they had spent their week, the things they had done with Peg. It took three days before Emily stopped smothering them with attention and clinging and hugging and kissing them all the time, reasserting her claim, reminded these tiny people that she had created that she was their mother and that she loved them beyond everything in the universe.
She would do anything for her two perfect babies. She would even walk into the lion’s den and face the beast eye to eye. At halftime, the moment to test that resolve came. Sliding her shoulder bag over her arm, Emily lifted Annabelle onto her hip and carefully stepped down the bleachers and made her way across the gymnasium to where Bill and Peg were patting Todd on the back as he gushed about the play he had made.
Seeing her Daddy, Annabelle wriggled and squirmed excitedly and Emily was forced to let her go. Her arms felt empty. She had no shield as she approached the woman she had never met before, the woman who mothered her children on alternating weeks. Bill spotted her and looked like a deer caught in the headlights. How wonderful! Hadn’t Todd told them she would be here? That small bit of petty satisfaction gave her the courage she needed to keep moving forward.
After scooping up Annabelle and kissing her, Bill elbowed the woman beside him and tossed his chin at his ex-wife. Peg looked up, her hand dropping away from Annabelle’s cheek, almost guiltily.
“You must be Emily; it’s so nice to finally meet the voice over the phone!” The smile seemed genuine; it matched the warm voice that Emily usually heard over the phone.
With what felt like a watery and weak smile in return, Emily stuck out her hand and choked out, “Hello.”
The End
Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/