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  Part Three would come later, after work, and it involved a hell of a lot more than luck.

  * * *

  When I got home at five, I found the twins running around the massive backyard while their teenage babysitter, Britney, played with her phone on the deck. I stood in front of the kitchen window and watched them unobtrusively for a few moments. They were chasing after a giant beach ball, squealing whenever the chilly, early-May breeze took it and sent it flying. They looked so carefree.

  I thought of my own childhood, spent in apartments and tiny houses that rarely featured a yard big enough to run around in, and felt suddenly grateful that my brother and sister had room to spread out. I’d hated this sterile-looking house when we first moved in during the summer before my last year of high school, mostly because it was just another prop in my mother and stepfather’s sham of a marriage. The twins made living here tolerable even though they were props too, the next logical step in Mom and Alan’s playing-house adventure. Marriage, mortgage, babies. Clearly, this happy-suburban-family fantasy had developed a few cracks over the years.

  “Robin’s home!” Lila shrieked when I stepped out onto the deck. She ran toward me, honey-blond pigtails bouncing against her ears. Drake followed at a slower pace, stopping every few inches to inspect something on the grass.

  “Thanks,” I said to Britney, who stood there, smiling at me expectantly. Oh right. Money. “I’ll be right back,” I told her, and slipped back into the kitchen. Mom always kept an envelope of cash in the cupboard above the fridge for paying babysitters. I stood on my tiptoes to get it, but came back empty-handed. No envelope, no wad of cash. She’d taken it. Of course.

  I grabbed my purse instead, hoping I had enough on me to cover Britney’s eight-hour day. Sliding out a few bills, I returned to the deck. “Is this enough?” I asked, handing her the money as Lila crash-landed into my legs.

  Britney’s eyes popped for a second, then she quickly made her expression flat. “Sure,” she said, waving at the kids and then bolting off the deck like I was about to grab the cash back from her. I wasn’t sure how much Mom usually paid sitters, but obviously I’d overshot it.

  “Robin, Robin, Robin,” Lila chanted. “I’m hungry and it’s my turn.”

  I ran my hand over one silky pigtail. “Yep, it’s your turn to pick dinner. Drake!”

  He looked up from his crouch in the grass, the wind tousling his hair, which was the same honey shade as Lila’s. With a pout, he stood up and started toward us.

  “Drake hit me,” Lila said, shoving up her jacket sleeve to show me the proof. Her arm looked smooth and unblemished.

  “He did?” This was odd. Out of the two of them, Lila was the aggressive one. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  Drake, overhearing this, let out a wail of indignation. Satisfied, Lila darted into the house, leaving me to handle the aftermath. As if I didn’t have enough aftermath to deal with already.

  “It’s okay, Drakey,” I said as I scooped him up in my arms and brought him inside. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

  In the kitchen, Lila was shoulders deep in the pull-out freezer, hunting for frozen pizza boxes. I set Drake down to help her, but he immediately clung to my leg like a baby koala. “Where’s Mommy?” he whined. “I want Mommy.”

  I sighed. It was bound to come up sooner or later. Drake was the closest to our mother, a regular little mama’s boy. Even she couldn’t resist those huge, liquid brown eyes of his; they held the power to thaw even the frostiest heart. “She’s…away on a trip,” I said, improvising.

  Drake let out an ear-splitting yowl, and Lila took this as her cue to start flinging the contents of the freezer all over the kitchen floor. A bag of frozen peas landed near my feet, little green balls spilling out and rolling under the stove. I took a long, deep breath, closed my eyes, and counted backward from ten. I had to talk to my stepfather, and soon. I was a twenty-one-year-old college student, barely able to take care of myself half the time. Not someone’s fulltime Mommy. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

  “Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay.”

  I detached Drake and sprang into action, finding the pizza, replacing the frozen food, plucking peas off the floor. And through it all, I tried to block out the nagging voice in my head, the one that knew, deep down, that no one was coming along to save the day. The kids only had one person they could count on now, and I was it.

