The Magnificent Seven

He swallowed and pushed the plate aside. She was knocking herself out here, and as always, his kids weren’t cooperating. “Thanks for being understanding about the video today.”

Sitting across from him, she folded her hands on the tabletop and leaned forward slightly. “I’m trying to be understanding. But the girls need a sense of guidance and direction from you. I need to know that you’re going to back me up on my techniques.”

She was getting too close to identifying his dilemma and his feelings of inadequacy. He folded his napkin and got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. He sat back down, avoiding her eyes.

“Sugar?” she asked.

“What? Oh, yes, thank you.” He stirred a spoonful into his cup. There was nothing she could tell him about his kids’s acting out that he didn’t know. “I know their behavior is…embarrassing.”

“Is that what you call it?”

He set his lips in a firm line, feeling defensive. “I’ve done the best I’ve known how since their mother died. Children shouldn’t have to be without a mother. They were so small…”

Her lovely eyes were filled with compassion, not condemnation. “I’m sorry they lost their mother.”

Mitch shrugged, not knowing what to say, how to explain. His uncertainty and mismanagement was another embarrassment, and he didn’t particularly want to reveal his insecurities to this woman who seemed to have her life and her children so neatly pulled together. Life’s situations weren’t always black-and-white, cut-and-dried, and he’d already told her more about himself than he was certain she cared to know.

He understood her reasoning, he really did. He just didn’t want to lay down boundaries that he would once again end up moving. It was less stressful to give in immediately than to try to take a stand and have his determination broken down with cries and tears that made him feel guilty and rotten. And that was how it always ended.

“Children need limits, Mitch,” she said softly. “Neither parent nor child benefits from letting the child determine the rules.”

Her calm reasoning had begun to irritate him. She had no idea what their life had been like. It was not her place to sit in judgment over his parenting. “I can handle my kids,” he said a little too defensively.

She placed both hands flat on the table. “Not when you’re working, you can’t. If I’m going to be their caregiver, then you’ve got to trust me with some of their discipline.”

“As long as it’s reasonable,” he replied.

“Are you suggesting I’m being unreasonable?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Heather ran a slim hand through her hair in obvious frustration.

If she’d had the option of changing her mind about keeping the girls, she probably would have, he thought. He knew how exhausting they were, what a challenge. His own sense of failure was so great, his words were hollow even to his own ears.

“Just remember,” she said finally, “that your choices can make it harder for me—for all of us—day by day. And your girls have a whole lifetime ahead of them to try to get along with other people who won’t be catering to their every whim.”

“They’re only six,” was all he could think to say. There were years and years ahead for them to have to deal with the world.

She stood and waved a hand toward the other room where the kids played, as if dismissing him.

Mitch headed in that direction and returned with his troublesome daughter. “Taylor, tell Heather you’re sorry for being difficult today.”

“This isn’t necessary,” Heather said.

He studied Taylor patiently.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

Taylor took him seriously for a change. Another scene was the last thing he needed or wanted, and Heather was trying.

“Sorry,” she said, stubbing the toe of her tennis shoe on the floor with a series of squeaks.

“Thank you for apologizing,” Heather replied. “Let’s just forget today and start over. Okay?”