Read Online One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison - Free Book Online Page B

finally he left the room and I heard the front door slam behind him. I often thought he did that on purpose, slammed the door in a last-ditch effort to wake me up or make me uncomfortable. Just one more way to niggle at me.
    This time, though, it just signaled relief. He was gone.
    Thank God.
    I got up and began to pack. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would do. The shared bank account that I had access to had only a few thousand dollars left in it, but I would take everything I could. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to use my credit cards. Or even my car. I was going to have to leave that behind as well.
    I was going to have to leave everything I had and everything I knew behind.
    And once he saw what I’d done, I knew, he’d never forgive me. This was a game-ending move, but I had no choice.
    With my suitcase packed and my phone charged, until I could get a cheap TracPhone, I stopped in the kitchen one last time and poured myself a shot of vodka and sipped it slowly while I looked at all the choices he’d made that created his home instead of ours.
    All he had ever cared about was himself. Why had I thought I could change that?
    That’s when it occurred to me that there was one person in the world who would understand this. One person who might—just might— be a friend to me at this time.
    I opened my phone contacts and dialed my best—and absolute only—hope for salvation.

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Twenty-five Years Earlier
    The party was beautiful. Glitz. Glamour. Glitter. Fancy. Champagne and hors d’oeuvres went by on silver platters. All the servers and the bartender were in black tie.
    Unbelievable. And this was her future . She’d gotten the job! Not only did she get to live for free in this big, gorgeous house, but she’d be paid to do it!
    Boy, for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Silver Spring, this was living.
    And it was living exactly the life she was meant to have.
    She was born to be a mother. As a child, she had put her dolls to bed every night and played elaborate pretend games with them that involved feeding them, playing with them, and teaching them. In college, her friends had even jokingly called her Mom. She was always the caretaker, whether she was the five-year-old tucking in a plastic baby doll or the twenty-one-year-old emptying a water bottle down the gullet of a drunk friend.
    Though suburban life—husband, 2.5 kids—was probably where she was headed (she didn’t understand the disdain for it), she was sure going to enjoy the time she spent nannying for the Tiesmans.
    Always a dreamer, Elisa felt like she was living out her fairy tale. Or at least a semi–fairy tale: the glorious house, no money worries (not that she’d be rich, but she was frugal anyway, and this position would include room and board), she wouldn’t be hungry or cold …
    The father, Charles Tiesman, was incredibly nice. Warm and kind. His friends even called him Charlie—wealthy and powerful as he was, he was Charlie! Imagine that!
    His wallet, she had noticed when he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill to cover her cab ride, had a picture of his daughter front and center. Her name was Lillian, but he called her Prinny—short for Princess, he’d explained with a proud little laugh. Elisa had resisted giggling when she heard it. She had a feeling the nickname would stick well into Prinny’s adolescent years—long enough that she’d probably feel too guilty ever telling him it embarrassed her.
    Prinny was the kind of kid who walked around happily—and loudly—at all times. She was four, but had a spark in her eyes that made her look practically reincarnated from some hundred-year-old yogi from Tibet. Honestly, she looked like she truly understood everything in the world around her.
    She had a belly laugh that was absolutely contagious, and bright eyes that beamed like lights, almost always happy and