Here is the second chapter of Taxi Driver, in case you are behind or would like to reread Chapter One again, here is everything Taxi Driver related.
http://threeyellowdaisies.ca/category/taxi-driver/
The main portion of the story takes place in present day, 2020. But to keep things simply, in my story Covid-19 doesn’t exist.Which is why no one is practicing social distancing and engaging other precautions, just so everyone knows.
Chapter Two
The Henderson’s family of five, is a family of four right now since Amelia had to attend a teacher conference regarding her promotion in another city. So that means Theodore has the responsibility of getting the kids ready for school. Something his wife usually does since she is a teacher at the kids’ school. Theodore never had this responsibility before because he is already on the road driving his clients.
Theodore wakes up to the sound of Olivia’s screech. He climbs out of bed to attend to her needs. Olivia’s big brown eyes light up when she sees her father picking her up onto her change table. Olivia needed a new diaper, and as Theodore is changing her, he sees that it snowed last night.
He checks the detailed check list and schedule for the morning that Amelia had left for him and saw that the kids were supposed to be up ten minutes ago. Theodore lets out a sigh.
He carries Olivia to Sarah’s room to wake her up, and then they go to Evan’s room to wake him up. Theodore carries Olivia to the kitchen.
“C’mon everyone! Time to wake up!” Theodore yelled from the kitchen, placing Olivia in her high chair.
“Oh no! We are late!” Sarah screamed so loud that Theodore and Olivia were able to hear her jumping out of bed, running down the stairs.
Olivia let out a chuckle.
Theodore is preparing Olivia’s oatmeal and her bottle of milk. He adds some water to the kettle. He then grabs three big bowls, and three spoons. He pulls out some cereal boxes from the cupboard.
Sarah can see that he is busy, so she takes the milk out of the fridge. As she is pouring her cereal, Evan finally arrives in the kitchen.
“About time you joined us.” Sarah said sarcastically.
Theodore finally joins them at the table with Olivia’s breakfast.
Evan sits at the table and is pondering which cereal he wants.
“Evan, just pick one!” Theodore yelled.
“Yeah, Evan. We don’t have all day. Mommy isn’t here to make all of the decisions for you.” Sarah explained.
“I like listening to mommy. She knows many things.” Evan said as he finally decided on which cereal to have.
“You guys really got to get a move on. We’re going to be late.” Theodore explains as he realizes he forgot to write something in her journal from yesterday. He left it in the kitchen yesterday, so he opens it and begins writing.
“Well, Mommy also lets us have some orange juice. And I still haven’t had any, yet.” Sarah said as she was grabbing some juice and two cups for her and Evan. She pours herself a glass, then fills Evan’s glass.
She looks at Olivia amazed that she is able to hold her own spoon and feed herself some oatmeal. Theodore is busy writing some notes in his notebook.
Suddenly, the kettle whistles, and Theodore proceeds to make himself a cup of tea.
With his back turned away from the kids, Sarah let out a squeal, followed by a gasped. Theodore quickly turned around to see what happened.
“It was an accident. I’m sorry.” Evan began to explain.
Theodore rushed over, to try and salvage his notes as they were now soaked in orange juice.
“I should have known better to not leave this table near you.” Theodore revealed.
“I said I was sorry.” Evan said sympathetically.
“See, I knew Evan was a cry baby without Mom being present.” Sarah said laughing.
“I am not.” Evan said, trying to wipe his tears.
“Evan! You shouldn’t have spilled your orange juice like that! Especially on my journal. You should have known better, but you didn’t.” Theodore yelled, starting to lose this patience.
Olivia didn’t make things better, when she decided to throw her oatmeal at Evan. Evan’s hair was dripping of oatmeal, causing Theodore to get even more mad.
“Now, I have seen everything!” Sarah snickered looking at Evan’s messy hair, that was covered in oatmeal.
“I wish Mommy was here. She would make me feel better.” Evan said as more tears fell down his face.
“Now, we’re really going to be late.” Theodore signed.
“Wow, Olivia, you are like the strongest two year old ever! You’re my favourite sibling now. Looks like I gotta get you dressed since Dad has to deal with Evan’s mess. But that’s okay, because I love you.” Sarah said walking toward Olivia’s high chair, giving Evan an evil glare.
