The Maia and Ross Diaries 2

C64 - Heartache

"I'm sorry to hit you in your boob with all this, I truly am, but it's time Laura face what she's done with your husband. She wanted your family to be happy, but she can't take care of a child, much less can she take care of herself and two children; neither can I. She wanted your family to be happy, and I guess that meant lying to you. But a father needs to know their children. So screw your happiness."

"What? What do you..."

Maia caught wary eye contact with the two newborns under the woman's arms - they were just clean, innocent newborns and all she could do was try to control her shaking legs. What was she really... hearing? Why was Laura's Mom here with children? "I don't get it. Laura said she lost her baby."

"Laura thinks a tooth brush is an accessory. The girl is a psychopathic liar, I'd know because I'm her Mother."

"Right, her Mother. Where were you when your daughter cut herself? Twice. What Mother were you then, exactly?"

"Shut your goddamn mouth, you stick. How I take care of my daughter is none of your business. Besides this isn't even about me, it's about your man whore husband!"

"No! Leave! Those aren't his! Leave! Now!!"

"Listen!" Laura's Mom growled, spit flying into Maia's eyes as she retreated back in her own house at the scare. "Make an excuse!" She hollered letting the one baby fall between Maia's feet as Maia became frightened with her eyes widened at the alarming drop and scream of the child. She knew she didn't want to pick the child up, but she did anyway. "What is wrong with you!"

"She had the babies when he was on tour. I was there when she birthed them, both of them. I was there! This is about what I did! I was there to find out who the father was, and you try and call me a bad Mother! You cunt!" The woman aggressively pushed the other unknown, screaming baby into Maia's heaving chest of anxiety and Maia grabbed on before Laura's Mom had the chance to drop this one too. She couldn't drop them.

"I will call the police on you if you abandon these kids. These aren't ours! You think you can march up here and make me carry your load - then you've lost your fucking mind, lady! Whatever part that isn't already cut in half!" Maia barked back the two kids still crying through her sweater. Every time she opened her mouth, Maia got angrier.

"Call them. Ross' career will be over. You'll be the woman he cheated on because he didn't get it good enough from you."

Maia placed the two kids on the Welcome Mat impassively, before not thinking and tackling her visitor backward in a boisterous scream, a sudden gush of pain jolting throughout her arm as she remembered her Cancer. It was like swinging at the wind when the woman kneed her in her cheek and tossed her over her own lawn.

Maia was able to bring her fist to the woman's face smashing her face back and the pain occurred instantly and the screaming began. Laura's Mom watched in disgust, slowly and tensely getting up from the blow to her face before kicking Maia in her stomach.

Before she could turn to walk away, Maia hooked herself on the woman's legs forcing through the pain. "No!"

But it was like an instant flash before her eyes. Somehow, at some point, Maia let go and began howling in pain. She heard the engine from the car. She could still hear the children crying. Her mouth was open in cries of pain; her agile movement on the floor was far too slow. The shadows are already dissolving into the nighttime darkness and she can't feel the intensity of the crying kids, but at the same time she can.

Her cheeks are red with anger as she figures if she just lay long enough, she can pass out from the pain spreading throughout her stomach and the need to bag herself in hate at how foolish she was to believe good things could still happen to her. How could this be happening! Was screaming, hollering, and cutting through her. This is just a dream, this is just a dream, this is just a dream. A lie! She can hear her own voice coming back at herself in her head, tight with rage at failing to haul Laura's Mom to the ground before the car pulled away before her street.

Surely a neighbor couldn't save her, and Ross was out with Ellington and Rocky.

Shock overcame her, she soon lost control over her movement and caused more temporary and clogged pain. She never tried to argue with her fist on purpose. Carefully spoken, without drama, the woman who had just left two kids with Maia, had words with an air of finality to them and no matter how hard Maia railed against them, nothing would change her mind... The babies seemed to stay in the same place before Maia crawled to them in an aching manner.

Her life wasn't her life anymore as she crawled in front of the kids in a slumbering manner of pain and misfortune. She screamed aloud. Gone, lost, hurting. Add this to the list. She felt so mistreated and taken advantage of. Again. Laura lied!

Did Ross know? Nothing seemed to hurt more if that had been true, nothing. She had so many violent impulses at the situation; she wanted to break herself in half. Or even the babies. Maia was flushed with the idea of this being unreal. But it was happening. Words flew from her mouth that she never thought she'd even think, let alone say out loud. She beat herself up until she finally see no cove of calmness, but storm.

In that instant her relationship with Ross shattered into glassy shards. Nothing would ever be the same again. Once the sparks started to sizzle there was very little time to duck and cover. She traded slur for slur, insult for insult, dig for dig. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..." When her temper blew hot and she started thumping the concrete, she knew she was hurt. Her cancer made it even harder to use full force and to be angry.

The babies cried harder.

She found herself alone and hating herself, her husband, and Laura, right back where she started. Before the bomb, before the suicide attempt, she wept, she hurted and she felt it all... Eyelids fluttering shut, she allowed herself a quick painful smile in the name of what just happened. If she didn't smile she'd start sobbing. She couldn't sob. The babies already were. She couldn't fall...

apart.

Her head swam in the fire burning inside, the only smoldering embers of a time where there had been other presences with her, around her, in her. But now, the void had been slowly filled with a cold, howling storm of fear that refused to ever let up. She was completely and utterly alone in her mind, body, soul, and most of all, entirely alone in the world.