My mother always told me to buy a house with a window over the sink.

?One day, you?ll wash the dishes and watch your babies run and play around in the yard. You?ll feel the sunshine on your wrists as you swirl the sponge around the bowls used for the morning cereal. And you?ll be with purpose. You?ll be happy.?
I would smile sweetly at her, but as I?d turn away to return to my business, I?d roll my eyes with a satisfactory dissent. Her version of my future was a doting mother and housewife ? traditional, obedient, classic. She grew up watching June Cleaver and Margaret Williams dominate the representation of the American mom. I was indignant and born on the back end of second-wave feminism ? I swore I would never be the subservient wife fossilized in days of yore.
?Ace, share with your sister, please!? I yell out the window at my children, 7 and 4, the exact age difference that makes her head-over-heels for him and him ?irrwitated? with her. ?Irritated? is Ace?s new word, overheard when I was about to call my husband an *******, but realizing our argument was within ear-shot of the kids quickly came up with a G-rated substitute. He pronounces it with the slightest infantile impediment making the R?s sound slightly like W?s. In an effort to hold onto the last bits of fleeting childhood innocence, I refuse to correct him. I?m probably a bad mom, but I?m okay with that.
?Mommy! Acey still won?t share!? I sigh as I watch my little one try to convince her brother to give up the hula-hoop.
?Ace, please give Shea a turn.?
?But she doesn?t even do it rwight! She just rwuns in a cirwcle!?
?Austin. Garrett. Mack.?
I love pulling out the middle-name card. Thankfully I?m at the kitchen sink, behind the screened window, and with the sun glare at this time of day I can easily supervise them, but they can?t see me smirking as I threaten them.
He stops shaking his hips to allow the blue and pink swirled plastic fall to his ankles.
A dramatic, audible sigh is heard and a defeated ?fine? is projected toward the perfectly blue and cloud-speckled sky.
?Shea! Shea! You can use it now!?
I hear Ace call to his sister who seems to always be there one minute and gone the next.
?Shea? What arwe you looking at??
The tone of my son?s voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Mommy instinct.
I quickly shook the excess water off the last sippy cup and jolted for the back of the house where I could achieve a more panoramic view of the yard. I quickly assessed the situation as my body was in full motion out the door.
Charlotte was standing, facing away, no blood.
Austin was walking towards her, facing away, no blood.
?Shea! What?s going on sweetheart?? I yell to her, trying to still the terror in my voice until I can get eyes on her face. I?m waiting to hear an audible response to know she isn?t choking on something she found in the yard. But if you panic, they panic, and chaos ensues.
?Mama! Fly-flies!? She?s giggling, she?s fine. The adrenaline shifts to sweating and panting as my heart starts to recover.
But, ?fly-flies?? (she means fireflies) ? it?s only about 5:30 on a summer afternoon. Sundown isn?t for another 2-3 hours.
?Mom, why is the sky so orwange?? my son asks, looking up at the same corner of the sky as his sister.
What appears to be an orange haze, thinner than smoke, moving with the same slow currant across the sky. There are visible particles that look like? well, fireflies.
Could there be a fire nearby? Maybe a crash on the parkway that curved around the outskirts of our neighborhood?
The mommy instinct kicks back in. I run up behind both kids and grab them firmly under their arms, requesting that the hula-hoop stay behind.
Snapping my daughter away from her fly-flies made her suddenly realize her lost opportunity.
?But I wanna hoop!?
?You can hoop in a little bit, Mommy just wants us to come inside for a little bit. The hoop will still be there when we go back outside, I promise.?
Arbitrary promises made in a moment of hustle are a mom?s most self-sabotaging tactic. We?ll say whatever we need to get the kids moving, hoping they?ll forget whatever flew from our stupid, stupid faces.
They never forget.
I get both kids just inside the dining room and slide the heavy glass door closed, then remember the open window in the kitchen. I run over to shut it and notice that the particles are gingerly floating to the ground and coating my property.
I hear my daughter giggling to herself, but my son stands silent.
?Mallows! Mallows!? Shea says to herself in that childhood sing-songy way.
I turn and look at them both.
Shea turns and looks at me, playfully licking her fingers one by one. They have the slightest orange tinge, just like each curl on her and her brother?s heads.
?Come here, please!? I motion for both of them to move forward as I grab a kitchen rag and soak it with some lukewarm water.
?Why are you irrwitated??
?I?m not irritated, Ace, I just want get you clean.?
?But, Momma!? Shea, still giggling, ?it tastes like mallows!? (She means marshmallows.)
I smile sweetly as I did my mother, listening but not appreciating what I was hearing.
As I strip them of their top layer of clothes, wipe them down, and request they go put on literally whatever they want, the ear-shattering, stomach dropping noise comes around the television, interrupting my decades-long binge watch of Friends.
"Authorities are warning residents to shut their windows and remain indoors. Reports of a fungal outbreak downtown spreading through the air. Analysis is ongoing, but initial reports state that the spores smell great and taste oh so sweet."
I've closed and locked all of the windows and doors and collected my kids from their rooms. My four-year-old keeps giggling, incessantly reporting that the air tastes like ?mallows.?
I wish she?d stop.
She?s in a princess costume and a hockey mask. I've given her and her brother both ipecac and I'm sitting in the kitchen with them, garbage-bag-lined pots at the ready.
My son knows somethings wrong; he's quiet, but I can see the beginning of silent tears brimming his lower lash line. The television keeps repeating the same alert, no updates have come through.


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