“Why don’t you go back inside, ma’am? We’ve got this handled.”
“She’s the one that has my baby, dumbass!”
The cop frowns; her expression shifts from friendly to guarded. I blow out a breath when the cop—Lawson, her badge says—asks what’s going on, and I explain as well as I can with Katie shouting at us from the other side of the hallway. Lawson asks questions, and I answer honestly. I show the scanned files on my phone of the paperwork declaring me a pre-need guardian. I fight to make Lawson understand I’m not keeping a child from his loving mother. I’m preventing a tragedy caused by an intoxicated woman.
Any sort of response from Lawson is interrupted by the grunt of her partner who is now holding Katie to the wall. A pink splotch spreads across his cheek, and he scowls as he pulls her arms behind her back. He recites a list of her rights before releasing her. When she turns, his hand wrapped around her arm, there are tears in her hate-filled eyes. I clear my throat quietly.
“Can I keep him? For now, I mean.”
Lawson hesitates before nodding. I wait until the officers and Katie have vanished around the corner then slump against my door. Carson dips his chin once before stepping through his doorway. The click of the lock latching is loud in the echoing silence. Brushing a tear from my cheek, I steel my spine, turn on my heel, and enter my apartment.
Ashton is asleep when I open the door to my bedroom. Holden looks up from where he’s running a hand over the toddler’s hair, his lips curving into a soft smile that says he knows how close to the surface my emotions are. He reaches for me, and I go willingly, magnetically drawn to him. I curl around Ashton and let out a shuddering breath. Holden laces his fingers with mine and doesn’t speak as I cry.
The silence of the bedroom suffocates me, but I find it oddly reassuring. The silence means Ashton is still sleeping, that there’s nothing that needs my attention right this minute. Unfortunately, the downside to the silence is I have plenty of time to think over the last handful of weeks.
Holden hadn’t wanted to leave the day after Katie’s arrest—he’d nearly begged to stay longer, said he could put off his schedule to be with me. However, I’d all but forced him from the apartment. His life was important; I couldn’t monopolize it. Despite that, I have called him every day since he left, even when I have nothing to say. Just hearing his voice is enough to quiet the voice in my head saying I’m going to screw up everything I have in my life.
My thoughts turn to my nephew as I stare at him sleeping in his bed across the room. His birthday is in less than two weeks, and I have no idea what I should do. My stepmom organized his party last year. All I had to do was book a flight, show up, and dote on the little boy. Now I’m the one in charge of planning everything because his mother made the awful decision of assaulting an officer, driving under the influence, and resisting arrest.
The responsibility is overwhelming.
With a soft sigh, I push back my blankets and grab my phone from the nightstand. A shiver runs up at my spine at the chill of the room. I tiptoe from the room and to the thermostat, adjusting the temperature. The couch cushion sinks beneath me as I plop onto it, and I scroll through the short list of contacts until I findMama Paige.
“Good morning, darling,” she says as soon as the line connects.
“Hey, Mama. I’m so sorry it’s been a while.”
She laughs; the sound soothes the sharp edges in my soul. “Honey, there’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve been taking care of that baby, so of course your time hasn’t been your own.”
“And you’re okay with that? That he stayed with me instead of coming to you?”
“He saw more of you in a week than he has of me in a year,” my stepmother points out. “If he’d come here, it woulda messed him up good. And you’ve always been so great with him. I trust you with his life, sweetheart. More than I can trust Katie right now.”
I swallow thickly at the enormity of the responsibility; I’m tasked with caring for a toddler who relies on an adult for everything. Relies on me. Coughing to dislodge the lump in my throat, I ask, “Heard from her?”
“She called yesterday, said she was sorry about the situation she got herself into.”
“I think this is more than a ‘situation’,” I scoff, shoving a hand through my hair.
“I told her exactly that! Told her she was warned a long time ago that her decisions come with consequences, and the one who’ll pay the most is the darling child she brought into this world.”
The conversation peters out for a long moment—I don’t want to talk about Katie anymore, and I know it hurts Mama to discuss Katie’s current predicament. I blow out a breath and change the subject: Ashton’s birthday and the subsequent party that should come with it. I take notes as she gives me ideas of themes and presents and decorations, but half of me laments the fact that only four people will be here for the toddler. Not one of them is his mother, and that’s the saddest thing I have known in a long time.
Ashton interrupts then, and I let him jabber animatedly to his grandmother. I’ve missed being able to talk to my stepmother freely about something other than Katie and all she’s done. I can pinpoint exactly when the topic of discussion began to revolve around her. Katie graduated from high school and exerted her newfound freedom by doing whatever she wanted, regardless of who got hurt in the process.
I miss the Katie my stepsister used to be.
“Hey, idiot, you have a package.”
“Damn it, don’t scare me like that!” I scold Tristan as I struggle to hold Ashton’s legs still with one hand so I can slide a diaper beneath his bare bottom.
Unfortunately, he escapes by twisting his entire body, and he clambers to his feet to run around the apartment naked. He squeals excitedly with each step until Luci lunges forward. His shriek of laughter pierces the air when she swings him up into her arms and deposits him in my lap. Forcing myself to take a steady breath, I pretend my friends aren’t staring at me.
“Thanks, Luci. Ashton Alexander, let me dress you so you can be presentable for when Mamaw gets here.”
“Mam?”
“Yeah, Mamaw. But if you keep bein’ naked, she ain’t gonna wanna come. So what’s it gonna be, munchkin—dressed or in your birthday suit?”
