Relentless: Three Novels (2 page)

“Yep, no more Matt.” I gave him a smile and headed to Tori’s to pack us up and get us the heck out of there.

Chapter Two

We moved in that Saturday. As a teacher, it was really nice that I had the weekends off to do important things. Like move!

Trenton loved his Stars Wars room. It was a big hit and he took out his Star Wars toys and arranged them on his low bookshelves that Ray had put in the room. There was even a little TV set and some Disney animated DVDs. Truly, Ray had made it like Christmas for us! I was thrilled.

Ray had even brought in a nice sectional sofa. It was in great condition, almost brand new. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave it which made me think that maybe it had bedbugs? I made sure to do a thorough cleaning before placing it in the cottage. The kitchen table and chairs were a little beat-up, but nothing too bad.

By the end of the day, the cottage was starting to look like a real home. Since we hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet, I decided to take Trenton out for pizza. We went to his favorite pizza place, Scotty’s Pizza Palace, where they also had a huge arcade and an indoor rollercoaster. Trenton loved the rollercoaster. It wasn’t a big one, just a smaller one for younger kids. He usually talked me into riding it with him every time we came. Not a big fan of rollercoasters, this one wasn’t very fast and actually was quite fun, even for me.

As soon as we arrived at Scotty’s, Trenton ran inside.

“Trenton, stay with me. I don’t want you getting lost.” It was Saturday night and the place was packed with kids. Trenton waited for me at the door. “Sorry, Mom.” I broke a $5.00 bill in the token machine and gave the tokens to Trenton. “As soon as we order our pizza, I will take you to spend them.”

He nodded.

“What kind of pizza do you want tonight?”

“Pepperoni and sausage. Please.”

We went to the counter to order.

“What can I get for you?” asked a teenage boy with a pierced nose.

“Okay, can I get a medium pepperoni and sausage pizza for here and two drinks?”

The teenage boy rang it up and said, “That will be $13.76.” I handed him a twenty.

He handed me the change and gave me a receipt with my number on it. Trenton and I played a game of air hockey and then some skee ball. I could tell he was having a blast and that made me happy. He’d had a pretty hard time after his father and I split. The two of us we’re getting a fresh start, and it was nice that he had stopped asking about his dad when we went somewhere to have fun. Apparently, I was enough for him, now. Either that, or he was just getting used to only the two of us going places together.

After our number was called, we sat down and enjoyed our pizza.

“What are you learning in school?” I asked.

“Stuff I already know. My colors. ABCs. Same old, same old.”

I laughed. “Did you learn anything you didn’t know before?”

“Besides stop, drop and roll if you’re on fire?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “What else?”

“We learned about amphibians. Amphibians have two lives. One with gills and one with lungs.”

“Wow. Is a snake an amphibian?”

“No, Mom. A frog is. Because he is a tadpole when he’s a baby and then he grows up into a frog. First gills, then lungs.”

“Very cool.”

Trenton giggled. “What did
you
learn in school?” he asked.

“I’m teaching fractions to the fifth graders. I learned that some of them don’t get it.”

“What’s fractions?”

“It means a part of something. Like…see our pizza cut in eight pieces?”

“Yes. Except we ate two pieces.”

“Well, each part of that pizza was one-eighth of a pizza. And we ate two pieces. So now, we have how many parts left?”

He looked at the pizza pan. “Six pieces are left.”

“Okay, so that is six-eighths of a pizza left. That is a fraction.”

“Cool, Mommy.”

“Do you get it?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Really? What fraction of the pizza did we eat already?”

“You ate one eighth and I ate one eighth.”

“Hey, you are pretty smart for a kindergarten boy.”

“Grandma Lulu says I get that from you.”

“When did you talk to her?”

“At Daddy’s house. She came over because she thought it would be fun to see me.”

“Hey, that’s nice.”

“I still like Grandma Lulu, even if you are divorced from Daddy.”

“I’m glad.”

“Do you still like her, too?”

