Page 16 of Secret Baby for the Triplets

“Sorry, sugar plum!” she chirps. “I missed your call!”

“It’s all right,” I inhale again. “I just got fired… or laid off. I’m not sure which one.”

My best friend audibly gasps. “What?! What happened, Emerson?”

“They’re downsizing, I guess. Our location is closing permanently, so everyone in our building got let go. I don’t know. I kind of zoned out when I got the email. The employees’ reactions were pretty bad. It was ugly. I think there was a guillotine.”

“I bet,” Mae sighs. “I don’t know why they ever did away with those in the first place, to be honest. That’s a trend that never should have gone out of style if you ask me.”

“Amen, sister.”

“Oh, honey, where are you now? My students are at recess, and I have bus monitoring duty after hours. But after the little heathens are out of my care, I can come to your place, and we’ll drink wine and curse out your bosses. Will is working the night shift this week, so he won’t miss me a bit.”

My stomach lurches at the thought of wine.

“Not tonight,” I tell her. “This weekend?”

“You bet. I’ll cancel everything, and we’ll make it a hangover extravaganza. But keep your spirits up. Everything will work out okay. I’ll ask around and see if anybody is hiring…”

She trails off, and I have to smile to myself. “Thanks, Mae. I’ll be fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“You bet. I’ll call you later. Don’t you worry about anything. I’ve got your back.”

We hang up as I pull into my neighborhood, but as I stop in my complex, I’m again struck with a feeling of weakness.

Oh, get over yourself, Emerson, I snap internally.It’s a job loss, not a death in the family. You didn’t even like it that much, anyway.

But I do like food. And having a place to live. And clothes. And all the other little things that money buys.

A familiar sense of anxiety threatens to take me over, and I stuff it down. All those years of therapy can’t have been for nothing.

But now, I can’t afford anxiety, either.

My health insurance is going to expire.

* * *

Sweat beads pop over my brow as I look around my half-packed apartment. Tears of frustration well in the back of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I’ve spent enough time feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t have the luxury anymore. A month of job searching and hoping hasn’t been enough. Nothing has panned out, not a single goddamn lead.

The unemployment payments aren’t going to cover next month’s rent, car payments, and the rest of my bills. I’ve stretched myself as far as I can, and now I have to make difficult choices.

I have to tell Mom and Greg I need to move in with them until I can get on my feet, but that’s not a call I can bring myself to make. The disappointment in Greg’s voice when I told him I lost my job in the first place still rings in the back of my head, and Mom’s too-supportive optimism makes me feel like such a failure.

She had made it work without anyone when my deadbeat biological father took off. There had been no grandparents to bail her out, no security backup. I shouldn’t need to interrupt her life when she’s finally in a good place. I’m sure Greg senses it coming, too, my stepfather hinting that he could “help” if I “really need it”.

Gee, thanks, Greg.

Honestly, I don’t want their money or to move into their house. I want my life and independence. And I would have that if someone would just give me a chance.

But losing my apartment, my job, and my dignity isn’t the worst of it. There’s an even worse reason I can’t call my mom and stepdad.

At least not until I take care of another call first.

I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep it from quivering. The screen in front of me has been the same for over an hour. I’ve explored every tab on the website, poring over the beautiful pictures of perfectly bred horses and immaculately kept grounds.

There are a few pictures of people, grinning cowboys, and well-postured trainers on graded horses, but the site focuses predominately on the services and history of the ranch. None of the faces are familiar to me even though I’ve zoomed in and studied them at length.

I’ve read the blurb a dozen times already, but I read it again, mostly because I’m procrastinating on my next move. Maybe an asteroid will strike down and save me from having to make any moves at all. The dinosaurs never saw it coming. Could I get so lucky?

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