I know she’s joking, but she also paints a very possible picture.
I swallow again, my mouth so dry I feel I might choke. I ball my hand into a fist, hovering it over the center of the door and looking to Hannah for one last push. She nods and I knock, a rush of adrenaline zipping down my spine and making my knees feel numb within half a second.
I fall back on my heels, wanting to run, but Hannah grips my hand tighter, tethering me to this place, to this moment, and I take a step forward. There’s a lot of sound behind the door, movement in a kitchen, pots and running water. But soon, a woman’s voice yells “it’s open.”
My head shakes in fast, tiny movements. It can’t be this simple. It can’t be this easy. Why would she let just anyone come in? This isn’t safe. My mother is being careless. My thoughts run the gamut from terrified to protective in a second flat, but before I can bolt, Hannah pushes the door open again and together, we step through.
“I got the mole started, but you might need to test it. I know you think I make it too spi—” It’s her. I know it from the photo. She’s facing me now, her hands in blue rubber gloves, a sink full of dishes and foamed soap at her side. The hot, steaming water streams into a second, empty sink.
Our eyes—they’re the same.
She shakes her head, seemingly snapping herself out of the momentary trance, and flips off the water. Pulling the gloves from her hands, she drops them over the metal rim of the large sink, but leaves her wide open eyes on the dishes, almost as if she’s afraid to look again. Afraid of me.
“Alysha?”
Somehow, I utter her name.
She swallows then brings her hand up to her mouth, cupping it. Tears prick her eyes. Hannah squeezes my hand and hugs my arm, holding me close, keeping me steady.
Alysha shifts her gaze back to me, eyes instantly red and cheeks damp. Her pupils expand, taking over the hazel—the color of mine. She nods and I bite my lip, my face as numb as the rest of me.
I’m not sure how long we actually spend in this bubble, staring at one another, our minds convincing ourselves that this isn’t a dream. This is happening. We’re meeting. We can touch. I can hug my mother. She can hug me back.
“You’re so . . . big.” She laughs through a cry as her hand slips away. Her bottom lip quivers, and I scan her face for more similarities between us.
“I am,” I say, and before fear grips me tighter, Hannah loosens her hold and I inch forward.
Alysha shudders, but after a breath she rushes to me and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tighter than anyone ever has, even Hannah. She holds me to Earth as if she’s afraid I’ll fly away, and I squeeze her just as tight. Her sobs melt into the side of my neck, her head resting on my shoulder as mine does hers. She smells like the kitchen, like fresh ingredients and an early morning shower. She’s nearly exactly my height, and other than the few gray strands in her deep brown hair, our coloring is identical.
“I’ve been watching you. Your racing. That track. I’ve watched it all. I’ve seen it all,” she says through manic breaths. I bunch the back of her shirt into a fist and let myself cry, my chest cracking open. This woman who I thought didn’t want me seems to have been a guardian angel all along.
And now that I have her, I am never letting her go.
11
I feel blessed to have witnessed Dustin and Alysha’s reunion. She recognized him the moment she laid eyes on him, as I knew in my gut she would. I wasn’t sure she’d followed his career and kept tabs on him over the years, but I had a feeling she would. It’s what I would do if I ever lost my rights to Bristol. I would never be able to let her go. I would track her to the ends of the earth and dive into a bubbling volcano if I had to just to know where she existed and how long she breathed.
We’ve spent the entire day at Alysha’s restaurant. She’s a part owner, having spent sixteen years working as a server and learning from the owner’s daughter how to make each dish. The Solis family has become like her own over the years, and she’s engaged to one of the cousins. Dustin isn’t quite ready to meet his future step-father, but I think if Alysha could she would take him home with her and move him in for an entire month in an attempt to make up for twenty-five years lost.
Everyone has been kind at the restaurant, taking over the work so Alysha could sit in this booth with us for as long as she wants. But the dinner crowd is beginning to come in, and we need to make the drive back to Camp Verde soon. And I have to find courage of my own, a thought that seemed a whole lot simpler when Jorge told me he was going back to Omaha at two in the morning.
