Swapping Around

Chapter 13

Little Elvis had been so excited to be going out (an endeavor Loretta suspected was not undertaken very often) that it was impossible to settle him down enough to nap. He fell asleep on Loretta's lap on the way home, very much to Roxanne's delight. The nine year old spend the next hour talking about everything under the sun. Loretta didn't mind though. Not the questions Roxanne asked about her children and her upbringing, nor the stories about whatever had happened at school.

She knew these children better than most of her nieces and nephews by now. But what had she been expecting when she signed up to take care of somebody else's children for two whole weeks? Loretta was the type of person who would visit a school or a hospital and feel the urge to take half of the children there home with her. But despite everything, she never expected to care for the children as much as she did.

"Loretta," Roxanne drew out. "What are ya thinkin'?"

"Nothin', honey. What did you wanna say?"

"I wanna..." Roxanne trailed off.

"Go on, honey," Loretta said gently.

"Well, I...you know how Cilla lives here and she's my daddy's girlfriend?"

"Yes?"

"They're gonna get married." Roxanne did not sound at all pleased by the prospect. Or perhaps, she was merely projecting. Of course she did not know Priscilla but from what she had heard the woman did not sound at all like someone who wished to bring up children.

"Does that kinda...it don't mean that she's my mother, does it?"

Loretta hesitated. "Well, in a way it does but then again it don't. Your mother that's in heaven is always gonna be your mother but if Cilla marries your daddy she's gonna be doin' at least some things that a mother does.

Roxanne made a face. "I don't want her to be my mother."

"She wouldn't be your mother, she'd be your stepmother."

"If you was my stepmother, I wouldn't mind much at all. But I wouldn't call you mommy neither."

"You don't have to call her that," Loretta assured her, hoping that Elvis was in agreement. "Did you try being her friend before?"

"I don't wanna be her friend."

"You didn't wanna be my friend either."

"Yeah," Roxanne admitted, averting her eyes to the floor. "But Cilla don't like anything I like and she don't even like me."

"Well maybe if you..." Loretta trailed off, because the truth was that she was glad that Priscilla was no longer around her own children. It was wrong, so very wrong, to judge someone she hadn't even met. She could only hope that Priscilla wasn't anything like she envisioned.

"Maybe if I what?" Roxanne asked.

"You know how sometimes...sometimes you just gotta try and make the best outta somethin' even if things ain't the way you want em to be."

"I guess," Roxanne sighed. She looked down at the Huckleberry Hound wristwatch she had gotten herself at the thrift store. "My daddy's been asleep an awful long today."

"He mighta had a long night yesterday."

"You don't know when Daddy's gone to bed?"

"I went to bed too cause I had to get up to get you to school and look after your brother."

Roxanne's head fell against Loretta's shoulder. "I don't want Cilla to come home," she confessed in a hushed whisper. "Don't tell Daddy?"

"Alright, honey. I won't," Loretta promised, wrapping one arm around the little girl to pull her close. "You could talk to him though. Or to Cilla."