“Well, Evan you can’t just sit there acting like nothing is wrong.” Theodore said, grabbing lots of paper towels.
“I swear Evan is the one that needs to be fed like he’s two years old again. Even Olivia knows how to do that. And she is half of Evan’s age. Did you know that Daddy? Mommy said I’m the smartest seven year old she knows.” Sarah said removing Olivia’s bib.
“Sarah! You may be smart, but you are neither humble nor nice about your cleverness.” Theodore said, but he stopped talking because Sarah didn’t really seem interested since she started talking to Olivia.
“Well, that is something Mommy says to me all the time. If she were here right now, she would tell Evan to quit being so stupid!” Sarah said picking up Olivia.
“It was an acc–” Evan began.
“What? An accident? There are no such things as an accident. If you make an accident as a doctor, the patient dies. Gosh, I am smart and strong. I’ve got more things going for me than Evan does. C’mon Olivia, we got things to do.” She said leaving the room.
“Daddy, may we be excuse?” Sarah said holding Olivia, getting ready to depart.
“Daddy, do I have to go to school?” Evan said, crying now that Sarah has left.
“Evan, you’re four years old, you don’t have a say whether or not you go to school. Sarah is right, you can’t wait around and let your Mom decide things for you. You got to grow up a bit. You know when I was four years old I…” Theodore started saying, but Evan started to leave the room sulking, and slowly walking up the stairs.
“Hey! You didn’t asked if you could be excused!” Theodore shouted.
Theodore was puzzled as to why his kids didn’t really get along, was he really out of touch with them? As he been working too much to notice how his children interact with each other. Or were they just acting this way because Amelia wasn’t around. She had always been the one who can handle the kids better.
Evan walked to the bathroom, trying his best to rinse out the oatmeal. Amelia still washes his hair for him, so he wasn’t sure what she does. He also didn’t know how to get warm water like his Mom does, so he had to settle with cold water. Alas, the cold water became too much for Evan, so he just gave up.
He sadly looked into the mirror thinking he would just wear a toque today. He quickly ran to his room to get dressed since he didn’t want his father to get any more mad than he already is.
Sarah got Olivia dressed into a cozy sleeper since it was another cold day in January. She placed Olivia down into her crib with a few of her toys so Sarah can get dressed.
Sarah walked into her room where she grabbed the outfit that was on her hangers on her closet door. She always liked to plan for the next day. She made her bed, making sure the sheets were perfect. She carefully brushed her silky brown hair, and put on some lip balm, and carefully placed her head band in her hair. She put on her backpack and took one final look at herself in the mirror, before departing from her room.
She quickly, but carefully put away Olivia’s toys, before grabbing Olivia from her crib.
“Come on Evan! Let’s go!!” Sarah shouted, covering Olivia’s ears.
“I’m ready.” He said.
Finally everyone was ready to go, so they all loaded up the car, making sure everyone was buckled before pulling out of the drive way.
Theodore dropped off Sarah and Evan off at school, although Sarah wasn’t happy that they were late for her class.
Theodore spent the whole day taking care of Olivia. He also made sure he wrote in his journal. Yesterday, he came across a lady that he previously served before, so he went through his notebook trying to recall her story. He had to flip back a couple of pages to find what her story was. He first served her 12 days ago, and this is what he wrote…
January 11th, 2020
I picked up this one lady at the grocery store, she had several of bags. she told me her name was Alice. She kept on looking at her phone as if she couldn’t miss anything. She seemed very distressed, and shy. I felt that something was wrong, but that was all I could read. I guess the heat in the car was on too much, since she undid her coat and loosened her scarf a bit. She didn’t say much, other than her name who knows if that’s really her name. She was going to this house that looked like the grass hasn’t been mowed in awhile. When we got there, she had paid the exact amount, she apologized for not being able to tip, but I didn’t seem to mind. When she started placing her wallet back into her purse, she began fixing her scarf, accidentally showing some bruises around her neck. She just played it off, quickly zipping up her coat. Alice tried to carry all of the grocery bags herself in one trip. I offered to help, but got shut down really quickly. Alice told me it was okay and that I didn’t need to help her. And that was it. I wanted to help her, I really did.