I suppose a piece of me always knew this day was coming. I wished for it. It’s why I wouldn’t let myself fall for Jorge. It wasn’t fair to him because I would never truly be his. I guess it wasn’t fair to keep him close for three years, but I never once lied about my feelings. And it turns out, I probably didn’t need to lie about Dustin’s relationship to Bristol either. I’m just so afraid to utter the truth out loud.
Alex has me trained to expect his ear nearby, always and everywhere. Putting the truth out there terrifies me because Alex could use our daughter to hurt Dustin and back him into a grift worse than the one he’s trapped in now. But I now know in my heart that none of that will matter if Bristol never gets to know the love of my life—the love of hers. Dustin is our greatest chance to truly live, and Bristol is the key to that trust I know I’ll need. He will love her with his entire everything, and nobody stands a chance against that.
Not even me. And that, selfishly, is what has my heart pounding so hard that I fear cardiac arrest at any minute.
Dustin’s gone out to the car to get the small box of things Colt left for him in that safe deposit box. He wanted to show Alysha the birth certificate and give her the clippings that were in there, to add to the collection she says is already four scrapbooks deep. He bounds into the restaurant with the verve of a child wanting to show off his new toys, and as nervous as I am for the next few hours of my life, I’m present enough to appreciate this minute. His smile pushes into his cheeks, forming doubled dimples and crinkles at the sides of his eyes. He slides into the booth next to me and flips the lid off the box, pushing the contents toward Alysha, who is equally delighted to sift through them.
Her eyes read over every detail on his birth certificate before anything else, her lips moving while she silently says each word.
Northern Arizona Mercy General.
Seven pounds.
Eleven ounces.
Twenty-one inches.
Two-thirty-eight a.m.
“I have your baby footprint,” she utters, eyes still scanning the details she likely never forgot about a day I’m certain is etched on her heart. “A woman at the hospital gave it to me and I was supposed to give it back for someone to record. I kept it. I carried it in my purse for years. Maybe you can come for dinner sometime and I’ll show you everything?”
She glances up with hopeful eyes.
“I’d really like that,” Dustin says. His smile lingers, his lips occasionally twitching as she continues to pull items from the box. I think he wants to point out his favorite memories, but he also doesn’t want to overwhelm her. He’s too invested in simply watching her enjoy each discovery on her own.
After she pulls the last item from the box, a movie stub from the drive-in theater in the Valley, Dustin begins to pack the items back inside. But she leans back and holds the movie stub fondly, a tender smile playing at her lips. Her response seems to catch him by surprise.
“Is that familiar?” His brow draws in. That ticket was meaningless to him when he discovered it, but given the reaction Alysha is having, I’m glad he didn’t toss it the way he thought to at first.
She pinches the small ticket at the edges and pulls a pair of reading glasses from her pocket, squinting through the spectacles to make out the details.
“Yes, this is it!” She hands the ticket back to Dustin and taps her red manicured nail on the top of it as he braces it between hi
s thumb and index finger. “Do you remember this?”
Dustin mashes his lips, probably searching his oldest memories for anything that triggers given this new information—that the ticket is meaningful to Alysha. He gives up after a few seconds, though, and shakes his head.
“You were four and you talked so much that day. We had to park far away from every other car because you had no interest in watching the movie. It was some underwater adventure cartoon, the only kid-friendly thing playing at that time. And Trisha only had a few hours when she could get away. She brought you there and sat in the bleachers near the projection booths while you and I watched a movie together like mother and son.” Alysha falls back into the booth and looks up slightly, almost as if she’s reliving the memory—like a movie playing in the air.
“Trisha brought me to see you?” Dustin’s face is contorted into an excited and pained mixture.
“She did,” Alysha answers, bringing her gaze back to her son. She reaches across the table, opening her palms to Dustin. He instantly gives in to her request, binding their hands together and studying his mother’s eyes while she focuses on their tethered hands before their fingers unwind and slide apart.