  * * *

  Later that evening, when the house was finally quiet, I grabbed the cordless phone and punched in the long-distance number I’d managed to acquire during my lunch break today. My stepfather’s receptionist had no qualms about providing me with his trip itinerary, including the name of his hotel and his room number. I hit ‘call,’ not caring what it would do to the phone bill. It wasn’t like I was the one who paid it.

  “Room three-thirty-seven, please,” I said when a man answered. “Alan Madsen.”

  “One moment, please,” the man said in his clipped accent.

  The phone rang endlessly. I should’ve known. It was midnight in London right now, and Alan was probably out at a pub, or a strip club, still in the midst of wining and dining whatever potential clients he’d gone there to schmooze.

  “Jesus! What is it?” an annoyed voice barked into the phone.

  Taken aback, I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. It was unmistakably my stepfather’s voice, but it sounded raspier than usual. Breathless, like he’d just gotten in from a five-mile run.

  “It’s Robin,” I said, sitting on the sectional couch.

  “Who?”

  “Robin.” In the background, I could hear the murmur of another voice, distinctly female. It hit me then, what I’d interrupted, and my muscles tightened into a full-body cringe. He hadn’t just gotten in from a run. No, he’d been in the middle of screwing some woman who was not my mother. A co-worker, probably, or maybe some local woman he’d picked up in Trafalgar Square.

  “Robin,” he repeated, as if trying to place me. I didn’t see my stepfather often, but usually he remembered my name, at least. “What’s up?”

  I swallowed my disgust and said, “Mom is missing.”

  “What do you mean, she’s missing?” The female voice muttered something unintelligible, and then there was a rustling sound, a body sliding out of bed.

  “She didn’t show up at the daycare to pick up the kids. And when I got home, all her stuff was gone. Clothes, shoes, money, pills, everything.”

  “She’s probably with one of her friends. Yvette…or Justine. Call them.”

  I rubbed at a damp spot on my jeans—bathwater overspill from Lila, who liked to “swim” in the tub and create minor floods. “I did, earlier. They haven’t heard from her in days. She’s gone.”

  “She can’t be gone,” Alan argued. “I bet she’ll be back by the end of the weekend. She’s probably just trying to get a reaction out of me because I—well, I’m sure she hasn’t gone far.”

  “She’s gone,” I said again. Then, to let him know his cut-off sentence hadn’t slid by unnoticed, I added, “Why do you think she left?” What I really meant was, What did you do to piss her off now? She was used to his cheating, so it must have been something major.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Who knows what goes on in that crazy bitch’s head?”

  Resentment bloomed in my chest. Not because he’d disrespected my mother, but because he seemed to be taking this so lightly. “Well, that crazy bitch abandoned two babies,” I bit out. “Who you haven’t even fucking asked about, by the way.”

  “Look,” he said, sounding like the smarmy, quick-tempered Alan I knew. “I can’t deal with this right now, okay? I have another week here, back-to-back meetings…I can’t just hop on a plane because your mother decided to throw a tantrum and run away from home.”

  “Why did she leave?” I asked again, teeth clenched. Since I was the one left behind to clean up their mess, I at least deserved to know what happened.

  Alan sighed, and I pictured
him standing there in his London hotel, the River Thames visible in the window behind him as he ran a hand over his bald spot. “I asked for a divorce,” he said, the anger gone from his voice. “I want a divorce.”

  Again, I couldn’t respond. Divorce. It had only been a matter of time, I supposed. When a couple gets married for all the wrong reasons, that marriage will inevitably fail.

  “I told her,” Alan went on, “that when I get back from the UK, I’m putting the house up for sale. I already have an apartment in the city, closer to work. It’s for the best.”

