Tooty admonished her boys as they piled out of the van, "Morgan, stop tormenting your brother! Harris, make sure Morgan and Eli are careful when they climb the ladder. And when I call you for lunch, I don't want you dallying around." She grinned. "Oh, and one more thing—have fun!"
Harris, Eli, and Morgan yelled thanks to their mom and then shouted for joy as they raced across the drive on a perfect spring Saturday.
Six months pregnant and with her youngest son, two year old Austin on her hip, Tooty waited until her boys had reached the tree house Sage Tanner and Jackson Martinez had just finished building a week earlier, before climbing her porch steps next to the wheelchair ramp for her husband.
"I wanna pway wid brothers," Austin pouted.
"Honey, after I let daddy know we're home I'll take you to play."
"Otay, Mommy."
On the porch Tooty set Austin down and juggled the grocery sack so she could open the front door. Glancing around, she made a mental note to water the bulbs in her window boxes and sweep the debris that had blown across the porch. Although Miles insisted that she hire help for the innumerable chores necessary for their family of six—soon to be seven, she enjoyed working around the home she had inherited before marrying Miles, and which they had expanded upon by adding three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a family room, an office, and modernizing the kitchen. The additions were larger than the original house.
"Miles! I'm home!" Tooty called as Austin ran to find his daddy. "I ordered the new blinds for our bedroom. I can't wait 'til they arrive." She entered the kitchen.
Austin had already climbed onto his father's lap and was grinning from ear-to-ear as he reached for a cookie on a platter in the center of the table. The strange expression on Miles' face while he talked on his cell phone alerted Tooty to the fact that something was wrong. Her heart dropped. Had someone been hurt? Lifting Austin off his lap, she carried him and his cookie to the family room to play with the myriad of toys always scattered about.
When she returned, Miles was saying into his phone, "Hmm. The guy's a rat. Are you going to pursue legal action if you find him?"
Tooty walked to the sink, poured herself a glass of water, and then sat across from Miles.
He glanced at her, shook his head and said, "Monica, let me think about your situation and then I'll call you back."
Tooty's eyes rounded. Monica! She jerked her hand to her mouth in surprise.
Miles watched her reaction and slowly nodded that it was the same person Tooty suspected.
Snotty Monica, my husband's ex-girlfriend is calling him!
Miles said, "Don't cry. Everything will work out." He listened and finished with, "Try not to worry. I'll talk to you soon." He touched the screen of his cell phone to disconnect and shook his head again. "I can't believe it."
Tooty, on pins and needles, waited for him to spill the beans.
"Give me just a minute," he said, and rolled his wheelchair to the counter to pour a cup of coffee. After opening the fridge and dousing a healthy dose of cream into his cup, he returned to the table and sipped.
Tooty said, "Miles, if you keep me in suspense much longer, I'm going to scream."
Her husband set his cup down. "Monica is broke, homeless, and…three months pregnant."
"What!" Tooty's eyes rounded like saucers.
"Seems she got involved with some smooth talker who convinced her that he was an investment banker, and after they'd lived together for some months, she invested all of her funds in what she thought was a high yielding account. A few days later the scumbag left her high and dry and the authorities think he skipped the country. Then, within the same week, her company downsized and laid her off." Miles wasn't finished, "And the next week she discovered she was pregnant after she got an eviction notice because 'scum bag' hadn't paid the rent like he'd said."
Tooty held her hands to her cheeks in shock. "What's she going to do…about the baby, I mean?"
Miles smiled and chuckled. "She surprised me there. She said she's going to keep this baby no matter what. She said if I could survive having so many children, she could survive having just one."
Still shocked, Tooty asked, "Why is she calling you? Does she want to borrow money?"
"Actually, no. I offered to give her a loan, but she refused. She said the reason she'd called, other than having a shoulder to cry on, was to ask if I had any connections for a new job. She said she's been applying for positions for a month, with no luck, and I was the only friend she could think to call."
"Well, that doesn't surprise me. Her not having friends, I mean. So she hasn't contacted your mom or dad?"
"No. She said she hasn't spoken with them in over a year and now she's too mortified to do so."
"Well, as you know, she's not on my list of favorite people after that stunt she pulled in New York. She wanted me to feel like a hick at that fancy restaurant, and I sure did, but I'm not so vindictive as to not want things to turn out well for her. I know what it's like to be alone, pregnant, and rejected by the father of your child."
Miles reached his hand across the small table and clasped hers. "But I'm eternally grateful that Harris' father turned out to be such a lowlife. I love you, Tooty, and I love Harris like my own son."
Tooty lifted the hand of the father of Eli, Morgan, and Austin and their teeny bun still in the oven, and kissed it.