Page 40 of Minted

“Are you sure?” He studies my face carefully.

I nod. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ironically, once we’re out of the apartment complex and moving, like stray kittens might, both of them fall asleep in the car on the way to my place. And when we get there, neither of them says a word. They drag their bags inside, refuse to shower or bathe, and fall asleep on the queen bed in my guest room, curled up into two little balls.

I almost feel guilty about thinking of them as stray cats, because they’re so similar. I want to go to sleep as well, but instead, I do the very thing I’d rather avoid.

I call my boss.

She picks up halfway through the first ring. “I should fire you,” she says.

“The girls’ mom died three months ago, and they’ve been living alone for almost a year while paying her medical bills and their own living expenses.”

She’s utterly silent on the other end.

“They’re at my house now—I’m their emergency foster placement, and they’ll be staying with me for a while.”

“Barbara.”

I’d feel bad too, if I were her. “It’s going to be fine,” I say. “But they may need a little bit of extra attention for the next little while. I’ll still be at work, of course, but after they get out of school, I may need to leave a bit early.”

“Barbara,” Jennifer says, “I told you to get in the car and come to the party.”

“I know,” I say. “But I knew there was something wrong, and I was right about that.”

“And now it’s your problem, because you doggedly insisted on making it your problem. And that means that now it’s also my problem, and I don’t like having more problems. I’m not even sure whether they can be our client, with you as their temporary guardian. Have you thought of that?”

“Wait.” I can’t believe this. “Are you upset that I helped them?”

“You’re shocked by that? You ignored me, and then you did exactly what I said not to do, and then you didn’t show for a party we were in charge of handling—leaving me holding the very empty, very disorganized bag. I looked like an idiot tonight, because you insisted on becoming a white knight.”

“You had James and Kristy with you, and I had already lined everything up. The food, the decorations, the band, and even the cake were already there. I went by earlier to make sure—”

“I had to introduce Gary and the rest of the management team, and I had to give your speech, and I had no idea that any of that was going to fall to me. I looked basically incompetent, which I hate more than anything else.”

“Did you hear any of what I said?” I wish I could slap her through the phone receiver. “Two little girls’ mother is dead and they have no one to care for them. They were living in squalor, surrounded by rats and roaches, and no one even knew.”

“Two little girls I’ve never met, and to whom you had zero obligation were struggling,” Jennifer says. “The reality is that the world is full of sob stories, but we can’t be expected to do something about all of them, and—”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say any of that to me,” I say. “I’m going to tell myself that you’re really drunk or something, and that you aren’t being yourself. Because if I really thought you felt that way, if I really thought you were so selfish that you would order me to walk away from those little girls when I knew something was majorly off, then you wouldn’t have to fire me, Jennifer. I’d quit and never look back, and then tonight would be the first in a long line of holiday parties this season that you’d be handling. All. By. Yourself.”

I hang up.

Before I collapse in bed, which I badly want to do, I call Seren, and the second she answers, I start to cry. “I have no idea how you did this for so many years,” I say. “I’m scared, and I’m exhausted, and I might get fired, and I have no idea what I’ll do if that happens.”

Seren spends more than thirty minutes talking to me, and even though I’m tired, I feel way, way better when we’re finally done. “I’ll come over and watch them any time you need me to over the next few weeks,” Seren says.

“I can’t ask you to do that. You have the inn, and Dave and Killian, and with the holidays—”

“You watched the kids how many times for me?” Seren asks. “Countless. Whenever I felt like I was at the end of my rope, you came running. I can help you now, and I’m happy to do just that.”

“I’m just not sure why I did it. My boss thinks I’m insane, and even though I got mad at her, now I’m wondering whether she’s right.”

“You’re not insane. I know how you felt—I felt the same way when I met Emerson. You just lost your mom, and now you see these poor girls who lost their mother in an even worse way.”

In that moment, I realize that Seren’s a genius.

I lost my mom a little more than a year and a half ago now, and then I lost my dad shortly after. Then my husband quit on me, and I’ve never really felt more alone than I have this year.

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