He pushes off the wall, close enough that I get the full scent of his nasty body odor, then ambles off whistling.
I let myself in and lock the door behind me, both locks, and lean against it.
Jamie, fourteen and furious at the entire world, sits on the couch. Cara is on the floor drawing on a scratchpad. Oisin comes barreling toward me.
“MaeMae!" He slams into me, wrapping his arms around my knees, and for that one second, everything is worth it.
"Hey, baby." I scoop him up. He weighs nothing. His shoes are too small again—I can see his toes pressing the ends.
I make dinner from what's there—pasta, the end of a jar of sauce, the last of a loaf of bread. I serve the kids then stand at the sink and eat the leftovers off Oisin's plate when he's done, because there isn't a fifth portion.
The cupboard's down to a box of rice and some flour. Tomorrow's a plasma day. I sell my blood at the center on Western for forty dollars a pop.
Forty dollars is forty dollars, and the kids have to eat.
After they're in bed, I sit at the kitchen table rubbing my forehead.
Two dollars and thirty cents in change. That's all we’ve got. We’re out of food, rent is due Friday, and despite what I told the landlord, I won’t have it. The numbers don't work. The numbers haven't worked in years. So far, I’ve just managed to outrun them.
Then I remember the envelope I stuffed into my purse when the mail came, so I wouldn't have to look at it yet.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
I read the letter twice.
A scheduled home visit. A date, two weeks out.
A caseworker with a clipboard and a checklist will be walking through this apartment, opening the bare cupboard, readingJamie's behavioral reports from school, asking Cara a question Cara won't answer, and deciding, after everything I've bled and sold and swallowed, that I am notenough.
The four of us will be scattered into separate houses. The kids will be thrown into the system that I’ve gutted the past three years of my life to keep them out of.
I look down the hall at the bedroom door. Behind it, sleeps my whole family—a family I’ll do anything to protect.
I know what needs to be done.
I've made thousands of sacrifices. What's one more?
It’s the only way.
I’ll marry the mobster.
The heavy wooden door of St. Brigid’s looms in front of me.
I can do this.
With a deep breath for courage, I swing open the door and step inside.
A man dressed in a dark suit stands near the altar.
My knees won't stop shaking, and as I make my way to him, his stare bores into me, causing me to falter slightly.
The man takes a step toward me. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and I’m sure his suit probably sports a designer label. His presence makes the air shift.
This is him? My betrothed.
He's not old. He's not the graying, twice-my-age, pot-bellied monster I'd been bracing for. He's maybe in his late twenties, early thirties at most. Dark hair, sharp jawline, laughing green eyes.
And he's gorgeous.
