Striptease

Selling

[Everleigh]

"You got that bom bidi bom, bom be dum. Bom bidi bom, bom bum. You give me that bad, bad love but I love it, baby. Love me all night long, if you want, baby. Like–"

"Okay! I think that's enough of that music for today!"

I exclaimed with surprise at the sudden change in tune from the kiddish music I had playing on the home speakers earlier to entertain Teresa but somehow, during a small debacle that happened earlier with Mikayla over whether or not raisin oatmeal cookies should include chocolate chips to defuse some of the gritty texture, the radio channel playing the music for my sister had been accidentally switched to a somewhat more promiscuous channel that played more adult styled music.

Such as the incredible hit from some years ago, Bom Bidi Bom by Nick Jonas who was hotter then one would like to admit, that started playing out of seemingly nowhere just as my eyes widened when I heard that song, the knowledge that the somewhat explicit and discreetly sexualized lyrics were about to come on dawning on me only mere seconds before I was able to quickly switch the channel back to its original programming.

"Aww! Damn it, Eve, I was listening to that!"

Mikayla complained once the next upbeat kid song came on, the singer going on and on about something along the lines of gummy bears.

Or maybe it was something with a fish?

Like a group of guppies?

Or is that called a school?

I can never remember anymore, my mind is shot from watching and listening to all of those damn kids shows every single morning.

It's like….Do the network providers and channel programmers specifically schedule in the kids shows for the butt crack of dawn because the kids are either getting up in the morning or the parents are too exhausted and dealing with insomnia to handle their rambunctious bunch of a litter to focus on minimalistic tasks?

Though I had a feeling the former rather than the latter applied to my current situation but Esa wasn't too much of a difficult child growing up so maybe that also contributed to the fact that I felt like it was starting to get a hair bit easier raising her then it did when she was, say, a newborn that just came home from the hospital with our cracked out version of a mother.

But even though I should hate her for what she's done to me, Elodie that is, a part of me still felt almost pitying of her.

She was a drug addicted whore….And I actually felt bad for her.

She could've been someone amazing, done something incredible with her life while she still had it.

And instead, she chose a life that was completely dependent on illegal drugs and alcohol, on having sex with strangers for the next latest high that would soon hit the market.

She gave up on a life that would have meant something to someone, mainly her daughters and I wanted to hate her for it and sometimes, I did resent her for it.

Even though I tried my hardest to let the past be in the past, bygones be bygones and all that self help crap, a chunk of me still did place her in the Worst Mother category whenever I thought about her.

Even though I didn't want to always be that way, I still wondered if I was always going to hate her for what she did, not just to me but to Teresa as well.

I don't even think long hours of therapy, not to mention the countless bills it would rack up, could even begin to help me heal from the damage she's done to me.

But my thoughts surrounding my mother were blissfully interrupted, at least for the moment, when I chuckled at Mikayla's pouty face, her expression resembling that of Teresa's whenever she heard that she couldn't eat cake or cookies for breakfast.