Page 23 of Biker's Baby

TEN

Iris

I was sittingin a chair at the dining room table when Abe came in from work.

It was nearly six in the morning, and I had just started a pot of coffee when he walked inside.

“Good morning,” I said sweetly.

“Morning.”

“I’m starting coffee. Do you want me to pour you a cup?” I asked.

“I’m going to get some sleep. Maybe in a few hours,” he replied.

“It’s not going to be as good then,” I told him.

“I’ll make a new pot.”

I’d hoped for more of a reaction out of him than the sensible one, but I knew he was tired, and I wasn’t going to bother him. He had been at work since leaving at nine the night before, so I was sure he meant it when he said he was tired.

Still, I felt bad knowing that he was coming home to a house that was filled with things that didn’t belong to him, and to two people who had all but taken over his living space. He said he didn’t mind, and I did do my best to keep Tristan’s things out of Abe’s way, but it was impossible for us to be entirely picked up.

He didn’t say anything that made me think he was angry about it, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being the world’s biggest pest by still being here.

I knew I had to get my life together, find the solution to my problem, and get on with my life. I couldn’t stay here. Not with the way life had changed. If I was going to stay, I would have done so years ago when he asked me to. I didn’t want to stay then, and I wasn’t staying now.

“I’ll try to keep the noise down,” I promised him as he slipped through the kitchen, putting his dirty lunch dishes in the sink before cutting through the living room to head back to his bedroom.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll put on something for white noise,” he said over his shoulder on his way into the other room. I bit my tongue. It didn’t help me any knowing that he had to do something like that to help with the noise Tristan made, but there wasn’t any other way around it.

My toddler was two years old, and two-year-olds made noise. They were too young to know when they had to keep quiet, even when I did my best to make sure that he was. Still, I would do my part no matter what Abe said to me.

Tristan did a good job of sleeping through the night, and he normally didn’t get up until eight or nine in the morning if the house was quiet enough, so I decided to clean the kitchen as best I could before heading into the living room to watch something on tv.

I kept it turned all the way down so it wouldn’t disturb the sleepers in the house, but it gave me something to do while I got ready for the day. I was determined to make strides moving forward in my plan, and the only way to do that was to make sure that I kept on top of things until I got the answers I was looking for.

I checked on the applications that I’d already put in, and I tried not to be discouraged when it didn’t look like there was any response yet. I knew it could take a few days or longer to hear back from any of the places I’d applied to, especially since I had applied online, and I was coming from a different state.

But, it still didn’t do anything to make me feel like I was making real progress.

I knew I could call or email any of the places that I’d sent an application and ask about how things were going, but I wasn’t sure if now was the right time to do that. It wasn’t that I was scared they would accept me, but if I did get hired somewhere, then I really had to get moving to make sure that I had my things, and I was ready to head to another state entirely.

It was easy enough with a little baby in that I didn’t have to worry about things like school, but I did have to worry about who was going to watch him while I was at work, and, even more than that, where we were going to live. There were still a lot of details that I had to work out before I was hounding anywhere for a job, but at the same time, I knew that I had to get that job before I would be able to afford to put something over my head.

It was a vicious circle that made me want to curl up into a ball and cry. Of course, that wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I dragged my sleeve over my face and took a deep breath.

In a few hours, Abe would be back out here, and I could talk to him then about some logical next steps. He would leave most of it up to me, I already knew, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have some sort of advice he could share with me.

And I wasn’t afraid to ask him, either.

As long as I felt I was putting forward a brave front and making deliberate steps in the right direction, I felt he was willing to help me.

So that’s what I’d do.

“No, I’ll meet you there,”Abe said.

At first, I thought he was talking to me, but I quickly realized he was on the phone in his room. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken a call and stayed in the room to talk to whoever needed him. I tried not to take it personally, but it was difficult not to overthink what was going on.

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