Page 5 of I Found You
“What do you mean a team of people are on their way here? Now?” I asked.
“Yes, Wyatt. As it turns out, you cannot find an abandoned baby on the side of the street and just take it home with you. You don’t even have any diapers or clothes or formula, for Christ’s sake. What do you plan on feeding this thing?”
Glaring at him, I responded defensively, “I already fedherthis morning. She had milk.” It wasn’t that I expected to just keep the baby and go about my life. I didn’t even want to keep her. I was not father material. But I didn’t like the idea of handing her off to someone else who might not be able totake care of her either.
“Please tell me you didn’t give her, like, whole milk or something.”
“Yeah, that’s all I had. She needed to eat.”
“Babies can’t drink cow’s milk, you fucking idiot!” Luke scolded.
I looked at the little girl snuggling on my chest, still awake after the fiasco in the bathroom, and made a promise to her that she was going to be okay. I would make sure of it.
3
Maeve
As a rule of thumb, I didn’t drink much alcohol. Last night, I had allowed myself to get talked into hanging out at the local bar, Harpoon’s, with some of my old high school friends. We hadn’t really kept in touch over the years, but after running into Abbie at the store, we got to chatting, and next thing I knew, I’d agreed to a Fourth of July get-together.
Being a high school social studies teacher, it was strange to think that I’d been friends with these ladies since I was my students’ age. I was only twenty-nine now, still considered young to most people, but when I compared who I was now to who I was at seventeen, well, I guess there wasn’t much difference for me. But for the other ladies, they had all grown up so much.
I’d had to grow up fast when I was younger. Someone had to take care of Jackson, and it wasn’t going to be our mother. Neither Jackson nor I knew our fathers, although with our ten-year age gap and our mother’s lifestyle, it was clear they were different men. By seventeen, I had taken over all responsibilities for Jackson. By eighteen, I was his legalguardian.
I was on my third cup of coffee, silently wishing my headache would go away and wondering if it was my imagination that Wyatt Wilder kept looking at me at the bar last night, when my phone started vibrating somewhere near me. I put my mug down on the coffee table and started looking around for it. I searched the cushion cracks and under the blanket that I kept on my sofa. When I couldn’t find it anywhere around me, I had to actually get off my butt to look, and lo and behold, I was sitting on it. I had missed the call, but it was a random number, so I wasn’t too concerned. Who still answered the phone for random numbers anyway?
A few minutes later, the same number called again while I was scrolling through social media. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Hello?”
“Hey, uh, is this Jackson’s sister?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked.
My heart began to beat wildly, sweat already starting to bead on my forehead with just those four words. “Yeah. Where is he? Is he okay?”
The kid huffed out a small laugh. “He’s fine, as long as he keeps close to the toilet. He needs a ride though.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my heart rate gradually slowing after hearing that he was okay. “Where is he?”
Great. This wasn’t the first time I’d been called to fetch Jackson. It seemed like no matter how many times I got a call like this, it never got any easier. It had been a while since the last time it happened though. I wanted to believe that was because he wasn’t drinking as much, maybe slowed down a little. But rationally, I knew it was probably because hisso-called friends were helping him out. Where were they this morning? Too drunk or stoned themselves?
I had tried to raise him right, keep him on the straight and narrow path, and I kept coming up short. He dropped out of high school last year. So close to the end. It was his senior year, but he had skipped school so many times he was told he wouldn’t be able to graduate if he missed any more days, so he just signed himself out. I had tried to convince him to go back and finish his diploma or get a GED, but he was more interested in smoking weed, drinking, and running around town with his friends.
I threw on a dress and sneakers and drove to the address the kid provided. Jackson was sitting on the front steps, his head hung low. He picked up his eyes at the sound of the car pulling up, and I could see from here how red his eyes were.
I handed him a water when he got in the car. Jackson threw his seat back as far as it would go and leaned back, guzzling the water. He looked terrible, his skin pale, his eyes red and glassy. The smell of weed and beers wafted off him.
“Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
All I got from him was a grunt, so I left him alone. I was halfway back to my house when he broke the silence.
“I don’t want to go to your house. Just take me home.”
“I can take care of you better at my house. You can sleep in my room—just don’t throw up on the bed.” I offered him a small smile.
“I’m not a fucking kid, Mae. You don’t need to take care of me. Just bring me home,” he snapped.
I tried to keep the hurt off my face. I had been taking care of him most of his life, I couldn’t just stop now. But I took the next right, turning the car toward his apartment complexanyway.
It was still early when I got back to my house, so I decided to make breakfast. If I made a couple of breakfast sandwiches, I could wrap them up and swing by Jackson’s in a bit, just to make sure he got something to eat.
