The Imperfections
Today’s Saturday, so that gives me a few days if I need ’em. Of course, her parents will probably be expecting her back Monday morning.
I did bring her phone, but she doesn’t know that. I thought her parents would find it strange if she went to a weekend babysitting job without her phone and charger, so I grabbed both while she packed her clothes. They’re in my truck now, but I’ve gotta put ’em somewhere today. I wasn’t worried about them locating her by her phone last night since they don’t know she’s missing, but if I don’t take her home, that’s bound to change come Monday.
“Tell me about your family, the ones you live with,” I tell her, grabbing my orange juice to take a sip.
“All right,” she says, easily enough. “Well, we live in my Pappy’s house—my mom’s dad. He’s an alcoholic, but not an abusive one or anything. Half the time he falls asleep in his big brown recliner chair in the living room. You’re very lucky he wasn’t in it last night,” she tells me, pointing her fork at me.
“I’d say he’s the lucky one,” I offer mildly.
Ignoring that comment, she goes on. “I live there with my mom and my sister, Amber. We have different dads. My mom got pregnant her senior year of high school with Amber, and her dad moved to South Carolina… or North Carolina? I don’t remember which. Anyway, he went off to college there and Mom never heard from him again.”
I frown, but she says it like it’s normal.
“My dad was a couple years later. She had signed up for community college classes, wanted to take advantage of some grant or something and try to get a better job. Anyway, they were partners in English class and I guess they spent more time making me than studying. He stuck around for a while, but their relationship didn’t work out, and a year or so after I was born, he got engaged to someone else and they moved away. I never saw him again after that, so I don’t remember him.”
What the fuck? Who are these men who leave their daughters behind and move on with their lives like they never even existed?
Brightly, she says, “So anyway, as far as adults go, it’s just Pappy, Mom, Amber, and me, but then my sister Amber has two kids.”
“How old is she?”
“Almost 21,” she answers.
“And she has 2 babies,” I reiterate. “She went on a date last night, so I guess there’s no man in the picture for her, either?”
Wrinkling her nose up with displeasure, she says, “None worth calling a man, kinda like Theo. She hooks up with the hot ones, but they’re always unreliable assholes. I love my sister, but she has terrible taste in guys.”
“Sounds like that runs in your family,” I murmur, putting down my fork.
Instead of being offended, she laughs a little. “Yeah, I guess it does, huh?”
“Does she go for older men, too?” I ask, out of curiosity.
“The first time she did. My niece’s father was a lot older than Amber. He wasn’t married, but he did have a girlfriend or fiancée or some kind of thing like that. They met at work, and he lied to her, told her he and the woman were on a break. Amber was already pregnant when the girlfriend came in wanting to surprise him with lunch one day and it turned out he was just a lying sleazebag.”
“Jesus Christ,” I murmur, shaking my head.
“My nephew was with a guy her age, though,” she tells me. “It was just a drunken hook-up and nobody had a condom. They were never together.”
“Your mother never told either of you about birth control? I know you don’t have daddies, but fuck, where’s your mother while all this is happening?”
“Mom works a lot,” she tells me. “She’s an STNA at an old folks home, but she also has a boyfriend she spends most of her time with if she’s not working. The house is pretty full, so she sleeps at his place most nights. We don’t see her much, but the kids keep us busy, anyway. I started babysitting so I could make some money and help my sister out. Obviously, since she’s raising two kids on her own, money’s pretty tight. I wanted to be able to pitch in and help out with the extras from time to time.”
I try to process this abundance of information. The environment she’s describing does match the impression I got of her house last night, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of environment another baby should be brought into. She’s barely an adult, surrounded by other women who are barely adults and raising their babies in this potluck family of hers. That’s not how I think it should be.