“I don’t have time for a nap. I still need to cook dinner, fold the laundry, help Isaiah with his homework, finish an art project with Makeyla, and about a million other things.”

“Who wants pizza for dinner?” I called out.

A chorus of Me rose from the living room.

I turned back to Tim. “Well, you can cross dinner off your list. Now go upstairs and take a nap.” When he started to protest, I cut him off. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

I thought he might yell at me again, but he looked like he was about to cry. “Thank you,” he said, then kissed both me and Aaron on the top of the head before heading up the steps.

Richard arrived home two hours later to a stack of empty pizza boxes and a still awake but not crying baby. I’d put MJ in charge of keeping Aaron entertained while I folded the laundry. MJ was now the oldest child in the house since Jayden had turned eighteen last week and had moved out.

“Where’s Tim and the baby?” Richard asked.

Naturally, he assumed the two were together, which was part of the problem. “MJ’s watching Aaron and Tim’s upstairs sleeping.”

Richard lifted the lid on one of the pizza boxes.

“I saved you two slices. They’re in the fridge. And I put a beer in the freezer.”

“Bless you,” he said and headed to the refrigerator.

I waited until he sat down at the kitchen counter and took a sip of his beer before I said, “We need to talk.”

His shoulders sagged. “Can I at least eat first? I’m starving.”

I smiled remembering Jonah saying the same to me once in what felt like another lifetime. I nodded to the two slices of pizza. “Do you want me to heat those up for you?”

“Nah, I like it cold,” he said and bit into a slice of pepperoni.

Jonah would eat cold pizza too. I preferred mine hot.

I waited until Richard finished eating before I laid into him. “You need to help Tim more. He can’t take care of Aaron, the house, and the rest of the kids all on his own.”

I thought he might tell me to mind my own business, that it wasn’t my place to interfere, which was true. But if not me, then who? Richard’s closest relative was a cousin who lived in Fresno. Both of Tim’s parents were still alive, but they lived in Ohio and, apparently, did not feel the need to come out to California to meet their new grandson. I wasn’t surprised since Tim had told me he had a strained relationship with them. What Tim and Richard needed was an interfering mother, like mine. Since neither of them had one, I stepped in to fill the gap.

Richard didn’t get angry with me, but he said, “Tim and I agreed that he should be the one to get up with the baby during the night because I have to go to work in the morning.”

I recalled having this same argument with Jonah. “Taking care of a baby is work too, except you don’t get to leave at the end of the day. You just work around the clock.” The solution for me and Jonah had been to hire a baby nurse for two weeks. After that my mother came down from San Francisco for a month to help out. But I knew neither of those scenarios were an option for Tim and Richard.

“I can’t afford to take time off,” Richard said, a peevish tone creeping in. “So what do you suggest?”

A baby swing, a white noise machine, and setting up a schedule for the rest of the kids to watch Aaron in the afternoons so Tim could get a break. I also offered to babysit the following weekend. Unlike with the baby furniture, I didn’t have to push Richard to accept my offer. He said yes immediately.

When I finally left Tim and Richard’s house later that night, I was too tired to see Daniel. I knew he’d be angry when I cancelled, so I sent him a text message then shut off my phone. After I’d taken a long hot shower, changed into pajamas, and slid into bed, I called him to apologize. He softened when I promised he could come over the following night.

“I still think it’s weird you’re such good friends with them,” Daniel said.

I yawned into the phone. “You’re just mad because I went to their house tonight instead of yours.” I knew it wasn’t about me or them. Daniel was upset because we still hadn’t christened my bed.

“No,” Daniel said, “I really don’t get it. Why are you doing this?”

“What am I doing? A couple of hours of babysitting? A few loads of laundry?” That was nothing compared to taking care of a newborn, especially when you had four other kids in the house.

“No, this relationship. You literally have nothing in common with them other than MJ and his sister, and they’re not even yours anymore.”

He’d brought up my supposedly weird friendship with Tim and Richard enough times now that I’d actually given it some thought. I’d even discussed it with Dr. Rubenstein, who’d agreed with me.

“I told you. Tim and Richard take in strays.” My word, not theirs. If you asked them, they would say they help people and pets in need. “When I showed up on their doorstep with Sofia’s dollhouse, Tim took me in. He and Richard recognized my need to be part of a family again, so they invited me into theirs. It really is that simple.”

“Don’t you want a family of your own?”

“I have family. But my mom lives in San Francisco and my aunt is busy with her own life.” Which reminded me that I needed to call her back. I’d been putting it off because I knew she wanted to meet Daniel, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to introduce them.

“I meant kids,” Daniel said.

Of course, I immediately thought of Amelia. I couldn’t imagine having another child. Yet, I couldn’t imagine not having another child. “Someday, yes, but for right now I’m happy being a part of their family.”

Before Daniel could reply my phone beeped with a call from MJ. He should’ve been asleep already so naturally my mind jumped to worst case scenarios. “I have to go,” I said and hung up on Daniel so I could answer MJ’s call.

Chapter 19

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is the baby okay?”

“Yeah,” MJ replied. “He cried for a while, but he finally fell asleep.”

My heart slowly returned to its normal beats per minute. “It’s pretty late. Shouldn’t you be asleep too?” I didn’t know whether Tim and Richard had imposed a bedtime on MJ, but I knew how early in the morning he had to get up for school.

“Uncle Alex told me to call you. He said to give you a message.” I heard paper rustling and MJ sounded like he was reading. “Get it out of your house.”

“Get what out of my house?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He just said to give you this message and you’d understand.”

“Well, I don’t understand. And why didn’t he just call me himself? Why’d he have you call?”

“I dunno,” MJ said.

This whole thing was weird. But I was too tired to figure it out. “Was that it? Everything else okay?”

“Yup, that was it. See you at the office tomorrow?”

“Yes.” I was about to say goodnight when a thought occurred to me. “You didn’t tell your uncle about the break-in, did you?”

“Yeah,” MJ said. “Was I not supposed to? I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“It’s not a secret. I’m just wondering why you told him.”

“He asked how you were doing, and I told him some dumb ass broke into your house and didn’t steal nothing. You think the message has something to do with that?”