No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown) (8 page)

“I’ve got a present for you.”
His warm breath swept my nose.

“A present? How’d you know I was
going to quit my job today?”

He walked to the office door
and pressed a gold button to lock it. “I didn’t. I just knew that whenever,
wherever my prayer was answered, I’d have a special thank you ready.”

I squinted. “A thank-you
gift?”

He twisted the plastic rod that
closed the blinds. “Yep.”

I whispered, “Stelson, what
are you doing?” though I already knew the answer. Somewhere in the hustle and
bustle of becoming a new mom, I’d forgotten how marvelously spontaneous my
husband could be.

“I’m preparing to give you a
big
thank you.” He loosened his tie. Threw it on his laptop.

My eyes popped open wide,
looking around the office. “
Here
?”

“Yep. Wouldn’t be the first
time. Remember?” Stelson said as he started on my neck.

“But we haven’t done it here
in a very long time,” I croaked.

“Unfortunately.”

I dropped my purse. Hopped up
and wrapped my thighs around his waist as he lifted me. I could only hope that
the conference table would hold as sturdy as it had before I’d gained twenty
pounds carrying two kids.

He set me on the surface,
teased my lips with his tongue as we both scrambled to remove only the
necessary clothing.

He stopped. Put a finger on
my mouth. “No screaming.”

I giggled. “Same goes for
you.”

Benefit #1: mo’ sex. Benefit
#2:
better
sex. Benefit #3: #1 and #2. We hadn’t quite figured out
exactly how we were going to reorganize the family budget, but intimate time
with Stelson definitely added to the bottom line that first week I was home
from work.

Once we’d finished with the
kids’ baths in the evenings, you would have thought we were newlyweds who had
just recently discovered God’s bonus perk to being married.

We finally came up for air on
the weekend. Stelson served me breakfast in bed that Saturday morning.

“Where’s Mommy?” I overheard
Seth asking my husband in the kitchen.

“She’s resting.”

“
Resting
?” Seth asked
as though it weren’t humanly possible.

“Yes. She’s resting in bed.”

“Can I see her?”

“Yes, when she’s ready.”

Since Zoe was only good for
about twenty minutes in her swing and Seth wasn’t the type to sit in front of a
television without finding some other way to entertain himself, I scarfed down
the toaster waffles, turkey sausage and orange juice.

Plus, I wanted to see my
babies. I couldn’t have Seth feeling I’d all but abandoned him.

As I showered, washed my
hair, and blow-dried my straight, brown mane, I wondered how my appearance
would change with thick, curly coils like Peaches’ hair. I pulled my bangs back
and took inventory of my forehead. Head-on, it was fine. But the profile.
Nuh-uh.
Too big
. Besides, people said natural hair was way more work than permed
hair. The whole point of me leaving my job was to
gain
more time, not
reallocate it to caring for my hair.

My little ones both squealed
when I joined the family in the living area. “Hi, Mommy!” Seth threw his arms
around my neck.

“Hey, Seth!”

Still a bit protective of my
toe, I tucked it safely underneath the rim of the couch.

“Daddy said you were resting.
Are you sick?”

“No. I’m feeling great.”

“Then why were you resting?”
His long eyelashes fluttered as he questioned me.

“Can’t mommies rest?”

“No,” he insisted.

“Well,
this
mommy
does.” I tickled his stomach.

He backed away, laughing.

I hoisted Zoe from her swing
and smooched on her neck until she burst into gurgling giggles. I cradled her
in my arms as I joined Stelson and Seth on the couch again.

And there we were: the
picture-perfect all-American family. Dad, mom, and son, and a baby daughter.
All we needed was a dog, which Stelson and I had both agreed wasn’t going to
happen until Seth was old enough to assume the responsibility.

“Who wants to go to a movie?”
Stelson asked, though he must have already known the suggestion alone would
drive our son bonkers.

“Me! Me! Me!” Seth jumped,
raising his hand in the air.

“Okay. Let’s make it happen.”

