“Bye,” he said.
After they’d walked away I shared a look with my son. “Harper Shultz? C’mon kid.”
He shrugged. “She’s nice. And she has alotof Pokémon cards.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I opened the back door for him. “All right, Pikachu, in you go.”
Laughing, he launched himself into the backseat and got busy buckling himself into his booster seat. I walked around the front and climbed in the driver’s seat feeling uneasy. This day had taken a turn for the weird.
This wasn’t the first time Jamie Mannor-Shultz had asked me to volunteer in the classroom, but this was the first time she’d seemed so peppy about the possibility. Maybe she was having trouble getting everything she needed for the party. Or the other moms had her number and were dropping out of school activities right and left.
Or maybe I was the only schmuck still naïve enough to sign up.
Oh, god. What had I gotten myself into? Death by a perky, party-planning control freak.
“What are we doing?” Max asked from the backseat.
I realized I had my hand paused on the keys in the ignition but had yet to turn the car on. I blinked, and the world came back into focus. A group of moms stood on the sidewalk staring at Max and me. When I glared at them, their gazes darted elsewhere, quickly focusing on other things.
This time when I felt the urge to roll my eyes, I gave in. Same shit, different day.
“Let’s go home, huh?” I asked Max.
He didn’t answer. He’d picked up the Batman action figure he’d left in the car this morning and started playing with it.
The drive home took twenty minutes. Usually I could do it in half that time, but I got stuck waiting for a train. Clark City wasn’t large enough to have more than one elementary school and it was located on the more affluent side of town. For as often as I complained about the drive, it wasn’t that bad. We still lived inside city limits even if we were on the other side of the railroad tracks. There were farm kids in Max’s class that would have to ride the bus for the next two hours before they got home.
I made a sound as my poor car bounced over the pothole-covered entrance to the Meadowbrooks Mobile Home Park—otherwise known as Trailer Park Palooza.
All right, I added the palooza part.
The park was as glamorous as you’d expect, but it was the only home I’d ever known. And even though I’d sworn up and down that I’d raise kids in a trailer over my dead body, Max was here, and I was still alive, so there was that.
And on top of everything else, I still lived with my mom. The irony was not lost on me.
I had been a nightmare my senior year of high school, bound and determined to get the hell out of this town and never return. But life has a funny way of laughing at our best laid plans. Instead of college and a career and a life far, far away from Clark City, Nebraska, I found myself pregnant and alone—entirely, completely, totally alone.
My dreams had come crashing down around me, gigantic pieces of debris that exploded on impact. There was one dark night that I’d sat curled up on the bathroom floor, positive pregnancy tests scattered around me, weeping at the realization that life was not turning out how I’d hoped.
Mom walked in and found me. She leaned herself against the bathroom door frame and made a sound in the back of her throat. “Pregnant, huh?”
I looked up at her, this beast of a woman that was hardly maternal and hiccupped a sob. “What am I going to do?”
Expecting her to offer to drive me to the abortion clinic or at the very least point me in the right direction, she shrugged and said, “Pregnancy was the best thing that ever happened to me. Maybe it will be for you too.”
My jaw dropped, just barely managing to miss the bathroom floor. She had to be kidding. “What?”
She shot me a rare smile. “You saved me from a lifetime of stripping, honey. Made me straighten up. Made me a better person. If I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with you, I’d probably be dead by now.” She glanced up at the ceiling before adding, “Or at least miserable.”
Wasn’t she miserable now?I thought. But no, I guess she wasn’t. For as poor as we’d been my entire life, I couldn’t remember my mom ever complaining about our circumstances or situation. She worked hard. We always had food. And for the most part, we did love each other.
“You think I should keep it?”
“Baby girl, that child inside of you isn’t an it. He or she is a baby. It’s up to you whether you want to go through with the pregnancy and even if you do, you have options. Adoption, for instance. But know that if you keep your baby, you will always have a place in this home. You are always welcome here.”
Her words hit at some deep aching inside me. It was a newborn feeling itself, maybe younger than the child growing in my belly. I had no idea what my reaction was. Some fresh maternal instinct that stretched downy wings and took a bumbling step forward. “You’d let me stay here with a baby?”
She narrowed her eyes and the lines around her mouth tightened. “You think I’d let you go anywhere else with my grandchild? Of course, you’ll stay here. You’re going to need help.” She paused and stared at her shoes. “Unless you know who the father is?”
