Page 76 of Hired By My Rich Baby Daddy

But I tried to push through and celebrate my baby.

I had balloons up and a little pink and gold banner that said ONE across the wall. I made a smash cake from scratch because I wasn't about to pay sixty dollars for one, and me and my sister sat on the floor, clapping and singing to my baby like everything was fine.

“Happy birthday to you,” Nourah sang off-key, holding her phone up and recording. “Happy birthday to youuuu.”

Oaklynn was in her high chair in her little crown, banging her hands on the tray and screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Happy birthday, dear Oaklynn. Happy bir?—”

She smacked that cake before we even finished.

Buttercream was up to her elbows and all over her face.

Once I was certain she was done with it, I cleaned her up and put her in the playpen.

Then I sat down on the couch and busted out crying.

“Noree.” Nourah dropped her phone and came over quickly. “What's wrong? What happened?”

I couldn't even talk for a second. She sat down next to me and pulled me into her, rubbing my back.

“I didn't wanna say nothing,” I finally got out. “I'm down to my last, Nourah. Not all the way. I got enough to make it another month, maybe. But they trying to evict me. I got the notice Thursday.”

“Why you ain't tell me?”

“Because what was you gonna do? You got your own bills.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “And I keep applying. I got the credentials. I got three years of experience and references from parents that would go to war for me. Every single place tells me the same thing. We’ll keep you on file. You’re on the waitlist. Nobody's hiring right now.”

“That don't make no sense.”

“It's the middle of the school year,” I said. “Everybody already staffed up. I'm competing with people who've probably been at these schools for five and ten years, Nou Nou.”

She got quiet for a moment, then sighed. “So…what you gone do?”

“I been talking to Mama a lot more lately.”

Nourah's eyebrows went up. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Me and my mama didn't have bad blood. There was no big story there, no falling out, and nobody said anything unforgivable.

She just wasn't around much when we were coming up.

She worked crazy hours, so a lot of the time, we raised ourselves. But we weren't living in a roach-infested house or somewhere with pissy carpet or anything like that. We lived in a great neighborhood and a great house. Food was always in the kitchen, the AC was blowing twenty-four-seven, and we always had cable.

Things like that.

It's just that she wasn't there.

So we loved her, but we were never close like that.

It's hard to be close to somebody you had to learn how to live without.

But she'd been calling. Every week now. Asking about the baby, sending little outfits in the mail, and asking when we'd be coming to Macon, which wasn't too far from the area I was in.

“What did Ma say?”

“Well, I told her about everything and how stressed I am trying to figure all of this out. She told me to bring Oaklynn to her,” I said. “She knows I need help. She said she wants to see her grand baby and that if I need a whoosah, she'll keep her during the week, and I can drive up on the weekends. You know she's only about an hour and a half away.”