by Jessica Kate
Nick tapped on the glass, a frown denting his forehead. His button-down shirt and tie looked out of place with his unruly brown hair.
She grabbed her backpack and the pregnancy test and thrust the door open. He jumped back to avoid it.
“Did you know about this?”
“What?” Nick focused on what she held beneath his nose. Color drained from his face. “Oh, God.” The words didn’t sound like profanity, more of a plea.
“She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant.”
“Trish, what have you done?” He ran his hands through his hair.
Lili’s ire toward him eased. At least he looked upset.
“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.” Nick mumbled the words to the plastic stick in her hand.
It fell to her side. “You’ve been talking to her?”
“I had dinner at her house last night.”
Lili’s stomach twisted. So he’d chosen sides too.
Nick pulled his gaze from the pregnancy test to her face. “What’s with that look?”
She shook her head, felt her face contort in an effort to keep tears away. “Nothing. You made your choice.” She threw the test at him. “I hope you’re all very happy together.”
Grabbing her backpack, she took off down the sidewalk.
“Lili, wait!”
She kept on, fury giving her speed.
Behind her, footsteps slapped on the path, then a car door slammed. The familiar sound of Nick’s pickup roared to life, and moments later his vehicle slowed to a jogging pace beside her. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“I don’t have long. I’m on my way to my Wildfire scholarship interview. But I can give you a ride home.”
“I don’t have a home anymore.” As she said the words, their truth sank deep into her soul.
Traffic backed up behind Nick as his pickup crawled beside her. “Lili, please. I have to go. Let me take you to Jem’s.”
“No.” She slowed to a walk, tight bands around her chest. If only Grace was in town. Then she could at least crash at her place for a couple of days.
Cars zoomed past Nick, beeping. He ignored them. “Then where are you going?”
An idea formed in Lili’s brain. She walked on, shaking her head.
“Lili.”
“I told you, anywhere but here. Now leave me alone.” She picked up her pace but veered right, into the park, away from the road.
She stayed there till Nick’s pickup rumbled away, scanned the road to make sure he’d really gone, then backtracked and headed southwest. Just because Grace was out of town didn’t mean she was out of reach. Maybe it was time she told her friend what was really going on.
Lili pulled out her phone and checked her banking app. Just enough money, if her calculations were correct.
Legs pumping, she reached the bus station in ten minutes. She stood outside its glass doors and stared at the square brick building.
Her plan wasn’t a great one—her parents would be furious, and God wouldn’t be real impressed either.
But the alternative was returning home. And that was unthinkable.
She pushed through the doors and approached the counter.
“How much is a ticket to Raleigh, North Carolina?”
36
Natalie banged on Mom and Dad’s front door on Friday afternoon with more force than necessary. She was forty-five minutes late.
Forty-five minutes she wouldn’t get back with her father.
Oliver, sitting on her hip, yanked a handful of her hair and cried.
Natalie looked down at the armload of party supplies she held for Dad’s party next week. The three grocery sacks and a box of plastic utensils and paper plates would’ve been a lot easier to carry if she had the use of both arms.
But Lili hadn’t shown up for babysitting duties this afternoon. She was probably just off with Nick again, and Jem had forgotten to tell her to come straight home. And Jem hadn’t responded to Natalie’s six phone calls, hence the lateness.
Oliver yanked again. Natalie dropped the party supplies with a huff and disentangled his fingers. “No, Oliver, we do not pull hair.”
He released her hair and went for her earring.
The sound of locks flipping rattled through the door. It pulled back to reveal Mom, today in tangerine sweats.
Natalie dumped the baby into her arms. “Take him.”
Mom bounced the fussy eleven-month-old as Natalie gathered her things up again. “Dad’s excited to see you. He wants an update on the internship. When do they make the decision?”
In just under a month. But nothing in Natalie felt jubilant at the impending deadline. She scooped up the last of her things and followed Mom inside. “Don’t get too excited.”
