Psychic Mom

I was walking along the beach when I came across a young man, obviously overheated because he was wearing a suit jacket in the broiling heat. I asked him why he didn't take of the jacket and go splash around in the ocean a bit. He explained that his mother made him wear the jacket and he was not to take it off until it was safe. I handed him the cup of ice that was left over from whatever sugary drink I'd recently purchased. "Go find some shade and cool off."

I wondered what it was supposed to be keeping him safe from.

"Starvation," was his answer, even though I hadn't asked the question aloud.

Okay, I thought. This is going to be one messed up kid. I looked up the beach to where he indicated when he referred to his mother and decided to visit the only house I saw in that direction. When I got there I found a little girl playing out front, also dressed oddly warm for the day in a cute but heavy polka dot jumper. She was in the shade, though, and didn't seem to be in trouble. She did come out to greet me, asked me a couple of odd questions, which, unfortunately I can't remember now. I do remember thinking how much alike she and her brother looked. Both had sun-bleached platinum hair and bright blue eyes.

I found myself hoping they looked like their mom, then caught myself. I was there to see what the doom was that mom was protecting her children from.

I asked the little girl if her parents were home, and she indicated that there was only mom, and she was expecting me. That sent a chill up my spine, but no more so than when the kid leaned over the railing and hugged me, asking "are you going to be my daddy?" Only, the question came out as "You are going to be my daddy?"

Mom was also blond haired, blue eyed and really quite attractive, even if she was quite obviously hyperactive, and hugely pregnant. I just came out and asked what was going on with her son being sent out in a jacket.

She said it was to protect the whole family, things were about to come unravelled in a truly spectacular fashion, she was going to lose her job and therefore her house. Sending him out to play in that jacket was the only way to save them all. To keep the house, to get food for their table. And the little girl was in her polka dot party dress, because I liked polka dots.

I was thinking that this was all sorts of crazy that I just didn't need to be involved with. Then I looked into her dark blue eyes and realized, she wasn't crazy, she had just seen the long lines of some  probabilities. Standing close to her I could feel the edges of the way she perceived the world. I felt the little girl had come inside and was watching us.

"Tell your brother to take off his jacket," Mom smiled past me at her little girl.

"Where's he at?" the child asked, as if mom would know.

"He's headed back on the wood path." And with that confirmation, I had the feeling that the little girl had actually "known" that, but wasn't sure of her "knowing."

Raising little witches had to be quite the challenge, I thought.

"You should try being married to one."

"I bet." There would be no keeping secrets in this family...

"No, seriously, you should try being married to one." The woman took my hand and placed it on her belly. I could see the baby inside move, it's little hand or foot pressing out to touch me, and I could feel her connect to me, so pure, so, hopeful, so strangely powerful.

I stuttered, the whole thing was so surreal, the woman standing on a blue plastic step stool in her pantry, trying to get down enough stuff to scrape dinner together. I immediately offered to take them all out to dinner, and realized that I would probably end up married to the woman, and adopting all three kids. I saw the woman's face brighten. "You belong with us, it's going to be fine, better than fine, you'll see."

"Wishful thinking, or prognostication?"

"No reason it can't be both. Now come upstairs with me, no ones touched me like this in years."

I realized my hand was still on her belly. She and the baby pressed against my hand, the very essence of soft, warm and affectionate. I was stunned, entranced (I wondered if that was literal.)

"Parthenogenesis. It's a long story. Only T has a father, really. We have to hurry, the kids will be back soon." I helped her down, discovering that she was bottomless under her beach cover-up in the process. I wondered how I'd missed that detail earlier.

"They'll wait for us." I had no real idea how I knew that, but I did.

"I know, but they haven't had lunch yet."

We made our way upstairs to her bedroom. And I knew this afternoon delight would just be the first of many.