I could never do that. I don’t and won’t ever have the heart to do something like that without proof.
“I’m tired,” I reply, forcing a smile. “It’s been alongday.”
“Are you sure you won’t have anything to drink? You know you can have one glass and still be safe to drive, right?”
“Hold that thought.” I laugh while reaching into my jeans and pull out my vibrating phone. Mom’s face flashes on the screen and my stomach plummets. “Hello?”
“Calliope?” Mom’s exasperated tone drifts down the line. “When are you coming home?”
Pulling the phone away from my ear, I double-check the time. “Maybe another hour, why? Is everything alright? Are you okay? Is Nick okay?”
“No, we’re not fine!” Mom gasps. “I can’t get Nick to settle at all. He’s got it in his head that there’s a giant bell being rung at midnight so he thinks there’s no point in sleeping because it will wake him up.”
“Did you tell him there was a big bell?” I ask, covering my other ear and wandering away from the party so I can hear her better.
“No,” she replies in a tone that tells me she very much did. “This isn’t my fault. I told you not to give him so much sugar over Christmas. He’s getting too many of those fake ingredients and it’s making him crazy.”
“Mom,” I sigh deeply. “He’s not crazy, he’s a five-year-old caught in the most exciting time of the year. Did you give him warm milk like I suggested? And read to him?”
Her voice grows suddenly distant as she yells something I can’t decipher and then, in the background, Nick’s cheeky tones snap back. “He’s impossible,” Mom says, her voice back at the phone. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
“Put him on.”
“What?”
“Mom, put him on the phone.” I wave at Victoria who pouts dramatically and waves back, then I leave the party and hurry down the corridor toward my office.
“Mommy!” Nick’s cheery voice fills my ear a second later. “When are you coming home?”
“Hi, baby, I’ll be home soon. Tell me, did Grandma give you some of the candy from your stocking?”
“Yes,” Nick answers immediately, and my stomach sinks faintly. “I–I mean no, no candy, Mommy. No candy!”
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying.” Mom’s voice cuts him off and she’s back on the phone while I grab my coat and purse.
“Mom, I told you not to give him candy after six. No wonder he’s still awake.”
“Well, he missed you,” Mom replies sullenly. “And how was I to know that one little piece of chocolate would keep him up this late?”
“I’ll be home soon, Mom. Love you.”
She doesn’t reply, instead hanging up on me and leaving an odd weight to settle in my chest. It’s never just one piece of chocolate with her, just like it was never her fault when Nick slept past his naptime or couldn’t sleep because she justhadto clear out the attic at an ungodly time.
I’ve given her as much grace as I can since I chose to move in with her. It was the only thing I could think of to keep an eye on her after Dad passed away six months ago. Keeping what family I have left together is my only goal right now, aside from trying to figure out how to keep my job.
The drive home takes too long and gives me far too much silence for my thoughts to spiral down the path of doom. Dad’s funeral took all of my savings and my emotional stability. Focusing on Nick has been the only thing keeping me going, but moving back in with Mom reminded me fairly quickly why I reduced contact with my parents when I turned eighteen.
Moving back home to help Mom was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but it’s eating into funds I don’t have and destroying the carefully crafted peace that arrived when Nick was born five years ago. His sixth birthday is in two months and every spare cent is going toward planning the best birthday he’s ever had. How can I do that if I lose my job?
Over and over, I replay Jimmy’s words in my mind, trying to decipher hidden meanings or warp those words into a scenario that I haven’t thought of before, but all my thought trails lead back to the same truth.
Anyone entering an acquisition with Angelic Jewels is definitely the bigger fish.
“Fuck. Fucking, fucking,fuck.” I get it out of my system, swearing loudly and slamming my hands on the steering wheel as I sit parked outside Mom’s house.
I can’t lose my job.
Not now. Not when everything else in my life is hanging by a thread.