Mom frowned but didn’t press further. With her spare hand, she held a plate out to Natalie. “Anzac bikkie?” The Australian cookies—or biscuits, as Mom called them—were a staple in this house.
Natalie shook her head. “No, thanks.” The news she’d received an hour ago had banished her appetite. Or what little appetite she’d had lately, anyway. She’d heard that the stress-causing-ulcers thing was a myth, but she could swear one was forming right now.
Mom carried Olly down the hallway to the bedroom and sat him on the empty side of the bed, beside a dozing Dad. As she paused Goldfinger, playing on his little TV screen, she leaned in Natalie’s direction and murmured, “Don’t let him jostle Dad.”
Natalie nodded and pulled up a chair, close enough to keep one hand on the baby.
Dad opened his eyes and shifted with a wince.
Natalie grimaced. In the past week his pain levels had started outstripping what the medication could handle.
His gaze focused on her. “Nattie. Talk to me. Did the board approve your proposal?”
She did her best to sound upbeat. “They decided the funds were better spent on Kimberly’s youth drop-in center. It’s yielded more results than the festival did.”
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “What does that mean for your chances of getting the job?”
The upbeat tone was harder to maintain this time. “It’s not a great sign, but it’s not over yet.” Her one advantage was that Sam seemed to genuinely enjoy working with her while Kimberly got under his skin.
Dad gripped the handle over his bed, let it go, and shoved his coverlet aside. At least shoved it as far as he could without moving his torso. “That doesn’t sound right. Let me talk to them.”
Olly tried to crawl toward Dad. She kept a firm grip on the back of his little baby shirt and held him in place. “They’ve already—”
“Don’t they know how much you’ve given up?” He tried to shift around in the bed. “I shouldn’t have let you drop out of college. What will you do if you don’t get this?”
Oliver strained against her grip, reaching for Dad. She stood to adjust her hold on him. Dad normally liked Olly to sit next to him and let the little guy chew on his finger, but today he seemed too agitated to even notice. “It’s going to be fine. Don’t wo—”
Oliver slipped in her grasp. His momentum threw him forward, colliding with Dad’s torso.
Dad cried out, back arching with pain.
Natalie yanked Oliver away. “Mom!”
A clatter sounded. Mom’s uneven gait echoed at a run. She burst through the door. “Phil? What happened?”
Natalie cradled a flailing Oliver to her chest and tried to explain through tears, snot, and overwrought emotions.
Mom began rifling through pill bottles after the first choked sentence as Dad clutched at the pillow beside him and moaned. This from a man with a pain threshold worthy of Chuck Norris.
Natalie ran for the door through blinding tears and didn’t stop till she had reached her chained-up bicycle outside. She sat Olly down and tried to enter the combination with shaking fingers, but the lock wouldn’t release.
Olly’s indignant shrieks turned into whines, and he crawled away.
/> “Oliver!” She grabbed him and plopped him between her feet. “Stay still.”
She tried the lock again. No luck.
Oliver pulled himself upright against her leg and took two wobbly steps toward the mailbox.
Her self-control snapped. “Oliver!” The shout probably could’ve been heard by Jem at work, or wherever on earth he was. She jerked the waistband of Olly’s pants till he plopped back down on his bottom. He wailed.
She froze.
Olly had walked.
Olly had walked without holding anything for the first time.
And she’d shouted at him for it.
She sank down to the ground, kept one hand on Olly, and buried her face in the other and sobbed. What was she going to do? She couldn’t keep this up. Everything expected of her for this internship, nannying Olly, taking care of her parents, keeping an eye on Lili, dating Jem—it was too much.
One more month and you could have the job, and it’ll all be worth it.
She envisioned Sam’s phone call in a month’s time, telling her that despite Kimberly’s visionary plans for the ministry, her unmatchable work ethic, and her sharp mind, Natalie was the woman for the job. She waited for the rush of excitement at the thought. The thought of being part of a team, speaking into young hearts, of networking with others with a similar passion.
None came.
