That’s it. That’s her entire response. Frustration claws at my chest, and I push out a breath, trying to expel it from my body.
“Are you going to let us in?” Imani asks, voice coated in sleep and sass.
It’s a sensible question, but Joanna glares at her like she’s just demanded access to the moon and all the stars in the sky instead of the house she’s lived in for years now.
“What time is your curfew, Imani?”
The girls look at each other, confusion radiating between their bodies.
“Ten,” Imani grumbles.
“And what happens when you miss curfew, Isis?” Joanna asks.
Although the line of questioning makes no sense, I wait for Isis to answer, needing to know what the punishment for the crime they haven’t committed is.
Isis’s gaze drops to her feet. “We have to spend the night wherever we were.”
“That’s right, so as of,” Joanna glances at her watching, noting the time. “An hour and two minutes ago, your access to my house was revoked for the night.”
My jaw drops as a shocked and angry scoff sounds behind me. I’m not sure if it’s from Cal or Beck, but it draws Joanna’s attention. She leans to the side, looking around me and the girls to the men at our backs. When she returns to her former stance, there’s something nasty dancing in her eyes.
“Oh, I see,” she says, waving a finger between Isis and Imani. “Y’all been out being grown, huh? And where do you fit in this?” That question is directed at me, and she takes delight in my offense. “You get off on watching little girls with grown men?”
I push the girls to the side, needing them out of the way so I can get in Joanna’s face. A flicker of fear pierces the cloud of loathing around her when I invade her personal space, all thoughts of decorum out the window because of that disgusting allegation.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Does the press know you speak that way in front of children,Madame First Lady?”
The title falls from her lips and hits the ground, dripping with censure and an unsuccessful attempt to dangle the press over my head. I laugh, dragging my tongue over my teeth before I lean in even more, close enough now that I’m able to smell the alcohol on her breath.
“Is that your attempt at threatening me? I live under constant scrutiny, Joanna. There are cameras around me at all times and lies written about me for no reason almost every day. The world finding out that I cursed at you after you accused me and the men kind enough to bring home the children who have been entrusted to your care child molesters wouldn’t even stay in the news cycle for a full twenty-four hours. You know what would stick? Maybe not in the press, but at the very least withthe Department of Social Services? The story of a foster mom repeatedly abandoning her foster daughters and refusing to let them into her home after she got too drunk to come and pick them up from an event that’s been on their schedule for weeks now.”
She rears back. “I’m not drunk!”
Of course, that’s the only part of my statement she deigns to respond to. Unsurprised, I glance over her shoulder, noting the presence of a half empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table, and then look back to her, arching a brow but saying nothing else on the topic.
“You’re going to let them in this house, Joanna. And you are never going to so much as suggest that they have come to any harm while in my care because unlike you, I would die before I let anything happen to them.”
Her jaw works, the desire to respond evident in the flare of her nostrils. I tilt my head to the side, daring her to utter another word, to do anything but step aside and let the girls in. When she does, Isis and Imani let out a collective sigh and step forward, waving goodnight to Cal and Beck before giving me hugs I wish lasted longer.
“I’ll see you next week,” I call out to them as they disappear down the dark hall. It’s as much a promise to them as it is a warning to Joanna that her disliking me won’t get in the way of my relationship with the girls or all the things they’re learning through the coding academy.
Joanna puts her hand on the door, starting to close it even though I’m still standing in the doorway. I step back, letting her have this small win because it’s really all she’s got.
“And I’ll see you too,” I tell her. “At the allotted pick up time, not a second later.”
Malice warps her features, turning them into a mask of hate. “You’re not helping them, you know.”
“What?”
“Isis and Imani, you’re not helping them. All this coddling you’re doing and all these dreams you’re feeding them about going to college and having fancy jobs and big paychecks is just hurting them. They need to know that life is hard and this world is harder.”
“They’ve lost their home, their brother and their mom all before they hit puberty. You don’t think they know that life is hard?”
“I think every time they go to your office, they forget what it’s like to live in the real world. They come in here talking and acting like they’re better than me, too good for the house I raised them in, for the food I feed them and the clothes I put on their back.”
“And you leaving them stranded and refusing to answer the phone for hours on end is what? Payback?”
