Forever Family (Forever #5)

by Deanna Roy

  “Do you want to look at the paintings?” he asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak, afraid that if I started talking, I would not be able to stop. A breakdown seemed imminent. My face flushed hot, but my body felt cold. I was all chemicals, imbalanced, blasting through me, throwing me off. Despite knowing this, I couldn’t help it. Despair began to creep over me like night falling.

  Keep it together, I told myself. Focus. I watched intently as Darion unwrapped a canvas.

  Yes, another unicorn, this one just as mighty and strong as the sculpture.

  Then another. But this one was different. On the unicorn’s back was a small girl. Her hair was riotous with curls, just like Albert’s, and light brown. She held on to the unicorn’s mane with one tightened fist. The other hand was upraised, a shout into the sky.

  They rode through dark green woods, sunlight shafting in between the trees.

  So this was her. His little girl.

  Seeing her made me lose it all the more. I couldn’t look at it, look at anything. Darion reached for me, extended his hand.

  I backed away. I felt sick, hot and cold and hot and cold. The weight of the engagement ring on my finger was suddenly too heavy to bear. The picnic basket. His concerned expression. His need.

  He would want a family.

  He would want more than I could give.

  It was too much. Peanut. Albert’s daughter. Albert himself.

  So much loss.

  “Tina?” Darion asked. “Are you all right?”

  I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t go with Darion. I was too lost. Too far gone. I should never have gotten in a relationship. I was supposed to stick to my one-and-done. One night. One time.

  Not this.

  This hope.

  I couldn’t hold on to hope.

  I had to let it go.

  I had to go.

  I snatched up my purse and keys and sprinted for the door.

  Darion shouted my name, but I was well ahead. I dashed for my car and dove inside. Before he could get to me, I had the car in gear and jetted around the circle driveway.

  I didn’t know where I was going.

  But I couldn’t stay here.

  Chapter 14: Jenny

  The baby was sucking like a wee vacuum cleaner when I got the frantic text from Corabelle.

  Tina has taken off.

  I instinctively shifted Phoenix closer to my body, a flash of fear coursing through me. Tina had always been the one of us who acted the toughest but was the softest underneath.

  It was super hard to type with the baby crushed against me, so I hit the call button instead.

  “What do you mean?” I asked as soon as Corabelle answered.

  Corabelle’s voice was frantic. “She and Darion were at Albert’s studio, and she just bolted. Drove off in her car.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday. Darion thought she’d come back eventually, but now it’s been a whole night and she won’t answer calls or texts.”

  “I got a chipper little text from her about six yesterday,” I said. “She left after that, I guess?”

  “Yes, I got one too right then. Darion said he got there around seven.”

  “What the hell happened?” I glanced down at Phoenix, wincing at the word hell. Forget Mama or Dada, her first four-letter word was probably going to be a lot more colorful.

  “Darion said they found some old work of Albert’s, some unicorns, and she just freaked out and took off.”

  “Damn.” I shot another doleful look at the baby. I couldn’t even think without cursing. “This is Tina through and through. Does he have any idea where she is?”

  “None,” Corabelle said. “He sounds pretty panicked, but I can’t do anything to help. Gavin just went back for surgery.”

  “That’s today?” Gavin had scheduled his vasectomy reversal shortly after they got the money. The docs said his best chance was to do it as soon as possible, while he was young. Not to wait until they wanted to get pregnant.

  “I’m stuck,” Corabelle said. “He’s going to be down for a little while. I don’t even know where she’d go.”

  “Me neither.” Phoenix slipped off the latch, asleep. I shifted her on my arm. “Maybe when it comes down to it, we don’t really know her that well.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Corabelle said. “We hang out with her. We’re friends. But we don’t know anything about her past. Where she’d go.”

  “She was doing that painting on that cliff. You think she’d go there?” I asked.

  “Darion went there after he checked the hospital. No dice.”

