"Kevin Donovan Delassixe" her voice was sharp, the voice of a Mom making sure her tone indicated he better pay attention.

She took the sparkler, "I told you, I light them, you hold them and spin them around..." A smile happened, couldn't be helped. She was overly protective, sometimes to a fault.

After the car accident with that....buffoon....she was even worse. Doyle hadn't meant to, she knew that. It was an accident, but hearing Kevin scream 'Momma!' at the moment of impact had robbed her of a few years of her life.

She had been cruel to Doyle, but damnation, this was her boy, and it could've been deadly. Instead, he ended up with a few bruises, and a scrape or two. He'd healed just fine, but Natalie had kept a low profile since then, only going out to work, and returning to the shotgun house that she proudly called hers and Kevins. It was pretty, if small, nice flowers, clean, homey. She and Kevin were happy here.

Standing in the front yard, the back was too small for anything other than a storage building, she watched the traffic go by out of habit. The dark curling hair, streaked through with hues of caramel and honey was drying from her shower. She'd have to go soon, if only for a few hours, but she'd be back. She always came back.

"Go ahead and finish up that one, then we have to have some lunch before I go..."

"I hate when you work on weekends...." Kevin said it quietly, twirling his lit sparkler while he did. He drew his name in the air with it, "It's better at night, you can see the stuff better..."

"Yea, it's better at night." She hated disappointing him, but she had to work. Luckily, she had the next two days off, so it wasn't that bad.

"Tell you what, maybe we'll pack up and go see Gram...demen?" Natalie's parents lived way out, far from anything even remotely citified. They had moved from New Orleans some years back, but Natalie could never leave her city. It was too thick in her blood. But Kevin liked the country, liked visiting his grandparents.

Kevin nodded. "That'd be fun. Tomorrow." He nodded again. The sparkler fizzled out, so he put it in the small trash can and took off running for his bike to ride up and down the sidewalk.

She couldn't stop the inward cringe, but she could stop the urge to tell him he couldn't ride his bike and make him go inside. That wasn't healthy. Kids got hurt. They mended. It was just a part of living.

She would have to make amends with Doyle. She'd do that at some point. Besides, she was court ordered to show him around, but she pretty much figured unless he dragged her back to court to say she was in contempt, it was still her choice.

Looking up and down the street, eyes the color of burned cinnamon tried to see if there was anything that would hurt her son, but no mother could ever fully predict that. So instead, she sighed, turned for the house to fix lunch, but kept the door open, and wore a path from the kitchen to that door, checking on him.