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“Fee, open up,” Sarah hisses into his dark bedroom, and Felix jerks awake, staring at the window. Sarah is crouched on the sill, dark hair falling over her face.
“Sarah,” Felix whines, tumbling out of bed. She falls into the room as he opens the window and curls up on his bed, dirty boots still on her feet. “Come on, S is going to kill me.”
“Piss off,” Sarah says, snuggling into his blankets. “Come here. Keep me warm.”
Felix crawls in beside her and lets her hold him. He’s all elbows and knees, a skinny thirteen-year-old with a bad haircut, but Sarah doesn’t care. She’s been kicked out for the second time until she tries to get her high school equivalency like S says she should. Felix doesn’t know why Sarah dropped out—she was almost done, anyways.
Then again, Felix doesn’t really understand the world around him, even though he’s always been decent at understanding himself. Himself and his sister—he’s never needed much else.
He thinks tonight might be the night when he tells her, says the words out loud—I like boys like you like them. But when he opens his mouth to speak, all he can feel is Sarah’s warm, beery breath on the back of his neck, slow with sleep.
The next morning, he gets up early and makes Sarah two sandwiches and fixes her a thermos of coffee. But by the time he gets back to his bedroom, she’s gone, the window shut once more.
*
Siobhan Sadler has never been under the illusion she’s a good woman. She’s a smart woman, and she can be a loving woman—she can even be a great woman if a situation should need one.
But she’s not good. And right now, at this moment, with one kid suspended from school with a black eye and one kid sitting in front of her with a positive pregnancy test, she’s never felt worse.
“Jesus Christ, Sarah,” she says, trying to keep the shake from her voice. She feels heat rising in her throat. “I never thought you were a stupid girl.”
“I’m not stupid,” Sarah says, and her voice breaks easily, chin wobbling with held-back tears. She’s too skinny, too pale—Siobhan would suspect she was using drugs, but she knew all the signs, and Sarah didn’t have any. “I’m scared.”
“Well, so am I,” Siobhan snaps, getting up from the table. She paces in front of the humming refrigerator. She’s good at this, she’s always been good at this—adapting, giving more of herself. But she never expected a baby. Not from Sarah. “You can’t have a child. Not now. Not where you’re at.”
“Fuck you,” Sarah spits, tears spilling over, and she hardly ever swears at Siobhan, but Siobhan can tell she’s breaking apart. “Mum, I don’t know what to do.”
So Siobhan tries to be good. She comes behind Sarah, wraps her arms around her, breathes in the smoky scent of her hair. “That’s why I’m here, love.”
So she becomes a grandmother. And Siobhan would never admit it out loud, but she thinks she’s never been better at anything else.
*
Felix can’t do this for much longer. He’s only one man, and he just can’t.
“I know, love,” he sighs desperately, jouncing Kira in his arms, trying to soothe her. She has another ear infection, a bad one this time, and S is working the late shift, and Sarah hasn’t been home for weeks, and Kira won’t stop crying. “What do you want?” He feels his voice crack. “God, just tell me, why can’t you just tell me?”
His loft isn’t new, but it’s newly his, and he can’t put Kira on the bed because he hasn’t washed the sheets since his last trick, and the table is covered in paint and dirty dishes, and he just can’t, and…
“Da-dad…” Kira whines, crying turning to hiccups. She presses her face into his neck.
Felix slides to the kitchen floor, back to the cupboards, Kira cradled in his arms. “I’m not your daddy,” he whispers into her silky hair. “You don’t want me as your daddy. Your daddy is a soldier off to war,” Felix says, eyes drooping, too tired to think of a more interesting lie. “He’s big and strong and he’ll come home for you, just like Mum will come home for you, and you’ll grow up with lots of toys and a good school and your own bedroom.”
Everything we didn’t have, he thinks.
“No,” Kira pouts, curling into his chest.
Felix laughs, and knows then that it doesn’t matter if he’s not Kira’s father, if she’s not his in that way. He just knows that they’ll make it through the night.
*
“I wasn’t always there for you,” Siobhan hears Sarah say from Kira’s bedroom. She pauses in the hallway, ear cocked towards the door. The stars and moons from Kira’s nightlight cast eerie, lovely shapes into the hallway.
“I know,” Kira responds. Her voice is plain and sweet, not sad or accusing. She’s always been a smart girl.
“Does that make you angry?”
Siobhan holds her breath for a moment, listening hard. Sarah’s a good mum. She had her troubles, but all mothers do. Siobhan’s had plenty in her time. But she’s never heard Sarah sound so frightened before, as if her daughter’s answer could shatter her.
“No,” Kira says, and Siobhan hears fabric shift, like they’re cuddling close together in her bed. “I would be mad if you didn’t come home. But you did.”
“And I’m never leaving you again,” Sarah says, voice fierce. “I promise.”
“You don’t have to promise,” Kira says. “I believe you, Mommy.”
A year ago, the words would’ve broken Siobhan’s heart. But Kira’s trust in her mother is not unfounded. Siobhan believes Sarah, too. She trusts Sarah.
“Stop being a creep,” Felix whispers from behind her, and Siobhan startles, giving him a slap on the arm. He laughs, throwing an arm over her shoulders. “Let’s get a drink, Mum. Leave these two alone for a bit.”
Siobhan nods, leaning her head on Felix’s shoulder. Never in a million years did she think her life would be like this, with her kids grown into beautiful, wild, strange adults, her granddaughter sleeping peacefully in a warm bedroom with so many people who loved her. “A drink sounds perfect,” she says, and gently closes Kira’s bedroom door. “But you’re buying.”