A Trade For Good (10 page)

Ugh! Even if she had the time or
energy to put into a new relationship, who would ever be interested
in taking on such a package deal with all that excess baggage in
tow?

She had to get her life in order, and
even then, would she ever meet anyone good enough to be a father to
her kids? Not that they had to measure up to Peter, that part was
easy, but the main reason why Peter's absence hadn't affected her
emotionally, was that Peter had never measured up.

In Sera's life, a man had to fall in
love with the woman, the kids, the house, and their dog Buddy. A
relationship with Sera meant a relationship with the package. No
ifs or buts about it.

Sera saw that they were approaching
Marion's house and pointed to where Jeff should turn. She
remembered that she had driven to Deb and Chad's, and they had
driven her and Emma to her mother in law's house. So once she came
to pick Emma up, she'd have to hitch a ride to go to Chad and Deb's
and pick up the rest of the gang.

The car slowed down and then came to a
full stop. Sera turned to open the door, but Jeff had jumped out
and was almost by her door by the time she picked up her purse from
the floor in front of her seat.

The perfect gentleman, he opened the
door and held the door for her to get out. She noticed that this
time he didn't reach his hand out to get hers, but that was fine
with her. The last time he did this he had sent shivers up her
spine and she didn't think she could handle that again.

As soon as she got out of the car,
Sera noticed two things, one was that Jeff was smiling, and two
that there was a high-pitched piercing sound cutting the air, and
it was coming from Marion's home.

"Should we turn around and leave?" She
asked him with a wicked smile.

"How much do you care for your mother
in law? Jeff countered.

"Well, she is a nice lady. And after
all, Emma is my tax deduction...Okay, I guess we should go
in."

Sera saw that Marion was watching from
the living room window and suddenly felt uncomfortable about being
with another man when she was still married to this woman's son. It
didn't really matter that this woman's son was somewhere hiding,
and possibly never to be found, with another woman, or other women.
It didn't matter that he had been with more than one other woman
during their thirteen year marriage, because in Sera's way of
thinking, when you were married, there was only one person in your
life, and that was your husband, or in Peter's case, it should have
been his wife.

Her situation was a little different;
she had been married to a man who had resigned from his wife and
family in every hurtful way possible. As soon as the door opened,
Sera straightened her back and rattled off the introductions to
leave no doubt that there was nothing else between Jeff and
herself, other than a work contract and the offer for a ride home.
And Marion looked at her warmly and explained Deb had already
called to say she would be dropped off by her boss.

"Hi Marion," Sera said as she quickly
pulled Emma out of her mother in law's arms and into her own. "This
is Jeff Mason, from Mason Landscaping, the man I work for. We were
having dinner with Chad and Deb and we saw Mr. Mason walk in...,"
at this, Sera turned a bright red as she remembered her sister in
law's reaction when she saw Jeff walk into the restaurant, and Jeff
looked at her confused because she had said 'Mr.' Mason and was
suddenly talking like a teenager who had been caught necking on the
front porch.

"Mr. Mason was going to have dinner by
himself, so the polite thing to do, not that we weren't happy to
ask him, but the nice thing was for him to join us and not eat by
himself. Don't you think? Anyway, Chad and Deb had to leave earlier
and..."

Marion must have picked up on the fact
that Sera felt uncomfortable with the present situation, because
she extended her hand to introduce herself and said, "Hello Jeff,
I'm Marion Sinclair. I'm Chad's mother and this little demon's
grandmother."

Sighing relief that that was over,
Sera smiled at her very understanding mother in law who quickly
added, "Deb called less than five minutes ago to tell me you and
Jeff were on your way. It was nice of you to give Sera a ride. We
all try to keep an eye on her these days."

Jeff smiled at the older woman and
then looked at Sera who seemed to be relaxing a little more and
said, "Don't worry, it's not a problem. I'm glad I could help." And
raising his voice over Emma's wails, "So this is the fax baby you
had as a background sound when I called you that very first
day?"

Marion looked confused from one to the
other. "A 'fax' baby? Is that some new word or thing I don’t
know?"

Sera laughed and explained how Jeff
thought the piercing sound in the background when he had called had
been a fax line that went off. Never did he imagine a sound like
that could come out of about 27" of baby.

"Sera honey," Marion suddenly looked
concerned," I felt bad about calling, but she felt so warm and...,"
Marion shook her head, "I really don't know how you do
it."

Sera smiled and took her daughter to
the living room and laid her on the couch. She removed all of
Emma's clothes except for her onesie and the diaper. Then, she
looked in her diaper and saw that all was well. She stretched
Emma's legs out and then began to massage her legs pulling them up
and down in an almost circular motion while she rubbed Emma's
distended belly.

Emma started hiccupping and slowly the
screeching sounds began to ease down.

Jeff and Marion were watching her from
the living room entrance with a certain amount of awe, but Sera was
not ready to take any credit.

"I just got lucky. She was about to
end it herself, and I just helped her out a bit. I can do this
forever when she's in the middle of a fit and it won't work.
Believe me, I've tried it all. She should be good for the next two
hours at least. I think she was just overheating. I'd better go and
get the others and put them to sleep before she starts crying again
or we'll all be eating milk and cookies all night with our ear
plugs on and absolutely no sleep."

Jeff picked up Sera's diaper bag that
was on the table and her purse, which she had left at the entrance
when she first walked in, but Sera stopped him.

"Jeff, you've really done enough,
please don't worry. I can..."

"You can be quiet and let people help
you. That's what you can do." Winking at Marion, he moved over to
the door and opened it up for mother and daughter. Looking down at
them now, Jeff smiled. If he hadn't witnessed the whole process, he
would have said that Emma looked like she had just been
exorcized.