  “Where is she going to go?” I asked. “And Lila and Drake?” And me, I added in my head. I didn’t like living at home, but Alan had agreed to pay my tuition only, not dorm fees. My job wouldn’t have covered the expenses, so I’d had no choice.

  “Go? Looks like she already left.” His tone was like a verbal shrug. Whatever. “And when she calms down and comes back, she’ll be fine. More than fine, actually. She’ll take me for every penny she can get, I’m sure.”

  “And what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Get your own apartment. Move in with a friend. You’re a resourceful girl.”

  I felt like sticking my arm through the phone, reaching across the Atlantic Ocean, and punching him in the face. “I mean with the twins. I can’t take care of them on my own. I can’t be their mom.”

  “I’ll call my parents. They’ll come and get them, take them back to Lowry for a few days.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Alan’s parents, who lived four hours away and were too old to keep up with one boisterous toddler, let alone two. Alan’s parents, who thought Mom was a gold digger and therefore hated her guts (and mine too, by extension). Alan’s parents, who would step in and take control, claiming what they felt was rightfully theirs. They’d rip my brother and sister away from me, ostensibly for their own good, and I’d never get to see them. They would be scared, missing home and me, and I’d be all alone in this cold, vacant house, marking the days until I had to leave it behind for good.

  I wouldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let it happen.

  “No,” I told my stepfather. “Don’t call them. I’m done with school now. I can take care of them until you get home.” And after that, I had no idea. Alan, with his hectic work schedule and constant traveling, couldn’t look after them even if he wanted to. Even if he did give a shit about their welfare.

  “Well, if you’re sure…” he said, his voice trailing away like he was already distancing himself from the situation.

  “I’m sure. I’m on day shift all week at work, and I can put them in daycare. You’re still paying for their daycare, right?”

  “Your mother takes care of that, but I think they’re paid up to the end of the month.” There was a pause, long and awkward. “Well. I guess you’re all set then, so…”

  All set? On what level was I all set? He was delusional. Nothing ever affected him, or motivated him to step up. Not even this.

  The voice in the background started up again, sounding whiney now, and I could sense Alan’s desperation to get off the phone. As long as he was there, thousands of miles away in a fancy hotel with some bimbo in his bed, he could pretend that he didn’t have two babies at home, not to mention a missing wife and an overwhelmed stepdaughter who was doing her best to keep it all together.

  “I hope she gives you herpes,” I told him, and hung up the phone.

  Chapter 3

  “Maybe you should call the police.”

  I looked up from my Greek salad and met Taylor’s steady, troubled gaze. She was the first person to bring up police involvement, probably because she knew me—and my family situation—better than anyone and usually got right to the meat of things. I shook my head and went back to my salad. “Not yet,” I said.

  She stirred her iced tea with her straw, big green eyes still locked on me. “But they could probably track her using her cell phone signal or something.”

  I sat back in my chair, enjoying the feel of the early-afternoon sun on my arms. At least twice a month, in the rare event that we found ourselves free at the same time, my best friend and I met up for lunch at this cute little café near my work. After filling her in on this latest drama, there was no question that we’d meet today. I’d always been able to count on Taylor to help absorb any blows my piece-of-work mother threw at me.

  “She didn’t take her cell phone,” I said, spearing a black olive. I’d discovered this on Friday night, when I called her number and immediately heard ringing coming from upstairs. She’d left it on her dresser, stripped of any clues that might tell me where she was.

  “Weird,” Taylor said. She pushed away the remains of her turkey sandwich and turned toward the window beside us, which faced the street. She watched the passing cars and pedestrians, biting her bottom lip like she did when she was thinking about something unsettling. We’d known each other since we were thirteen, weathered puberty and several other crises (mostly mine) together, and I knew all her little quirks and what each of them meant. Lip-biting meant thinking. Nail-biting meant she was anxious. Eye contact avoidance meant she thought I was wrong.

