Sid scoped out her building from across the street to see if anyone was lurking around. Whatever happened last night it seemed to clear the streets. There wasn't a soul present and police had set up a mobile unit at the end of the block. Sid breathed deeply and thanked her stars before limping briskly across the street, up the walkway, into the dank lobby, onto the dank elevators and back into her tiny apartment; where she felt surprisingly safe. She unloaded the cookies and other groceries onto the kitchen counter and felt her heart rate begin to return to normal. Just twenty-four hours ago she was cursing everything in this apartment yet today it was her haven. Her safe house. Man, this money had turned her world upside down.

Her phone rang. She smiled at her phone ringing but didn't answer it. It was just Chante. She didn't want to talk to her. If Chante was nothing else she was observant. She would pick up on the difference in Sid's voice as soon as she answered the phone. Press her to explain her jumpy demeanor and Sid didn't know if she could hold up to interrogation. But she was glad to hear it ring. Happy that her phone was back on. Happily sent the call to voicemail.

She put AJ down to play and walked gingerly over to the storage closet in the hallway. She pulled out an old diaper genie, a bouncer, and weird baby sling that she'd never gotten used to wearing. Or never knew how to wear properly. One or the other. She dug until she spotted what she was looking for. Something she had gotten during her time at Grazie but had never thought of it much until just then. It was a little worse for wear but it was still intact. She remembers the day she brought this home.

Sid was helping a bride do a last-minute run-through at The Grazie before she was set to walk down the aisle in fifteen minutes. Right as she was ready to do her march down the aisle, the maid of honor whispered in her ear that they couldn't find the bride's thirteen-year-old son. Rather than throwing the entire event into a frenzy, they set out like some hodgepodge search team to find the kid. Sid, using mom instincts she swore she didn't have before and doesn't have now, somehow found him at the skate park down the block. Fully suited in a tan sports coat and matching slacks, the boy was having a hard time with the whole wedding thing. Sid could understand, this boy --she learned-- had lost his father years ago and this new dude, while nice enough...was not his dad. Could never be. He was simply the man taking his mom away from him. 

The kid showed Sid his heart and she bared hers a little too. She knew what it was like to lose a father. To have a person responsible for half of who you were be totally gone before your brain even finished developing fully. It shifts something in a person. Loosens it to the point where it seems that the cells that you inherit from that person are always a little off. Knocked loose and looking for a binding agent. And worse, having a dude not waste any time trying to take father's place. It was all the exact brand of shitty she could relate to.

She connected with him...and promised to slip him a sip of beer if he was chill for the rest of the day. He was back at the restaurant and carrying the rings down the aisle within fifteen minutes. Once the bride found out about the ordeal after the wedding she gave Sid a nice bottle of Merlot and one of the centerpieces. Silk hydrangeas with twinkling lights circling the bottom of an oversized mason jar. Loose burlap circled the mouth of the jar. It was rustic chic and even though the flowers weren't real Sid loved it. 

But once she got home and saw it in her sad little apartment she put it away. Now, she wiped some dust off the side and carried it into the kitchen. She cleared the counter of the butcher block cutting board and sat it there, right in the middle of the tiny square of the countertop. She opened the cabinets and pulled down a clear jar with the word Cookie written playfully across it. A housewarming gift from Tomi from when she first moved here. After a quick rinse and a wipe down with paper towels, Sid tore open the bag of cookies and dumped them into the cookie jar. Her nose burned with the threat of tears. She eyed the centerpiece and the full cookie jar next to one another. Ordinary little things are magic in spaces long devoid of them.

Quiet floated through the apartment. An apartment, quiet even though a toddler was in it, was bad news. Sid rushed out of the kitchen and into the living room where she found AJ curled up on the couch and fast asleep. He didn't even get to taste the cookies. Drifted off to sleep just happy to know that he had them. Sid grabbed a blanket and pulled AJ onto her lap, his little body curled deeper against her breast. 

She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, putting the volume down low. She watched the weather report. They were in for a cool one in the coming days. She'd need to buy a spring jacket. She continued to watch. Leaders of the free world doing dumb stuff as usual. Sid sighed and was just about to move onto more interesting things when a crisp video of her apartment building filled the screen. Sid winced as she turned up the volume. AJ was still breathing deeply in her lap.

"The 98th precinct made arrests of several alleged drug dealers and gang members in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn yesterday evening."

The screen panned across the building to the street. Several officers were filling out to the street. Each holding a man in handcuffs. When Phil tossed the bag into the grate and took off down the alley Sid was sure that he'd gotten away. But seeing him now, a zoomed-in image of profile as he avoided looking at the cameras, she felt a tug in her gut.

