Daisy has been up every half hour tonight; she’s got gas and refuses to let me put her down. After rocking with her for two hours, I’m finally able to lay her in her crib. I feel fried, inside and out, so I grab a beer from the fridge and take a seat on the back porch. Inhaling deeply, I take in the sounds of the night, crickets chirping, and just breathe. Then Daisy’s shrill cry cuts through the warm night air. My shoulders hunch as I rest my elbows on my knees and bury my face in my hands. I want to laugh, and cry, and pull my hair out.
“This is some bullshit.” I look up at the sky. “I get that I fucked up, but Skye, Daisy…they don’t deserve this. Haven’t they suffered enough for my past? You succeeded okay? This shit kills me, I repent, I acknowledge my punishment…but I can’t take anymore. I’ll do anything for you to end this.”
Tears stream down my face, Daisy still crying in the background as I vent and plead.
“I need help, I can’t-” I stop and shake my head. “Please, whoever, wherever…I need a break. I’m sorry I did wrong things in my life, but fuck, you took my parents away from me and I was lost.” My eyes searching the sky. “I was just a kid, lost, looking for acceptance and love. You put Sven in my path and he guided me, but Skye…she was what I needed my whole life. I thought you were rewarding me, that you’d looked passed the shit I’d done and given me something pure and untarnished. You gave her to me, and took her away so many times, but this…I’m over it okay? If you’re not going to give her back to me, then fuck off and leave us alone.”
I throw my beer bottle across the lawn and rise to my feet. My aggravation growing as the persistent crying invades my eardrums.
“I’m coming,” I change my tone for my daughter, opening the door to the bedroom.
Something catches my eye and I halt, squinting because this can’t be real. Skye is sitting up in bed, looking around in the darkness. I make a sound and she looks over at me, her eyes confused. My feet won’t move, my mind, body, and soul, not believing this. Daisy is still crying, but not nearly as loud since she can see me standing there. Skye’s eyes move to the bassinet, then down to her stomach where her hands feel the flat skin. Relief washes over me that she at least remembers she was pregnant, but I’m so scared to say anything, not wanting her to say she doesn’t know me or remember.
“Nathan,” she says, her voice a low garble.
I rush over towards the bed grabbing the cup of water I have sitting there on the nightstand. I press the glass to her lips and she takes small sips. Our eyes are locked, and my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. She keeps blinking and I can see her trying to piece together what’s happened.
“Nathan,” she repeats after taking the cup from me.
I’m sitting close to her, but I can’t touch her, there’s such a fear there and I don’t know why. I’ve imagined this moment, what I would do when she woke up. Sitting here like a frozen idiot wasn’t one of them. Maybe this is a cruel joke, that I really just pissed God with my fuck off comment, and he’s showing me who’s boss.
“Why are we sleeping in the living room?” she asks.
“What do you remember?” I ask slowly.
“You left…and I, I was cleaning,” she swallows. “He came in the back door, he-he had a gun,” her eyes narrow, “I shot him.”
Her eyes jump up to mine, I nod but remain silent.
“I remember you, telling me not to leave you,” she inhales. “You were crying and pleading with me,” she sniffles.
I close my eyes, remembering that moment when she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Her hands cup my cheeks as she moves closer, and instantly my arms wrap around her small body. Her words come out in rushed sentences.
“I remember the sirens, then nothing- no, I remember your voice, talking to me, the baby crying.”
On cue, Daisy starts fussing again and Skye raises her head. I pull away and move towards the bassinet, lifting our daughter into my arms and bringing her back to the bed. I hold her between us, because I don’t think Skye has the strength yet. She inhales sharply, covering her mouth with her hand. Then tentatively, her fingers touch Daisy’s hair. Softly she touches her cheek and trails down to her hand, instantly Daisy’s fingers wrap around her mom’s fingers. Her crying stops as she looks up at her; it’s like she knows what’s happening.
“Hi,” Skye hiccups.
“Daisy,” I say.
“Oh,” she sighs and swallows thickly, “Daisy, I’m your mama.”
The tears I’ve been holding in for a lifetime, trickle down my cheeks and I use my shoulder to wipe them away. Skye is openly crying now too, as she leans down to kiss her daughter’s small hand and smells her.
“Oh Nathan, she’s-she’s.”
“Perfect, she looks like you, and she’s perfect.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side, inhaling her sunshine. Skye slides her hands underneath Daisy and I help with my free hand, as Skye brings her up to her chest. And just like always, when she’s in her mother’s arms, she falls asleep. I pull them both closer to me and shoot a little thank you into the ethos. Cleansing tears still cloud my eyes, as my heart beats again, my lungs breathe again, my universe snaps into place, and I won’t ever take either of these women for granted for as long as I live.
Epilogue
I wash potatoes off in the sink, pushing my hair out of my face with my forearm. The sun is streaming in through the sunroom beside the kitchen, as Mazzy Star’s- “Fade into You” is playing quietly through the kitchen. The side door creaks open before clapping shut, little feet charging inside towards me.
“Mama, look,” Daisy says with her sweet little voice.
I turn to see our five-year old holding up a frog in both her dirty hands, her perpetual bare feet covered in dirt all the way up her little legs where her jeans are rolled to just below her knees.
“Oh my gosh!” I say loudly, not expecting the sight before me.
The door claps shut once more and then another set of feet comes slapping into the kitchen. Our three-year old son Grayson, who follows his sister like a shadow, appears in an even dirtier state than his older sister. The door squeaks as it’s opened once more, this time with more care and I know it’s Nathan. When he comes into the room, apology all over his face as he takes in the floor smattered with tiny footprints of mud.
