"Peter, let's go," Meredith said, walking around the house collecting laundry and old school papers and sneakers with dried mud on them.
She followed the trail of Peter's things all the way to her son's room, an arm full of it, and pushed the door open with her foot. Peter was lying on his bed, tossing a baseball lazily into the air, still in his jeans and sweatshirt.
"Peter," she said sternly. "NOW. Baseball practice, remember?"
She dropped the armful of items onto his desk, which was already covered in old school papers, candy bar wrappers, and trading cards. She shook her head disapprovingly at the state of the eight-year old's bedroom.
"Well, I know what you'll be doin' this weekend," she muttered and then snapped her fingers. "C'mon, Peter. We're runnin' late, Darlin'."
"I'm not going," Peter said, rolling over onto his side.
"What do you mean?" His mother asked, and before she could stop herself, she said, "Yessir, you are goin' because I rearranged my whole work schedule for your games and practices. You begged and begged to play baseball. Get up."
Peter didn't budge. Meredith moved to sit beside him on the bed and shook him lightly.
"Honey, what's the matter?" She asked.
Peter rolled over onto his back and said, "Danny told all the kids I'm a liar."
Meredith frowned.
"About what?" She asked, stroking some of his hair.
"About my dad," Peter said quietly, daring to raise his eyes to meet her gaze.
Meredith found where she'd mislaid her anger. She stood up and began pretending to tidy up the room.
"Well, I reckon you shouldn't be tellin' tales out of school, now should you?" She said, though she knew she had no real reason to be angry with Peter, but after a long day standing on her feet as a cashier at the local K-Mart and then coming home to Peter wanting to know about...it was too much.
"What'd you tell the other boys?" She finally asked, running a hand through her own hair that was the color of Peter's, only curly. She figured as he got older, Peter's would turn curly too.
"It doesn't matter," Peter said, sitting up. "All those guys have their dads as coaches and they go to games and bring snacks to practices and I don't have anybody!"
"You have me," his mother said weakly. "I got off work early just to see you play. Don't that count for anything?"
"It's not the same," Peter muttered, moving past her to grab his baseball uniform. He knew there was no arguing with his mother once she'd made up her mind, but lately, he'd been pretty adamant about grilling her about his paternal heritage.
Meredith watched as he shimmied out of his jeans and shrug on his uniform pants. He removed his sweatshirt and t-shirt and put on the uniform top, tossing his clothes off to the side to join the rest of the neglected laundry.
"I'm gonna start thawin' that chicken in the freezer for tomorrow night," she told him, moving to smooth out his hair and kiss his forehead. "After practice we'll grab a hamburger or somethin'. How's that sound?"
She smiled, hoping Peter would smile back since fast food was such a rare treat. Meredith didn't believe in junk food and though Peter was allowed to have pizzas and burgers for parties and special occasions, it was never a regular meal.
"Okay," the eight-year old mumbled.
Meredith left the bedroom and just as she got to the kitchen and pulled the frozen chicken breasts from the freezer, the telephone rang. She answered it and was greeted with the cheerful voice of her father.
"Hey, Sweet Pea!" Gary Quill said. "Pete got practice tonight?"
Meredith leaned against the refrigerator, wishing she could lean against her father instead. She played with the phone cord, hesitating.
"He ain't feelin' too hot," she said. "I'm not sure if he'll make it out there."
"I was gonna say," her father replied. "I pulled a muscle real good puttin' shingles on the roof. I don't think I'll be able to make it out there myself. I'll be at his game for sure."
Meredith smiled and said quietly, "He'll be happy to hear that."
Meredith knew her father meant what he said. He'd gone to all of her ballet recitals, choir concerts, and art shows, even though he had little interest in any of those things. Meredith had lost her mother when she was nine, and it hadn't been easy for her father to fill both roles. That's why Meredith had forgiven him when he'd asked if it was a good idea to keep the baby when she found out she was pregnant. The comment had been a slip of the tongue, but there was some truth to it. Her father knew how hard it was to raise a child alone, and he also knew that Meredith couldn't stay in college and raise a baby. It seemed like ages ago, Meredith thought, preparing to go away to New York where she'd been accepted to the New York Academy of Art on a full scholarship. She'd thrown it all away when she'd decided to keep her child. Ego's child. The child he'd promised to return for, and her.
"I gotta go, Sweet Pea," her father said. "I need a shower real bad. I'm smellin' like an old hog that got left in the rain."