The theater hadn’t been on my
agenda, but how could I resist all this delicious family time? This was my new
identity, right? No longer super-
every
-
woman
. I could whittle it
down to super-
wife
and super-
mom
.

With the promise of movie
plans, Seth hopped on his Saturday chores—straightening up his bedroom
and picking up trash in the back yard—while Stelson and I had our monthly
budget meeting at the kitchen table while keeping an eye on our son.

My husband presented a Dave
Ramsey disciple, a spreadsheet with color-coded categories and clearly labeled
dollar amounts. Most of the time, I came to the budget meetings and simply
listened. Really, I didn’t care what Stelson did with the money in our joint
account so long as the bills got paid and money was both given and saved.

The only account I watched
like a hawk was my personal account, which was separate from what I put in the
family pot. Stelson didn’t mess with my personal account. I didn’t mess with
his, either. We could both view each other’s account activity online, but I had
learned early on not to even click on his links if I didn’t want to get upset
about how much he’d spent on a pair of cufflinks.

“So,” he started, “in order
to stay on track with the kids’ college funds and our retirement accounts,
looks like we’re going to need to renegotiate some of our existing contracts
and cut back on several non-essentials.”

“Like what?” His definition
of non-essential was usually different from mine.

“First, the cell phones. With
you working at home, your data plan can be reduced because you’ll have your
phone tapped into the house’s Wi-fi.”

Made sense. “Okay.”

“I estimate lower gas
expenses as well.”

“True,” I said as I continued
perusing the charts. “Wait. Zoe’s daycare.”

“What about it?”

“I wanted to keep her in two
days a week.”

He shrugged. “Why would we
pay for daycare when you’ll be home?”

“So I can get stuff done
around here,” I said.

He sat back in his chair.
“Ummm…I’m not following you.”

“I need some transition
time.”

“For what?”

“So I can get the hang of being
a stay-at-homer. I want to practice doing it the easy way first.”

“Why would you practice the
easy way when you’ll be doing it the hard way in the future?”

I couldn’t think of a good
comeback.

“I’m not saying no,” he
clarified, “I’m saying it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Now that he’d destroyed my
whole practice-easy theory, it didn’t make sense to me, either. If this was the
way he dealt with contractors, I felt sorry for them. My husband didn’t play
when it came to numbers.

He shrugged, “If you want to
pay out of your personal account, knock yourself out.”

Not gonna happen.
“You’re right.”

The clothing budget had
shrunk along with the car insurance. Both were highlighted in green. “What’s
the deal with these?”

“Seth wears uniforms and
you’re working from home now. Clothing expenses, dry cleaning should go down,
right?”

I breathed out. “I suppose.”
Now, my eyes were scanning for a decrease in any category related to him.
Nothing.

“What about this digital TV
bill? Must we have so many channels?”

“No. If you can get us a
better deal, let’s do it.”

“What about my mad money?” I
asked.

“Mad money?”

“Yeah. Money that I can just
blow on whatever.”

“Don’t you have some money in
your personal account?”

“Yeah,” I concurred
peacefully, “but it’s not going to last forever.”

Stelson laid his paper flat
on the table. He took my paper and repeated the action. “What’s on your mind,
Shondra?”

I sighed and told my husband
the truth. “I feel like I’m losing my independence.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“What club? You’re not in the
club. You’re still working, still bringing in a paycheck.”

“Babe, Cooper and I realized
a long time ago that every penny that comes into our business came from the
hand of God Himself. We all depend on Him.”

“Well, I mean, yeah,” I
agreed, “I know He takes care of us. But I don’t like the idea of me having to
justify everything, explain every single purchase. It would make me feel like a
child. Not a child of God, a child of
you
.”

My husband poked out his lips
and, immediately, I realized I’d hurt his feelings. “I’m sorry. That came out
the wrong way.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” I replied.
“Stelson, this is not about you. It’s about
me
.”

“No. It’s about
us
.
We’re a team. We need you on board.”