  “Where else?” I shifted in the chair in preparation for putting Phoenix down. It was harder to think with her there, as if my jitters couldn’t jitter with her in my arms.

  “With Albert gone, I don’t really know who she hangs out with,” Corabelle said.

  “What about that girlfriend of Albert’s?”

  “Layla hasn’t seen her.”

  “Darion would know as much as us,” I said. I pinched the phone between my cheek and shoulder and carried the baby to her swing. I eased her down, holding my breath that she wouldn’t wake.

  “I know,” Corabelle said. “He’s all out of ideas.”

  I walked swiftly away from Phoenix now that she was down. “Okay, the baby’s asleep, and I can talk better,” I said. “What should we do?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Corabelle said. Her voice was thick. “I’m sick with worry. You know what she did before.”

  And I did. I’d seen those scars on Tina’s arms more than once.

  I paced my kitchen, closing the cabinet doors Chance had left open before taking off for some meeting. I opened the refrigerator, then closed it again. The sight of food made my stomach turn. “Well, Corabelle, if it were you — where would you go?”

  Silence. I sank down into a padded chair by the little breakfast table at the end of the kitchen. My elbow in the pink robe stuck to something sticky, but I ignored it. I had no time or energy to ponder my less-than-glamorous life. We were in full-on crisis mode.

  “Corabelle?”

  She sighed. Her voice was more distraught than ever when she said, “She’s been talking about her baby a lot. But I don’t really know much about where she’s from or if she’d go back home.”

  “No way,” I said. “She hated that place. She tried talking to her parents again after her engagement, but that didn’t go too well.”

  “Surely she’ll come back eventually,” Corabelle said. “Shoot, there’s Gavin’s doctor. Gotta run. I’ll call back later.”

  The signal cut out.

  I set my phone on the table, wincing when I saw the source of the sticky. Something spilled. I didn’t have the energy to get up and clean it right now. Phoenix was getting up twice a night again. Probably a growth spurt or something.

  And now Tina was missing.

  I made myself stand up again, pulling the furry robe away from whatever had it caught. A bit of pink fuzz stayed behind on the table.

  I shrugged the robe off. Into the wash with that. I shivered in the T-shirt with its damp spots in front and my worn yoga pants. They had been stylish at one time, but too many spit-ups and washings had made them nubby and shapeless.

  I left the robe on the chair and took my phone to the sofa to lie down. Phoenix was still out cold in the swing. Maybe I could think of something to say to Tina to get her to respond. Surely she was seeing our messages. Just not replying. Too much pain, maybe. She could definitely get into a funk.

  “Hey,” I typed.

  Profound, Jenny. I backspaced over it.

  I tried again.

  We’re worried about you. A little shout-out would help us out.

  I stared at the words. Self-serving, really. I was already a mother trying to make people feel guilty. I erased them.

  Let me know how you’re doing. I care.

  That was better. But I didn’t hit send. I needed to get to where Tina was. Losing
Albert was just too much. I understood that part.

  When Chance’s sister died last year, it really felt piled on. Like there was just too much tragedy getting dumped on us, you know? It can be hard to dig yourself out, but I’ve got a shovel. And even though it might wreck my perfect nails, I know how to use it. Just tell me where to break soil.

  That was better. I hit send, then stared dolefully at my wrecked nails. I hadn’t even bothered to do a home manicure in weeks. I glanced around the room. Clothes piled up on the back of the sofa. We mostly didn’t bother changing the baby in the nursery, but had a stack of diapers and a wipe warmer right here on the coffee table.

  I held the phone to my chest and stared at the ceiling, the only uncluttered part of my house. It didn’t matter. Nobody came over here except my mother. I had no friends with kids, so I couldn’t really hang out with anyone. A lady with a baby was a buzzkill on a red carpet. I didn’t know how to meet people like me.