"You do that," his daughter said, laughing affectionately. "Love you, Daddy."
"Love you," her father replied. "Tell Peter I'll make it to his game."
After she hung up, Meredith set the chicken in the sink to thaw and stared out the window above the sink. The house was a gift. Her father had bought it for her when Peter was two years old. He was proud of her making it on her own. Everyone had disapproved of her decision to keep Peter over her full-ride scholarship, especially when there was no father in the picture to be found, but Meredith had held onto the idea of Ego returning to take her and Peter away to his magical world he often spoke of.
She wasn't crazy or delusional. She'd seen Ego change his form, form a ball of light in his hand, and change the color of flowers, blinking in the dark like Christmas lights. Meredith had never been more smitten over any man in her life, and Ego, at one time, was her entire world. He had been the one man to tell her 'I love you' and sound like he really and truly meant it, the one man to hold her like she was breakable, the one man to actually make her cry after sex-cry because his touch was so different and special. He was the one man she was willing to throw her life away for, because she wanted to be part of his.
"Mom?"
Her thoughts were interrupted when Peter appeared in the kitchen, sitting down at the table to put on his baseball cleats. Meredith shook her head slightly and sat down at the table too, playing with the salt shaker.
"What did you tell the other boys?" She asked quietly. "It's alright."
"I told them my dad fought bad guys," Peter said. "And he was a secret agent."
Meredith smiled and asked, "You really hate baseball?"
Peter nodded.
"I ain't gonna make you go then," she said simply. "Go change back. I'll just tell your coach I couldn't make it work for my work schedule."
Peter stood up hesitantly.
"You're not mad?" He asked.
Meredith shook her head.
"No, Baby," she said. "i'm not mad. I snapped at you earlier, and I apologize. It's just been a long day and I'm tired."
----
It was raining when Meredith and Peter got into the car later in the evening and drove to the local KFC. They ate chicken and mashed potatoes in the car, listening to both the sound of the rain on the windows and 'Brandy' by the Looking Glass, which happened to be playing on one of the local radio stations.
Meredith felt her appetite disappear as the song took her back to a time where she would sing along, Ego laughing affectionately as she became silly and wild with her hand gestures. She could still feel the coolness of the sheets and the spicy scent of whatever Ego wore. She could still remember him murmuring some of the lyrics into her ear, making her laugh.
"Career Day is Friday at school," Peter said suddenly.
"Oh yeah?" Meredith took another bite of chicken. "Please don't ask me to go up and talk about workin' the line at K-Mart."
Peter smiled and said, "No, they're gonna have special guest speakers like police officers and chefs and stuff. We have to write a paper on what we wanna be."
"What do you wanna be?" Meredith asked, and it suddenly occurred to her that Peter had never mentioned a future career choice before.
"A pilot," Peter said. "Or a rock star. Or a super hero. Lately a rock star."
"You can be whatever you want," his mother said, licking her fingers, forgetting her manners. "As long as you work hard at it."
"What did you wanna be when you grew up?" Peter asked her.
Meredith put her chicken down.
"A dancer, a singer, an Olympic track star," she said, chuckling. "Everything."
She hesitated and then said, "What I really wanted to do is draw pictures for books for kids and greeting cards, things like that."
"You draw real good, Mom," Peter said.
"Thank you, Hon," Meredith said, smiling. She had spent years drawing super heroes on poster boards to use for games at Peter's birthday parties or for any kind of school project he'd had. One year she'd drawn an elaborate picture of Yoda from Star Wars for his school book fair.
"Why didn't you do those things?" Peter asked.
"Well, I had you," she replied. "It was just hard to try and do those things and be a mom, but I like bein' a mom a lot more."
She could see it in Peter's green eyes, glittering in the darkness of the car, that he wanted to ask more, perhaps about where his father was during all of this, but he didn't. He simply scooped up the remaining mashed potatoes out of his cup with his drumstick and licked it off, staring thoughtfully out the window.
"Mom, look," he said suddenly, pointing to a bright red light in the sky. It seemed to be falling.
"A fallin' star," Meredith guessed, and for a fleeting moment, she thought of Ego.
What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Why had he not come back for her and Peter?
"Aren't you supposed to wish on those?" Peter asked.
"I think so," Meredith said. "But you can't tell what you wish for or it won't come true."
For several seconds, they stared out the car window in silence.
"Did you wish for something?" Peter asked.
