“What was that letter about, Mommy?” Jacob asked, stretching his mouth into a yawn that showed her all of his teeth and the back of his throat. She’d been reading it again while they ate dinner.

“I’ve got a new job,” she announced, smoothing the bedspread over him. She’d read through the contract twice, not so much to check the fine print, but because she had never had a job which paid this much, or which had offered the kind of perks that would make a difference in her life, and she wanted to double-check it all. “I was going to tell you, once I accepted the offer.” It was a marvelous opportunity and of course she was going to accept.
Not only that, but when she went into work tomorrow, she was going to take Tobias up on his offer and see someone in HR. Any help with that hospital bill was a godsend—if only because it meant she could sleep peacefully at night not fretting about where to get the money. With a permanent job, she knew she would be able to pay it all back and she couldn’t help but feel happier. Depending on what HR offered, she might not even need to borrow any money from Kay.

“A new job?” Jacob asked, sounding disappointed.

“It’s a good thing! For us, it’s a great thing. Why do you look so sad?”

“You’re leaving Mr. Stone?” His reply threw her for a moment.

“No. It’s a permanent job.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that before this, I was a temp. I was there for a short time, like they were trying me out, and I was trying them out.”

“And now?”

“Now they like me and I like them and they want to keep me there all the time.” She thought for a moment how it would have turned out had that other job not simply vanished. Jacob was looking at her curiously. “I said yes. Or rather, I will say yes, when I hand that letter back tomorrow.”

“You’re staying with Mr. Stone’s company?” His expression brightened up again.

“Yes, I am and it means…” How was she to explain to a six-year-old that it meant peace of mind for her? “It means we can go ice skating more, and we can go to the movie theater, and…” And pay her debts off and buy him things when he needed them instead of waiting for them to be discounted, and go on a mini vacation somewhere for a few days.

“Cool!”

“Though maybe not ice skating just yet.” She didn’t want to run the risk of him having another asthma attack.

“Why not?”

“It’s bitterly cold outside at the moment, honey. I don’t want to risk triggering your asthma.” Which reminded her of something she’d been meaning to find out. “The doctor at the hospital told me you weren’t using your inhaler when you should have been. I found that hard to believe. Is it true?”

Jacob slipped under the covers. “Jacob Samuel Stone,” she said, her voice taking on a teacher’s solemnity. But he giggled in response.

“Mommy, you said Jacob Samuel Stone!”

“Page, I meant Page.” Of course she meant Page.

“Jacob Samuel Stone,” repeated Jacob, giggling even more until she pulled the bedspread down. His floppy hair was all mussed up.

“Your inhaler,” she said, forcing a stern look and addressing him in the strictest voice she could muster. How had she made that enormous error? Choosing not to think about it a moment longer, she tried to focus on what she needed to uncover. “I want to know why you’re not using your inhaler.” His lower lip trembled. “Jacob.”

“He said I was a wuss and that I couldn’t breathe properly by myself ‘cos I was weak.”

“Who?” Even as the question left her lips, she already had a good idea who.

“Henry Carson.”

Goddamn it, that devil child seemed hell-bent on making her son’s life hell and she was powerless to do much about it. Savannah’s mind spun with images of the brat whose cruel words had hurt her boy before. She wanted to shake Henry Carson by his shoulders and tell him to leave her son alone.

“Oh, honey,” she said, trying to think of the best way of dealing with this. Being a single mother was hard. What she wouldn’t give to discuss such things with a partner, to have someone else to share her worries with. But that was a fantasy she could never have and there was no use dreaming about it, just the way that there was no point in looking through holiday brochures or beautiful homes she saw on TV and in magazines. She gritted her teeth together “Henry Carson sounds to me as though he’s out to make trouble. Why are you paying any attention to what he says?”

“Because everyone else does. Everyone likes him and…” Jacob’s eyes crinkled up. “Nobody likes me, Mommy.”

Her insides sliced into slivers to hear him say it. Instantly, her hand slid over his baby-soft skin, trying to soothe his hurt by the power of touch. “That’s not true, Jacob. You told me you play with Lenny mostly. He’s your friend, isn’t he?”

He nodded.

“See! I bet he doesn’t like Henry Carson much.”

She’d met Lenny once at a party and had been secretly pleased that Jacob counted him as a friend. He wasn’t riotous and seemed to have a similar temperament as her son.

“He can’t stand him. He thinks he’s a show-off.”

“There you go, then. How about I set up a play date for you both?” Already her mind was thinking ahead as to how she could solidify their bond, how she could fix it so that her son would feel more secure and happy, even if Devil Child Carson felt the need to pick on Jacob in order to make himself feel better. If this didn’t stop soon, she’d have to go see his teacher but she was trying to help Jacob to stand up on his own two little feet, to not always rely on her to fix everything. “We could get him to come over one weekend.”

“Can we, Mommy?”

“Of course we can.” He seemed appeased, calmer and she tucked the bedspread under his chin, running her fingers gently around the shape of his eyebrows. “You mustn’t let any child stop you from using your inhaler, Jacob. You could have been really sick.”

It could have been fatal. She’d heard and read of too many cases where someone didn’t have their inhaler to hand when their airways had constricted. The consequences had been fatal. “Not using your inhaler was wrong. I know it matters to you, at this age, what people think.” Heck, it mattered to an extent at any age. “But you can’t let Henry Carson bully you into doing the wrong thing. I want you to try to stand up for yourself, especially when it comes to important things. I thought you were Iron Man?”

He gave her a searching stare. “I’m trying, Mommy.”

“And I love that you are. Goodnight, honey.”

“’Nite.”

Once the financial pressure was off to some extent, she could stop worrying about their future and concentrate more on Jacob and his friends and what was going on at school.

Compared to worries about debt, Henry Carson was a pushover.