She pressed her spare hand over her eyes and blocked out the world. God, is this how it plays out? You dangle my dream in front of me and then yank it away?
Her phone rang. She dragged it out of her pocket. Steph. Uh-oh. “Hey, Steph, I know I’m—”
“I’ve got a minivan and eight middle schoolers here, but no Natalie.”
She dragged her sleeve over her nose. “I had an issue with Dad, but I’m on my way.”
“I know your dad’s sick, Natalie, but are you committed to this? Do you really want it? Because I think you can take Kimberly, I really do, but only if you’re one hundred percent in.” Steph sighed and ended the call.
Natalie sniffed back her tears. If anyone on the planet was one hundred percent in, it was her. She wouldn’t lose this job because of a lack of commitment.
She tried the lock again. Bingo.
With Oliver in the bike’s baby seat, she pumped her legs in the direction of Wildfire and made it in record time. Not that Steph looked impressed.
Within thirty minutes, she had the kids raking leaves and weeding Mrs. Hillman’s jungle of a backyard. Today was the launch of Kimberly’s latest initiative, Love Thy Neighbor. The citywide community-service project had started with the eightysomething grandmother of one of the drop-in center kids.
Kimberly’s team of kids was attacking the front yard and had already tamed an impressive amount of it.
Natalie gritted her teeth and got to work cleaning out an ancient garden shed, first in the waning afternoon light and then under Wildfire-supplied floodlights. A teen girl more suited to babysitting than manual labor entertained Olly on the enclosed front porch. After two hours, Natalie stood back and surveyed her progress. Respectable. She walked over to the door of the porch. Time for the teens to head home. The door opened from the inside, and the girl—Lauren? Laura?—handed a sleeping Oliver over to Natalie. “He started getting sleepy in the last half hour.” She scampered off to the waiting minivan.
Natalie brushed a hand against Olly’s forehead, and he opened his eyes in a series of long blinks. Hmmm. Unusual for him at this time of the evening. She checked her watch. Almost six. “Olly?”
She searched back through her mind for signs of unusual behavior. He’d had a good appetite at lunch, and at his afternoon sna—
Oh no. She’d forgotten to give him his snack.
Ever since Olly’s diagnosis, their lives had revolved around precisely planned meals, insulin injections, and sugar tests. If she’d mistaken a hypoglycemic episode for sleepiness, Olly’s low blood sugar could knock him unconscious or . . . worse.
She scrambled for the blood test kit in Olly’s bag.
* * *
Jem leaned back in his chair at the local school board meeting and tried not to visibly wince. When a distracted teen driver had run over his foot in the Walmart parking lot this morning, he’d thought that’d be the low point of the day.
But as today’s fiery meeting entered its third hour, he was tempted to reevaluate.
Under normal circumstances the debate over raising the school levy would’ve fired up his journalistic juices. But Olly had kept him up half the night, and to top it off, the achiness all through him indicated he was getting the flu.
Fingers cramping, Jem stopped scribbling in his notebook for a moment and flicked his phone over. Seven missed calls. The last from Dad. He fumbled to play the voice messages as he sneaked out of the room, heart racing. Was something wrong with the kids?
He berated himself as he limped up the corridor. What if Olly had caught his flu? What kind of parent didn’t check his phone when it was on silent?
There were six messages from Natalie, her irritation levels rising with each one. Lili hadn’t shown up to take Olly. He frowned. He’d definitely told Lili this morning. Had she forgotten? Or had something happened? He shoved his notebook into his back pocket and limped faster.
Dad’s message: “Have you found my granddaughter yet? Natalie called me. Ring me back ASAP.” Aggravation leeched through his words.
Jem rubbed his forehead. Dad seemed to think he was incompetent enough without this happening.
He phoned Mike as he reached his car. Maybe once they found Lili and things calmed down, he should have lunch with his older brother. Mike could always make him feel better about his inability to measure up. “Hey, Mike. Is Lili with you?”
“I’m at the church. She’s not at your place?” Mike’s voice had the sharp tone of an alarmed parent.
