Chapter 6
Michael had an overnight bag slung over one shoulder and a worried look on his face. “There you are,” he said, skipping the niceties. “Her contractions are—”
“Goddamn!” Shelly cried, shattering the quiet night around them.
Joanne waved them aside. “Go, go, go!” she said, catching the screen door before it could slam shut. “Call me when the babies come.”
Steering his wife towards the van, Michael called over his shoulder, “The kids can get their own breakfasts in the morning. The school bus comes at seven-fifteen—”
Shelly snapped, “Fuckthe school bus! Get me to the damn hospital already and shut up, will you?”
Joanne smirked, but was wise enough to cover her mouth with her hand before Shelly could turn around and see. “Call me,” she said, stepping onto the screened-in porch.
Michael nodded, distracted. It took another five minutes for him to strap Shelly into the passenger seat of the van, her cursing the entire time. “This is the last one, you hear?” was the last thing Joanne caught before the car door cut off the rest of her tirade.
Then Michael raced around the van to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. Joanne waved as he peeled out of their driveway, narrowly missing her car. His tires skidded in the gravel, throwing a spray of tiny pebbles that pinged off Joanne’s back bumper. Then, mercifully, he was gone.
Around her, the house was silent. Joanne headed inside, locking the front door behind her. The living room was lit only by a single, low-wattage lamp in the far corner. Setting her briefcase on one end of the sectional sofa, she took a moment to check in on the children. The bedroom was dark, but a night light cast a golden net across the toy-strewn floor and, in the faint glow, she could make out two slumbering shapes in the bunk beds. Her niece and nephew, Ava and Mikey Jr., hadn’t even stirred despite the commotion outside.
The guest room had been converted into a nursery, and Joanne didn’t want to lie down in her brother’s bed, but she wasn’t too tired at the moment, anyway, so she went back to the living room and found the TV remote among the sofa cushions. But at this late hour, there wasn’t anything good on—nothing but infomercials and soft porn on the movie channels. She stretched out on the sofa as she flicked through the channels, all three hundred of them, without finding anything decent to watch. Finally her eyes started to close again, and she clicked off the TV. She could still get a few hours’ worth of sleep before it was time to get the kids ready for school.
Vaguely, she thought of setting the alarm on her iPhone, but her briefcase was on the opposite end of the couch and she didn’t feel like getting it. The kids would wake her when they got up. Or Michael would soon call with news of the babies. She should get her sleep in while she could.
Despite the uncomfortable sofa and the lack of a decent pillow, the next time she closed her eyes, she didn’t bother opening them again. Within minutes, she was back asleep.
* * * *
3
Thursday dawned early for thirty-nine year old contractor Edie Davis. Since quitting her day job as an administrative assistant at a construction company six years earlier, Edie liked to think she wasn’t chained to a desk any longer. But every morning when she woke at six, the first thing she did was boot up her desktop computer on her way to the bathroom. Then it was a trip to the kitchen to pour the first of two cups of coffee that would get her through the morning, and back to the desk in the corner of her living room, where she’d spend the next few hours. Answering e-mails, paying bills, reviewing schematics, creating “to do” lists for all projects she had to oversee. Davis Contractors was finally beginning to show a profit after several rocky years getting a foothold in the community, but she didn’t want to get ahead of herself and hire an admin yet. As long as she could do the paperwork herself, Edie planned to do just that.
Being a small company—and, run by one woman, how much smaller could they get?—meant Edie had to limit the number of projects they tackled at any given time. She always said “they” and “we” when referring to the company, even though she was the only one calling the shots. The plural somehow sounded more…professional, maybe? Grandiose? She didn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression about Davis Contractors, trying to come off sounding like a larger firm when they obviously weren’t, but she also didn’t want to let her clients know exactly howsmall they were. Sure, whenever someone called the business line, it rang to Edie’s cell phone and she answered. But she liked to think that added a personal touch. At least, she’d had no complaints yet.