  Meanwhile, Chance was living the life. Industry parties. Preparation for the album release. Because he’d gotten a leg up by meeting Dylan Wolf, he always had someone to see, people to talk to, events to attend.

  The money was terrible. A singer starting out was all expense and no profit. I would have to go to work soon unless we could really squeeze a lot out of the last of his signing bonus. If the album did well, there would be royalties. But creative accounting might eat that, and it would be months before a check would get cut.

  Down the line, things would be good. But right now was the worst. You had to look good and live the life, but you weren’t paid yet. And here Chance was, getting dragged down by the wife and baby. He couldn’t live lean and party hard.

  My phone buzzed and I jerked it up. It might be Tina!

  But it wasn’t. Just my mother, saying she’d come over midafternoon.

  I should be grateful. I had help. And Phoenix was alive and healthy. So much more than what Tina and Corabelle had known. I got that.

  But I was saddled with this terrible need. It had been there as long as I could remember and hadn’t faded by meeting Chance or getting married or with the birth of the baby.

  I needed people, bright lights, flashbulbs, attention. I wanted to rub shoulders with fame, to carry their torches, cozy up to their glamour. And now that all this had begun, I was stuck. Home. Alone. Shivering in a wet shirt in a disaster of an apartment. Smelling of sour milk and spit-up.

  We were all a mess, all three of us.

  But I was going to do something about it.

  I got up, stripped off the clothes, and instead of dropping them where I stood, headed to the bedroom. Time for laundry. And to do my hair. And my nails. And get the baby out in the fresh air. And check in at my office. Make a time line for going back.

  And find Tina. Help her.

  We were all going to get our lives back.

  Me first.

  Chapter 15: Corabelle

  I paced the sidewalk outside the outpatient surgical center. I couldn’t stand the waiting room one more minute. The girl at the desk assured me that they would call my cell phone if I wasn’t in the waiting area when Gavin got out of recovery.

  The day had warmed up, so I stripped off my jacket. Birds were singing. The trees were already leafing out even though it was February. California was like that. Winter was a weekend, not a season.

  I wasn’t sure if I should keep trying to text Tina. Her messages had to be stacking up. Where was she? Why exactly did she run?

  But I knew. It didn’t matter the trigger, just that there had been one. The moment that set you off didn’t have anything to do with the big things, like someone dying or losing your job or crashing your car or a big argument. It was the last little thing, the feather that tipped the scale.

  I didn’t get why that was true, but I knew it from experience. My worst nights after Finn died weren’t in the hospital when he took his last labored breath, or the funeral, or arriving home to an empty house.

  It was coming across a blue ribbon the same color as the one from a favorite shower gift. Spotting a Baby’s First Christmas ornament in a store. Somebody asking you if you had kids.

  Those were the things that did you in. They snuck up and nailed you like a snakebite in the grass.

  Or a plastic bag to the face.

  Heat rushed through me as I pictured myself as if I was someone else, lying on the floor of my dorm room, breathing against the plastic stuck to my cheeks. That girl felt disconnected from the person I was now. Had to be. I couldn’t be putting Gavin through this, trying to get his fertility back, if I wasn’t well enough to handle it. No way would I fall that far again.

  I sat on a metal bench on the corner of the block. Unless it failed. How would I manage that? That sort of blow?

  My breathing sped up in its old familiar way. Hyperventilating. I clutched the arm of the bench. No, I was not that girl anymore. I was steady. Calm. I could handle things.

  I rolled the jacket in my hands, holding tight. This was no time to fall apart. Gavin and I had made a very difficult decision about how to use the money Albert left us. We could hire a lawyer to fight Rosa over Manuelito. Or we could reverse his vasectomy.

  Gavin felt sure Rosa would do the right thing in the end. That she would tell Gavin where they were in Mexico, let him see his son. And two consultations with lawyers told us what we already knew — fighting in Mexico was a whole different battleground. The money might not even be enough to get it done.

