Chapter Two #2
“Yeah!” His impish little face lit up, and he bounced on his toes so his hair flopped into his blue eyes. He needed a haircut too, but that was a whole other budget item to think through.
“Chocolate ones! Or vanilla with sprinkles. I can help stir. I’m really good at stirring.”
“You are really good at stirring, buddy.”
“I could do the frosting too. I know knives aren’t for kids, but I could use a spoon.”
That almost made her smile. Almost.
Did homemade cupcakes cost less than a box mix and jar of frosting? No—her pantry was so empty of basic staples that when she opened it that morning to make Ben’s oatmeal, she swore she saw moths fly out in search of food.
She couldn’t swing the cupcakes today, but maybe she could scrounge up enough later this week to buy him one cupcake from the bakery in town and surprise him. One of the big ones with way too much frosting. She might have enough to treat her son, and her hips could go without one anyway.
“Please, Mom? We haven’t made cupcakes in forever.”
He tilted his face up to hers, all hope and a missing front tooth and hair sticking up in the back because he’d fought the brush that morning like it was an attack.
What hurt the most was he wasn’t throwing a fit or whining. He was just being cute, and that was worse because she needed to give him an answer that would disappoint him.
She reached over and gently ruffled his hair. “We don’t need sweets, honey. You already have a cavity that needs filled, remember?”
More money to come up with, and every week she couldn’t earn enough meant the cavity got bigger.
Stress along with the bright overhead lights banded together to start a headache behind her eyes, but the real culprit was complete overwhelm.
Dentist. Groceries. Rent. Gas. The school shoes Ben was outgrowing even though she’d bought them five minutes ago. Every problem came with a price tag, and every price tag had her standing here longer.
Ben’s shoulders slumped. “But cupcakes are soft. They won’t hurt my tooth.”
“I know.” She smoothed his hair again because touching him made her voice steady. “But we’re going to wait on cupcakes for now.”
He sighed like the weight of the world had landed on his tiny shoulders. “Okay.”
That sweet little okay nearly undid her right there in the middle of the store.
She grabbed the cheapest can of beans she could while mentally adjusting the plan. Ben helped her push the cart forward. Pasta could move to next week. Maybe two bananas instead of a whole bunch. She could skip chicken thighs and make eggs twice, and she could do toast for her own lunch.
The scary part wasn’t going without—it was how one missing brand of baked beans could knock her whole week sideways.
She wished, not for the first time, that her life could have been different. That Ben’s father had stuck around, or stepped up, or done one decent thing without needing a parade for it. Then again, maybe it would have been harder if he had. More fighting and more broken promises.
More of her trying to drag a grown man into a life he’d never wanted badly enough to build.
She didn’t have energy after her shifts at the Stockyard and taking care of Ben to deal with a man-child. She definitely didn’t have time or energy for a relationship—not a real one. Not when she had to save what was left of her for survival.
Her ex always had excuses. They couldn’t afford a wedding right now. Like the wedding had ever been the point.
Summer could still hear herself saying it, tired and furious and younger than she was now. “I don’t want a wedding—I want a marriage.”
Vander flashed through her mind so fast she didn’t have time to stop it.
His hands on her hips. His mouth—god, the man could kiss.
The way he’d looked when she told him they had nothing to give each other.
She shoved the thought away and reached for the bananas.
By the time she got home, she was wrung out from the store, the short drive and the careful way she unloaded every bag because one ripped handle would finish her off.
Ben helped carry in the lighter things, chattering about how dentists fixed cavities and whether Granny Helen might have cookies, because apparently sweets were going to haunt the rest of the day no matter what Summer did.
She put the groceries on the counter and started sorting them. She was halfway through putting away the eggs when the doorbell rang.
She stopped and Ben looked up from where he was lining up cans on the pantry shelf. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know. Stay here.” She wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans, then crossed to the door, already braced for someone selling something she couldn’t buy.
If those cute little scouts came by with their pigtails and smiling faces and boxes of cookies, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t burst into tears.
But when she opened the door, no one stood there. Only bags.
A lot of bags.
Grocery bags covered the porch, packed full and heavy, with more food stacked inside cardboard boxes near the railing.
For a second, she just gaped at it all. Then she stepped outside and looked up and down the empty street, but there was no delivery driver, no car pulling away, no neighbor waving from a porch.
“Mom?” Ben called from behind her.
Her throat clamped. “Stay inside, honey.”
She carried the bags in one by one, arms straining under the weight of so many supplies—enough to keep them going for months the way she stretched meals.
Cereal, oatmeal, pasta, peanut butter for Ben’s lunches.
All the staples needed to bake cupcakes from scratch, along with chicken and ground beef.
There were enough canned goods to survive an apocalypse, and juice boxes and snacks she never bought unless it was Ben’s birthday.
Ben gasped out and started digging through one bag. He held up a colorful box against his chest like treasure. “Oh! We never get this cereal! Can I have a bowl for supper?”
She pressed a hand to her mouth because she was so close to crying it scared her.
“Yes.” The word came out rough. “You can have a bowl for supper.”
He whooped, and hugging the cereal, started doing a jig around the kitchen. She had to turn away before he saw her face.
Whoever did this wonderful act of kindness had saved her. It was too much, too kind. Too humiliating.
Too perfect.
It had to be Granny Helen.
“Ben?” she called out. “Why don’t you turn on the TV for a little bit? I’m going to talk to Granny for a minute.”
“I get to watch TV now? This is a great day!”
A tiny sob bubbled up and she had to swallow it down. She went outside and crossed to the other side of the duplex. She knocked on Granny’s door, already trying to figure out how to say thank you without falling apart.
Granny Helen wasn’t really her relative, but she’d insisted Ben call her that from the minute he could talk.
She was the kind of woman who showed love by keeping watch with a gun and pretending she’d made too much soup and couldn’t possibly eat it all before it went bad.
No answer. She knocked again, and leaned closer to the door. “Granny?”
Still nothing.
She went back through her place and out the back door to their shared yard, where the little garden beds sat waiting for spring under a layer of old mulch.
Granny was out there in a heavy sweater and boots, poking around one of the beds like Wyoming wasn’t still trying to freeze every sprout out before spring had a chance.
The older woman looked up and smiled. “Hi there.”
Arms folded tight over her middle, Summer crossed the yard. “You shouldn’t have done this, but thank you. I’ll try to pay you back—”
Even as she said it, her stomach dropped.
I can’t pay all the rent at once either.
She couldn’t say the words out loud because that made them real, and now she was promising to repay groceries she couldn’t afford on top of rent she didn’t have.
Granny’s smile faded into confusion on her weathered but lovely face. “Pay me back for what?”
Summer blinked. “The groceries you had delivered to my porch.”
The woman straightened, one gloved hand gripping a little garden trowel. “I didn’t have groceries delivered to your porch.”
Summer glanced back at the house, unease crawling over her skin. “You didn’t?”
“No.” Granny’s eyes sharpened, all sweetness gone in a blink. “You go inside with Ben. I’ll go get the gun.”
Summer issued a shaky little laugh that didn’t hold any humor at all. “Are we shooting good Samaritans now?”
“Depends who’s calling themselves one.” Granny headed for the back door with more speed than a woman her age should have, leaving Summer standing in the yard with the cold seeping through her thin sweater and the taste of fear turning bitter in her mouth.
She should feel grateful. But she’d learned the hard way that nothing came free—not help, not kindness and not a man showing up at the right time and looking at her like he wanted to stay.
Everything came with a price.
And now Summer had a kitchen full of groceries, a son eating cereal for supper…
And no idea who she owed.