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A Gilded Age Getaway

By Stephenia H. McGee

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One
When had her life become so stale? And when—Fiona Robinson tugged at the skin next to her eye, leaning close to the bathroom mirror—had she started to get old? She groaned. Another wrinkle trying to set in. Yep. Old and boring.
The fiery woman with dreams of becoming an international food blogger no longer existed. Somewhere along the way she’d traded thoughts of jet-setting around the world for sixteen hundred square feet of suburban seclusion and a wardrobe containing more spit-up-stained shirts and worn jeans than skirts and high heels.
At least this morning she’d showered and put on a new outfit in honor of her mom’s thoughtful gift of a weekend getaway for her and Tyler. But somehow, even this attempt at a romantic anniversary felt more like a chore than a present. She craved tingles of exhilaration. A burst of energy and excitement. Instead, she felt…tired.
When they’d wed, her husband had promised her that all Robinsons were adventurers. Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, even the space family—the one with the robot saying “danger, Will Robinson” were all destined for excitement. It was in the name, Tyler had said. A name she now shared with him. Tyler had promised an amazing adventure. She’d been caught up in the vision.
Yet ten years in and that sensation had grown cold.
These days her biggest adventures were trying to make it through the grocery store without someone having a tantrum. And ignoring the audacity of random strangers offering advice on how she could get her son to stop screaming if she bought him the candy bar he wanted. Most shot her a snarky side-eye like they could do better.
She swiped on mascara to bring life to her tired eyes and studied her reflection. Purplish rings on her pale skin evidenced all those busy hours spent with two rambunctious boys under five. One of whom seemed to think waking up at two o’clock this morning was a great game his mother and little brother needed to join in. Because Tyler had let the boys have a chocolaty dessert too late in the evening.
“Hey, love?” Tyler’s voice drifted through the open double doors to their bedroom.
She still stood scowling at herself in the mirror. When had she changed from the fun-loving woman who jumped headfirst into marriage at twenty-three to the exhausted creature who could scarcely remember why she’d wanted this life in the first place?
“Where did you put my shoes?” Tyler’s voice came closer. “You know, the brown ones?”
She leaned away from the mirror. “They are in the closet, right next to the—”
“Momma!” A little voice screeched from the kitchen, the wail carrying the distinct sound of sibling rivalry.
Fiona skirted past her husband and through the bedroom until her foot landed on something moist. Yuck! Who had left a half-eaten apple from breakfast on the carpet? She scooped up the fruit as her older son continued to howl. Then she stepped through the doorway and met a display that undid the hours of housework she’d accomplished last night after getting the boys tucked into bed.
Oh no.
With chocolate syrup smeared all over his face, Noah pointed at his little brother. “He did it!”
Why had she thought she could take a shower and get dressed while either of them were awake? Even with Tyler home. The man had a way of being here without, well, being here. A surge of frustration at her husband for not keeping an eye on them sent heat through her center. Pain throbbed at her temple. Why couldn’t Tyler watch them for half an hour? She should have stayed up and taken a shower while they’d slept instead of trying to sneak in an hour of sleep. Then she could have been present to guard her clean house against toddler shenanigans.
Ethan sat on the tile floor, his two-year-old cherub face hosting wide eyes. Brown liquid smattered his pajamas and the entire space around him. He beamed. “Yummy!”
Despite the word, his face didn’t bear evidence he’d partaken.
“Who got the syrup out of the pantry?” She frowned. “Wait. How did you even get to it?” She always kept risky items like sugar and syrups on the higher shelves, out of the reach of tiny hands.
Ethan used the chocolate as finger paint, creating a design across the tile floor. She hurried past the bar separating the living and dining space from the kitchen and snagged a roll of paper towels. Noah followed her, still whining that Ethan had somehow caused the trouble.
She wiped at the mess, which only gathered in the grout. She groaned. “Noah, how did you get the syrup?”
Big brown eyes stared at her. “I climbed.”
“You what?” She whirled to look at the open pantry door, searching for how he’d managed the feat. And here she’d been lamenting about adventurers. “How?”
He puffed out his chest in his cowboy pajamas and tugged on her arm. A little brown handprint soiled her white blouse. “Here, Momma.”
Grinning, he pointed at the industrial-sized box of cheese crackers she’d purchased when her mother-in-law had taken them to Sam’s Club. How had the cardboard even held the boy up?
Noah scrambled onto the box, the feet on his one-piece pajamas marking a chocolate trail. “See?” He reached chest-level to one of the shelves. “I climbed, Momma. Got it here.”
“I see.” Except that was not the shelf for chocolate syrup. She cut an annoyed glance at the bedroom. Tyler must’ve put it there last night after he’d made the boys sundaes past bedtime.
She forced her lips into a semblance of serenity. “Noah, sweetie, we don’t climb, okay? You can fall and get hurt.”
His little chin trembled, brown eyes sorrowful. “I was gonna make you a treat.”
“A treat?” She put her hands under his arms and scooped him from the box.
His nod flopped bangs she’d let grow to tame the cowlick that curled into his eyes. His lower lip poked out. “So you would want to stay here wif me.”
Her heart wrenched. Maybe they shouldn’t go. The boys were still so little. Noah tended to have separation anxiety, and Ethan…Uh-oh. Where was Ethan? He’d been quiet too long. Pulse ratcheting, she set Noah down and leaned over the bar to where she’d last seen the toddler in a pile of chocolate syrup and half-used paper towels.
Gone.
Tyler strolled out of the bedroom, phone to his head. He lifted his eyebrows at the mess, but never paused his conversation. He nodded toward the back door, telling her he would take the call outside. Where it was quieter.
It was their anniversary. He couldn’t leave that phone for one day?
