Shelter Me Read Online Free Page B

thinks Aunt Jude is a toy.
    Dylan was happier than a pig in slop. Would’ve eaten the whole pile of Tater Tots himself if Aunt Jude didn’t grab some. I’ll admit I may have had a few, too. Dylan wasn’t so big on the hot dog, however, until Auntie Nutrition slathered it with a spoonful of honey! She’s completely losing it! She never would have done that when we were kids.
    One time, when we went out for one of our Saturday morning breakfasts while Mum was working at the dress shop, there was a little smidge of honey left on the table from the previous meal. Mike stuck his tongue out and licked at it. She went wacky, telling him he could get botulism and die, and how her sister couldn’t afford a funeral. I, of course, had to take her on about this, and we got into a fight about how much money Mum might or might not have.
    We always got under each other’s skin, Aunt Jude and me. Neither of us is what the other hoped for. Even now, with everything, she’s on me, pecking at me to do this, try that. Go to this grief group I found for you. Talk to the priest, Father No-Actual-Life-Experience. My policy is to take as little of her advice as possible, while doing just enough to keep her off my back. I realize now it’s exactly how Mum handled her.
    So, I put the kids to bed, I stretch and yawn, but she sits her butt down on my couch and doesn’t leave. Finally she tells me one of her friends she volunteers with down at the soup kitchenhas a son who just got divorced. At first I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, so I made little sympathy noises, hoping that would satisfy her and she would go home.
    She tells me way too much information (as usual) about how he owns his own business, and how I must have heard of it, Walking on Sunshine Carpet Cleaners? With that funny jingle on the radio? Apparently he has kids, but they’re grown. She made a big point of how he married young.
    I’m yawning and checking my watch, but she keeps going. Then she says, “So?” with her eyebrows way up high. With all that reddish-brown pencil on her eyebrows, her face turns into the Joker from Batman.
    Can you believe it? She’s trying to get me to date! I put a stop to that little fantasy quick as a lightning strike. Still, she gives me her special performance of the “You’re an Attractive Woman/At Thirty-eight You’re Not Getting Any Younger” Medley. So then, of course, there was a fight. I told her I wasn’t going to date, EVER, and she said think of the children, they need a father, and I said it’s my business not hers, and she said she’s older and knows a few things. On and on. She and her shiny white purse left in a huff. So predictable and too boring for words.
    I’m going to bed.
    Janie slept fitfully, dreaming that her feet were cold and wet. In the dream she looked down to find the rugs swimming in soap-suds. At about 4:00 a.m. Carly began to wail for no reason that Janie could determine, so she brought her into bed and tried to go back to sleep. The baby’s chubby fists flailed around mercilessly. Finally they both drifted off. Shortly thereafter, Janie woke to find Dylan and Nubby the Balding Bunny hovering over her face.
    “I’m tired,” said Dylan, as if this were the only explanation necessary. He climbed in and burrowed into Janie’s armpit. She lay there, held hostage by her dozing children until she wascertain she could extricate herself without waking them. She went downstairs and made a full pot of coffee. It was going to be a high-caffeine-index day.
    The rain did return, just as the contractor had said it would. What he hadn’t mentioned was that the temperature would shoot upward, and the air would feel hot and squishy. The coffee made Janie sweat.
    At 8:45 she went back upstairs to wake Dylan. His teacher, Miss Marla, gave parents her Disappointed Look if children were dropped off after 9:30, when free play was over and circle time began. Circle time was serious business for Miss Marla, and