Jem slid into the driver’s seat. “I’m still working. Natalie said Lili never showed up to take Oliver. Nat had to take him to Wildfire with her.” The car’s Bluetooth took over the call. He set the phone down and backed out of the parking lot. “I’ll go home and check. She might have shown up. Do you know that Nick kid’s phone number?”
“Nick who?”
“Her . . . friend.” Their relationship status was something he hadn’t been able to figure out yet. “They spend a lot of time together.” What was that kid’s surname? His brain struggled to fire. Nick was the brother of the one who— “You know his aunt.”
“Excuse me?” The words seemed to come out with more force than was warranted.
“Trish Kent. You did all that work for her nephews. Anyway, you obviously don’t have the number.” Jem barely registered a stop sign. He mashed the brake pedal down with his sore foot. Ouch. “Have you seen Lil lately?”
“At school this afternoon. You know, she’s developed a real sass since living with you.”
Jem pulled a face. Where had that come from? “In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s sixteen. If you’re concerned, maybe you should do something about it since you’re her actual parent.” He shook his head. He loved having Lili, but it seemed to also mean taking the blame for any hiccup in her behavior. Why was he the one being held responsible?
“Sorry that my failing marriage is inconveniencing you.” Mike’s words dripped with bitterness.
Any fragment of good humor in Jem’s mood vanished.
“What’s your deal, man? She’s your kid.” The words slipped out of his mouth, and he winced. It sounded like he didn’t want her.
“Nice to know how you really feel. I guess Steph shouldn’t have blown off a marriage-counseling appointment to babysit Olly while you and Natalie went on a date. He’s your kid.” Mike’s tone made it sound like Jem spent all his time out on dates.
“That’s not what I—”
“Guess I shouldn’t help you pay to employ your girlfriend anymore.”
“Mike, I—”
“I shouldn’t have trusted you with her.”
The words cut through to Jem’s soul. In this dysfunctional family, Mike had always been his ally. Now it seemed he’d let his brother down too, though he wasn’t sure how.
The phone beeped. Incoming call. Natalie. He pulled the car over.
“Mike, calm down. This is Natalie, she probably knows where Lil is.” He changed calls before Mike could respond.
“Nat, tell me some good news.”
A pause. “Jem, you should come.”
She was crying.
37
Natalie flinched as Jem’s car jumped the curb in front of Mrs. Hillman’s house. He jumped out of the car and limp-ran over the yard.
Natalie shivered from her spot on a tree stump in the deserted yard. Kimberly had ferried both her and Natalie’s charges back to Wildfire for their parents to pick them up.
Jem reached them, face pale under the full moon and streetlight. “How is he?”
Natalie handed the baby over. “He seems alright. I checked his sugars again. They’re better.” He’d been teetering on the edge of consciousness by the time she got some juice into him, about to slide into a hypoglycemic episode.
Jem held the baby up to the streetlight, inspected him, then cradled him against his chest. “Should we take him to the hospital?”
Oliver chattered to himself and waved his toy car around, now perked up with sugar in his system.
She sat back against the tree stump. “I called the doctor. Only if you want to.”
Jem sighed and sagged against a nearby tree.
She rubbed cold hands against her jeans. “I’m so sorry. I forgot to give him his snack.”
Jem was quiet for a long time and didn’t look up from the baby. Finally, he met her eyes. “I don’t think this arrangement is working out, Nat.”
Chills spread through her. “What do you mean?”
“The ministry. Nannying. If you’re going to nanny Olly, now with his health issues, he needs your full attention. It doesn’t work having you cart him around to all your Wildfire work.” His tone ended on a frustrated note.
Natalie fought for calm. She was three and a half weeks away from Wildfire’s decision. How could she find another job to work around the internship for only three and a half weeks? And if she didn’t get her paycheck, she didn’t pay rent. With the loans she’d already taken out for Mom and Dad, borrowing wasn’t an option. “Jem, think about what you’re asking.”
