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“No.”
“Give me your address. I can take a few days off and I’ll come by and see how I can help you out, okay?”
A day later, I arrived at the address Maria had given me. The whole drive up, my mind raced.
Jacob. Matthew. Their names were seared into my mind the instant she’d said them. My two sons who lived in Atlantic City. Two sons I didn’t know about until a brave mother called me.
The place was in bad condition. I would bet my next paycheck that even with air conditioning, it didn’t stay cool. The floors and walls were decrepit, and there were tripping hazards and exposed beams everywhere. Her door was slanted on its hinges, and there were speckles of mold on the doorframe.
She can’t stay here. Nobody should stay here.
I could hear muffled music coming from her apartment, and it clarified when she opened the door. ABBA filled the room withcheerful happy melodies. Maria looked up at me with her big sad brown eyes rimmed with red, her hair tied up in a messy knot on the top of her head, her skirt rumpled and a suspicious stain on her shirt. She looked thin, and her skin was paler than last year when I’d seen her. Her tan was gone.
Behind her, one of the boys screamed. The corner of her right eye twitched, and then she shut them, her already haggard form deflating under the weight of her predicament.
I put a hand on her shoulder, kissed her forehead, and stepped into the apartment.
It was no more than a single room; a kitchen and bathroom on one side, a mattress and a crib far too small for two babies on the other. There were piles of laundry pushed up against one wall, dishes in the sink, and a box of diapers next to the crib. She had almost no furniture save a small chair, and a threadbare futon. I couldn't tell the difference between clean laundry and dirty. Everything smelled like poop.
She cannot not stay here. She will never make it like this.
“You should have called me right away, Sugar,” I whispered, walking over to the crib. Hesitating, I looked down at my sons.
They were wailing, holding each other’s hands, their faces crumpled up and their heads thrown back in frustration. But they were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my boys. A tiny bit of color to their skin, my nose, and the littlest bit of black fuzz on the top of their heads.They were a spitting image of my kid brother when he was born.
And Greenwood lungs for damn sure.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was the strangest thing to look at them, to know they were part of me. I put a hand on each one of them. My hands were almost as big as they were.
Could I even pick them up? Was that my right? She was the one who had given birth to them. She was the one who nursed them, who kept them alive. I was just…here.
Do I even know how to hold a baby anymore?
“Looks like you guys are struggling,” I mumbled, not knowing what else to say.
“I… it wasn’t this bad last month.” Her voice was rough and defensive.
“I would have helped you.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“Then why did you call,” I asked, turning to look at her. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking at the laundry, glaring at it resolutely and refusing to let herself be brought down. She seemed so defensive.
“I don't know. I just felt like I needed to call you… I’m being evicted. I’ll probably have to move home…”
“Probably a good thing,” I muttered, picking up one of the boys and holding him against my chest. He was so small, and he weighed nothing. What was his name? Who would he become? This was a person I was holding. He was mine… and I didn’t know him.
“What?” She snapped at my comment, looking up at me with a ferocity I hadn’t expected. “What did you just say?”
“You guys can’t stay here. This place is a shithole.”
“Like I had so many other options,” she snarled, throwing her hands up in the air and letting them drop against her legs. “What was I supposed to do? Give them up? Go back to school and live my little carefree life like I hadn’t just abandoned my children!”
I hadn’t seen her in almost a year. I hadn’t forgotten her, not by a longshot, but I had forgotten the ferocity that lived behind her eyes.
She’s still so fucking gorgeous.Skinny, exhausted, and at the end of her rope… but gorgeous. There was strength and gumption behind those eyes.
“No, Maria,” I said, resisting her ferocity with my calm. “All I’m saying is… you should have called me right away. I would have helped you sooner.”
