As The Mill Grinds

UNDENIABLE TRUTHS CHAPTER 4

Isn't it something to think about? How much we struggled to put the pieces together; the moment the puzzle looks like it is coming together you realize you have blue pieces left for the sky but they don't fit so easily. Shouldn't they fit? I mean it's the sky right? Its all blue well except for this patch of cloud. If I put this piece here, it should fit...fit!

"Ugghh!" Nadine struggled for hours trying to complete a puzzle she found tucked away in her closet. It's been a while since she did one, but still found peace shut away in assembling one whenever she can.

"Mummy, how long are you going to be fighting with that puzzle? I'm hungry." Joshua hung over the back of the couch like a rag doll and pulled at Smittens, their house cat's tail as she passed by.

"Mum can we have pizza tonight?" Casey came in and took Smittens in her arms; Smittens purred loudly.

"Pizza? No can do. We'll have that on Saturday, maybe." Nadine turned away from her puzzle and head for the kitchen. "How about scalloped potatoes with cheese and fried flying fish?"

"Yeh, only if I can have extra cheese on mine." Joshua sprang up with sudden life.

"Aww... I wanted pizza." Casey frowned and pushed Smittens off her lap. "Why can't we have scalloped potatoes on Saturday?"

"Why can't you have better grades and better hair?" Joshua teased pulling on his sister's pony tail.

"Shut up Josh pansy!" Casey retorted.

"Make me, and I told you stop calling me that!" Joshua hated that name Casey gave him. When they were just starting in infant school, he had a hard time transitioning from preschool and cried a lot causing a stir among the staff trying to comfort him. Casey felt very embarrassed of her younger twin brother, but she had no problem dealing with any of the children that tried to tease or bully him.

"Josh pansy, Josh pansy!" Casey teased relentlessly.

"I told you don't call me that! I was a little boy then and didn't know better, but look at you always getting on like you crazy. Look Smittens ain't do you nothing, why you throw she down for?" Joshua bent down and took up Smittens. "Don't mind her Smittens, She big and dumb like a gorilla with two Rasta bongos sticking out her head."

Nadine massaged her temples from throbbing, after listening to the twin argue...again. She took up the cou cou stick from the draw and decided enough was enough of the senseless arguing from them. She came into the living room to find Joshua and Casey on the floor tossing around grabbing each other on the clean carpet, scratched marks from a hysterical cat on the leather sofa and the plant in the corner that she only today added more soil to, was overturned on the clean carpet! Nadine 'hit the roof'. She paddled their bottoms and administered a little correction to set things right.

"Now clean up this mess right Now! I am running a home not a zoo stop acting like animals!" Nadine turned back to the kitchen leaving both her children crying and rubbing sore behinds. Just then she heard baby Kate's faint cry coming from upstairs. "Lord can I at least one quiet evening?" She turned off the stove with food unfinished and headed upstairs.

Nadine sat on the edge of the bed and nursed Kate. Her mind drifted to when her ex-husband still lived home; to a time when Joshua and Casey were still babies. They were so cute and she was happy to share her life with them. O'Neal, their dad, was always holding Casey, you know what they say about men and their daughters. He seemed pretty happy talking to her about the trouble she'll give when she started to walk and her curiosity about boys she'll meet when she grows up; he was a doting dad. They were always a handful even at birth: both cried the same time, needed to fed the same time, diapers needed changing the same time and even went to sleep the same time. Now-a-days they argue, fuss and fight together. 'Aren't twins supposed to have a special bond that keeps them closer than regular siblings?' She looked down at Kate as she drifted back to sleep. 'Seems like you were only disturbed by the commotion downstairs.'