Chapter 6 Chapter Six
My stomach dropped the moment he moved. I scrambled back fast, my heel catching the chair leg, and his hands missed me by inches. He let out a slow breath, then grabbed my wrist and shoved the money into my palm.
"I don't want to ever see you near my sister again. Is that clear?"
His grip tightened as he dragged me toward the door. I wanted to say something, to tell him I wasn't the one sending the letters, that he had the wrong person entirely. But I swallowed it back down. He wouldn't believe me anyway; nothing I said would land differently in his ears, so I let my feet follow where he pulled.
Behind us, Emma started screaming, both hands pressed flat against her ears.
He stopped.
The door clicked open before he could decide what to do next.
"What's going on here?" Mrs. Helen stepped inside, her eyes moving slowly between us. Nat released my wrist and dropped one hand into his pocket, running the other through his hair.
"She's not fit for Emma."
Mrs. Helen's eyes moved to me. "What did she do?"
"It doesn't matter what she did. I don't want her near Emma."
Mrs. Helen was quiet for a moment, her gaze shifting between us. Then Nat moved closer to her and lowered his voice. I turned my eyes, focusing on the wall, the floor, anywhere that wasn't them. I didn't want to hear what he was saying, and I didn't want him to think I was trying to.
Heat crept up my neck as I kept my eyes on the floor.
"Emma." Her voice barely lifted, just stretched the name out slowly, and the screaming stopped, then turned back to Nat.
"I already ran a check on her." Her eyes drifted to me briefly, as if I was a problem she was already solving. "I have a busy schedule this month, and you have a tournament to practice for. Neither of us will have the time to take care of her. She stays until I figure out what comes next."
Nat went still. His expression changed, not anger exactly, more like something that had been hit in a tender place.
“Emma is not a distraction,” he snapped, the words landing like a long-overdue correction he had held back for too long.
Mrs. Helen held his gaze without flinching.
He turned and walked upstairs.
"Natt." She called after him, but he didn't stop. She watched the staircase for a moment, then turned back to me.
Emma's voice drifted in before she could speak.
"Mummy, she said she's good at mathematics,"
Mrs. Helen looked at me for a long moment.
"Stay off his path," she said quietly, and I nodded. "How would you like your payment?"
"Cash."
She counted out forty dollars and held it toward me without quite extending her arm all the way, so I had to step forward to take it.
"We have a dinner party tomorrow at eight. Come early and put her to sleep before we leave." She tucked her purse under her arm and started for the staircase. "Don't be late."
"Of course, Mrs. Helen. Thank you."
Her heels clicked up each step until the sound disappeared into the landing above.
I walked back to Emma, whose food was still only halfway finished. She was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest, arms looped around them, her eyes fixed on a spot on the table that had nothing on it.
“Can I see the assignment now?" I asked, keeping my voice soft.
"Sure!" Her face changed instantly. She dropped her feet to the floor and ran upstairs, coming back minutes later with her books pressed to her chest. We spread everything across the table and went through it slowly.
"I'll see you tomorrow." I reached for my bag, then stopped. The hundred dollars was still sitting on the table where I had left it. I looked at it for a moment, then slid it across to her. "Give this back to Nathaniel."
She nodded, clutching her books to her chest.
The night air hit me as I stepped outside. I stood on the front step and breathed. I hadn't realized how tightly I had been holding my shoulders until they finally dropped.
I got to the bus station just as one was pulling in. The ride home was short, but I sat by the window and watched the streets blur past without really seeing them.
"Hey Mummy, you're home early." I dropped my bag by the door. She was on the couch with a beer, and something about her face made me cross the room slower than usual.
"I was let go again." Her voice was steady in that careful way people hold themselves together when the alternative is worse. "The accountant made errors and put them on me. HR didn't even verify before they made the decision." Her eyes filled slowly. "The landlord came by earlier, too."
"Don't worry, Mummy." I sat beside her and pulled her in. She let me, resting her head on my shoulder for just a moment before she straightened the way she always did.
"Elma called the landline. What happened to your phone?"
"It fell. I'll call her back." I had switched it off to avoid the comments and told Elma to use the landline instead.
"Oh, how was the job?"
"Good. The little girl is lovely."
"That’s good. I made noodles."
"Thank you, Mummy." I kissed her cheek and excused myself to my room.
I pulled the scholarship letter from the drawer before I had even sat down. I had read it so many times that the fold lines were soft at the edges. It covered my tuition and accommodation, but there was still a list beneath those two reliefs, and I had gone through it a thousand times with a pen.
Textbooks, one hundred and fifty dollars. Ticked, scraped together from shifts and the occasional allowance Mum slipped me when she could.
Laptop. I glanced at the old one on the desk, which my father had gifted to my mum years ago. It took forever to start up now, and I had a whole degree ahead of me.
I took a slow breath, then added the sixty dollars to the small stack tucked in the back of the drawer.
I lay back and looked at the ceiling. I wasn't going to think about everything that was happening. I closed my eyes and tried to find something else to hold onto, but I couldn't. The tears came quietly, and I didn't bother stopping them. I was so tired of things falling apart the moment they started to look okay.
I had made up my mind to find another job, double my shifts somewhere, and make it work without stepping back into his space. But then I thought of Emma's face at that dining table, the sadness that lived in her eyes, and how quickly it had lifted the moment I sat beside her.
I couldn't bring myself to abandon her.
"M, you don't want to eat my food at midnight, do you?" Mum's voice came from outside the door.
"Coming,"
I got up, grabbed a change of clothes, and headed for the bathroom.
I was halfway through my food when the landline rang.
Mum answered it in the kitchen. I heard her voice shift into a careful, controlled tone.
"Stop calling here." She turned her back to the kitchen doorway, lowering her voice.
"Who is it?" I set my fork down.
She appeared in the doorway, still holding the receiver, one hand pressed over the speaker.
"Wrong dial." She hung up and set the receiver down carefully, smoothed her sleeves once, then came back to the table and didn't say anything else.
But her hands were wrapped around her cup too tightly, and she didn't look at me once for the rest of the meal.
