Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day in the U.S. I’ve been a mom since 1992. My son is now 26, and while, nominatively, he is still living at home while he takes time (and not student loan debt) to finish college, he is staying with his girlfriend this weekend. She lives closer to the gig he is working.

What does the “early riser” do on Mother’s Day in a house where everyone else sleeps in late? I am an introvert and a writer, so I love having quiet alone time early in the morning on weekends when everyone else sleeps in.

When spouse awakens, I’m being treated to a home-cooked brunch: mimosas, eggs benedict. But currently I’m drinking hot tea and having a blueberry muffin.

I’m working on a WIP that has some scenes that fit today’s theme. Skylar is partnered with a woman, Lila, and they both mother Lila’s son, Max. In the short story where I introduced this family, Skylar’s Pride, it turns out to be fortuitous that Skylar is there because Max suddenly needs a lot of help with something Sky knows a heckuva lot about: shifting.

In Skylar’s Pride: Family Pride (tentative title), Skylar takes Max and Lila to her family lands where she has been required to appear before her father to take a mate.

The story will feature conflicts around bisexuality, family, and shifters vs werewolves.

The original Skylar’s Pride doesn’t exist for sale anymore and I own the rights, so I’ll probably revised it and put it in front of the new story.

Here’s a moment from the original story between Max and Sky. Happy Mother’s day to all!

Skylar bounced on her toes and then jumped toward the black and white ball bouncing across the grass toward her. She swept it back in the direction it had come with the side of her left foot.

“Hah!” she cheered and ran forward after it.

Her opponent trapped it under his right foot, then swept it to his left, making Skylar jump to her right to keep up.

The ball rose into the air, about shoulder height, aimed for a point beyond her. Bounding into the air off her left foot, she round-housed her right foot into the ball, saving the wall — her goal for this pick-up game. The world spun, and she landed on her feet after a complete rolling flip.

“Hey!” The dark-haired twelve year old darted after the wildly returned ball. “How’d you do that?”

Skylar smiled as she watched him retrieve the soccer ball from where it had rolled into the gutter of the parking lot. “Skills,” she replied as he started jogging back.

He laughed. “You are nothing like my mother’s other friends, Skylar.”

Skylar silently agreed that was likely very true. “So, what’s happening this weekend with you and your dad, Max?” They turned shoulder to shoulder and walked across the grass toward the two-story adobe apartment building. She sensed eyes on them, looked up, and waved at the brunette woman leaning over a second-floor balcony railing.

Covered in sweat and grime from their afternoon game, Max rubbed scars across his jugular that snaked up onto his right cheek and down onto his left chest. Skylar felt a surge of anger, as if the incident were new and happening right now in front of her. Her hands curled into fists, and she felt her back straighten as she shifted the weight over her feet. Her eyes darted back and forth across the open green space in the middle of the apartment complex. Resolutely she looked away from her girlfriend’s son, concentrating instead on the sidewalk beneath her.

The dog attack had happened when Max had only just begun school, years before Skylar and Lila, Max’s mother, had even met. Still, if she had encountered the dog responsible, Skylar would have been hard-pressed not to kill it, despite her general feelings of live-and-let-live with the animal kingdom. Out here in the suburbs of Denver, the wilderness was mixed in with the city everywhere, and it wasn’t unusual to find that animals had gone through a garbage can or had territorial spats overnight right in your backyard.

“You’ll want to put some of the cream on it,” Skylar advised.

“Yeah. Don’t know why it’s itching anyway. Not like it’s ever gonna heal and go away,” Max replied, pulling his hand down from his face and resettling the soccer ball in the curve of his arm.

“You guys coming in for some dinner?” Lila called down from the balcony as they started left, to go around the building to the front doors.

Skylar scuffled her fingers through Max’s unruly mop, feeling the sweat. Max rolled his head, not quite fully dodging her touch, but making it clear he wasn’t in the mood. Her nose twitched as the wind shifted and she caught his smell. “Shower first,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m starving, though,” Max replied, jogging to break away from alongside Skylar, leaving her to walk the rest of the way into the apartment alone. She heard the bathroom door slam shut just as she reached the front door of their apartment.