Page 52 of Frog

“That’s bullshit,” I growled at her. “You don’t get to lay that crap at my door. I ain’t responsible for the psyche—didn’t think I knew that word, didja?—of them three boys.”

She started giggling.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Oh my God.” She was laughing, loud and not ladylike at all. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“Before this?” I was confused.

And that was it: she was gone. She was a puddle of tears and snorts and raucous, howling laughter.

“Ma’am, you have lost your mind.”

It was like throwing gasoline on a fire.

I had no idea what set her off, but as she didn’t seem to be returning from the edge of sanity, I called the boys to me so we could go. The woman, doctor, shrink, was insane. Why she had to hug me goodbye, and why I let her, I had no idea.

ITWASa blur of activity. Tristan and Micah to judo, Pip to music, home for a snack, all three to gymnastics, then Tristan to soccer practice, and Micah to baseball. I was exhausted just from the driving, which fortunately for me was all programmed into the GPS of Carolyn’s SUV that she had left with me that morning. She had taken Cy’s second car, his normal, everyday one, his Lexus, and he had taken the BMW.

“Do you have a license, Weber?” she had asked me tentatively.

I had pulled it out from my wallet and passed it to her.

“Arizona?” She smiled at me.

I nodded.

“Wait, are you kidding me?” she asked when she noticed the expiration date.

“Nope, 2031 is when it expires.” I waggled my eyebrows at her. “And the address is a PO Box of a friend of mine, so I’m good.”

“This is good until 2031?” She could not get over it.

“Yes, ma’am.” I chuckled. “Issued in 2003, ya see that?”

“Ohmygod.” She was indignant. “You won’t even look like that in twenty-eight years. What the hell were they thinking?”

“That they are a highly transient state, and they don’t want fifty million people in line at the damn DMV.”

Her face transformed into a huge smile as she passed me her keys. “Here you go, cowboy. Drive safely, and take care of my boys and the Enterprise, all right?”

Why she was calling her car the same name as the starship that Captain Kirk was in charge of I had no idea until I had to park it.

“Mom says she docks it. She doesn’t park it,” Tristan informed me.

And I looked like every other asshole in the parking lot doing the eleven point turn to try to get out of the parking stall without totaling the Honda Civic beside me. The boys were highly amused, cheered me on, and did the wave when I was done.

I told them all to shut their pieholes.

They all dissolved into throaty kid laughter that it was impossible not to join in on. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall as much in love with them as I already was with their uncle.

CAROLYN called, sorry that she was going to be late and worried, from the hesitancy in her tone, that I was going to be mad. I had no inclination to be upset—I was fine. When she got there at seven thirty, everyone was fed, showered, and in their pajamas for the ride home. She took one look at them all sprawled out on the sectional, Pip watching something called Phineas and Ferb, Micah drawing in his sketchpad, and Tristan playing Plants versus Zombies on his Nintendo DS, and burst into tears.

I grabbed her tight and squeezed her until she stopped, ending up with her head on my chest, arms wrapped around my back, and leaning heavily.

The boys were all looking at us, curious as to the trouble.

“Mama’s just tired,” I told them.