“Yes, she’s very nice,” I said of my ex’s mother. Truthfully, we had not gotten along when I was married, but she had always been very good to Trenton. In fact, he was the apple of her eye.

There was a lull in the conversation as we ate the pizza. And then Trenton asked, “Mommy? What happens when the kids in your class are bad?”

He always found it very fascinating that I was a teacher. I knew his fascination wouldn’t last for long so I made sure to answer all his questions. I found this particular question amusing because Trenton had never really been in trouble at all.

“It depends what they are doing. And how sorry they are. For example, if they are talking out of turn, without raising their hands and me calling on them, I might give them a warning and if they do it again, they might have to stay inside for recess, instead of going out to play.”

“I wouldn’t like that,” Trenton said.

“They don’t either, but it helps everyone remember to pay attention in class.”

“I bet it does,” he said. And we both laughed.

We finished half our pizza and packed up the leftovers. We headed to the long line to ride the little indoor rollercoaster.

When we got home it was late, long past his usual bedtime.

I put Trenton to bed and sat on the edge of his bed until he fell asleep because it was a new room and I didn’t want him to be scared. He kept opening his eyes to see if I was there and sleepily smiled every time I was. After about ten minutes, he was sound asleep and I left his room, closing the door softly behind me.

I decided to stay up and read my new book. Even though it was late, I still wasn’t quite ready for bed. As I flipped through the pages of my romance novel to find where I had left off, I began to get the feeling that someone was watching me. I turned around quickly, expecting to see my son had awakened and come out of his room, but nobody was there.

I shrugged my shoulders and started back on my book. As I read through a few more pages, I began to feel heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I felt the goose bumps form on my body and turned around, only to see nothing behind me. I was starting to get a little scared.

I put my hand up to feel the air, to see if there was a draft in the room, but there didn’t seem to be. If there was, I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

I remembered what Ray had told me, about the former tenants who had insisted that the cottage was haunted, so I turned around quickly. There was nobody there. Deciding I was probably just overtired, I headed off to bed.

* * *

The next morning, I made a pancake breakfast to celebrate our new home. Trenton rubbed his eyes that were still a little puffy from sleep. “Guess what, Mom?”

“What?”

“There was a little boy in my room last night and we played with the toys that Mr. Ray gave me.” Trenton had a history of having imaginary friends, so this didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me.

“That’s nice, Trent. Did he play nicely with you?”

“Yeah, Mommy. We had a lot of fun.” Trenton looked past me to the door. “Someone’s coming, Mommy. I hear him.”

There was a knock at the door. I got up from my seat and answered it.

“Good morning,” said Ray.

“Good morning. Would you like to come in?”

“Yes, but I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see how you liked the new furniture or if you want it rearranged. I know how women are. Sometimes, it requires a few times to get everything all feng shui.”

I laughed. “Oh, it’s lovely furniture and we are already settled on this arrangement. I can never thank you enough.”

“It’s my pleasure. Hello there, buddy.”

Trenton looked up from his plate of pancakes and waved to Ray.

“Ray, this is my son, Trenton. Trenton, this is Mr. Ray.”

“Thank you for the box of toys, Mr. Ray.”

“You’re welcome. Nice to meet you, Trenton.”

“Nice to meet you, too. I like the cottage.”

“Good!” Ray said. He looked at me. “Everything working? No burned-out bulbs or dripping faucets?”

“Nope. Everything is perfect,” I said. I didn’t mention the heavy breathing from last night. I was sure that my imagination was getting the best of me.

“I have to be going.”

“Okay, see you later, Ray,” I said.

Ray left the house.

“Come on, Trent, you need to get in the shower. We have Matt’s birthday party to go to.”

“Aw, Mom! I thought we were done with Matt and Toni! Why do we still have to go to his stupid party?”

“Because we already promised. It would not be nice to break a promise. Besides, other kids will be there that you like.”

“His friend, Tiffany? The one who played checkers on the Wii with me that one time?”

“We’ll see if she comes. I bet she will. And don’t worry, we won’t stay too long.”

“Okay, Mommy. But if it’s fun, can we stay longer?”

