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She blinked, clearly taken aback by that answer.

“You’re telling me that my son used his truck to spray you with a fire extinguisher?” She repeated.

I nodded.

“Son. Of. A. Bitch,” she snarled, letting the door open wide as she turned on her heel and started stomping towards the back bedrooms.

She stomped further down the hall and stood in the middle of the doorway glaring at her son.

“Keith Lucas, you get your sorry, good for nothing ass out here right this minute,” the woman bellowed.

The door at the back of the room opened, revealing the kid that’d been driving the first truck earlier.

“What, Mom?” The boy hissed with disdain. “I’m trying to get my fuckin’ homework done!”

“Did you spray this man with a fire extinguisher?” She screamed at him.

I took a step back, not wanting to enter into this shit fest that I could see on the horizon, and had in fact gotten to the street when the mother came out the door with a fire extinguisher in her hand.

Then watched with silent humor as the mother took the fire extinguisher and slammed it down into the middle of the boy’s windshield.

“Mom!” The boy screeched. “That’s my truck!”

“It’s my truck! I make payments on it, you little asshole, and if you keep acting like that stupid good for nothin’ father of yours, you’ll have to find your own fucking truck, as well as your own fuckin’ house!” She shouted.

I chose that moment to turn my back on the two, jogging across the street back to where I’d left two of the most important people in my life.

Two women who were currently staring out the window at the commotion with smiles on their face.

“God,” I groaned as I walked inside. “Don’t turn into Aspen,” I said to my daughter. “Then you’ll be calling me in the middle of work like she does and telling me about the woman cheating on the man two doors down.”

Attie’s eyes widened. “You what?”

Her eyes turned to Aspen.

Aspen was nodding emphatically. “For real. She cheats on her husband every time he leaves for work!”

I sighed and walked to the bathroom, took a quick shower, and contemplated what I was going to do next.

By the time I got back into the living room and found the two of them on the couch with a box of pizza in between them both, I had some semblance of control.

Taking a slice from the other box on the coffee table, I sat on the love seat and faced my daughter.

“I’m not mad,” I told her softly, studying the jalapenos on the slice. “But I’m a little bit disappointed.”

In my peripheral vision I saw Attie look down at her lap.

“I don’t know even how it happened. I was safe. We were safe!” She urged emphatically.

I laughed.

“Well, honey. Turns out condoms aren’t as effective as you’d like to think they are,” I said, looking over at Aspen whose face was now a shade of red I’d never seen on her before. “Maybe next time you’ll be a little more careful.”

She wrinkled her nose at me, but said nothing.

“There won’t be a next time,” Attie muttered under hear breath.

And I found I quite liked the sound of that.