“Ethan?” With a growing sense of dread, she followed brown tracks from the dining space, through her bedroom doorway, and into her bathroom. Ethan sat on the floor, grinning as he painted a series of lines on the bathroom cabinets. Lovely artistic theme he had going. Mighty Chocolate versus Unsuspecting White Cabinets.
She’d warned Tyler that white trim was a bad idea. White anything was for people without kids. This was why she never wanted to have people over. She had one job caring for her home and boys. And she couldn’t even do that well. How did those other moms look fit and styled all the time? Their homes probably looked like something out of a magazine. Even those career moms at church who always looked down on the stay-at-home types had to be doing a better job of wrangling their family’s chaos.
Frustration mounting, she hefted her son from the bath mat, which earned an earsplitting howl and flailing arms. “No, Momma! Not done!”
And…so much for her white shirt. There should’ve been a soundtrack with a song about irony playing in the background. She settled the boy on her hip, headache blooming into a full-fledged pounding behind her right eye.
Then the doorbell rang. Ethan continued to cry while she bypassed the mound of chocolate-soaked paper towels and made her way to the front door.
Mom’s eyes widened as Fiona flung back the stained oak. “Good morn—oh. Are you all right?”
Tears threatened, but Fiona pushed them back and forced an upturn to her lips. “Tyler left the chocolate syrup on a lower shelf. The boys thought it made good paint for my cabinets.”
Little arms encircled her leg, and she looked down at Noah, who joined his voice with his brother’s.
Mom’s eyes glistened with sympathy. Dressed in practical jeans and a tee, she’d gathered her sunset-red curls into a cute updo somehow both fashionable and casual. How had she accomplished that when Fiona could barely keep her own red mane under control?
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea.” Fiona stepped aside, granting Mom a front-row view of this morning’s disaster. “The boys are upset, and it will only get worse if I go. Besides, I have to clean all this up, and Tyler is…” She shook her head. “We should reschedule.”
Mom gathered Ethan on her hip while she bent to free Noah’s grip from Fiona’s leg. The boy wouldn’t budge. “Nonsense. This morning proves why I booked the room in the first place.”
Right. Because Fiona was an utter failure at motherhood and her stagnant marriage had prompted her mother to make the four-hour trip to keep the boys and book a weekend retreat for Fiona and Tyler’s tenth anniversary. Something neither of them would have done for themselves.
Tears burned again, and she swallowed them down. She did need a break. She glanced toward the glass patio door beyond the combined dining and living room space where she could see Tyler pacing in the backyard, hand moving around as he talked on the phone.
Mom followed her gaze but said nothing about her son-in-law. She focused on her grandchildren. “We are going to have so much fun! I brought crafts, and this afternoon, we are going to make our own snow cones!”
The last pronouncement caused Noah to let go of Fiona’s leg. She shot Mom a grateful look. “Let me get this mess.”
Fiona sponged up the chocolate syrup, then scrubbed the last of the stain from the grout. While she worked, Mom got both boys cleaned and dressed and began teaching them some type of game to get them to brush their teeth.
How did she do it? Fiona had to fight with Ethan to get the toothbrush in his mouth most days, and Noah barely tolerated the ritual, too concerned with returning to whatever he’d been playing with before she corralled him.
She dumped the last of the soiled paper towels into the garbage and headed back into her bathroom to remove Ethan’s latest masterpiece. Finished, she washed her hands.
“There you are.” Tyler shoved his phone into his back pocket as he rounded the corner. His smile slipped when he noticed her dishevelment. “What happened?”
She clamped her lips tight to keep from snapping that he had left the syrup within the boys’ reach—after he had given them sugar right before bed. He, of course, had slept soundly while she’d tried to get two wired children to go back to sleep in the middle of the night.
“Were you going for the full ogre look?” he teased.
Heat erupted in her center and rocketed into her face. She was in no mood for the joke today. Her parents had decided that naming her after her fifth-something Irish great-grandmother was a beautifully unique idea. And maybe it would have been, if not for the fact that a movie came out when she was in middle school featuring a redheaded ogre princess named Fiona. A movie that became a franchise and left her with a joke that still hadn’t gone away.
Tyler sobered and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What can I do to help?”
He meant it, and he was trying to be helpful. But stuffed-down resentment snarled feral fangs and wanted to bite. What could he do? He could have actually taken the day off. Like not answering the phone to deal with work calls kind of day off. Not just the kind where he basically worked from home. He could have been watching the boys. He could have cleaned up the mess, or—
“I got it.” She stepped away from him before untamed thoughts became loose words. “Mom’s here. But we need to tell her we can’t go. You still have work calls, and the boys…”
“I had to take one call. But I’m finished.” He flashed the grin that ten years ago had made her heart sputter. “Promise.”
She wanted to believe him. Really she did. But experience had taught her that his company had no boundaries when it came to “work emergencies” on supposed vacation days. Tyler would answer if they called again, if only by sheer sense of duty. She understood—she did. His job provided for their family. But sometimes…sometimes, she wished she felt as important to him as that phone.
Laughter sounded from the kitchen, and she hung her head. Mom did such a great job with them.
Tyler’s phone rang again. He gave her a pained look. “Won’t take five minutes. I’ve got the boys while you change.” He winked at her. “Then we’ll hit the road.”
He had the boys? Mom had the boys. He would be pacing around again outside. She gritted her teeth and turned toward the closet to find a clean outfit.
Anniversary trip, her foot. While Tyler worked—in all likelihood he’d packed his computer, too—she would bring a stack of books and find a place by herself on the beach. Just her, the waves, and the sand. Not bad, now that she thought of it.
Spending hours without anyone touching her, climbing on her, or demanding anything of her? Maybe this weekend was what she needed after all.

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