Blended Family

Pippa

Elliott and I used to be so close.  He was my little boy.  Somewhere in middle school it changed.  I wasn't so cool anymore and he just wanted to be with his friends.  I tried not to take it personally.  This was just him growing up.  I could handle him not spending time with me, but I couldn't handle him all of a sudden hating me.

This sneaking around worried me.  I needed to be able to trust him.  Steven would probably be the first to admit I'd done the heavy parenting with Elliott growing up.  Steven had been pretty hands-off when it came to tough stuff.  Now that the hard stuff involved back talking, lying, and sex, it was harder to handle.  Hard for my heart to handle.

I laid awake in bed, replaying the incident earlier.  The way he'd looked at me like I was the enemy.  The slam of the door as he left to escape to his father's again.  I'd called Steven to tell him what happened and asked for him to back me up.  He'd probably do it off-handedly.  He'd never let Elliott criticize me, but he would be sympathetic to his problems.

I turned over in bed and Lin's eyes fluttered open.  He looked at me, groggily and rubbed my hip.

"You okay?" he croaked out.

"Fine," I told him, not wanting to disrupt his sleep.  He could tell I was lying.  He rubbed at his eyes and propped his head up in his hand.

"Tell me," he gently ordered me.

"I just can't stop thinking about Elliott," I told him.  "He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you," Lin said.  "He's a teenage boy.  He wants more freedom than he should have right now.  You're doing the right thing."

"They why did he leave?" I pointed out.

"Because he's stubborn," Lin said.  "Like someone else I know."

I smirked and he leaned forward to kiss me.  He settled back down on his back. 

"Give him some time.  Besides, we said if they broke the being alone rule, they were going to stay at the other parent's house for a week."

"That was a dumb thing for us to say," I told him.  "Steven lets him do whatever he wants."

"Well, I'm going to pull the reins in tight with Joey," he said.  "And her mother will back me up."

I sighed, not liking the whole situation and settled into my pillow.  I wanted my sweet Elliott back.

___

I was at home with the kids the next day when Joey stormed in after school, looking upset.  It was Tuesday so she was still suspended and was supposed to be at her mother's.

"Joey," I said.  "What's wrong?"

"Mom got a job offer," she told me.  "In Chicago."

"What?" I asked.  "When did you find this out?"

"Just now," she told me, shifting her weight from foot to foot, not knowing what to do with her energy.  "And she wanted to know if I wanted to go with her.  Why would she do that?"

I thought for a moment, taking it in.  If Clarita indeed moved to Chicago, that would make custody pretty challenging.  Courts tended to side with the mothers in custody disputes.  Lin would be heartbroken if his daughter moved across the country.

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," I told her.  "She just got an offer.  That doesn't mean she's accepting it."

"It's from some huge firm," she said, continue to shift around, tears in her eyes.  "It would be a big promotion.  She's going to accept.  You should have seen her face.  She was so excited."