  So we had called a doctor instead.

  My phone buzzed. I jerked it from my pocket. Gavin was out.

  I leaped from the bench and hurried back to the surgical center door. The reversal would work. It had to. It just had to.

  The woman in pink scrubs waited for me by the hall door. “For Gavin?” she said.

  I nodded. She gestured for me to follow. We walked past a couple closed rooms, then the hall opened into a large area sectioned with curtains. She pulled one aside.

  Gavin lay back on the bed, his hand covering his eyes.

  I leaned over him, ruffling his hair. “How are you feeling, tough guy?” I asked.

  “Like I’ve been run over by a truck,” he said.

  The girl laughed. “He’s coming out of it. I’ll bring him some juice and crackers.”

  Gavin moved his hand, squinted in the light, then covered his eyes again. “You’re going to change my ice packs for me, right?”

  I glanced down at his groin. He was extra bulgy. “And here I thought you were just happy to see me.”

  He groaned. “Don’t even talk like that. We don’t want to encourage it —” He groaned again. “Maybe I should have had Mario pick me up.”

  This made me laugh. “Sorry. I’ll try to avoid disturbing the equipment until it’s fully functional.”

  The girl popped back in and set a package of graham crackers and a little container of orange juice on the tray by the bed. “We’ll give him about ten minutes, then I’ll come by with a wheelchair. He can sit up if he wants.” She hurried out again.

  “Slam, bam,” Gavin said. “Snip, wake up, out the door.”

  “That’s the way they do it now. Saves costs.” I pressed a button on the bed to lift the top section. “Let’s get you up and at ’em.”

  Gavin dropped his hand, reconciled to having to face the rest of the day.

  I opened the top of the juice. “Some calories will help,” I said. “I swear fasting is half the problem coming out of anesthesia.”

  He drank it down. “Is the doc not even going to stop by? Tell us how it went?”

  I wondered that too. Having procedures done at these facilities was very different from a hospital. But this urologist was supposedly the best at reversing vasectomies. He had not given any guarantees, but given Gavin’s age, said we could be hopeful.

  The girl nudged the curtain aside with a wheelchair. “Time to fly!” she said. She turned to me. “You want to bring your car around while we discharge him?”

  “Th
e doctor isn’t going to let us know how it went?” I asked.

  She picked up a folder and tugged out several pages. “I have your discharge papers here. Says you will make a follow-up appointment with him and they’ll do an analysis.” She handed the stack to me.

  I glanced at Gavin. I guessed there was no way of really knowing until he had healed.

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  “Pull around through the circle drive,” she said merrily. “We’ll be there.”

  I headed back down the hall and out to the front. My old car waited for us. We could have used the money for that. But we hadn’t. We had rolled the dice.

  I unlocked the door, not that anyone would steal this old heap. Thankfully Gavin was a mechanic and could keep it running.

  I couldn’t think about how we would feel if it turned out that we spent Albert’s legacy for nothing. If the vasectomy was not reversible.

  But then, what if it worked? What if I got pregnant?

  And another baby was premature. Another NICU stay.

  Another baby in the ground.

  I clutched at the steering wheel. How would I manage that? Where would I bury this one? Where would I put his grave? Here in California? Or back in New Mexico with Finn?

  He was so far away.

  I remembered talking to Tina about how there was no good way to let go of a baby. How she had held on to that necklace with Albert’s ashes as if it were her only lifeline.

  Then I knew.

  I knew where Tina had gone.

  The cemetery back home.

  She had gone to get her baby.

  Chapter 16: Tina

  The wind whipped my hair as I walked frantically along the path, desperately trying to remember which way to go.

  I hadn’t been here often. Three times, maybe four.

  Guilt stabbed me. I crossed my arms over my belly, wishing I had something warmer to wear. But the bitter cold would keep me alert. It had been a long, hard three-day drive alone with my raging emotions, vacillating between bitterness and despair.