"I did," Meredith said. "Did you?"
"Yeah," Peter said."
"Put your trash in the bag," Meredith said. "We have ice cream in the freezer."
---------
When they returned home, Meredith sent Peter to his room to change into his pajamas and wash up. She hummed quietly to herself, taking the gallon of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and removing two bowls from the cupboard. She then went back to the fridge to fetch some chocolate syrup. As she closed the door and stood upright, she screamed and dropped the container of syrup, spilling a lot of it on the floor. There were several monsters standing in the entryway between the living room and kitchen. One of them was blue, picking at his teeth with the tip of an arrow.
"Took you long enough to notice us," he said, grinning at the mess on the floor.
Meredith stood frozen, too scared to move or say anything.
"Now I know you don't understand a word I'm sayin'," the blue man said, taking a few, slow strides forward. "But as long as you don't fight us, and come with us quietly, there ain't gonna be any trouble."
Meredith's brows furrowed slightly.
"Look at her," the man said, turning to the others. "She's so damned scared. Watch this."
He leaned in real close and said, "Boo!"
Meredith winced and they all began to roar with laughter. She inched her hand back slowly, never taking her eyes off of them, feeling around blindly for the handle of the drawer where steak knives were kept. She pulled it open, wincing again as it made a loud dragging sound, but luckily the group of monsters were too loud to hear it. She felt around for a knife and took the handle of one, picking it up slowly.
"Alright, Darlin'," the blue one said. "You got somewhere to be so we're just gonna take you and get out."
He turned his head and said, "Where's the other one at?"
"The kid?" One of the other ones asked.
"Yeah, the kid," the blue man replied. "Where's it at?"
"Ask her," the other one said.
"Ask her?" the blue one said in disbelief, like his crew was stupid. "She don't know what the hell I'm sayin'!"
"Call Ego," the other said. "Maybe?"
"Ego?" Meredith repeated and they looked at her. She tensed up again, hiding the knife behind her back.
"Ego," the blue one said, slow and deliberate. "You..." he gestured. "go to Ego. You...cargo. Me...get paid..."
"Mom?"
Peter's voice broke through her thoughts and she suddenly screamed, "Peter, stay in your room!"
The others whipped their heads around and Meredith's blood went cold as she saw Peter standing in the hallway, his eyes big and afraid. Meredith lunged at the closest monster, the blue one, and went at him with the knife, grazing him in the shoulder. He cried out in pain and said, "You little-" before whistling loudly.
The arrow he'd been holding flew in the air and stopped, barely touching her skin just between the eyes. Meredith took it in her hand and the man whistled again, the arrow soaring and pulling her with it, into the nearest wall.
"Peter, run!" She cried.
"Mom!" Peter did the opposite and ran toward her, getting grabbed by one of the others, a more human looking man only with sharp teeth.
"You're alright," he told him as Peter flailed against him. "I ain't gon' hurt'chu."
"Let him go!" Meredith cried, sliding up the length of the wall. "You can take me to Ego, but you leave Peter here!"
The blue man approached her, his hand over the spot where she'd stabbed him, and he removed his hand and showed it to her. There was a wet, blue stain on his palm.
"You see what you did to me?" He asked. "Huh?"
"She can't understand you, Cap'n," the one who had Peter reminded him.
"I understand you just fine," Meredith said, trying to keep her voice calm for Peter's sake. "Ego did somethin' to me. Made it to where I can understand other languages, so I could understand him."
"She speaks!" The blue one said, letting out a hearty cackle. "Hot damn! Well then, Sugar Pop, I guess you know that your Ego wants you back, and I wanna get paid."
"Mom!" Peter cried again.
"Please don't hurt my son," Meredith said, staring at the spot where she'd stabbed the man. If he really wanted to get back at her, that's exactly what he'd do.
"Tell you what," he told her, taking the arrow again. "You know how to sew? All women know how, right?"
The other men snickered.
"Yes, I can sew," she said. "A little."
"That's good," he said, nodding. "That's real good. 'Cuz you gon' sew up my shoulder. You got that?"
Meredith nodded.
"Say it," he told her.
Meredith swallowed hard.
"I got it," she said.
When Ego heard about this, she thought, there would be Hell to pay. Ego would be angry. His fists would fly. He would hurt these men, for scaring her and Peter.
Ego, she thought suddenly. He wanted her. He wanted Peter. Everything was going to be alright, as long as they could survive the journey there.
To Be Continued...