October 1993

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Jenny didn’t know how she could take any more. Kelsey screamed and screamed, right in her ear. She was dry, she’d been fed, she was warm, dressed in a soft sleeper. She wouldn’t sleep, she wouldn’t nurse, she didn’t want the swing, she didn’t want to lie down, she didn’t want anything but to scream and scream, so hard and loud that she was getting hoarse.

The pediatrician had asked what her temperature was, and, when Jenny had reported that it was normal, he’d told her that sometimes babies just got upset and wanted to cry.

Her baby was upset, and she couldn’t fix it. Because she was a terrible mother.

A terrible mother with a moderate migraine, threatening to get worse with every shriek. All she could do was hold her daughter and let her scream, doing laps around this house she hated, bouncing and trying to sing and be calm when what she wanted, what she needed to do was cry. Just as loud and long as her baby was. Just give in and wail.

Every time her frantic, exhausted path took her through the dining room, she glared at the papers on the table, the top and bottom thirds standing up from the folds.

Her father’s medical insurance would no longer pay for his recuperative care. He’d hit his lifetime limit. There was another policy, she’d managed to discover in the forty-one minutes of sleep Kelsey had had in the past twenty hours, one for long-term care, but the monthly amount of funding was about, at best, a third of the cost of the private facilities her father’s caseworker had called.

The last option was a public nursing home. But the Tulsa paper had run a big series of articles about the state of public homes in Oklahoma, and it was not good. Like Victorian England not good. They were understaffed, underfunded, and overcrowded. She bore little love for her father anymore, but she couldn’t condemn him to a life of lying for hours in his own waste, with bedsores eating through to his bones. She was a better person than that. She was a better person than him.

There was the money that the Bulls brought to her at the bar, but it wasn’t enough, and she didn’t trust that it was reliable—and it was for her daughter, regardless. Jenny was determined to save every single cent of it so that Kelsey would have it when she was old enough to start her own life. She would never be trapped by circumstances.

The real last option, then, was the worst, and the only: her father was coming home. To live with her. Forever. She was trapped in this horrid house, with a new baby and an invalid father. She was trapped running his stupid, shitty bar, because it was the only job that would allow her to make her own hours and be there for Kelsey and keep this sad little existence running. Forever.

“Please, pixie. Please hush. Please, please, please, please, please.” The books said to stay calm, that babies took cues from their mothers’ moods, and getting upset only made an upset baby work up more, but Jenny just couldn’t anymore. She dropped to the sofa and sobbed while Kelsey screamed on. And on. And on.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be with Maverick, living in a pretty house with a big yard, and he was supposed to be taking care of them. He’d promised her a great life for their daughter, and for her, and for him.

The doorbell rang. Jenny stared balefully at it and ignored it. Probably Child Welfare coming to take her baby away because obviously she had no idea what the hell she was doing.

It rang again. And again. Then there was pounding. Kelsey kept screaming.

“JENNY! Open up, love!”

Oh God. It was Mo. Could this day get any worse?

She hadn’t seen Mo since the day of Maverick’s sentencing, when he’d gone away for three whole years instead of the few months he’d promised. Mo had called—a lot—but Jenny had deleted every message and hung up on every call she’d had the misfortune to answer.

She wanted no part of the Bulls or anything that had to do with the man who’d left her in this state. Fuck them all. Every one of them.

“Jenny!” More pounding. “I know you’re in there, love. Open up, or I’ll shoot my way in.”

That was no empty threat. Jenny heaved herself and her wailing infant up from the sofa and went to unlock the front door and let the Queen of the Bulls in.

“Well, mercy, what is the commotion in here?” Mo dropped her capacious handbag and reached for Kelsey. Jenny twisted away, but the look Mo gave her was so severe and intent that she found herself turning back and letting her take the baby.

And hating herself for the relief she felt. Even the couple of feet of distance between her ear and Kelsey’s mouth was like a cool, soothing breeze. She rubbed at the bone under her right eyebrow, the place where her headache always seemed to dig in.

She was pretty glad, though, that her daughter had not immediately stopped crying when Mo had taken her. If that had happened, Jenny thought she might have just gone outside and lain down in the middle of the street.

“Go lie down, Jenny. Close your eyes for a bit. I’ll take care of this little foghorn and give you a break.”

Jenny shook her head. There was no chance in hell that she would leave Mo unattended with her daughter. She might wake up and find them both gone.

Mo considered her, disappointment sharp enough to be contempt creasing the space between her arched eyebrows. “Fine, then. At least brush your teeth and put some deodorant on. You stink.”

