She shook her head, pulled on a nightie, grabbed her pillow and declared, ‘I’m sleeping on the couch.’ She was so angry. How dare he spring that on her? She felt like she wasn’t doing the boys justice as it was. The café was more than a part-time job; she had slowly been increasing her hours there or doing paperwork at home. She didn’t like bringing work home but sometimes it was unavoidable. Billy stepped up on those nights, listening to Ty do his reading or cooking dinner. He only knew how to make a handful of meals, but she so appreciated his help. Then there was her baby Wren. Only seventeen, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She couldn’t get out of him what was wrong, and she would have called Justin if he and Wren were still speaking. Maybe that was half the problem; if she knew what it was, she might be able to help. Wren wouldn’t want her to call. She instinctively knew that would drive him in the opposite direction.

The following morning, Vanessa was up and had put away any evidence that she had slept on the couch before anyone else was awake. Billy tried to apologize as soon as he saw her, but it wasn’t an easy fix of an apology. In Vanessa’s eyes he had basically said that her boys weren’t enough, and she wouldn’t stand for that. He all but groveled, and eventually she accepted his apology, right before he walked out the door. He looked contrite, and Vanessa didn’t think he’d be bringing having a baby up any time soon.

20

Olivia had no real understanding of how time passed. It was almost as if she was in a bubble that no one else could penetrate. She knew her dad went to work and when he was home, he would hover around her asking her what was wrong. She would whisper that it was nothing then she would walk back into her room and crawl under her comforter, the only place that didn’t feel so aggressive. Olivia had completely stripped her room of everything save the bed. One day she just couldn’t stand the thought of looking at all that stuff anymore. It belonged to someone else, someone that she wasn’t anymore. She put it all in the hallway and it was gone that very night. Her dad never said a word about it. Maybe he recognized that she just couldn’t think, let alone talk right now. She spent most of the days asleep, her nights reserved for staring up at the expanse of ceiling above her.