Billionaire's Single Mom

"Gram is off the charts today," Riley said as I walked through the door.

After my mishap with Jack, I'd spent the rest of the afternoon dealing with the daily demands of the warehouse. By the time I climbed onto the bus that would take me home, I was whipped. I'd briefly considered taking a taxi, but when I'd checked my bank account, I realized that that luxury was one I couldn't afford.

"What's wrong with Gram?" I asked as I set the grocery bags down on the table and dropped my lunch bag into the sink.

"She's in her room playing Sinatra records again," Riley said as she rolled her eyes. "She's singing along with the sad songs and then crying when the record ends. It's crazy town in there, Leah."

"I'll go check," I said, eyeing the bags. "Can you get dinner started? It's taco night."

"Oooh, yeah!" Riley cheered as she dug into the bags and pulled out the ground beef I'd picked up. "I'll brown the beef!"

"Wear an apron, and don't forget to dump the grease in the can under the sink, not down the drain!" I called as I headed down the hallway to my mother's room. I could hear Sinatra crooning that it had been a very good year as I stood outside her door.

"Mama?" I said as I tapped on the door. "Mama, can I come in?"

"Get the hell away from me!" she yelled through the closed door. "I've got company!"

"Mama, it's the record player," I said as I turned the handle and found that the door was locked. "Mama, let me in, please?"

"Get the hell away from my door!" she shouted. I could hear movement on the other side of the door, and suddenly I felt a cold chill run through my veins as I imagined what she might be doing on the other side.

"Mama, please don't do this," I whispered as I listened to the sound of furniture being dragged across the bedroom floor. I imagined she was pushing it in front of the door in case someone tried to force their way in. "Mama, I'm making tacos for dinner. Why don't you come out and eat with Riley and me?"

"I don't want any of your dirty food!" she shouted at me. "Molly would never make such awful food

! I want Molly!"

"I know, Mama," I said resting my head on the door. "I know. We all do."

Back in the kitchen, Riley was singing along with her iPod as she browned the meat and cut up the lettuce. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that she hadn't heard anything my mother had yelled. She was a smart kid that way. She knew how to avoid conflict and not hear what she knew wasn't for her ears. It bothered me that she was so effective at tuning things out, and it made me a little worried about the effect that would have on her life later on but, for now, I decided to count my blessings and be thankful for the fact that she wouldn't ask me to explain.

Over dinner, Riley filled me in on all of the middle school drama and carefully recounted the way in which two girls in her class had countered the attempted slut-shaming of another girl.

"Slut-shaming? In seventh grade?" I asked, knowing full well that this was a time-honored method of keeping girls in line. The kids in the neighborhood, hell— the adults too—had used this on Molly, but she'd resisted the attempts and had marched to the beat of her own drum. I'd loved her for it and hated the kids who'd tried to shame her, but I'd kept quiet, fearing the wrath of the kids in my own class who were the younger siblings of the ones who taunted Molly.

"Leah, please," Riley said rolling her eyes yet again. "This is not something new, and you know it. I was hoping that at this point we'd be in a post-feminist world where everyone would be equal and these petty fights would be replaced by efforts to save the planet."

"Where do you come up with this stuff?" I laughed as I marveled at her brilliant assessment of the world around her and her desire for something better.

"Leah, I watch television," she said matter-of-factly. "It's all there, ready to be consumed. Did you know that 52% of the population on Earth is female, and yet they make up more than 70% of those in poverty?"

"I had no idea," I said shaking my head.

"It's because over 1.3 billion women don't have access to bank accounts or credit, Leah," Riley said solemnly. "The petty acts of slut-shaming are covering up a far bigger travesty and taking attention away from what we could be doing to solve the problem."

"Where do you learn these things?" I asked with a combination of concern and awe.

"Leah, we are living in the 21st century, in a first world country," she said looking at me seriously. "I have access to the internet."

I burst out laughing as I realized that she was right. Riley grinned and shook her head with mock sadness as she piled more cheese and lettuce on top of the ground beef in her taco shell.

"Sometimes I worry that you know too much, kiddo," I said reaching out and ruffling her already messy hair. She ducked away with a lopsided grin and bit into her taco.

"Knowledge is power, Leah," she said with a mouth full of food. I shook my head as I bit into my own taco and chewed.

The image of Jack Yates staring at me as we toured the warehouse was on my mind as I cleaned up the dinner dishes. I'd excused Riley from dish duty so that she could finish her homework before bedtime, and she'd been grateful for the pass. I thought about Jack's broad shoulders and the brief contact I'd had with his bare skin while I'd worked to remove the blood from his shirt. It had been a very long time since I'd been that close to a man and felt that kind of animal attraction.

"Stop it, you fool," I muttered to myself as I scrubbed the frying pan. "He's the head of the company you work for, not a guy in a neighborhood bar."