Heartbreak Town

Chapter One Jude, are you up? Because if you are, you need to come in here and eat your breakfast." "Honky-tonk Man" stopped as suddenly as it had started. "Jude?" "I want waffles!" I could hear the squeak of the box spring as he started to bounce. "We haven't got time for waffles. You'll have to settle for Cocoa Puffs." No reply, just more squeaking. "Did you hear me? Come on, now, or we'll be late." It got quiet for a minute and then my son appeared in the kitchen doorway, jamming a fist into one eye. His Spider-Man pajamas, brand-new not one month earlier, were already too tight in the chest, riding two inches north of his ankles. He had my brother Bailey's coloring, the same rusty close-cropped hair and gold-rimmed eyes, but his features, his half-cocked smile, were purely his daddy's. "Tomorrow's Saturday. We'll have waffles tomorrow, okay?" I took a bowl out of the cupboard and set the cereal box in the middle of the table. I was opposed to Cocoa Puffs on general principle, but in the real world, general principle didn't always have the final say. He took his time dragging out a chair from the table and crawling onto it, dumping a heap of brown pellets into his bowl. I stood at the window sipping my coffee and pretending not to watch him. If he thought you were trying to do something for him, he'd throw on the brakes and start to whine, or pitch a fit. The first whole sentence he'd ever spoken, at sixteen months, was, "I do it myself!" "Did you hear all that commotion last night?" I asked, watching him splash milk out of the carton over his cereal and onto the tabletop. "Did it wake you up?" He nodded, picking up his spoon. "That was a big truck," he said. Having a conversation with a six-year-old, I'd come to learn, was like riding a runaway horse; you had to hang on, throwing your weight from side to side to keep your balance, and who knew whether you'd arrive at your destination in one sure shot or go careening off in some direction you never expected. "I was talking about the storm," I said. It had moved through about 4:00 a.m., waking me with flashes of lightning dancing jaggedly on the ceiling, the rumble of thunder, rain falling gentle at first and then hard and long, hammering the metal roof. I'd thought about getting up to watch the storm or check on Jude, but he could sleep through a typhoon, and anyway my bed felt too cozy; I'd just pulled the blanket up to my chin and gone back to sleep. "Yeah," he said. "And then the truck. It was almost as loud as the rain!" He inserted a spoonful of cereal in his mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about, baby," I said. "Did you have a dream about a truck?" He shook his head, chewing thoughtfully. "Well, listen, I need to go get dressed. Can you finish eating by yourself? Don't dawdle, now. You've still got to feed the dogs, don't forget." They were fickle, and just as likely to wander off to the neighbors if you made them wait too long for their breakfast. I carried my coffee into the bathroom, where I set it on the edge of the sink while I washed my face and ran a brush through my hair. The medicine-chest mirror had a crack in it, courtesy of a prior tenant, and so the face I saw was bisected, uneven, though on second thought, maybe it was my true one, possibly even superior to the original. I'd never been any good at judging my looks. I was pretty when I got married the first time, and the second, when I was almost six months pregnant, I was beautiful. People would gawk at me in public, whether I was driving the flower van or in the grocery store across the produce bins and the dairy case. Maternity made my skin glow and my eyes shine, made me look almost otherworldly, like I'd been pumped full of juice. "Juicy LucyMoyer, Marsha is the author of 'Heartbreak Town ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780307351548 and ISBN 0307351548.