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And in Seattle, Milly had befriended me the day I moved next door. I was eight months pregnant at the time and hadn’t had enough money to hire movers. Milly noticed me trying to wrestle boxes up two flights of stairs, introduced herself, and then called in for backup.
She rounded up the teen boys that lived in the complex and bribed them with fried chicken and hazelnut brownies to finish the move. At the time, I remembered thinking it was strange that four teenage boys would give up their Saturday for home-cooked food, that was before I’d tasted Milly’s cooking. I’d give up a month of Saturdays for her chicken and brownies.
That was another spur-of-the-moment move. In a span of three hours, I’d found a place to live, packed up all of my belongings and started a new chapter of my life. And both times it had been because of Richie’s actions. I thought once we broke up, I would be untangled from his life. But that was naïve considering I had his child. I wondered if I’d ever be able to truly distance myself from him and more importantly his choices.
I jumped when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked down and saw it was a message from Ashley.
Ashley:It’s been hours. I’m dying here. Call me.
Hours?
I looked at the clock and saw that while it hadn’t quite been hours, it had been about a half an hour. Ashley was prone to the dramatic. I hadn’t wanted to speak to her while Hank was here, but I knew that although she wasn’t dying, she was probably worried.
So when my screen lit up and I saw that she was calling it, I answered. “We have to find a new code word. Gravy has been compromised.”
