NFH

“I’m sorry, what?” Zoe asked, blinking hard as she looked up at the child talking to her and frowned, because she couldn’t for the life of her recall his name.

“Mom?” the boy said, watching her with keen interest as he handed her the only thing that would save her at this moment.

“Oh, thank god,” she mumbled reverently as she cupped the precious elixir from the gods.

“Can I get you anything else, mother?” the boy asked with a devious little smile that meant something, but she couldn’t quite figure out what that something was.

Everything was so fuzzy. It was hard to focus on anything for and then a few seconds before she…

What was she thinking about?

God, she was so tired.

All she wanted to do was to curl up under the table and go to sleep. Was she supposed to be this tired? she tried to remember as she took a healthy sip of the hot elixir that she would save her from this oblivion. Her precious coffee would make everything right so that she could…umm, she could…

“No!” Sebastian snarled in a rushed whisper as he struggled to pull the linen closet door shut as he shot a panicked look past Trevor’s shoulder.

“Open. The. Door,” Trevor said evenly to his son as he kept his hand on the closet door to stop it from closing.

“Dad, please!” he whispered as the rest of the children cowered behind him, squeezing themselves into that small closet while Trevor stood there, shaking his head and sighing heavily as he reluctantly released his hold on the door and allowed his son to shut the door.

“It’s not that bad,” he lied to the closed door as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face, wondering how things had gone so bad so fast.

One day his wife was the sweetest woman alive and the next…

“We should go skiing!” his wife said with an excited squeal as she disappeared back into the twin’s bedroom with another gallon of paint.

“That’s it,” Zoe said, shaking her head, more determined than she’d ever been before. “I’m going on a diet.”

“No,” Trevor said as he walked past her, barely pausing as he gave her bottom an affection pat as he made his way to the shower.

She worried her bottom lip as she stared down at the proof that she’d overdone it in 2016. She had no idea how she’d gained ten pounds since the last time she’d stepped on this scale, but she was damn well going to get it off before Valentine’s Day.

That was it.

She was done playing games.

“Please kill me.”

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, that’s it, big boy! That’s the spot!” BND (Bitch Next Door) squealed.

“Who’s your daddy?” BND’s playmate screamed as Zoe groaned pathetically and rolled over onto her side and continued to hug the thin, lumpy pillow against her ear, but it did nothing to protect her from the deeply disturbing events going on next door.

“For the love of god, stop!” Haley begged as they both laid curled up on their respective hotel beds, praying for morning to come.

“Pinch my nipples, baby! Pinch them!” BND’s playmate screamed

“Shhh, people are sleeping,” the man, who was apparently the only voice of reason among the couple next door, said.

Laughing, and making Haley roll her eyes as she rolled over onto her side and waited to die a miserable death, the woman said, “That’s their problem,” officially changing her name in Haley’s mind to the Bitch Next Door, or BND for short.

“It’s two-thirty in the morning,” Zoe mumbled miserably as she rolled over onto her back and groaned.

“I don’t think they care,” Haley pointed out seconds before the couple next door confirmed her suspicions.

Zoe never thought she’d say this, but if she had to eat one more chocolate bar she was going to scream. Sighing miserably, she rolled over onto her side, cringing when the lumpy mattress bounced along with her, so that she stare aimlessly at the grainy television picture that was showing…

Was that porn? she wondered as she tilted her head to the side, ignoring the fact that the paper-thin pillow bent with the movement, and pursed her lips up in thought as she took in the movie playing at a different angle. It was either porn or an old episode of Full House playing, she decided with another despondent sigh as she rolled over onto her back so that she could stare at the old water stains on the ceiling.

“Please, shoot me,” Haley whispered that reverent prayer as she allowed herself to fall face first on the bed, only to quickly roll over onto her side when the scent of the hotel’s bedspread hit her lungs.

Deciding that it was probably in her best interests to ignore that scent, especially since it was either this or getting back in Zoe’s car and rejoining the rest of the cars turning 95 into a parking lot, she closed her eyes, sighed and prayed for morning to come.

“Did you call Jason?” Zoe asked, flopping down on the bed next to her.

“Yes,” she said, knowing that she was pouting and not really caring.

“Is he upset?”

“Yes, yes he is,” she said, sighing heavily as she opened her eyes and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

“Trevor threatened to pack the kids up and come get us,” Zoe said, giving up on lying down and joined her at the edge of the bed where they lazily swung their short legs.

“Jason threatened to lock me up,” Haley added with a fond smile for her mentally unstable husband.

“This can’t be happening,” Haley mumbled, trying not to panic as she wrestled with one of the twenty-five pound turkeys that was still frozen solid.

Giving up on trying to wrestle the large turkey out of the sink, she washed her hands and sighed. It had been five days since she took the turkey out of the freezer and it should be thawed by now.

Instead, she had two frozen solid turkeys, five pies to finish, about thirty pounds of vegetables to peel and eight Bradfords coming over. Not to mention that she still needed to get started on the traditional Bradford breakfast that should be going on the table in…

She glanced at the clock and felt like crying, two hours.