“The Doom Statues” — Chapter 6

Sometimes Kay resents the relationship Emily has with her parents. Well, not resent, exactly, more like it fills her with profound sadness, and leads to bouts of fantasy when contemplating the situation over here. She often wonders how different her experiencing having a child might be, for example, if switching households with Emily. It’s kind of hard not to, considering that Denise actually endured a similar ordeal herself. Meanwhile Kay’s own family, not to put too fine a point on it, has ranged from ever so slightly, queasily supportive of her single mother status, to occasionally downright hostile.

Depending upon these climate changes, she has ranged from either holding down a job — housekeeping, dollar store cashier, you name it — while various relatives babysat Noah, to stuck at the house doing so herself, for months at a time, when they suddenly began hassling her about the arrangement. She could understand some of the arguments, that they’re all attempting to maintain normal lives themselves, and bring home paychecks, and that Kay’s not even compensating them for their services. Yet at the same time, this household isn’t exactly swimming in cash — that was the entire thrust behind many of these blowups — so if they could somehow juggle things to where Kay might contribute a paycheck, too, then wouldn’t this be better?