Page 1 of Heart of Stone
1
ANDI
"Idon't understand," I say, adjusting the squirming toddler in my arms. "What are you telling me, Amanda?"
My cousin's voice sounds thin and crackly on the other end of the phone. "You'll need to look after them for another week—maybe two."
I hear someone calling her name in the background as I struggle to process what my cousin has just dumped in my lap.
"But I can't. I have work."
"I know but you can—shit, I have to go," Amanda curses. "Our plane is boarding."
The shock of her announcement evaporates as reality punches me in the face.
"Amanda, wait! You can't do this to me, I?—"
"Gotta go! Key to the house is in the letterbox. Rent's due tenth of the month. Kisses to the babies. Bye!"
The call disconnects before I can get another word in. I pull the phone from my shoulder, staring down at the blank screen.
"Fuck."
"Fah!" Abby repeats, smooshing my face between her tiny, sticky hands. "Fah, fah!"
Panic tears through me as I stare at the chaos that my living room has become. The one-bedroom apartment I've lived in for the last twelve months has been perfect for me—a single woman without so much as a goldfish.
For me and three kids? Not so much.
I lean down to set Abby on the floor as the weight of Amanda's decision settles on my shoulders.
"Go play with your sister," I murmur, tapping her on the bottom.
Abby rushes off, her chubby little legs barely able to keep up with her. My cousin has three kids under the age of three: twin girls, Abby and Amy, and a little boy, Adam. The A-Team are cute, I'll give them that, but I'm not prepared for the responsibility of three kids. My apartment isn't exactly kid-friendly.
I run a hand through my hair and over my face, silently screaming. Amanda isn't exactly the most responsible individual. She has a tendency to go off for a weekend, leaving me stuck literally holding the baby. But to do this for a week, maybe more? That is unusual, and I don't like it. I don't like any part of the nonsense I've been putting up with for years.
I blame her current boyfriend. The guy has been around for months, and he is bad news. Baby Adam is an example of that. Instead of Paul being at the birth, it was me holding Amanda's hand. But she’s too blind, by love or lust—probably his money—to see what a bad influence he is. But then, I can’t blame him entirely. The fact is, she’s a grown woman who should know better than to leave her kids to go chase a party.
I guess I should be grateful that Paul is still around. At least he pays child support, unlike the twins' dad, who took off before they were even born. Between Paul and Amanda, they aren't exactly the most responsible parents. They mess up regularly, forgetting they have kids and leaving babysitters to call me when they don't show up at the appointed time. More than once, I've cancelled weekend plans or skipped work just to support my irresponsible cousin and her partner.
I adore my baby cousins, don't get me wrong. I love looking after them and being in their lives. But I’m not their parent. And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Amanda and Paul don't consider them their responsibility.
My mind races as I look for other options. There is no way I can call Amanda's mom. My aunt is bad news all over. And my mom? Well, she might be even worse.
An old-school hippie, they both aren’t exactly known for their reliability. Between the drugs, the debts, and the drinking—not to mention the deadbeat guys they bring home every weekend—they’re not exactly Ms. Reliable.
I run a hand through my hair, listening to the kids play.
Amanda wasn’t always like this. We’d been close as kids, just us against a world that wanted to keep kicking us down to the dirt.But somewhere around our teens, we’d begun to drift. I wanted something better than a rusted trailer and a string of men who stayed long enough to drink all your beer but not long enough to pay for another six-pack.
And Amanda… well, she’d chosen differently.
I'd escaped our trailer park on my eighteenth birthday, working my butt off to get my GED and enroll in a course I knew would pay decent money. Being a mechanic isn't exactly the job of my dreams, but the money I make sure as hell makes up for it.
While the kids I'd gone to school with had dreamed of fame and fortune, I'd wished for more than a hundred bucks in the bank, or a regular hot shower that didn't involve a rec center. Add in a night of not listening to sex through paper-thin walls, and all my dreams would have come true.
By all standard metrics, I could consider myself successful. And yet here I stood, a pseudo-single parent, looking after three kids who aren't my own, while my cousin goes off to God only knows where to party with only the devil knows who.