Chapter
11

Sera opened her mouth to argue and
then closed it again. It made more sense for Jeff to drive her than
to have Marion get out at this time or even to call a
cab.

Jeff opened the door for her to leave
the house, but she remembered leaving her coat in the living room
area. "I'll only be a minute."

Sera went back to get her coat and
hadn't noticed that Marion had followed her and was right behind
her as she turned. "Oh, I didn't see you," she said as she almost
ran into the older woman.

Her mother in law was standing
awkwardly and looked like she had something she had to say, but
wasn't sure how to go about it.

"Is everything all right
Marion?"

"Yes, of course it is, I just...
Listen Sera, you are going through some very difficult times. What
happened is awful and my son behaved horribly with you and with all
of the rest of us."

Sera looked at her mother in law and
almost felt guilty for not hurting as much as her mother in law
obviously was. The pain in the woman's eyes was more than apparent
and was a mix of what looked like guilt and embarrassment for her
son being a turd.

"Marion," Sera reached for her mother
in law and gave her a quick squeeze, "you have no control over this
and neither do I. If you ever think it has anything to do with you,
please, please, I beg you, don’t. You raised wonderful children and
I am proud to be a part of this family. This is not about you.
Peter made some really bad choices. If we wanted something, or
somebody else, he only had to ask. I lack experience in
relationships because Peter is the only man I ever knew, but I know
enough to understand that what we had was not what you read about
in fairy tales or romance novels. I fooled myself for many years,
because I loved being a wife and then a mom. And honestly, my kids
were more than enough for me. Peter was a means to get the kids I
have and adore."

Sera reached for her mother in law's
hands and held them tight. "It wasn't always this way. I married
Peter because I was crazy about him and I honestly believe there
was a time when he was actually crazy about me as well, but things
changed. Life changed. I don't think Peter was meant to be a dad,
but I don't regret, not even a bit, being a mom. I will always be
grateful to Peter for the children he brought into my life. I can
never thank him enough."

Then laughing between misting eyes
Sera quickly added, "You did good Marion. Look at the genes you
passed on," she said as she uncovered little Emma's sleeping face
from under a pink blanket, "can't beat this, can you?"

The women quickly hugged being careful
not to disturb the sleeping baby and turned to see that Jeff had
overheard most of the exchange. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
intrude. If you don't need me, I'll be in the car."

Jeff left the room and Sera and Marion
exchanged a look. Marion squeezed Sera's hand and said, "You know,
if you were my daughter, and not my daughter in law, I'd say that's
a very special young man from the little I've seen and heard of
him. He seems to be good to you, I like that. You deserve to be
treated well Sera and don't you ever forget that."

Sera opened her mouth to set Marion
straight on anything the woman thought was going on between Jeff
and her, but Marion hushed her and continued.

"I said before
if you were my daughter and not my daughter in
law
. Well, you are more than a daughter in
law to me and you've always behaved wonderfully and have been great
to all of us. You are family Sera and you've behaved better than my
own son. I want you to know that I want what's best for you. If you
decide you want to start dating, you have my support, but don't be
surprised if I want to check the guy out or if your father in law,
who by the way slept through all of our granddaughter’s screaming
fits, puts him through hell and asks him all the questions he asked
the poor boys that dated Peter's sister's."

Marion hugged Sera tight. "I love you
kiddo."

"Yeah, me too." Sera said as she wiped
a tear that was threatening to roll down her cheek.

Marion followed Sera to the door and
kissed her as she left. Sera reached the car and looked around to
see where the car seat she had left next to the passenger seat had
gone.

Jeff had jumped out of the car and was
opening the back door for Sera and Emma to get in when Sera saw
Jeff had already strapped in the car seat. When she looked up at
him questioningly, he shrugged and said, "Nephew and
nieces."

Sera knew that not everyone could
figure out how to set up a car seat. Peter for one, had never
managed or even tried.

Sera sat down and strapped Emma in.
She gave the car seat a once over and tugged at all the right
places to make sure it was secure, which it was, and saw that Jeff
was watching her from the rearview mirror. He rolled his eyes at
her thorough inspection, and she just smiled back sweetly as the
car drove away.

Jeff drove without saying a word. He
thought it was pretty much agreed that nothing should be done or
said to disturb Emma's peaceful slumber. He thought of what he
overheard in the conversation between the two women and wondered
what it was that he had missed.

He was happy to know Sera had a good
family and was appreciated. He knew nothing about her family. Was
she an only child? Did she have siblings? Were her parents still
alive? He had never thought to ask, but thought she was probably
alone if not for Peter's family, because he had never heard her say
or mention anything about anyone else. Of course, her family could
be living in another state or even in another country and that
would explain why she talked about Peter's family more and was able
to rely on them more as well. Although, he chuckled to no one, but
himself, if his mother were far away and he were left alone with a
family to care for like Sera had been, he knew his mom would have
just moved in and taken over, and would not take no for an
answer.

Jeff drove without saying anything.
Chad had told him where they lived at the restaurant, so Jeff drove
without needing any direction. It wasn't far, only a twenty minute
drive or so. He had liked Chad and Deb and could tell they, Sera
and her in laws, were all very close.

He looked at the back seat
of his car through the rearview mirror and saw that Sera had closed
her eyes and looked to be sleeping. She was probably exhausted. And
he thought
he
had
it bad. Then again, there had been a moment back there, when he was
strapping in the car seat, that he had had that little tug in his
heart. The same tug he felt when he went to his niece and nephews
birthday parties or ball games. He called it the missing link. The
missing link in his life was a family of his own.