“You wanted to sell our home!” Logan shouts. “You went behind our backs.”
“That isn’t what happened, but it doesn’t matter. I can see exactly what is going on here. Everything is clear.” I storm up to Harley and Hunter’s room, my feet thudding up the stairs. I frantically close my suitcase, and I’m tugging it out of the room when John appears.
“Maggie. What are you doing?”
“I’m going, John. I’m not going to stand around and get blamed when it’s you who’ve lied to me. You kept this massive thing from me while you tried to persuade me to stay here with you. Were you doing that so that I wouldn’t want to sell? Was that your plan all along?”
“No,” he says. “You’re getting this all twisted.”
“I know what I know. Just get out of my way so that I can get the hell out of here.”
My suitcase thuds all the way down the stairs, and at the bottom, the rest of the boys are waiting, but I can’t look at any of them. Sean puts his hand on the front door to bar my way, but when I look at him with fierce eyes, he moves away.
I don’t know where I get the strength to toss my luggage into the back seat of the car. I turn in the driveway so quickly that stones spray behind, churning up a cloud of dust. Tears burn in my throat but not for long. There’s no holding them back this time.
I’m on my way home with nothing.
26
Sitting in my den at home doesn’t feel right. Mom is still at work, and she has no idea that I’m here. When she arrives outside, she’ll see my car, and I know what will happen. She’ll psych herself up with all the questions she has about what I’m going to do with the house and then explode if my answers aren’t what she wants. She’ll be tired from being on her feet all day, and just seeing me will remind her of the baby and add to all the pressure she feels already. It doesn’t matter how I approach this; it’s going to be bad.
But what choice do I have? I can’t stay at the house after the blow-up, and there is no way I can make the boys sell. There is one of me and eleven of them, and as much as I need the money, I can’t put them out of their home. It isn’t what Dad would have wanted, and it isn’t what they deserve. They might not have been honest with me, but they’re not bad people, and I can’t blame them for wanting to keep the only place they’ve ever truly felt safe.
I have no idea what to do.
I worry at the skin on the side of my finger, picking it hard enough to make it bleed. The pain feels good, in a horrible grounding way that makes tears spring to my eyes.
Inside me, the baby grows, and with every day that passes, I feel a greater connection, as though our cells are mingling, our souls connecting. I put my sore hand over my belly, feeling as though I would do absolutely anything to keep my child safe.
Anything.
Maybe I could ask the boys to buy me out, but would they have that kind of money. They’re at school, for heaven’s sake, and Dad didn’t leave a substantial amount in cash, just enough to keep the house running for a year, and most of that has gone on utilities and insurances.
They’ll have the money next year when they’ve graduated and moved into employment. Some of them will surely go pro and could probably buy the house a few times over with their first paychecks. But next year is too late.
I hear the familiar rattle of Mom’s car pulling up outside.
I hear the familiar sounds of her footsteps as she makes her way down the path to our front door.
I hear the slow grind of her key in the lock that tells me she’s tired. Tiredness means less patience.
My heart makes a rolling thud in my chest and then speeds with nerves.
She tosses her keys onto the small table by the door and toes off her shoes. “Maggie?”
“In here,” I say, pulling my lip between my teeth and saying a silent prayer that this isn’t going to go as I’m expecting.
Mom appears in the doorway, dressed in her uniform, hair straggly and in need of a color and cut. “You’re back.”
“I am.”
“Did you list the house?”
It’s the third sentence she utters with absolutely no pretense at being happy to see me.
“I can’t. Dad’s foster sons live there, and they don’t want to leave.”
“So they have to buy you out. Did you tell them about the baby? Do they know what you’ve got on your plate?”