"Shots were fired shortly after 1 AM and officers arrived on the scene to find a wounded victim of an apparent robbery involving rival gang members. Several members of gangs that have long caused issues in the area are behind bars tonight, awaiting arraignment. Back to you Glenn." She thought of how it was unfair for Phil to be behind bars. There was no reasoning to support it but it was how felt nonetheless. Anyone could imagine a thousand reasons why a drug dealer should be in jail but when Sid though of him she didn't seem him as that. She saw the guy who baked weed-infused butter cups in her a kitchen. The guy who swung her kid around and tickled his tiny belly. She just saw Phil. The familiar feeling of guilt caused her head to lull backward and a groan escaped her throat. With slow, careful movements, she stood up with twenty-five pounds of toddler in her arms and crept to the room. She placed AJ gently in his bed. After she had laid down that load, another took its place. She was beginning to feel like the right thing to do with this money was to get rid of it. But that was going to be damn hard. This was going to take some convincing. She picked up her phone and called Tomi. A person who hated money.

"These fucking people, man." That was how Tomi answered the phone. Yes, Sid thought.

"What happened?"

"I've been found out. My cover is blown." Tomi was above what sounded like a sander. Sid was familiar with that sound. Angry Tomi was a sanding machine. She could whittle a red oak down to a toothpick when she was pissed.

"Your parents? They know about the furniture?" After six years of friendship, nothing they said needed much explanation.

"My dumb ass sold a shit ton of pieces to this rich ass couple. Turns out they're the kids of my Dad's arch-nemesis. Now my pieces are going to be in their hotels all over the East Coast. Like, really? Of all the goddamn..." Tomi's voice was overtaken for a moment by the squealing of the sander but it came back just in time for Sid to catch a final, "shit!".

"Well, at least you got paid." Sid knew she was poking the bear but she needed this. Wanted to send Tomi into a money hating tirade so that she could join in. It was what they bonded over most in college. Three would be the total number of times that Sid had been in the house that her mom purchased with the money from the lawsuit against the city. Stepping over the threshold of that house meant stepping into warmth paid for in blood. Her father's blood and she just couldn't do it. He made one thing crystal clear to Sidney. Money was to be earned and worked for. There was no work in the money they received. Just grief and secrets.

"It was actually. The most I've ever made from selling my stuff." Sid heard the awe in Tomi's voice and was thrown off by it.

"Really?" Was all that Sid managed to croak out.

"You know I don't give a damn about the money. I want people to melt into my stuff. Experience life around it. High-quality stuff that I make with my spirit. Not that stuff that's flying off the shelves at Ikea. But having something that was actually just mine and not tied to my parents felt amazing."

"Are you going to stop?"

"Hell no. I'm using the money I made to get my studio. Off the grid, that they'll never find out about. I just have to listen more in these damned meetings so I can spot the enemy, you know?" Tomi giggled conspiratorially. Always a trick up her sleeve.

"How are you doing?" Tomi asked. Sid heard the sander stop for a moment and Tomi's footsteps fall across the floor. For a moment she considered telling her that she was hood wealthy. But somehow she could not find the right words to explain that she robbed a drug dealer that she was kind of fond of. Fond of him? The feeling was awkward and took her by surprise much like Phil did. The guilt throbbed low in her gut and she decided to keep her mouth shut about it.

"Doing okay, healing up. Excited to start working at Ito. Your folks aren't concerned about me working there?"

"They're excited. My folks are all about keeping it in the family and you're as close as I'll come to a sister so," Tomi's soft chuckles lowered, "Aiden on the other hand has a lot of questions."

"Why does he even know or care?"

"The restaurant is in one of the hotels he manages, Sid."

Sid sucked her teeth long and hard.

"And why do y'all keep talking to him?"

"Y'all? Who's y'all? Look, I speak to him for business purposes only and to check on AJ when he's over there. Don't make a y'all cause I'm being caring."

"Whatever. Tell him there's nothing to worry about."

"You tell him!" Tomi huffed to sound annoyed but Sid knew that she really didn't care about Aiden, let alone if Sid ever spoke to him again.

"I'll send him an email." It was their preferred mode of communication anyway.

"But I'm excited that you're finally getting to use your skills in a place that deserves it. I just feel like you've had a lot to deal with Sid. It's really more than anyone should. I think it's about time you get a little something for yourself. You know, a good life is worth living and I want you to have a great one." Tomi was waning poetic again. She was probably halfway through some edibles but the message resonated with Sidney. For the second time in less than forty-eight hours, she allowed herself to take in the totality of everything that she had experienced. She felt the tightening in her chest that she felt yesterday before those gunshots rang out. Before she pulled that backpack from out the ground. But that was the difference. This time she had a chance to make her life just a little better. Help her move in the direction that AJ deserved. The world had been chaotic and devastated for a long time. This time the chaos and devastation just happened to miss her.

"Things are changing. It'll be better. I can feel it."