5. Fallon

Fallon

"Oh, thank god," Randall says the moment I walk in the front door with Chloe. I stop, staring at the kitchen and living room, my brain taking a moment to register that this is the same house we left this morning.

"Oh, god, Randall…" Chloe's voice is soft with the gently, chiding tone she uses. She reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, scanning the room. "This is a lot."

"You try it," he says, his voice slightly tinted with hysteria. "Just try taking care of this thing for more than an hour. It's like living with a bomb."

"She's a girl," I say, stepping forward and taking the baby from him. "And thank you for taking care of her. Seriously, I know it couldn't have been easy."

"I just wish Gerald would come home from work." Randall wrings his hands together as he backs out of the room. "Seemed like the guy knew what he was doing."

When he's gone, it's just Chloe and me in the living room. I stand there holding the baby, surveying the mess. There are empty bottles on the counter, tipped over and leaving drips of milk along the granite. Two diapers sit on the floor, wrapped up next to the changing pad. There are binkies everywhere, and a little seat with a mobile is still playing a tune.

Right on cue, the baby starts to cry.

I look to Chloe, panicked, and she takes a deep breath as she sets her lunch box on the counter. When she fixes her gaze on me again, she has that determined, focused look in her eye that I love, because it means she's going to take charge of things.

"Okay," she says, "here's what we're going to do. I'm going to make you a bottle. You're going to sit down for a second and focus on feeding her. While you do that, I'm going to clean up this mess and try to wash all these bottles. Sound good?"

"The sitting down part sounds amazing," I say, blinking slowly, tiredly. "But I feel bad about—"

"Just get in the chair." She lightly pushes on my chest. "Don't waste this precious sitting time."

I do as she says, sitting in Randall's recliner and using the arm to prop the baby's head up. When Chloe disappears to the kitchen, the baby stops crying a for a moment, taking short little breaths, her eyes wandering around.

Staring down at her, I realize how freaked out I would be if someone dropped me off at a new home in the middle of the night.

I think about how freaked out I was every time my mom decided it was time to move, staying with a friend from high school she barely knew, or renting us a cabin in the woods so far from civilization I was sure we'd be murdered.

When I told people about my childhood, they'd get this far-away, dreamy look in their eyes, like they were so jealous that I got to "travel" as a kid. But it wasn't traveling in the way that your rich friend goes to Paris for the summer—I was often working, trying to make money to pay for my books or school supplies, sitting at home and waiting for my mom to come home, wondering if she would. When I was sixteen, and she went three nights without returning to our motel, I decided I'd had enough.

I got a job, got an apartment, and got emancipated.

Since then, I've seen her sporadically. I'll swear to anyone who will listen that I saw her at my college graduation, just her hair and her back disappearing into the crowd. Anytime I bring it up, Cassidy tears up and she doesn't stop with the mopey expression on her face until someone changes the subject.

As though the thought of her has conjured her, Cassidy comes flouncing into the living room wearing a white skirt and striped, collared shirt, the smile on her face dropping when she sees the mess. As usual, she has an edition of The Total MBE Study Guide! under her arm.

"What happened here?" she gawks.

"Randall was doing his best," Chloe says, appearing in the doorway with a bottle. She hands it to me, and I prop the baby up like Gerald said to. Apparently, if you feed a baby lying down, they'll throw up all over you.

Gerald is a treasure trove of information about kids, and the rest of us have spent the past couple of days speculating about him, and whether or not he has any of his own.

Chloe disappears again, and Cassidy sits down across from me in the living room, pushing a few crinkly toys to the side to make room.

"So," she starts, and I look up at her, noting that her eyes have bags too, despite the many creams, oils, and patches she uses to try and circumvent these kinds of things. "I think I know how we can figure out what happened."

"What happened?"

"Well," she says, clearing her throat. "Why there's a baby here."

"There's a baby here because my mom is irresponsible," I say, and then add, "and because God hates me."

"God doesn't hate you," Cassidy says, grinning and crossing her legs. "Or he wouldn't have let you meet me."

"What I love about you is that you're humble," I joke, and when I look down, I see the baby with her eyes closed, her little cheeks moving as she sucks on the bottle. I can't focus on her, because it makes my heart soften, and for some reason, it feels like the worst possible thing that could happen.

"You mom is on social media," Cassidy says, pulling out her phone. Like everything else having to do with Cassidy, her phone is pink and sparkly, and it only takes my eyes a moment to focus on what's on her screen. As she scrolls through the recent timeline of my mother's page, we see her meet a man, fall in love, get his name tattooed, and eventually remove the tattoo.

"You can see when she changes her profile picture," Cassidy murmurs, "about a month ago."

"So, he dumped her right after the baby was born?" I scroll through pages and pages of copy-and-paste motivational quotes, but there's nothing else interesting for miles. "And she decided to dump the baby on me?"

"Seems like it," Cassidy says, pulling the phone back so she can look at it. "But I was thinking…maybe we could try to find the dad? Maybe he—"

"It's a good thought," I cut her off, "but he's clearly a deadbeat. Giving her to him would be like giving her back to my mom. Or putting her in foster care."

"Wait," Cassidy says, tilting her head. "You wouldn't give her back to your mom? If she showed up here to take her?"

I gaze down at the baby in my arms, then realize the bottle is empty. Grabbing one of the bibs from the couch, I set it over my shoulder and sit the baby up, patting her back like Gerald showed me to do.

"I don't know…I guess—"

When Ainsley walks into the living room, I watch Cassidy's body language visibly change. She fidgets, then turns, crossing her legs the other way. I file this information away at the back of my mind.

"You're blocking me in," Ainsley says, arms cross, voice as flat as ever.

"I thought you didn't—" Cassidy starts.

"Yeah, well, I do." Ainsley says, before peeling her eyes away and turning on her heel to walk out of the room. "So, move your car."

"Geez," Chloe mutters, brushing past the two of them and coming into the living room. With a garbage bag in hand, she starts to collect the trash from the floor. "What's up Ainsley's butt?"

Probably Cassidy , I want to say, but think better of it. I want to keep my suspicions to myself until I know it's true, without a doubt.

"Uh, Fallon," Chloe says, turning to me and narrowing her eyes. "She's burped, girl."

I freeze, realizing I've been patting the baby's back on autopilot for too long. She doesn't seem to mind, though, and has fallen asleep, a loose-limbed creature with her cheek on my shoulder.

"She's really cute, isn't she?" Chloe asks, her eyes darting from the baby to me.

"Yeah, she is," I mumble.