Kids!

Chapter Three

I sat on the couch at Tori’s house watching the kids play “Pin the tail on the donkey.” Now that they didn’t live together and share a bedroom, Trenton and Matt seemed to be getting along great.

Matt’s birthday party was decked out in a Spiderman theme. I really enjoyed the Spiderman centerpiece—it caught my eye. It was layer of pop-up building shapes with Spiderman hanging off them. The party decorations looked really adorable.

I was actually surprised that Toni went all out. She never really took any interest in Matt and mostly parked him in front of the TV or gave him unlimited use of the Wii and their Netflix subscription. Tori was always too worried about what her boyfriend was doing—video games and the TV were a convenient babysitter.

I felt sort of bad, judging her. She had helped us when no one else could or would.

Tori was my friend from high school and I had loved her in high school because she was always so spontaneous and sometimes came up with wild things to pass the time. However, if I would have met her now, I would more than likely not bother to befriend her. She was always so wrapped up in herself that she never paid any attention to her son. And she hadn’t matured. She had exactly the same personality that she had in high school, which was all about having fun and mostly, all about attention that she liked to get. I guessed that’ was why Matt was such a bully. He wanted attention, even if it was negative attention.

I worried about his future. He was mostly a good kid, he just had no direction from his mother. This was another reason we had left their home. I couldn’t stand the whole environment of the selfish woman who randomly parented her son. I never claimed to be the best mom in the world, but Tori was just awful. At least with this birthday party, she was trying. She did keep drifting off to participate in adult conversations instead of organizing the games for the kids, but at least she was present.

“Jodie, why are you by yourself?” someone asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.

I turned around to see Tori’s boyfriend, Fred.

“Hi, Fred. I’m just watching the kids play.”

“How’s the new place?”

“It’s great. We just moved everything in yesterday. So, we’re settling in. It’s really cozy and best of all, we have our own bathrooms, a yard and even a washer and dryer.”

“Tori says it’s a haunted cottage.”

“Fred, stop it,” said Tori as she made her way to us. “Jodie doesn’t believe in that kind of thing.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. Tori and Fred took a seat next to me. I could smell the liquor on both of them. At a kiddie birthday party?
Really?

“I once lived in a haunted house, ya know, Jodie.” Tori was mumbling and I didn’t catch it at first, what she was saying.

“Really? I didn’t know that, Tori.” She had never mentioned this before and we had been friends for years.

“Yes, it was when I was a little girl. We lived in a large farmhouse in the Midwest. Well, we saw ghosts all the time. Until finally, my dad sold the home.”

I nodded my head pretending to be interested. I quelled the urge to roll my eyes. The liquor was starting to hit her as she slurred her words. I hated it when she was drunk. Tori was a mean drunk and she usually ended up breaking things. And screaming or crying. Stuff like that was amusing in high school. But now that we were both mothers and had shared an apartment, not so much.

I knew the party would be over soon, so I tried to keep calm about how drunk she was. Plus, it was her place, so what could I say?

“I have Jell-O shots,” she offered. “And Fred brought some W-E-E-D.”

“No, thanks. I’m driving,” I said. “And the kids can all spell that word.”

She shrugged. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I see Elizabeth over there and I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Bring me back a beer?” Fred asked. “I need a chaser.”

“Sure,” I said. I had no such intention.

I got off the couch and made my way into the kitchen. “Hey,” I said to Elizabeth.

“Hey, stranger, how have you been?” Her voice was warm and friendly. And sober.

“I’m good.” I took a seat at the kitchen table next to her. “Really good, as a matter of fact.”

“Tori told me you and Trent moved out.”

“Yeah, it was time. I found a really good deal on a cottage rental.”

“I heard it’s haunted right?” Elizabeth laughed.

“Let me guess. Tori told you that, right?”

“Yep, she told me not to be surprised if your house needs an exorcist.”

“
She
needs an exorcist,” I said, a little too meanly, but we both broke out into laughter. I felt very catty after I said it and wished I could take it back.