Loose Lips Sink Ships
Page 18
*
Upon returning home, Avery and Lori discovered that their lives were soon to be more terrible than ever. They found Candice crying against the kitchen table, her face buried in her elbow beside some mail.
“What’s going on?” Lori asked, shaking her mother who sobbed all the more. Avery grabbed the letter on the table, scanning it quickly. Her mouth dropped open and the letter fell to the floor.
“They’re foreclosing on the house because of our delinquent payments. We have three weeks to vacate the premises.”
As the shock settled in, Candice quieted down, making everything still and silent. They had no place else to go. They’d be living on the streets. The shame of it all made her heart ache.
“What are we going to do, mom?” Lori asked. “My babies can’t grow up homeless. They need a good home!”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, ok?” Candice moaned. “We have no money and no one to turn to. I just have to hope something happens with my novel. I should really finish that up.”
“Mom!” Avery exploded. “There isn’t any more time for your pipe dream of becoming a famous author. You’ve got to get out and find a real job. You could do some secretary work or maybe something in waste management. You’re awful good at pushing shit around.”
The prospect of looking for a job made Candice grimace. Avery couldn’t remember the last time she’d even applied for one. They’d just been living on child support payments the entire time, letting their savings slowly dwindle down to nothing.
“Why don’t you just have your rich boyfriend take care of all this for us?” she asked, something evil flickering in her eye.
“No!” Avery refused. Insulted, she crossed her arms. “That’s not something a good girl does. We’ve got to find a way to pull through on our own, and we have twenty-one days to do it.”
“Oh, how nice of you to stick us with the responsibility of this while you let your prince carry you away to his castle,” Candice said sarcastically. “But let me tell you, that’s not how it works. He’ll get bored with you before you know it. Maybe your looks start to go, he finds you passed out on the floor next to an empty carton of ice cream and a pile of Beanie Babies, and then you’ll be right back here with us.”
Avery didn’t want to think about if any of those things were true. She did love Carter, but she was too young to make any sort of long-term plans. If they were thrown out on the street, would he take her in? Considering how things had been going lately, she had no reason to think he would.
“It’s a good thing I have another idea,” Candice roused before anyone else could say anything. This time she turned to Lori. “This little bundle of joy is a blessing for us all. We’ll sell the baby to some wife with a frigid womb for a boatload of cash. I think I saw a movie recently about a high school girl who tried to do that. She drove a van or something. What was it called, Inception?”
“No, Mom, that wasn’t the movie,” Avery corrected her, while Lori’s mouth hung open.
“It must’ve been though. When a man and a woman make a baby, it’s called inception. Makes sense to me.”
“That’s CON-ception,” Avery snapped.
“Oh, right. The movie was called Conception.”
“Shut up, both of you!” Lori screamed so loud their ears hurt. “No one is taking away my Hannibal! So just put that out of your minds right now. Avery was right when she said we have to figure out another way to try and keep the house. So just figure something out, Mom. You’re supposed to be the parent.”
Avery slumped into another chair and together the three girls contemplated how they would keep the house. Looking around, Avery found herself recalling memories from her carefree youth that would be banished forever to the past if she were to leave. How had things gotten so desperate and out of control?