Wanderlust.

Freda gazed out of the row home window, feeling oddly lonely. She knew she shouldn't  she was married now and had two little trouble makers of her own. But then, there it was again! Something stirred inside her that made her feel restless, a bit like her old self, back when being a wife let alone a mother had been a far off goal, not a noisy reality. She loved her family, her husband with his wry humor and imaginative ingenuity. But she knew the symptoms of the wanderlust that had plagued her since she was a girl.

            “Mommy, I think, I think Carson’s playin’ on the computer again…” Jack sidled up to his daydreaming mother, taking her hand and touching its long fingers with his own small, moist hand. Freda smiled and walked into the kitchen where the laptop was set up to find her oldest son pounding away at the keys with his fists.

            “Carson! Hey, hey, don’t bang on it like that, that’ll break it and then Daddy will get mad,” she explained, tugging Carson's strong little body away from the computer. But she still felt... detached. She sighed absentmindedly and Jack tugged her jeans to be held. Glancing at the clock Freda frowned with anxiety. She hadn’t realized the time was so late, hardly enough time to prepare a good dinner now. There was always pasta, her lazy mind offered, and she sighed again in resignation to a dull supper. Her husband however was not dulled a bit by the news of dinner when he returned from work, coat flung over his shoulder and his bag bursting with files and pens as usual. She loved the way he looked when he crouched down to capture one of his sons in his arms.  But she was snapped back to her daydreams of being with him on their wild honeymoon when they had toured the world and eaten strange foods and adventured in the mountains. But that was then. And this, their family life, was now.

            “Hey, could you imagine us taking the boys on a trip?” She asked when dinner was almost done and she was just unbuckling Jack from his booster. James’ brown eyes laughed when he looked up from his plate.

            “Yeah, I could also imagine us being millionaires in Holland. Why do you ask?”

Lexie chewed her lip sheepishly.

            “I just… I wanna travel again, James. I wanna see more of the world, more of the continents and just enjoy adventuring again. Carson stopped playing with the crumbs on the table. Jack could tell the subject was an important one too. James sat back and looked thoughtful.

            “Like… where?” 

dh