“I was between apartments and had gotten myself truly sober. I was living with a woman in Phoenix who Trisha and I both knew at the lowest moments of our lives. She . . . helped us earn money.” Alysha doesn’t elaborate, and she doesn’t need to. I can tell by Dustin’s expression that he understands his mother’s past. I also see the surprise in his eyes that Trisha and Alysha knew each other. His mother seems to recognize his questioning gaze.
“We didn’t know each other well. We both knew Colt. And we both struggled with addiction. I was eight years younger than her, and for the month or so we both lived in Phoenix, Trisha taught me how to survive. I didn’t think she knew I was your mother. Our paths hadn’t crossed in more than a year when I had you. But one day, out of the blue, fresh out of rehab, I got a phone call. She had found me, and she invited me to the movies. I should have kept you then. I thought about running, buckling you up in the back seat and racing away in the car I borrowed from my boss.”
“Why didn’t you?” Dustin’s voice sounds broken.
Alysha’s eyes flicker down to her lap, and I recognize the lines of guilt that weigh down the edges of her mouth. I wear those lines too, and they will likely cut deeper an hour from now, if courage doesn’t escape me.
“I had nothing. I was scared. Colt, he can be demanding and controlling. I was afraid if I ran he would find me. And Trisha seemed to have herself together. I was depressed, and I truly believed that you were better off having her look after you rather than me.” She blinks away tears, pulling a small tissue from the breast pocket of her work shirt. She blots at her eyes then tucks the tissue back behind her name badge.
Dustin flips the movie ticket over in his hand a few times, his expression tense, teeth together and gaze lost on his own hands.
“Okay,” he finally utters. He forces a tight smile and tosses the ticket back in the box. I’ve known Dustin long enough to recognize the difference in his breathing when he’s trying to digest his emotions. His chest rises and falls slower than normal, and his lips contort beneath his forced smile. What is remarkable is the way Alysha does the exact same thing.
“If I could go back—”
“We can’t. And, ooof.” He laughs out nervously before running a hand through his hair. “I know we can’t. And I know you would if you could. Honestly, I’m just glad I found you. I don’t want to ruin what’s left by dwelling on what was.”
I’m buried behind Dustin’s shoulder, my body tucked into the corner of the booth, and I’m thankful because I physically shudder at his words. I have to rub my legs with my palms to distract my nerves from kicking. He has no idea how close to home that sentiment hits for us, and I only hope he remembers his commitment to those words a little while from now—when I tell him he’s a father. That we are parents.
We spend the next ten minutes making tentative plans, and neither Dustin nor I correct Alysha when she invites us back for dinner, assuming we’re a couple. When she hugs me and tells me her son is lucky to have such a beautiful girl in his life, I cackle because of how messy our past and present are, glad that we made it through this meeting without my last name coming up once. If she connects me with my father, the attorney who fought against her, I’m not sure how beautiful she would find me. Dustin explains my response away as modesty, then he levels me where I stand, not so much with his words, but with the look that follows them.
“This world is a far more beautiful place because she is in it,” he says, adoring eyes lingering on mine long enough that my skin tingles from attention and my chest thrums with nervous energy. It’s when Dustin’s lips close in a loose, genuine smile as he swallows that I get the depth of his belief in me—in us. And my courage, it comes soaring back.
* * *
“Thank you for today.” Dustin’s voice cuts through the quiet.
We’re well outside Coolidge, somewhere between the small town and the edge of the big city, before either of us speaks. I figured Dustin needed to process everything he’d experienced, so I planned to be a quiet passenger for as long as it took. I’m also nervous. Afraid. I’m resolved to this path, though. Even more so after spending the day with Dustin and Alysha.
“You did it all. I only hitched a ride,” I say, turning to give him a genuine, tight-lipped smile—tight to hide the nerves attacking me from the inside.
