From: [email protected]
Elliot,
Were you aware babies sleep a lot? As I am efficient with my time, I’m using Joey-Girl’s nap to send emails and watch TikToks of a woman who’s a singer on a cruise ship.
I’m…actually shocked you’re running late. Is this the first time in your life that’s happened? How does it feel?
People who work in the hospital keep calling me “Mom.” When that happens, I look over my shoulder to see who they’re talking to.
It’s me. I’m still wrapping my head around that.
Yours,
Catherine
P.S. if you saw even a hint of my emergence, I’ll scream!
Grinning, I scheduled flowers to be delivered to Catherine’s house for after she arrived home, along with a gift card to an online store that had everything since she hadn’t answered me with what she needed.
I could have waited for Daniel to do it tomorrow, but it felt like something I had to do myself. Besides, I had time during the ride, so why not make good use of it?
Efficiency.
Chapter Ten
Catherine
To me, there was nothing beautiful about birth. The things that came out of my body had been truly shocking, and I’d been terrified out of my mind.
But then, her.
Josephine March Warner.
The prettiest girl to ever land on this planet.
I would never forget the events that came before her, but her very presence made the pain, grossness, and terror fade into a distant memory. I would have done it a thousand times over to relive the moment I got to meet my girl.
We’d been home for six weeks, and she was my only up. The rest had been down, down, so fucking far down, I had no idea how I’d claw my way back to the surface.
First of all, Liam was a thieving motherfucker.
I’d learned this the day after Joey and I had come home from the hospital. The contractor Liam had hired had knocked on my door, demanding payment for the work he’d done and materials he’d bought.
“Sorry. I can’t continue working until you pay the next third.”
He didn’t sound sorry. There was no sympathy behind this man’s hard, black eyes, even as I bounced my fussy, hungry baby on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Can you explain what you mean? Liam paid for all of it. I gave him—”
“He paid for a third of the estimate. The second third was due a month ago, but I gave some leeway, seeing as you’d just had a baby. Leeway’s over. Need the next installation so I can continue the job.”
I shook my head. “No. That can’t be right. Do you have a contract I can look at?”
To make everything easier, I’d given Liam the money for the renovations. Since he hadn’t completed it on his own, he’d used it to pay the contractor he’d hired without consulting me.
It hadn’t been a small amount. Tens of thousands of dollars. Everything I’d had to my name. While it might not have covered everything, it should have been enough for the work that had been done, which was why I was utterly confused.
Jack, the contractor, cleared up my confusion quickly.
According to the contract he gave me, he was telling the truth. Liam had only paid a third of the estimate. I had no idea what to do. That money was gone, the account emptied. I’d been worried about it, sure, but I had trusted Liam to do right by me. After all, this house was supposed to be for our future.
“I’m guessing by your expression you don’t have the money.”
I looked up at Jack, trying with all my might to hold back the panic churning in my gut, and shook my head.
“Liam told me he paid you.”
His face twisted with bitterness. “He lied to us both. Unless you have the cash, I’m going to have to take back the materials I used on your place and hope I can recoup my losses.”
And so, he did. Jack showed back up the next day with a group of workers and stripped my home bare. The floors, bathroom fittings, most of the kitchen, pipes, electrical fittings—all were carried out and loaded onto their trucks.
By the time they’d left, I was down to one bathroom and my and Joey’s bedrooms. My living room floors were plywood, and my kitchen consisted of a fridge, toaster, and microwave on a rolling cart.
I was in a mess.
The house was almost unlivable, and I was barely scraping by with the massive mortgage payments. I had no savings left and only a meager salary coming in since HR had never moved me from a contract employee to full time.
I’d gone to talk to them the week before I’d given birth but left in a panic, without saying a single word, at overhearing a conversation about an employee falsifying references on his résumé.