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bottle almost as much as he liked blowing his money on the horses. His staying power was a bit stronger. He set up house while Timmy was still in diapers and didn’t leave Pat for the topless dancer until after he’d planted the seed for her two crimson-haired toeheads. Pat insisted their parting was amicable, but by the time I came along Pat’s trust in men had about hit rock bottom.
    Each twin had a leg of Pat’s while she held off Timmy with an outstretched arm. Behind her was a household in upheaval. The damn television was reverberating the blasts of some shoot ‘em up program. All across the floor were strewn toys, kitchen utensils and an upside down plate of spaghetti. Strands of noodles were scattered across the living room’s bare wooden floor. Two of the meatballs from the evening’s Italian feast were in a clump next to a toy dump truck. At least, I thought they were meatballs.
    “You wanna clean up the shit?” she asked.
    The kids were clinging to Pat like a bad case of the crabs. She shooed them away with some tough love: threatening to pull the plug on their boob tube rights if they didn’t get their little asses to bed.
    By the time she turned her full attention on me she was anything but ready to deal with a part-time boyfriend. Still in her bathrobe, her hair disheveled, and her face showing all the elements of someone who wanted to collapse, it was plain the kids had done a job on her today. I knew there would be hell to pay.
    “You could have called first you know?”
    I’d seen her happier. She stood with her arms folded, her eyes boring through me.
    “You know how it is with us law and order guys. We shoot first and ask permission for female companionship later.”
    Cute wasn’t in tonight. I could feel those power mower eyes cutting a huge swath right through the inside of me. “Can I come in?”
    She threw me just the hint of a smile. “You got ten minutes. I got a Frenchman coming over.”
    “Those Frenchies know all the right moves. What do you say I come back later. We can try out what Pierre taught you?”
    “Not on your life brother. Anything after my Frenchie leaves me stale.”
    I grinned like an idiot. “We can’t have that. Bad for the digestive tract.” I stepped into the apartment and leaned into her for a kiss but she offered me only cheek. We exchanged long appraising looks.
    “First the shit lover boy.”
    “Now why should I clean up your mess?”
    “Because you helped create this one stud.”
    After performing my janitorial duty, I settled onto Pat’s couch while she put the kids to bed. Her apartment wasn’t much. What had once been a servant’s quarters as part of some lumber baron’s sprawling residence was small for a divorcee with three young kids to raise. The living room was big enough, I suppose. It was a high-ceilinged job with one of those cheap chandeliers hanging down into the middle of the room. There was even a fireplace, though the chimney had been closed off long ago. Most of Pat’s furniture was secondhand including the couch I was on. The thing was in bad need of reupholstering, and the springs were shot, but it was comfortable if nothing else. Many were the times I ended up spending the night on it rather than with Pat in her bed. Pat had this idea that the kids needed to be protected from any notions that their mommy found it necessary to make whoopy with their “Uncle Cozzy.” That never stopped me from sneaking into her room and having my way with her after the kids were tucked away. “If this were to become a more permanent relationship the bedroom arrangements would be a lot better,” she said. Those words were becoming more frequent as of late, and they were beginning to grate on me like a Barry Manilow song.  My brain said drop this gal like a bad heroin habit. But it was something else that kept me coming back to Pat several times a week.
    I watched her move down the hall from the kids’ bedroom to the small walk-in kitchen.