Tatum, her hair a mess from sleep and still in her pajamas. “Care to share, Loretta?”
Happily, Tatum slides the package over to her. “They yummy, huh?” And then she waits, curiously watching Sadie’s face for her to take a bite. “You like ’em, Auntie?”
Sadie pops a handful into her mouth. “Nothing like little blue balls in the morning.”
I snort, folding the foreclosure notice up. “I have to meet Nahla at the bank this morning, and Emmie is at school. What time is your class today?” Sadie’s been attending ASU for about three years now. Still hasn’t declared a major and spends more time getting to know a local band than she does learning. I love her, but she has absolutely no direction in life. Exceptionally beautiful and a heart to match it, she’s a pushover. She lets people walk all over her and clings to the unstable ones she thinks she can fix. Which for her, currently, is a drummer named Diesel. She’s living at our aunt’s house, and Diesel’s van, has never held a job, and can’t decide if she wants her hair purple or red, so currently, it’s a shade of blue.
You will never meet a more loving person in your life. I guarantee it. I absolutely adore her and always have. Our parents were done having kids after me, but when I was seven, Sadie came along. She was like my own personal baby doll, and I’ve been fussing over her ever since.
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to class today,” Sadie says, hugging Tatum to her side. “I’m thinking I should take this little nugget to the movies.”
Tatum’s eyes light up. “I want to go!”
“Thank you,” I mouth to Sadie, grateful she’s here with me.
LATER THAT MORNING, with Nahla acting as my attorney, and let’s face it, therapist at this point, I head to the bank with the notice in my hand. The longer the time goes by, the more upset I become. By the time I’m at the bank, I’m pissed.
“I’m so angry at him for this, and the worst part, he’s dead, and I can’t get answers as to what he was thinking.”
Nahla reaches for my hand and looks over at me as we stare at the bank in the distance. “Maybe it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Maybe the condom in his wallet was too.” There. I said it, and I’m not taking it back. You can’t make me.
“What?” Nahla whips her head around to stare at me, questioning brown eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“Yep. And, he had an entire box, opened, in the glove box.”
She sucks in air between her teeth. “What the fuck?”
I hold up the foreclosure notice. “Yeah, what. The. Fuck?”
I’ll admit, for the last week I’ve been bordering on fits of anxiety with a sprinkle of depression. Ordinarily, I’d chalk this up to life over twenty-five or the fact that my husband just died, but this is over the top.
Nahla places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I don’t have to be looking in the mirror to know the blotchy spots covering my chest and my neck. It’s obvious my blood pressure is through the roof. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. It could all be a misunderstanding. Please remember that until we get inside the bank.”
“Oh, suck a fart.” I reach for my bag on the floorboard of her car. “There’s no way this is a mistake given that I can’t use my cards, have no money, my cell phone was shut off, and this just in, about to be homeless!”
“I won’t let you become homeless,” she assures me, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go talk to them.”
An hour later, it’s confirmed, I’m screwed. Our checking account is twelve hundred dollars overdrawn, and our mortgage hadn’t been paid since November. It’s March.
They give me the names of some financial counselors, express their sadness for their branch manager dying, and I’m actually surprised they didn’t tell me he was embezzling money at this point because what else could go wrong?
Word to the wise, friends, never say those words out loud because reality will straight up fuck you in the ass.
And here’s how it went from bad to being almost, literally, fucked in the ass. Actually, let’s back up about ten minutes. Tatum is standing in front of me, whirling her dress around while wearing her cowgirl boots she loves so much. “Can I go swimming?”
“The pool is cold, honey. Maybe we can go in the hot tub tonight,” I suggest, smiling