“Sorry,” he says and all three look at me with puppy dog eyes.
I inhale deeply, crossing my arms beneath my breasts.
“You guys are supposed to wipe your feet off before you come in,” I tell the two little ones.
Grayson looks at Daisy, who looks at me with a wide smile and a playful look in her eyes.
“Sorry we got the floor dirty, but I just had to show you how fast Mr. Froggy can jump.”
“Don’t you dare Daisy,” I say, putting my finger up.
Nathan leans over and plucks the frog from our daughter’s hands, and both the kids groan with disappointment.
“Your sister’s taking a nap, which is what Mommy should be doing,” he says, giving me a look.
“I’m just making dinner first,” I smile.
The newest addition to our family. Abbey, is two months old and currently sleeping up in her room. She’s still getting her days and nights mixed up, which leaves me very sleepy with the toddlers up and ready to go at the crack of dawn until the sun sets.
“Let’s go find another one!” Daisy says to Grayson and they take off back towards the screen door.
It slams shut and Nathan and I cringe and wait for the sound of crying upstairs, but it doesn’t come.
“I wish you’d go lay down,” Nathan tells me, putting an arm around my back and pulling me into him.
“I will, I will.”
“You always say that, then waste her whole nap cleaning or something, then as soon as you get settled to sleep, she’s up.”
His lips press lightly on the tip of my nose, then my forehead.
“And she needs to get on a schedule, because she’s turning into a little cock blocker,” he sighs.
“Nathan Westmore, don’t call your daughter that,” I say while slapping his arm and smiling.
The kids screaming about finding another frog has Nathan and I listening to them as we look into one another’s eyes.
“Frog catching duty calls,” he salutes me and steps back.
“Uh, what happened the frog you brought in here?” I ask, looking at his hands, which are frog free.
He turns and heads towards the screen door, “Down the back of your shirt.”
I let out a little shriek and begin jumping around as I pull the back of my shirt away from my body, until the amphibian falls to the floor. I grab it up and practically run to the screen door, and set it on the porch.
“Jerk,” I mock sneer at Nathan who’s at the bottom of the steps.
“Love you,” he smiles.
“Love you too, jerk,” I tease.
Back in the kitchen, I wash my hands and set to finish the potatoes when my cell phone on the counter starts chiming. Putting the spud back down, I see Maven’s calling so I answer.
“Hi, Maven.”
“Are you busy tonight?” she asks.
“Just dinner with the family, what’s up?”
“Katie just called me, were you around when Joey was in the military?”
“Yeah, I started working at the shop when he got deployed and Katie and the girls were in…Tennessee? Mississippi?”
“North Carolina. Well, she just called me freaking out, remember how we thought something was up with her?” she questions.
The last time I got my hair done, Katie was being super quiet and reserved. I thought something was wrong, but didn’t know for sure. So, I asked Maven if she noticed anything, and she agreed that something was going on. Maven asked Dornan to try and get something out of Joey, but he was tight lipped.
“Well, she needs to meet and talk with us, so can you come to the wine bar later?”
“What’s going on, did she tell you?”
Maven inhales deeply, and my stomach bottoms out, my mind racing as to what she’s going to tell me.
“Maven, what’s wrong?”
“Joey,” she sighs, “…he’s reenlisting.”
PLAYLIST
Marcy Playground- Sex and Candy
Liz Phair- Supernova
Beck- Loser
Semisonic- Closing Time
Blind Melon- No Rain
Gin Blossoms- Found Out About You
Louis Armstrong- La Vie En Rose
Julianna Hatfield- Spin the Bottle
Bush- Comedown
Oasis- Wonderwall
Smashing Pumpkins- 1979
Everclear- Santa Monica
Ray Charles- What’d I Say
Toad the Wet Sprocket- Something’s Always Wrong
The Cranberries- Linger
Filter- Take my Picture
Pearl Jam- Alive
Jeff Buckley- Grace
Nat King Cole- Sentimental Reasons
Ella Fitzgerald- Someone to Watch Over Me
Foo Fighters- Everlong
Mazzy Star- Fade Into You
Radiohead- High and Dry
Weezer – Say It Ain’t So
Sublime – Santeria
Garbage - #1 Crush
Silverchair - Tomorrow
Nina Simone- My Babe Just Cares for Me
Book Three in the Plantain Series is done and will be out sometime in 2017. This story about Joey and Katie was tough for me, a little struggle, and took me to some emotional places. We’ve known everyone since Running with The Devil, but book three, Take on Me, takes us to when the group were teenagers. I enjoyed writing Maven and Dornan pre-RWTD, and I know you will all enjoy it too. The love between Joey and Katie is timeless and of course filled with ups and down, I can’t wait for you to all to get your hands on Take on Me.
I also have an anthology coming out in early 2017 called Brothel: The Magnolia Diaries. I can’t tell you how much of a blast I had writing the raunchy filth in this one. Calico is one wild girl. I came up with this idea a few months ago, and decided to reach out to some fellow indies to participate, and boy am I floored by the group I got together. You will not be disappointed with this piece of magic.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to everyone who read this for me in advance and fell in love with Skye and Nathan. I love each and every one of you more than anything, thank you. Meghan, Britt, my MIL Lori. Tiffany, Laura, Jo, Lisa, Theresa and Rose who’ve been sitting on this story for probably a year, which felt like a decade. I want to thank Stella James, Dee Ellis, Christine Besze, my new author friends who let me share my work and give me the shit straight, love your faces. A special thanks to Dee Ellis for formatting this work for me, love your face. Ellie for editing and making my magic even better. Jessica for another AHMazing cover.
Come as you Are: Plantain Series Book Two Page 27
