"Mommy, why come spiders have eight legs?"

"I don't know baby." She flipped through the mail that she'd picked up from the box out front.

"Mommy, why come spiders eat fly's?

"Because fly's fly into their web." She looked at a bill she'd never seen before.

"Baby, go change your clothes and get ready to do your homework."

"Okay mommy."

She looked at the bill with her husband's name on it and tapped it on her chin trying to jar her memory. Nothing happening. She was unfamiliar and the dread crept up from her stomach to her heart. With a foreboding sense of dread she opened it and wished with all her heart she hadn't.

The roaring started almost immediately. She could barely hear her thoughts for the beating of her heart, the roar of her emotions. The sound of her breath, in and out, in and out. The bill was for a credit card she was unfamiliar with and the charges were for charges he would have wanted to keep hidden from her.

She picked up the phone and dialed her sister's house...arranged to drop her Mia off and then called her husband and arranged to meet him for dinner by the office as a surprise.

She'd have a surprise for him alright. And she'd bet he'd never, ever forget.

- See more at: http://creoleindc.typepad.com/rantings_of_a_creole_prin/author_monica_mingo/#sthash.zd5tOTz0.dpuf