Jessie stepped into the house and set her purse and keys on the side table with a sigh of relief. If she skipped a shower, she could catch a couple of hours of sleep before she had to go to The Flour Pot and start prepping. Sundays were a busy day at the bakery.
Light streaming in from the kitchen drew her attention. While Steph usually left the hall lamp on for her, light in the kitchen was rare. It usually meant Liam was home, so with another sigh, she headed that way.
Liam sat at the kitchen table. Three beer cans sat on the table, and he was chugging a fourth. A plate littered with breadcrumbs sat next to the beer cans. At least he wasn't drinking on an empty stomach. That was something, but Liam never came home unexpectedly without a good reason, and that reason usually meant trouble.
"Liam."
"Mom."
Jessie went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water before joining her son at the table. Her twenty-year-old son looked frazzled. His sandy blonde hair was messy and not in a styled-that-way manner. His tall, lanky frame slumped in the chair, and Jessie had yet to see more than a glimpse of those brilliant blue eyes that made him so popular with the girls.
She took a swig of the water and waited, hoping he would man up and tell her what was going on without her having to ask. She hated pulling information out of him like she was a cop interrogating a prisoner.
For a good five minutes, they sat there like that before Jessie pinched the bridge of her nose and gave up. Time was at a premium. The more time she sat there and waited, the less time she had to sleep. She needed sleep so badly.
"What's going on, Liam?"
"Why do you think something is up? Can a son visit his mother?"
"Sure, sure. But you don't usually come around so late and hardly ever to drink my beer." Jessie nodded at the empties before him.
Liam nodded and took another drink.
"Mom, I'm in trouble."
"Again?"
Liam had a long history of trouble. From being bullied to becoming the bully, once he went from the smallest kid in his class to one of the tallest. There was always something dramatic in his life. By the time he was a high school senior, the bullying had given way to drinking, house parties that often devolved into little more than riots with liberal destruction or private property, bodily harm. Once lead to charges of breaking and entering.
Had Liam not been the quarterback of a winning football team, Jessie knew in her heart of hearts that school authorities, parents, and law enforcement would have been much less forgiving of Liam's adolescent antics. But Liam wasn't an adolescent anymore. And now his association with trouble had followed him to college. The only question was how it had manifested itself.
Liam focused his attention on the beer can in between his hands. "Friday night, I went to a frat party with the guys in my dorm. Man, we had a massively good time. Beautiful girls. Lots of booze. Kick-ass treasure hunt that took us all over the campus. We were doing great, too, until we discovered we needed a bust of the founding father. You've got no idea how hard those are to come by, particularly with six other teams looking for one as well.
"For some dumb ass reason, it sounded like a good idea just to, you know." He ran a finger across his throat in a slashing motion. "Behead the statute in front of the student union."
Dollar signs flashed before Jessie's eyes. "Liam, you didn't. Please tell me you didn't."
Liam nodded. "We had just finished the deed when security showed up."
"And?"
"And I'm suspended until I come up with my share of the cost for repairs." He took a long swig of his beer, then crumpled the can. "Two grand, mom. I need two grand, or they kick me out. I lose my scholarship and my place on the team. Everything."
A lump grew in Jessie's throat, and she racked her brain for where she could come up with that kind of money, but there wasn't anywhere. She worked two, sometimes three, jobs to make ends meet. The family savings account had maybe half of that amount left in it. She had sold her jewelry years ago to pay restitution for another one of Liam's messes. Her car was ten years old, and she needed it to get back and forth to the bakery and bar. Payday loans meant payments she couldn't afford to pay, and she had no extended family left.
She decided to say what she should have years ago. "What do you intend to do about it?"
"Me? What can I do about it? I don't have a job, and even if I did, it would take me weeks to earn that kind of money."
Jessie splayed her fingers on the table and pushed back the pounding in her temples. This conversation was a long time in coming, but her baby boy was twenty now. A man. He needed to act like one and take responsibility for his own actions, not only because he was an adult but because she had run out of resources to cover for him.
"You can sell your car. You live on campus, and you can either ride a bus or I can pick you up when you want to come for visits."
"My car! Dad bought me that car."
"Yeah, he did, for your sixteenth birthday. I was there, remember?"
The gift had been as big of a surprise to her as it had been to Liam. Her boy had been so excited to see the cherry red mustang parked in the driveway with a giant white bow on top. Jessie had calculated the odds of it lasting one winter before Liam crashed it into a snowbank, but she had plastered a smile on her face and celebrated with her men.
"I need my car, Mom."
"Adults have to make choices, Liam. Which do you need more? The car or school and football. Besides, the car is a classic. You'll probably make enough off the sale to pay your debt and buy something cheaper, more practical for transportation."
"Can't you sell the bakery? You're always saying it's a money pit."
Tears rolled unbidden down Jessie's face. "My grandmother left me that bakery, Liam. It is all I have left of my family."