All of the customers he had driven loved Theodore so he didn’t understand why she wasn’t fond of him, so he began flipping through his journal to read the second entry of her…
January 15, 2020
I was able to read and gained additional information from her, and I was truly able to see her side of the story. I had learned a lot more about her this time. This time she had asked me to be driven to a liquor store to pick a few things. She never said what she needed or who it was for. Suddenly, while I was waiting for her, it all came to me. She
He got interrupted by Olivia waking up hungry. He had to put away his journal to tend to Olivia.
Throughout the rest of the day, Olivia stayed up, and was playing with her toys. He carelessly threw her toys near where he had first grabbed them at the beginning of the afternoon.
He needed to pick up the kids from school so he raced over. Luckily he just got there in time.
“Oh, my goodness, Dad! I saw Evan in the hallway, and get this, he was wearing his toque! HIS TOQUE!!” Sarah confessed.
“My hair is messy.” Evan said sadly looking out the window.
“Hi Olivia! I missed you so much!” Sarah squealed, as Olivia had the biggest smile on her face.
They grabbed some take out on the way back home. They all ate it without any spills or arguing. Soon after the kids did their homework, and Theodore started getting Olivia ready.
Shortly after that the older kids had to get ready for bed.
Just before they went to bed, Amelia returned from her conference.
Theodore greeted her with a hug and a peck on the check.
“How were the kids?” She curiously asked.
“Uhm, it was a bit challenging. I don’t know how you do it.” Theodore said truthfully.
“I’m just going to talk to them for a bit. I’ll be right back.” Amelia said going upstairs to the kid’s rooms.
She went into Sarah’s room first. She had asked Sarah how her day was, as Sarah was finishing planning her outfit for tomorrow. Once she finished, she climbed into her neatly made bed.
“Mom, it was hilarious. Evan was having a bad day, and it was really funny to see. You missed it.” Sarah said with a huge smile on her face.
“You know, Sarah, it’s rude to laugh at someone’s bad day.” Amelia expalined.
“Not unless it’s Evan that is having a bad day. He had to wear his hat all day because Dad didn’t bother to get out the oatmeal Olivia threw at him. Dad was so angry.” Sarah said as Amelia kissed her good night.
“We’ll talk more about this tomorrow. But that doesn’t excuse your actions. I love you.” Amelia said shutting off the light, and closing the door.
Amelia walked into Evan’s room, who was crying into his pillow. Amelia climbed into his bed to comfort him.
“I heard you had a bad day today.” Amelia began saying placing her fingers through his brown hair, which was still sticky from the oatmeal.
Evan couldn’t speak so he just nodded.
“Here, let me help with this.” Amelia grabbed Evan, and they held hands walking to the bathroom.
She ran the water and began washing his hair.
“Did you try to wash it yourself?” She asked as Evan nodded.
“Well, you almost had it. You know it is okay, to have bad days. We always are going to have bad days. And that’s okay.” Amelia began explaining before Evan finally said something.
“Yeah, but Daddy was mad at me. Sarah was mean to me. And Olivia was, too.” Evan said.
“Don’t listen to what they say. They are wrong. What matters is what you and I think. You are my best friend, and I am yours. Always remember that.” Amelia said as she just finished blow drying Evan’s hair.
Evan was finally happy after facing a whole day of sadness.
“For Sarah, and for your Dad, I will definitely talk to them tomorrow. So don’t worry. Always be happy. Mommy loves seeing your smile.” She said.
“Mommy, will you ever leave again? I missed you!” Evan expressed as Amelia hugged him.
“I’ll try my best. Come on it’s time for bed.” Amelia said, hanging up his towel, and tucking Evan under the blankets. She had grabbed his favourite stuffed penguin that fell on to the floor.
She gave him one final good night kiss. She then walked out, shutting off the light and closing the door behind her.
Amelia then quietly opened Olivia’s room a bit just to see her before she got ready for bed herself. She walked into their room, and Theodore had fallen asleep reading his journal. Olivia was always curious about that journal, but Theodore had told her it was just work stuff, and she shouldn’t worry about it.
She seemed sad that Evan didn’t have a good day. She was also upset how Sarah and Theodore behaved in her absence.
Amelia then put his journal on his night table, although she was curious to read to it. But she never did. Instead she turned off the light and went to bed.
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