Beat by Beat (Riggins Brothers 5)

A tear rolls down my cheek as I place the money back into the bag. Two hundred and fifty dollars feels like a million at this point, but I still can’t keep it. His generosity will forever be with me and is greatly appreciated, but the medication was more than enough. I meant what I told him. As soon as I’m able, I’ll be paying it forward. I can’t pay forward three hundred dollars.

Madeline begins to cry. Wiping at my cheeks, I work to get her medication ready and take it with my back to the small living area. “Hey, sweetie,” I coo to her. She doesn’t seem to care as her cries grow louder. She’s hungry and her ear hurts. Luckily the pediatrician had samples of Tylenol. The nurse was so sweet and gave me three bottles—more than enough to get us through this ear infection.

I had to give up my job at the local day care when I gave up the apartment. I needed to find something closer to our new place, work, and Madeline’s day care. I have to be at my job for ninety days before I can get health insurance. That’s Monday. I was able to maintain the bills and my old apartment until Madeline was born. After that, we had to move. I should have moved sooner and saved some of our cash. I just… couldn’t. That was my home with Travis, and I was pregnant. I needed things for our daughter. She needed a bed. In hindsight, I wish I could have pulled myself out of my funk of missing him to see that saving that money was the better option. Grief does that to you. It keeps you from thinking clearly.

“Come here.” I lift my daughter from her car seat, and she quiets down a little. “I know you don’t like the icky medicine, but I promise it will make you feel so much better.” I position her on my lap and place the syringe in her mouth. She takes it with a grimace as she chokes back a sob. “Shh,” I coo as I rock her a little in my arms.

Placing the medicine dropper on the table, I settle back against the couch and pull up my shirt. My girl knows exactly what’s happening as she roots to latch on. Her cries stop completely.

“All better,” I say, soothing her. Resting my head back against the couch, I fight the exhaustion that weighs heavy on me. Doing this alone is hard. Travis was a foster kid, raised in a children’s home from the time he was ten. Families didn’t want to foster or adopt the older kids, so for eight years, he lived in the home as a ward of the state. I was his only family.

As for me, my mom passed when I was a little girl from a ruptured ovarian cyst. It was a freak thing. I was seven, so I don’t remember much. Just that my dad had our neighbor pick me up from school, and when he came home, he told me my mom was gone. That she was with the angels. Later I learned what it meant, and my dad, well, he retreated into himself. He stopped socializing. He went to work and took care of me the best that he could. He passed three years ago at home alone in his sleep from a heart attack.

Travis was my family. We had each other, and together, we were building a life, making it work. I look down at our daughter, and my heart clenches in my chest. I never got the chance to tell him I was pregnant. We weren’t trying, but he would have been thrilled regardless. I blink hard, fighting back the tears that once again threaten to fall.

“It’s just you and me, Maddie. I promise you we’re going to get through this. I don’t know how,” I whisper. “But I promise you that we will. Things will get better for us. They have to.” Knowing if I don’t get up and get moving that I’ll fall asleep here, I stand and head to the bathroom. After giving Madeline a bath and packing the diaper bag for tomorrow, I make a mental note to go out in the morning for diapers. Unfortunately, I can’t take Madeline back to day care until she’s fever-free for twenty-four hours. I have to miss another day’s work, which is going to cut us short next week, and I’m still in my ninety-day probation period. I missed two days already when I first started this job because she had an ear infection as well. My only hope is that my boss means it when she tells me that she understands that I’m a single mom. I made sure to express that many times in my interview and when I accepted the nurse aide position. The thought of losing this job when I’m so close to insurance causes my stomach to roll.