I started to call Billy on his language and again Mitch got there before me.

“Bud, mouth,” he said on a gentle growl and Billy glared at him mutinously for a second before he looked down at the floor. Mitch then turned his attention back to Billie who now had her head resting on his shoulder and her fist pressed against her lips.

“You okay, baby?” I asked Billie.

“No,” she muttered against her fist.

Before I could say more, Billy spoke again. “How can we help you and Auntie Mara?”

Mitch lifted a hand to start stroking Billie’s hair but his eyes went to Billy.

“You know the bad man your sister’s talkin’ about?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Billy answered.

“You see him?” Mitch went on.

“Yeah, all the time,” Billy replied.

“Could you describe him?” Mitch asked.

Uh-oh. I wasn’t sure how I felt about where this was heading.

“Sure,” Billy responded.

“Pick him out in a picture?” Mitch continued.

Uh-oh!

“Yeah, you got one of him,” Billy stated.

“Good, then when I pick you up from school today, you both will come with me to the Station, talk to some of my friends, look at some pictures. You find him then we’ll know who’s scarin’ your sister and we might be able to do somethin’ about it.”

I stood there, my blood pressure accelerating and I didn’t know how to feel about this. Who was guardian to these kids anyway, Mitch or me? I didn’t like the honest way he went about telling them all of this. Though they had to be told, I would have liked to have a discussion about what we intended to do about it. What I didn’t like was Mitch charging in, giving the kids bad news, making Billie cry and then deciding the kids were going to the Station with him without conferring with me.

I was about to suggest we retire to the breezeway and I didn’t care if Brent, Bradon, Derek and LaTanya saw us out there in our sleepwear while I gave Mitch what for when the day’s plans were sealed without me able to utter a word.

“The Station?” Billy breathed, his tone not mildly curious or angry and hard but awe-struck. Clearly a visit to a police station was a treat for a nine year old boy.

At the same time Billie whispered, “Po-lice station?” Then, her little girl brain catapulted her out of unhappy, criminal, drug-addled Dad in jail world into another world entirely. Her torso shot straight in Mitch’s arms, her fists went up into the air and she cried, “Yippee! I can’t wait to tell my friends at school I get to go to the po-lice station!”

And equally clearly, a visit to a police station was a treat for a six year old girl.

I clenched my teeth at the same time I put my hands on my hips.

Then I asked Mitch in a tone that could not be mistaken, “Is the kids’ oatmeal done?”

Mitch and Billy’s eyes came to me, both of them not mistaking my tone.

Billie’s eyes went to her brother who she informed, “Guess what, Billy? Mitch is activaking our brain with oatmeal so we can be super smart!”

“Cool,” Billy muttered quietly, treading cautiously as I continued to glare at Mitch.

“Yeah, it’s done,” Mitch answered me, his eyes alert and amused at the same time.

“Excellent,” I decreed, stepped back and turned to Billy. “Jump down, buddy, and take a stool.” My eyes went to Mitch and I ordered, “Put Billie on a stool. She needs to eat so I can get her in the shower. Then we’re chatting in the breezeway.”

Mitch stared at me a brief second then started to round the counter to put Billie on a stool, saying, “Baby, maybe you haven’t got this so I’ll say it straight. We gotta talk, we’ll talk but we’re never doin’ it in the breezeway.”

“Fine,” I snapped, yanking open the microwave door to find steaming bowls of oatmeal in there. I pulled them out and continued, “Your bedroom.”

“Now that definitely works for me,” Mitch muttered.

I slashed him a look as I dropped the bowls in front of the kids who were both now at stools. I yanked a couple of drawers open until I found spoons and when I did, I grabbed two and dumped them into the kids’ bowls.

Then I stomped around the counter, through the living area and right to his room. I stood with my hand on the door until he cleared it then pushed it to. I turned around, my mouth opening to give him what for and then closing when I suddenly found myself in his arms, my body plastered to his bare-chested one.

On a normal day, this would have made me paralytic. At that present moment, it made me apoplectic.

I put my hands to his shoulders and pressed, hissing, “Let me go.”

Mitch ignored my hands except to lean into them as he observed, “You’re pissed.”

“Uh…yeah,” I snapped. “Your one-man show in there, um…” I shook my head, got up on my toes to get closer to his face and finished, “No.”

“Sweetheart, they gotta know and they gotta help us out if we’re gonna stop whatever the f**k is happening,” Mitch explained.

“Maybe so, but I’m their guardian and you are helping out and therefore we make decisions about how we communicate with them and what they’ll be doing to help us out before we communicate with them and tell them what they’ll be doing to help us out,” I retorted.

“We don’t have time to chat or wait for you to consider what’s the best way forward, Mara. In the immediate, we got two kids to get to school. I gotta talk to the people at the school then get to work, you gotta get to work and we got a bad guy who ripped your place to shit. That’s just the immediate. I don’t have to remind you of all the other shit swirlin’ around you and those kids.”

“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t talk before decisions are made.”

“Baby,” he said with what sounded like somewhat annoyed patience, “I just said, we don’t have time.”

I lifted up further on my toes, my face an inch from his and returned, “Honey lumpkin, when it comes to what we do with those kids, we make time.” Then I ignored one side of his mouth hitching up at my sarcastic endearment and drove my point home by accusing, “You made Billie cry.”

“She loves her Dad. There was no way to avoid makin’ her cry and I get that you get that since you’ve had them a week and neither of them knew their father was in jail. It had to be said no matter how old they are and there is no way to sugarcoat the fact that someone’s drug addicted, drug dealing, thieving father is facing some serious jail time.”