Dustin rolls his hand open over the center console, the lines that cut a deep Y in his palm telling a story I’ve known since I was a little girl—that his lifeline and mine are the same.
I drop my hand in his, expecting the squeeze of friendship, but it’s clear the second our palms touch that things have changed. The connection between us has always been inevitable, the electricity palpable. This touch is different than the others before it, though. This one is eager. Willing and open. Desperate and hopeful.
It’s time.
Our fingers weave together easily, fitting with perfection, and I swallow down a sob, my chest caving in and breath becoming hard to find.
“Dustin, we have to talk,” I cry out.
He slows the car almost immediately, his gaze drifting from the empty desert road ahead to me and back again until he’s completely stopped on the side of the road. It’s winter, and maybe sixty degrees outside as the sun casts an orangey hue over the jagged rocks and cactus and the curvature of his face. I’m pouring sweat. I rip the sweatshirt over my head and toss it into the tight space behind me, balling my hair into a tighter bun and fanning my face with my hand.
“Are you all right? Are you sick?” Dustin unbuckles his seat belt and twists so he’s facing me as he cups my face. He roams my face with eyes full of concern, then rests the back of his hand on my forehead.
“You feel clammy. I have water in the cooler. Let me get you one.”
“No, I—” I’m too late to catch him before he rushes out of the car and pops open the small trunk space to fish out one of the bottles of water he packed for our trip.
I knead my hands into balls and bounce them on my thighs as I stare at the reflection in the passenger door mirror. I’m torn between wanting him to take forever to get me the water and having him appear magically, back in his seat, attentive and ready to listen.
“Oh, God,” I croak for only me to hear.
I must look worse because the second Dustin slips back into the car his eyes draw in and he feverishly unscrews the cap from the water bottle, spilling it in his haste. I wrap my hands around the bottle and his hands, stilling them as our eyes meet.
“I’m fine. I’m . . . it’s okay.” I breathe in through my nose and stare into his enormous pupils. I give myself one last look at the subtle rainbow in his eyes, the grays and golds and greens woven together like art—my favorite colors. Eyes like Bristol’s.
“My water broke at four in the afternoon, in the midd
le of the convenience store on the corner between the house and the art studio I’d been working at late into the evening most days. It was two weeks early, but who knows, I probably would have been casing the donuts anyway.”
Dustin remains sitting forward, but he’s let go of the water bottle. I blink a few times and rush a drink because everything from the tip of my tongue to the depths of my throat is suddenly sparse and dry. I run my hand over my mouth and regain the eye contact I let slip for a drink as I feel my way to the cup holder and set the bottle down. I keep the cap in my hand to give me something to fidget with.
This is not how I practiced this speech. The thousands of times I pretended to deliver this news, not once is this the route I took in my head. But it’s what’s coming out. It has him held still, and his eyes while panicked are motionless. So is his breath.
I continue.
“The clerk at the store was seventeen, maybe eighteen. He had his earbuds in and couldn’t hear me calling for help.”
Dustin’s lip ticks up, a little amused.
“I literally waddled my way to the checkout and ripped one of the buds from his ear, tossing it God knows where. I don’t remember whether I grabbed him by his collar or I imagine that’s what I did, but an ambulance came less than a minute later.”
The slight smile that was growing on his mouth stops. It doesn’t disappear, but it doesn’t rise into his cheeks.
“The labor was fast, too fast for the wonders of modern medicine. I felt everything. Every rip and tear all the way until, I swear, Dustin”—I pause, huffing a short laugh at the memory of that moment and the feeling that accompanied it—“I damn turned inside out. I was flipped inside out. I had to have been. And it happened in minutes. Mind you, minutes that felt like they took hours to pass, but minutes. I was buying a maple donut one second and then the next, a nurse was handing me a bundled, crying baby girl.”
His eyes are watering, the whites growing pink like a litmus test, only I’m not sure what it means. I begin to cry too, slow tears that well up in one breath and fall with the next.
Burn: The Fuel Series Book 3 Page 9
