Chapter Three

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Emma sat in the middle of the living room, exhausted and at the end of her wits. Two days was all she had left to pack up the apartment and she wasn't any closer to being done. It hadn't helped that every time she'd pack up some of Henry's things, he'd throw a tantrum and start pulling them out of boxes until she threatened that if he dared do it again, all of his toys would be left behind.

It had worked, but now her two-year-old wasn't even looking at her, pulling a whole new kind of tantrum out of nowhere. If that wasn't bad enough, every time she said anything to him, the first response out of his mouth was "no". She had reached a moment of desperation that morning and took him to the woman across the hall that baby-sat him from time to time.

"Emma?" Mrs. Green called out tentatively, letting herself into the apartment. "I've brought Henry home."

"Thank you."

"What on earth happened in here?" The short, stocky woman asked as she came into the living room and took a look around. "I know you said you were packing, but this looks like a disaster."

"It is a disaster," Emma murmured. She was on the verge of tears and she didn't want to cry, not in front of the woman who had spent the last couple of hours watching Henry even knowing that Emma couldn't pay her this time. "It's a complete disaster."

"Henry, run along to your room," Mrs. Green said to the boy currently hiding behind her. "I need to talk to your mother for a few minutes."

"Okay."

"Emma," Mrs. Green said quietly and pulled her up from the floor to sit on the couch. "What is going on with you? I know times have been difficult, but when you told me you were moving and in just a short span of time, it feels like it came out of nowhere."

"It did come out of nowhere! Neal's father came here and he offered to help us out, but that man is shady and cruel."

"What happened?"

"He threatened to take Henry from me."

"Oh dear," she sighed as she wrapped her arms around the crying, trembling blonde. "If I could've done anything to help you and Henry out, you know that I would've, but with Herb out of work—"

"I'd never ask you, Mrs. Green. I—I'm at the end of my rope here. I've been trying to pack and Henry has been making things difficult and some days I don't even know where to start."

Mrs. Green just smoothed her hair back from her face and gave her what Emma knew was nothing more than a parental smile. "I can help you with the packing if you'd like?"

"I can't ask that of you—"

"You aren't, I'm offering to help. Heaven knows I've done my fair share of packing with that airhead daughter of mine. You met her once. Tanya. Last I heard from her she went and joined some hippies on a farm out in western Pennsylvania and changed her name to Tink."

Emma couldn't help but laugh and Mrs. Green just smiled warmly at her. "Why would she do that?"

"She also changed her last name to cut all ties with her father and I. Fairly certain she goes by Tink Bell now. Must be all them drugs those hippies are using these days. Anyway, before she left the city, she couldn't seem to stay rooted in one place for very long. I would, as her mother and because I love her endlessly, pack up her things for her in a moments notice." Mrs. Green said and she shook her head. "Let me help you and Henry, Emma. It's the least I can do."

Emma swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped away her tears, gratefully accepting her neighbors help in packing. The afternoon went by quickly, but by the time Mrs. Green's husband came around to remind her it was dinner time, most of the apartment had been packed up and the boxes stacked neatly along the bare wall in the living room. She declined the offer from the Green's to join them for dinner, already feeling like they'd been generous enough as it was.

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