  “If she’s not back in a couple of days, I’ll call the police,” I assured her, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. It was Monday and she was still gone, which told me she hadn’t left on some weekend excursion. And the fact that she’d left her cell phone—and no note—meant she didn’t want to be tracked down. Even if the police found her…then what? What would they do? Force her to come back and act like a mom? Arrest her? Wasn’t child abandonment a crime? I’d have to Google it when I got home later.

  “You can’t do this alone, Rob.” Taylor leaned toward me, the ends of her wavy brown hair brushing against the round table top. “It’s too stressful. Maybe it would be better if Alan’s parents—”

  “No,” I said, my voice cutting through the café soundtrack of clinking dishes and the moist hiss of cappuccino machines. “I can handle it.”

  She raised her eyebrows, unsure, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. That the pressure of being the sole caregiver to two rambunctious kids might send me into some sort of breakdown. That the stable life I’d worked so hard to maintain might come crashing down around me from the strain. A month or so before the twins were born, I’d sworn to her—and to myself—that I’d get myself together. And I had. I stopped partying every weekend. I quit smoking. I got good grades and made different friends and dated nice guys instead of douchebags who treated me like shit. I wanted to be a good role model for my brother and sister. Someone they could feel proud of. And, for the most part, that was what I’d been, aside from a tiny relapse one night in the fall of freshman year, when I succumbed to peer pressure, drank my face off, and woke up hungover and half-naked in a strange bed with a guy next to me that I didn’t even remember meeting. Not one of my finer moments.

  “So Alan’s selling the house?” Taylor asked, changing the subject.

  I nodded, mouth full of lettuce. I tried not to think too much about the house, and what would happen when it sold. For now, I just wanted to concentrate on keeping the kids alive until bedtime.

  “Have you given any thought to where you’ll go?”

  I swallowed. “If Mom comes back, I guess I’ll stay with her and the twins. If she doesn’t, I have no idea.”

  “I’d ask if you wanted to stay with us,” she said, smiling, “but I don’t know where we’d put you. Bathtub, maybe?”

  I smiled back at her, thinking of the tiny, one-bedroom apartment she shared with her boyfriend. “You think Michael would mind?”

  She snorted. “He’s so focused on applying for summer internships, he probably wouldn’t even notice.”

  “He just graduated,” I pointed out.

  “I know, but the competition is fierce for museum internships. And he needs a job.” She took a sip of her watery iced tea. “You know his father isn’t going to help us out with money.”

  I nodded again, rememb
ering how mad his father had been two years ago when Michael transferred colleges after his sophomore year so he could move back home and be with Taylor. He was even more furious when Michael and Taylor moved in together last year, and then he damn near blew a gasket a few months ago, when Michael purposely missed the deadline to apply to law school and announced his plan to go for his Master’s in History instead. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, like him, but Michael wanted to be an archivist. Hence the museum internship.

  “I’m sure his mom would slip him some money,” I said, balling up my napkin. “Or your parents.”

  She shook her head. “We want to make it on our own.”

  I placed my hand on my heart in an aw, how sweet gesture. They were so cute, it was borderline nauseating. I couldn’t imagine being with the same person for four and a half years without wanting to smother him in his sleep, but Taylor and Michael were perfect for each other. Meant to be. I’d known it from the first moment I saw them together, back in junior year of high school.

  “I should probably go,” I said a few minutes later. “My lunch hour is almost up and my boss will strangle me if I’m even a second late getting back.” This was speculation on my part, but Wade still hadn’t completely forgiven me for Friday and I didn’t want to test his tolerance.

  We left our cozy spot by the window and headed outside to where Taylor’s car was parked along the curb.

  “Let’s get together this weekend,” she said, squinting against the bright sun as she looked up at me. I’d always towered over her, and she envied my height in the same way my barely-B-cup chest envied her curves. “Go out for dinner or something. You can bring the twins if…” She didn’t finish her thought, but she didn’t have to. The unspoken words hung in the brisk spring air between us.