Getting closer to the front of the house she heard someone, probably Michael, playing pat-a-cake with Jessica. That was good, they were fine, and suddenly her plans changed. Rather than heading into the living room, Lavender stopped at the mud room, off the kitchen, to go ahead with her original plan. She wanted to get out of here. Of course her mother wasn't fat behind.
"Lavender, what are you doing?" Bailey and Baby Girl were sitting in the kitchen watching the whole ordeal unfold in front of them.
"What does it look like I'm doing, mother?" She said rummaging through the stuff in the mud room looking for the second lead. And if a few smaller items went flying toward her mother, well, it was purely accidental. Finally she found what she needed and started to clip the dogs to the leads, one after the other.
"It looks like you're seven years old again and trying to run away from home, but at least then you were smart enough to back a bag."
Lavender turned around pulling sharply on the leads, causing Bailey to start yipping. "Are you joking? You must be --" she paused seeing Matthew again and her whole stomach just feeling sick. Why had she saw that stupid picture? It took a bad day and just made it so much worse. She opened the back door and the dogs quickly shuffled outside ready for the escape as well. "I am going out," she said loudly so that Michael might hear in the other room, "With my dogs, and if Michael is here - well, he can make up his own mind about what he wants to do." Her words were quite spectacularly timed with the mud room door slamming shut behind her.