Operation Get Rid of Mom's New Boyfriend by E. N. Joy

saw things
differently.
    “ So not one of you has
anything to say?” Sammi asked her daughters. Again, there was no
reply. “Not even that you’re sorry?” Sammi shook her head in
disgust.
    Kennedy finally spoke up.
“But we’re not sorry,” she declared. “We’re sorry that you are sad
and I guess a wee bit angry.” Kennedy placed her index finger over
her thumb and held them just a tad bit apart. Sammi tightened her
lips at Kennedy’s downplay of her level of anger. “Okay, a lot
angry,” Kennedy admitted. “But we’re not sorry that we did it.
There was no way we could just let some strange man think he was
going to barge into our house and take Daddy’s place. So, no, Mom,
we’re not sorry. The only other thing besides hurting you that we
could possibly be sorry about is that you brought him here in the
first place.”
    “ Whoa, hold up!” Sammi
said, putting her hand up. She rattled her head as if she were
shaking water out of it. She was double-checking that she had heard
her oldest daughter correctly. “Since when do you determine who I
bring into this house?” she said to Kennedy and then looked to the
other two girls. “Since when do any of you determine
such?”
    Kennedy could tell by the
way Sammi’s voice was rising that she’d better not respond. This
was probably what she’d heard adults refer to as a rhetorical
question.
    Daryn looked over at her
older sister. She could tell that it was killing Kennedy inside not
to be able to speak her mind, for fear of disrespecting their
mother more than they already had. “Mom, look, we’re sorry that we
upset you. We didn’t mean to; honest. But-”
    “ Well, you did upset me.”
Sammi cut Daryn off. “And you embarrassed me as well.”
    “ So now we’re an
embarrassment?” Kennedy stood up and said, not being able to bite
her tongue any longer. “Is that why you’ve been kickin’ it with
this cat for months and we’re just now meeting him? Because you
were embarrassed of us?” Kennedy shook her head. “Well, that
explains a lot. First we’re invisible, and now we’re just a
complete embarrassment. Let me guess, next you’ll be sending us off
to boarding school.”
    “ Boarding school?” Joy
stood up and exclaimed while looking back and forth from her
sisters. “Did she say boarding school?” She then looked at Sammi.
“Did I hear the words boarding school? Because Rebecca Joe’s big
sister said that when a woman sends her kids off to boarding school
when she gets a new boyfriend, it’s because she wants to be with
him more than she wants to be with her own kids?” She said this all
quickly and in one breath. Her chest was rising up and down as if
she’d just run a marathon she was so out of breath.
    “ Is that true, Mother?”
Daryn stood up and asked. Now all three girls were standing like
stair steps. “You don’t want us around anymore? You like Mr. Bo
better than us?”
    Sammi’s eyes remained
watered, but she refused to shed tears. She did not want the girls
to think they were getting the best of the situation. They were,
however, getting the best of her heart. “I can’t even believe you
girls would ever think anything like that. What kind of mother do
you think I am?”
    Kennedy crossed her arms
and poked out her lips. “Harrumph.” She looked to her sisters then
back to her mother. “You tell us.”
    Sammi’s blood began to
boil. The heat from the burning fire inside of her quickly dried up
any pending tears that had been threatening to fall from her eyes.
She couldn’t believe she was a grown woman having a stand off with
some kids; her own kids. Well, she wasn’t having it!
    “ I’ll tell you something
all right.” Sammi pointed her finger in each girl’s face as she
walked by and spoke to them. “You girls might have thought a little
bit of hot sauce, pepper and salt could get rid of Bo-”
    “ Actually it was a lot of
hot sauce, pepper and salt,” Joy corrected with a slight grin. “I
mean,