Page 3 of Unbreakable Love

Some nights, as I was cleaning the house after she was snuggled in bed and I was crouched at the coffee table meticulously sweeping up glitter that had somehow found a way into my home and was currently spilled all over the table and the rug at my feet, I was damn thankful Monica took off.

She gave me a gift that I never had to worry about splitting between two homes, a child raised moving back and forth between parents, who I was now certain would someday come to despise each other, forced to put on a fake smile and pray like hell our internal anger with each other wouldn’t affect the way my daughter valued herself.

But in all of that thankfulness? In all the hard days and the most beautiful moments? Glitter was the absolute devil. There was no larger evil in my eyes.

I shoved to my feet and tossed the wet rag I’d used to wipe it all up into the trash, knowing that was useless. Once glitter arrived, it’d stay with us for the rest of eternity. Once I vacuumed, finished cleaning the kitchen, and made sure our lunches were packed and ready to go the next morning, I locked the doors, turned off the lights, and headed to bed.

Life with Josie was difficult but fulfilling.

But as I thought of the phone call and then the email from the school I read once we got home, it was obvious change was coming. It was brewing in my gut, and that gut was telling me to proceed with caution.

Something was coming that was going to rock our tiny world of two, and I only hoped it didn’t end up leveling us to the ground in its wake.

TWO

PENNY

“How are things going there? Nervous?” my little sister, Maize, asked.

“Petrified.”

Maize was in college, something I’d forced her to do when she had no direction, drive, or motivation. I worked my butt off to make sure she’d get there, though. Now that she was in her sophomore year and loving everything about college life in Missouri, I had no regrets for how hard I was on her when we were growing up.

I’d do anything to ensure neither of us ended up like our mom.

“And you’re all moved in?”

I spun in a slow circle in the cozy living room that opened to a kitchen with an island large enough to seat four. “I’m getting there. My furniture arrived at least, but I still have all my things to put away.”

“And you’re ready for tomorrow?”

I scoffed. “Absolutely not.”

The teacher I was taking over for almost halfway through the year was not only a teacher, but she was beloved in New Haven. At fifty years old, she’d not only taught most of the early elementary-aged classrooms, but she also taught children who grew up, stayed in town, and then taught their children. She was leaving big shoes to fill, and if I didn’t do a good job this year, there was a chance I wouldn’t be asked to return. After only being here a few days, I didn’t want to leave.

New Haven might have been a small town in the middle of nowhere eastern Colorado, but it was hopping with activity and heavy on the friendliness.

“You’ll do great. You always do.”

“Thanks, sis. I hope so. How’s your week going?”

“Same as always. School is fine, work sucks, and the boys are all idiots.”

I chuckled. Unlike me, Maize had no problems sampling the large variety of men on her college campus. I went in the complete opposite direction and avoided them all. Our mom had made it a mission to own the world record for how many strange men she could bring home around her young daughters so I decided early on that men were never going to be the most important factor or desire in my life. Get myself through school, be there for Maize, start my career, and find a place to settle in for a quiet life. That was my only focus, my primary goal.

“What’d they do this week?”

“Ugh. Nothing big, and that’s the problem. It’s almost like Mom really didn’t bring home loser after loser. I’m also starting to believe that really is the best there is.”

“It’s not, Maize.” She knew better. While our mom protected us and loved men, she also had the crappiest taste in them. That was probably because half the men she brought home had also seen her stripping off her clothes earlier in the night at the strip club she worked.

No hate to her for that, either. Mom did what she needed to do to make sure she gave Maize and me a decent life. Getting pregnant with me at sixteen and then getting kicked out of her parents’ house hadn’t left her with many options. She wasn’t a bad woman or a bad mom. She was a woman who went searching for love in all the wrong places and found exactly what you’d expect she would.

“I know,” she grumbled. “It’s just that all these guys I meet think the idea of showing their interest in me is a two in the morning text that says yo, you up? And then can’t return a text during the daylight hours.”

“Maybe they’re all vampires.”

“Hardly,” she snickered. “They’re way too tan for that.”

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