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Clotilde took them shopping that afternoon.
Avery had told her that she wanted to finish her story, but “Not yet… I’m kind of tired.”
Clotilde could only imagine. The poor dear, all alone with a child. God knows what she’s been through.
To take her mind off of that morning’s activities, they headed for Macy’s. Avery was kind of wary… to let this woman, this angel, spend money on her. After looking at the house Clotilde lived in, and at the antiques and refined paintings in her living room, she decided that it wouldn’t do too much harm. She was slowly warming towards this older lady who seemed to actually care. She felt lucky that out of all the lawns that she could have slept on, she had landed on Clotilde’s. She felt like maybe... maybe there was still hope
Rummaging through clothes racks, Clotilde grabbed every possible color of pants she liked for Cole and matched each with a shirt.
“Avery!” she squealed, almost like an excited child, “Look at this tiny leather jacket. He’d look adorable!” and added it to the rapidly filling shopping cart.
Avery looked at her in amusement and just laughed.
Looking at Avery's cart, Clotilde shook her head disapprovingly.
“Honey, we’ve been here for an hour and all you’ve found are three shirts. Look at all I’ve found for your brother..” she pointed at two overfilling carts, jam packed with jumpsuits, jeans, corduroys, turtlenecks, wifebeaters, sneakers, sandals, t-shirts, khakis, shorts, bathing suits, little blues clues underwear, and god knows what else. “Now I know there’s way more stuff you like.”
She received a look of disbelief from Avery.
“Sweetie, what’s the matter?”
“Why are you doing this for us? I mean… you don’t know us. You’re spending all of this money for Cole and I, you’ve invited us into your home… I just don’t understand. It’s almost too good to be true. I don’t wanna mess things up. I just can’t let you spend all this money on me.”
“Avery, if I didn’t want to spend my money on you I would have never brought you here. The truth of the matter is, I’m living by myself in a large home, I’m old, and I haven’t been near children... at least amazing children like you two, in a long time. You were put on my yard for a reason, and I intend to do whatever the good Lord wants me to do. You’re not going to mess everything up, stop being so responsible!” she said with a smile “You aren’t strangers anymore. I’ve welcomed you into my home, you’re family now.”
“Thank you…” Avery whispered. Those words had meant more to her than she let show.
Clotilde blushed. She looked embarrassed and pretended to busy herself by rummaging through more clothes racks.
Laughing, Avery exclaimed “In that case, I think I’ll get a leather jacket for myself too. I haven’t worn once of those in a while!”
That night while they unpacked Cole and Avery's new clothes she continued on with her story.
"When we were little, really little, well not that little. I'm talking like when I was six little... it was so good." She paused and tried to be more descriptive than 'good'
"It was as if… as if me and my brothers and sisters were all in this bubble. This amazing bubble. A protective shield that my parents had us in, and it was this constant feeling of security. I had so much fun... I was home-schooled, you know, so me and my sister Jessica would take our lessons early morning until noon. My brothers had their schooling done in the afternoon right after we were done. After finishing our reading and math assignments we would put on our hot pink helmets." She giggled at the memory "We thought they looked so good on us too, and we'd bike ride to the brook. I was so little and so was she… but it was so safe in Tulsa, especially in our neighborhood. We knew everybody and everybody knew us. It was one of those things where I could knock on any of the houses next to me and they'd immediately invite me inside and set an extra lunch plate. So we'd go to the brook from one to four and wade in the clear water. It was freezing cold but it felt good against our bare legs. Our toes would freeze. We'd wade in it and try catching the little fish that swam in between our legs. We loved dolls, especially Jess. She wanted all the dolls in the world. So we'd bring our dolls inside with us and get them soaking wet. I guess in a way we wanted to be like mom who always had a grinning blond energetic baby in her arms. We'd catch her peering lovingly down at the child when he or she slept. Back then it was baby Mackenzie... and boy was he spoiled!"
She finished folding the shirts and started on her pants.
"At around four my brother Zac would come and get us. He'd find us giggling and being so silly. We thought everything was funny, Jess and I did. He would always come and pretend to be above our childish behavior. He’d say “Children, it’s time to go back. Girls… girls!” A few seconds later he’d be in with us. He was so happy back then, he’d laugh for hours, he was known for his laugh.
His contagious, beautiful laugh. Everyone would end up laughing along with Zac. He’d plop himself in your lap, his hair a tangly blond mess, and he’d look up at you with his big brown eyes and pouty lips, and he’d grin. All you could do was grin back and say “Oh Zac”
Then, after a bit of Zac wading in the brook with us Taylor would ride his bike over and tell us that mom was going to call the police unless we went home that second. Conveniently, lots of girls in the neighborhood would be out in their front yard everytime he came to get us, hoping he’d wave. He was quite the lady getter. Everyday he’d come at the exact same time, and , and he'd say it everyday... the police thing. Still, everyday we'd shriek and run home even though we knew our Mom obviously would never do that. We'd come home to her, and she'd have fresh baked brownies or cookies. Later that afternoon we'd wait for my dad to come home from work and we'd have dinner. Then at night… at night we’d have youth group." She smiled wistfully at the memory of her childhood.
"That sounds delightful..." Clotilde murmured
Avery nodded. "On weekends we'd take little field trips to museums or we'd all watch my brothers' soccer games. They loved soccer. Especially my eldest brother. The museums sucked, but my brother Zac would turn it into one hilarious adventure. He'd imitate the statues. This one time he tried imitating a naked Greek guy... so he pulled down his pants and refused to move. My parents didn't know what to do. Nothing they could say or do would budge him. The guards found him naked saying 'I am a Greek God. Worship me.' We got kicked out of that one, " she giggled "we'd do commercials, videos..."
"Videos?"
"Yeah. My brothers Isaac and Taylor were in this church video. Taylor was David, from David and Goliath... and Isaac was..." she scrunched her forehead in thought "I'm not too sure what Isaac was. He sang, but it wasn't really his voice. And it was supposedly a Christian video right? But there’d be these crazy looking half naked ladies dancing in the background. Anyways, they did a Dr. Pepper commercial back in the day too, and we were all in this Tulsa family Christian home commercial. My family was really into that stuff. Basically, we always had something to do. If not, we'd climb the tree house. We'd have backyard campouts. It was all just so much fun..." her face darkened "I didn't know what pain was. I had no clue that something like too much fake love could mess up a person so much. And I don't mean me... I mean my brother Zac."
"Anyways, when I was around that age my brothers started performing locally. They had their nine year old local Tulsa groupies even back then.. even before the real fame. " she said smiling.
This time Clotilde looked thoroughly confused.
"I guess I should just tell you now before trying to work my way around it.."
Avery looked somewhat ashamed as she fished for a Hanson CD she had snuck into one of the shopping carts.
"Found it" she whispered. Slowly, Avery placed the CD into Clotilde's open hands.
"It's a Hanson CD!" Clotilde exclaimed "I remember a couple of years back when those boys were still around. Such talent those three had. I used to work at a teen shelter, and all the girls there would drive me crazy listening to their songs. It's a shame what happened to those boys with their littlest sister dying and the band member trying to kill himself over it. I remember how the media went crazy over that story. It was everywhere!" she babbled "Inside of every magazine, on news shows... Talking about how the mother turned into a drunk after losing one child and then nearly losing the other. Such a shame, such lovely boys they seemed to be. What were their names again? Oh yes.. Isaac, Taylor, and who was the last one? Oh! Zacha-"
Suddenly, it hit her and Clotilde’s face paled.
"Oh my God.."
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