Liam stared at his mom as if she were losing her mind. "That is how I feel about my car."
"But I'm not the one who got drunk and did something stupid, again."
Liam flopped back in his seat and ran a hand over his sandy-blond head and down over his face before crossing his arms in front of him.
"You're never going to let me live down my mistakes, are you?"
"Not when you keep doing stupid shit like this and expecting me to pay for it. Do you have any idea what I've gone through to keep this family together in this house? All the hours I work, the sacrifices I've made?"
"For real, Mom? You're such a drama queen. Dad did it for years."
"Your dad has a degree and a business that your grandfather financed for almost ten years. He also had a wife to clean his house, take care of his children, and cook his meals."
"And if you had been a better wife, Dad might still be here."
The words stung like a slap, but not nearly as much as the first time he had accused her of being at fault. Jessie bit her tongue. As upset as she was with Liam, he didn't need to know that nothing she did would have mattered. Besides, it was too embarrassing to have lived with someone that long and never have a clue he was gay. Gay and apparently living a double life with his business partner. A man who had been in their home many times. He had even joined the family on vacation more than once.
Gay and sleeping beside her. Making babies with her. Fucking her. Telling her he loved her only to leave her with a note that hardly said more than it was all fake, and he couldn't do it anymore.
With a deep breath, Jessie responded, "You're right. If I had done things differently, your dad might still be here. But could have, would have, should haves aside, you have to deal with the here and now, and this time, I'm not sacrificing the wellbeing of Steph or this home to clean up after you. Not this time, Liam."
The room fell quiet. Jessie silently cried, letting the tears flow freely down her cheeks. Liam finally returned to cradling a beer can.
"There's more, Mom."
A sob escaped Jessie before she clamped a hand over her mouth, fighting to regain control over her emotions. This was too much. The night was too long. She was too tired, and too many emotions had raced through her too quickly. All she wanted to do was go to bed and escape reality, at least for a little while.
Even as she shook her head in denial, she said, "Say it, Liam. Just say it."
"Do you remember Jakara?"
"From this summer? The girl you dated?"
"Yeah."
"Didn't you break up?"
Liam nodded. "She's pregnant."
Her breath left Jessie in a rush. The tears stopped as she wrapped her head around this news.
"Are you sure it's yours?"
"Yeah, I am."
"How do you know? I don't mean to speak ill of the girl, but hookups happen all the time, and you weren't together more than a few weeks, right?"
Liam jumped up, his chair skittering backward across the tile floor. "Mom, no! Jakara isn't like that. No. She never has been."
He paced the room. "Her parents kicked her out when they found out. I can get couples housing next semester, but she needs someplace to go in the meantime.
He stopped and leaned against the table, his gaze on his mom's. "You just told me to take responsibility for my actions. That's what I'm doing here. I need a little bit of help. Can she stay here until January?"
She couldn't argue with that. She had just given Liam a lecture about responsibility. There was no way she could turn him down, but she wanted to. Taking charge of the care of a pregnant woman, especially one she really didn't know, seemed like a lot to ask when she barely kept a roof over the heads of the people she loved now. Fortunately, she didn't have to give Liam an answer tonight.
"I can't do this tonight, Liam."
Jessie got up, the stress of the day pressing in on her so heavily that each movement was intensified by twenty.
"We can talk about it in the morning."
She made it to the door before she remembered her schedule.
"No. It is morning. I have to be at the bakery at five-thirty. Stick around here today. Mow the lawn or something. We close at six. We can talk then."
Jessie didn't wait for an answer. She wouldn't have comprehended it anyway. Her entire body and soul were numb, totally closed down in an effort to protect her from total destruction. She fell onto her bed, too tired to do more than kick off her shoes.
For the longest time, she laid there trying to feel anything. Anger, pain, desperation, loss, but all that really came through was how much she longed to feel Min Jun's arms around her again.
He had made her feel like a woman for the first time in forever. And she had pushed him away. She knew she should be processing Liam's situation, but that seemed inconsequential right then. Min felt like her last chance at youth before she shriveled into an old crone whose idea of excitement was the introduction of a new yarn color.
A single tear rolled down her face, the trail cooling her skin. Another tear followed and then two. And then she was crying out all the pain, the loneliness, the sheer futility of getting up every day to the same depressing soundtrack.
How had her life ended up this way? She was so happy once, wasn't she? But for the life of her, she couldn't remember when. Sobs racked her so thoroughly that she didn't notice when Steph entered the room until she felt the warm washcloth pressed against her cheek.
"Shh, don't cry, Mom. It'll be alright. As long as we are together, we can get through anything."
The girl curled up behind Jessie and held her while she cried. The contrast between her son's thoughtless demands and her daughter's never-ending compassion made her cry even harder until she had nothing left to give and succumbed to the darkness.