Jenny had to pee anyway, so she turned and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. She peed and washed her hands, and she was face to face with herself in the mirror. A ghoul looked back at her—matted hair, sagging skin, sunken eyes, and—the best part—stiff, round patches, about the size of softballs, on her shirt, over each boob. She’d been leaking most of the day. All Kelsey’s crying and not eating had her boobs filled to bursting.

This was her day off—haha—but it was still nuts that she was walking around at three o’clock in the afternoon in her pajamas and bathrobe. She brushed her teeth, and her hair. She washed her face and put deodorant on. Then she went to her bedroom and pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt and nursing bra.

Suddenly, the crying stopped. The silence after hours and hours shocked her senses. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her ears had popped.

After the initial relief of the sudden wash of peace, Jenny was overwhelmed by jealousy. What had Mo done that she hadn’t been able to do? Mo wasn’t even a mother! She stormed back up the hall and found Mo standing in the middle of the living room. Kelsey was cradled in her arms, but wrong way up, with her head lying on Mo’s hand, her belly on her forearm, and her little legs straddled over her upper arm. Mo twisted back and forth, rocking.

Kelsey had fallen asleep.

“What are you doing?” The accusation Jenny had intended was lost in her whisper. “You’re going to hurt her!”

Mo smiled. “This always worked for Clara. She was colicky, too. Drove Joanna nuts until she figured this out. A little pressure on her belly like this made her hurt less.”

Jenny couldn’t deal with the thought that Kelsey might have been in pain all this time. She’d read the book! It had said to watch for her pulling up her legs, but she hadn’t done that. It wasn’t pain!

Oh God, had her baby been in pain, and she’d done nothing?

Refusing to allow herself to cry in front of Mo, she changed the subject—but she didn’t move to reclaim her daughter, who was sound asleep, her breath hitching from the lasting effects of her screams. “Why are you here?”

“You know why, love. Enough is enough. You can’t cut us out. You need us, and this pretty lass is one of ours.”

“No. She’s mine.”

“And Mav’s.”

“If Maverick wanted her, then he should be with us now.”

“That’s absurd, and you know it. He would be if he could be.”

Jenny shook her head. He’d made a choice. He’d ignored her and done what he’d wanted, and she was paying the price for what he’d done. Even more, now, than she’d expected. In less than two weeks, when the month was out, she’d have her father on her back. Forever. Because of what Maverick had done.

Mo gazed down at Jenny’s little girl for a long time, swinging her gently while she slept. Without looking up, she said, “Seems to me you could use the help, love. You’re not doing such a top job on your own, now, are you?”

No, she was not. She was overwhelmed and terrified every minute of every day, whether she was pacing the house with a screaming child, or trying to run a fucking tavern with a baby strapped to her chest, or feeling guilty because she’d left her with the next-door neighbors. She was a shit mom, and she knew it.

But she did not want Maureen Delaney to say it. Worse yet, she was positively horrified at the thought of what Mo might do if she believed Jenny wasn’t a good enough mother to raise the child of one of ‘her boys.’ Mo was one of those scary women who ran straight through and over any obstacle when she thought her cause was righteous.

Pain, fear, exhaustion, and failure boiled in Jenny’s heart, and in the battle between fight or flight, or just up and faint, fight won. “And what would you know about it? You can’t grow anything in that dried up old cave between your legs, so you have no idea what it takes to be a mother.”

Holy shit—had she just said that? Oh no. Where the hell had that come from? That was the kind of thing her father might have said.

She’d hit her target, though. Mo’s head flew up, and shock and rage surged red blood into her face. They stared at each other. Jenny was afraid to speak again—she couldn’t bring herself to apologize, though it was warranted, and she was afraid anything else would make it worse—and Mo seemed too overcome with fury to move.

Jenny knew that Mo was childless not by choice, and not even because she was infertile, but because she couldn’t carry a baby to term. She’d had several miscarriages and had been heartbroken every time. Jenny hadn’t been around the Bulls when the miscarriages had happened, but it was common knowledge in the club, and Mo herself talked about them occasionally, when she was drunk enough. She was a maudlin drunk.

There was literally nothing meaner or more awful she could have said to this woman. She felt terrible—but also still angry and threatened. An apology was not going to happen. Maybe this bridge needed to be burned so that the Bulls would leave her the fuck alone.

At last, Mo moved. She shook her head like she was coming awake, and she bent to lay Kelsey down in her cradle—on her belly, which the books all said was wrong. She pulled the receiving blanket over her little shoulders, and the baby remained asleep.

Then Mo came straight at Jenny. Jenny held her ground, with effort, and when they were face to face, Mo hauled off and slapped her. Hard.

Mo stood where she was until Jenny had recovered enough from the blow to face her again. Her expression perfectly calm, but her voice trembling, she said, “You want to do this on your own, have at it. I’ll not trouble you again.”

She picked up her handbag and walked out the front door.