Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out Read Online Free

trim.  A paint job that needed to be done again, I thought as I unlocked the door; the door’s original lime green was threatening to overtake the brick red we had covered it with.  I shook my head. I was sure we’d hear about it from his mother soon.
    Still, I thought as I closed the door behind me and dumped my keys next to a stack of unopened mail, it could be worse.  I was happy here.  More importantly, so were the kids.  My own childhood had taken place in a series of rundown apartments, and although having a swimming pool on the grounds had been fun for the first few years, the novelty had worn off.  My mother had done the best she could—after my father left us for another woman just after my third birthday, she supported us by taking a series of jobs as an apartment manager—but I had spent my school years burning with jealousy of my friends’ houses, which all seemed to be in real neighborhoods and featured both a mom and a dad.  Cheery maternal comments, such as “You are so lucky.  Most kids have their own back yards , not a community play area!” just didn’t cut it. 
    I looked at our tiny kitchen with its ancient white stove and slightly rust-stained sink with affection.  Rufus, our Siamese pound kitty, rubbed himself against my legs, and I reached down to scratch his ears.  So what if our house would never be picked as the cover feature of Town and Country ? So what if Nick occasionally wet his pants waiting for Elsie to vacate the house’s one bathroom? At least it was ours.
    The answering machine was blinking furiously.  I hit play, and my mother’s voice burbled out of the machine.  “Hi, Marigold, I was just calling to see if you’d tried that St. John’s Wort tea I sent you.”  I rolled my eyes.  Most people had outgrown the hippie movement in the sixties, but my mother had never gotten over it.  Last month it was yoga. Now she was dating an herbalist named Karma, and I had started receiving packets of strange-looking green stuff in the mail.  “Give me a call when you get a chance, and give my sweethearts a hug!”
    I hit delete.  I’d call her back after I’d gotten the kids to bed and had a glass of wine.  Maybe two. Then Elsie came up behind me and hugged my leg.  “I’m hungry, Mommy.”
    “You guys ready for a snack?” I asked.
    “Cupcakes!” Nick declared.
    “How about Oreos?” Elsie suggested.
    “How about cheese sticks and apple slices?” After my run-in with Attila, I felt the need to be virtuous. 
    They groaned, but two minutes later they were at the kitchen table, squabbling over whose apple slices were bigger.
    As the kids bickered, I pulled a package of chicken breasts out of the refrigerator and thought about this morning’s job.  All in all, I decided, it had gone okay.  Sure, I’d lost the fry phone, but I had something to show to Peaches.  At least I hoped I did; I wouldn’t get the film back till later that afternoon.  I put aside thoughts of my daughter’s screams when she discovered the fry phone was gone and allowed myself a moment of satisfaction.  It was nice to take on a task other than the laundry and get it done. 
    The kids finished their apple slices and wandered into the living room, leaving the table littered with bits of red peel.  Two seconds later the sound of four thousand Legos hitting the hardwood floor echoed through the house.  “You need to clean that up!” I called. 
    “We will, Mommy.”
    Yeah, right.  “Cleaning up” consisted of each child contributing one Lego to the box, then dropping to the floor in exhaustion.  The other 3,998 were mine to deal with.
    I chose to ignore the sounds of chaos for now and focus on the yogurt marinade I was mixing up for the chicken breasts.  Blake’s doctor had recently announced that my husband’s cholesterol was dangerously high, and I’d started cooking low-fat dinners and dragging him out of the house for walks.  I didn’t like the idea of losing him to an