Love & Learn by Catherine Alba

Author:Catherine Alba
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Alba Publishing
Published: 2020-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

30

Lizzie

They walked a couple of blocks. Lizzie didn’t recognize any of the buildings they walked past. But it was a lovely day, and she had enjoyed helping Julia pick out everything for her and Danny’s room back in Henry’s apartment. They passed a street vendor, and she bought Julia a pretzel that she nibbled on for the rest of the walk. The baby slept in his stroller, and Lizzie felt better than she’d ever done, walking down the street with Henry and Julia. Pretending to be engaged to Henry had been a mad shot in the dark, but it had really paid off, and she was enjoying her time with these people.

As soon as they saw the greenery at the end of the street, Lizzie could tell that Julia got excited. She knew the feeling. Central Park was one of the first places she’d wanted to visit when she’d arrived in New York. She’d been seventeen, so only a year or two older than Julia. But Julia seemed so much younger than she’d been back then. Well, that was to be expected. She’d grown up in a solid middle-class household with two dependable parents. Lizzie didn’t know and almost couldn’t imagine what that would be like. But she didn’t envy the girl now. Losing her mother was a traumatic experience at any age, and having to move across the country to live with a father who was a complete stranger must be very confusing.

Lizzie had at least known that she was on her own when she arrived in New York. Her mother had OD’d a couple of days before Lizzie’s seventeenth birthday, and she had packed up her few belongings and left the trailer park as soon as the authorities had collected the body. Everything she’d owned had fit in one duffel bag.

She’d hadn’t expected to make it big here, but she had underestimated how disadvantaged she would be because of her lack of education and without a social network of support and connections. She’d only ever had minimum wage jobs, and they had never lasted long enough for her to get a pay rise. It was easier for the employers to fire her and hire someone else who’d just stepped off the bus.

Living hand to mouth in an expensive city like this one had been a struggle. Lizzie didn’t mind hard work. It was just impossible to get ahead if you never got a lucky break.

She glanced at Henry as they crossed the street and walked into the lush green park. Henry had been her lucky break. The fact that they’d been leaving the cigar club at the same time was probably the only time that coincidences had aligned in her favor in all the time she’d lived in this city.

And her moving into his apartment was perhaps not a lucky break as such. More like a lucky break-in. The fact that he’d needed her as much as she needed him when everything came crashing down, that had been really lucky.

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