Staring into his blue,
sincere eyes, I surrendered. “You know I can’t resist you, right?”

He stole a kiss. “Big Daddy’s
still got it.”

I smacked his arm. “No you
didn’t!”

We tweaked the grocery budget
and added a few back-to-school expenses to the bottom line. Stelson adjourned
the meeting in prayer and we were off to the movies.

My husband let Zoe and me out
at the ticket booth while he and Seth found a parking spot. After the restroom
and diaper-change run, we got our popcorn and drinks. Seth begged to visit the
arcade. When he whined at my ‘no’, Stelson told him if he didn’t stop crying,
we’d give his ticket to a grateful child.

Seth straightened up.

We found three seats in a row
smack dab in the middle of the theater. I hoped Zoe would sit still through the
entire show, but she ran out of patience about a third of the way through.

I took her out and gave her a
bottle, which ended her fussing and sent her off to dreamland.

By that point, I’d missed the
most important part of the movie, apparently, because two cats who couldn’t
stand each other had become best friends.

I squirmed back to my seat.
Stelson held out his arms for Zoe, so I passed her off and straightened out my
shirt again.

I scrunched down and asked
Seth, “What did I miss?”

“They had a fight and Pumpkin
won but he didn’t really want to hurt Stripes real bad so then they liked each
other,” he gave me the run down.

“Okay. Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, Seth’s foot
began bouncing on the edge of his seat. I already knew what was coming next.

“Mommy, I gotta go use it.”

Since Zoe was snuggled up
with Stelson, I grabbed Seth’s hand and apologized profusely for making a third
trip past fellow movie-watchers.

 We made a trip to the
women’s restroom, where the atmosphere alone caused me to have to go, too.

“Wait for me when you get
finished, Seth,” I instructed him since his stall was two doors down from mine.

I heard him flush and
listened to his feet pounce away. I assumed he had taken it upon himself to
wash his hands, which would be a sloppy wet mess probably, but I was learning
from Peaches: Making messes is what boys do best.

I finished my business and
stepped outside of my stall, expecting to see my son.

But he was nowhere in sight.

“Seth?”

No answer.

I asked the lady at the hand
dryer if she’d seen a little boy leave.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying
attention.”

A quick inspection of the
feet under the stalls yielded no sign of his green Toms boat shoes.

“Seth?”

I doused my hands in water
and left the restroom, my heartbeat quickened at thoughts I didn’t want to
consider.

Outside the restroom, I
visually searched the main lobby, sidestepping through the popcorn lines. No
sign of my child. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins.
God,
where is my baby?

Quickly, I ticked off the
other options: Maybe he went back into the theater. Or outside. But why would
he go outside unless somebody…

A loud ringing sound caught
my attention.
The arcade
.

I ran to the carpeted area and
pushed past a horde of teenagers. Sure enough, there was Seth sitting in a racecar
pretending to drive.

I snatched him up out of that
racecar, swatted his behind three good times, and growled, “I told you not to
leave the restroom!”

Those licks probably didn’t
hurt, but the sheer astonishment at having his whole world change in an instant
brought a wail from Seth’s throat.

“You stop crying. Stop it
now, Seth.”

As my own fear-fueled
adrenaline subsided, I gave Seth a moment to collect himself.

My voice in control now, I
ordered, “Dry your tears. Now.”

He huffed a few more times,
using the back of his hands to complete the job.

“I told you to wait for me,
didn’t I?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because I wanted to play the
game,” he murmured between sniffles.

“You cannot disobey me. We’ll
talk about this after the movie.” I grasped his hand firmly and led him back to
our show. I slid my hand into the oversized door handles, and just before I
yanked them open, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Ma’am?”

I turned to find the cinema
security guard staring me down.

“Yes?”

The young man, dressed in
blue with a yellow brooch too large to actually be taken seriously, said,
“Someone noticed you striking this child.”

“And?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” a woman, slightly
older than me, with thin lips stepped from behind him. “She’s the one who was
hitting this little boy.”