Tori shuddered. “I should have brought you with me when I gave birth to her. That would have scared you straight, and you’d never touch a guy, ever, ever, ever.”
“You didn’t see yourself right after she was born. I promise, if I ever have a boyfriend, I’ll remember how you looked.”
Tori balked. “What? How did I look?”
Brooklyn just grinned, the picture of innocence as she bounced the baby. “I thought new mothers were supposed to glow.”
“Ha. Try it. No, wait. Don’t. That’s the point.”
The other girls giggled.
Baby Jett stretched in his mother’s arms and grabbed at Carí as he babbled in baby-speak. Indy was charmed. “He likes coming to see her.” Her eyes were bright. “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if they fell in love later?”
“Are you insane? Can she learn to talk, walk, or at least roll over before you start thinking about who she’s going to fall in love with? Besides, that’s some incestuous crap right there.”
Indy looked horrified for a second before her eyebrows knitted together. “No. I’m not actually related to you or Ani.”
Tori just laughed.
When they left, Carí was fast asleep in Tori’s arms. Thinking the baby had the right idea, Tori trudged up to her room. She lay on the bed with her daughter cradled against her chest. She did like this—the way Carí radiated baby heat, her cute snores, and the way her tiny hands curled reflexively in Tori’s shirt. She stroked the fine hairs on her baby’s head as she drowsed.
Tori woke to the bright light of a smart phone’s flash. “Raphe.” She groaned, her hold on Carí tightening out of instinct. “Christ, are you trying to blind me?”
“Sorry. I wanted a picture of my beautiful family looking deceptively angelic.” He pointed at the baby. “That one isn’t crying.” He pointed at Tori. “That one isn’t yelling at me. It’s a miracle.”
Tori pointed at him. “And that one isn’t annoying the hell out of me, pretending he knows everything about babies.”
“I have cousins.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Scoot.”
Tori held Carí steady with one hand as she made room for Raphe. He climbed into bed with them, his side pressed against Tori’s. He held his phone high. “Pretend you love me,” he said as he tilted his head toward her. He put his hand over hers on Carí’s back.
Tori did him one better. She snuggled against him and kissed his cheek as he snapped a picture of the three of them together. After the flash went off, the room was plunged into darkness again, and Tori was glad Raphe couldn’t see her blush.
“I brought you something from the store,” Raphe said. “I thought about giving it to you for Christmas, but I want you to have it now. I’d show you, but”—he drew his finger down her nose—“I’m very comfortable where I am.”
“What did you bring me?”
“I know you don’t like backpacks, so it’s a messenger bag. A nice one. It would be great for carrying your books and your laptop when you go to class next semester.”
“You’re pushy, you know that?” As January drew closer, Raphe and Ani had been encouraging her to enroll in community college. Tori was undecided, but she knew her window was getting smaller.
“I am pushy, but only because I care about you. You’re smart, Tor. School will be easy for you. Ani and I will help you.”
“I know that.” Tori ran her hand up and down Carí’s back. “We have a baby. I guess I’m stuck with you.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled.”
In the darkness, it was easier to say things she otherwise wouldn’t have. “It feels too good to believe in.”
“What does?”
“Everything. My life. You. Ani. It feels like it’s all going to disappear.”
There was no noise in the room except the creak of the bed as Raphe rolled onto his side. He draped an arm around Tori’s waist and pulled her closer. “There’s no such thing as happily ever after,” he said.
“Great. Thanks.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to bullshit you. Just because some people love to talk about certainty and things lasting forever, doesn’t mean it exists. Life is about rolling with the punches.” He stroked her hair as he spoke. “When you’re with me, with Ani and everyone else, are you happy?”
She ducked her head, hiding in his neck. “When you’re not driving me insane? Yeah.”
“And do you regret keeping Carina?”
“No.”
“That’s all you need to know for sure, chiquita. The next punch will come, and we’ll roll with it. Together.”
Happily until the next big thing. It was a more peaceful thought than she would have expected.
“Don’t go home tonight,” she said into his neck.
His arms tightened around her. “Okay.”
For months, Ani found reasons to get out of going to the cemetery with Brenda. Two days before Christmas, she’d run out of excuses.
She tried to convince herself it wasn’t a big deal. They were just setting out poinsettias and flowers. Still, the closer they got to the cemetery, the more jumpy she got. Her face felt clammy to the touch, and she had a hard time concentrating on what everyone else was saying.
With Brenda, Indy, Ian, and baby Jett, there was a crowd around the two headstones. Ani used that excuse to give the rest of the family space. She stood a short distance away, watching them, hoping it was enough to be on the sidelines for now.
She turned back toward the road in time to see Shane drive up. “What are you doing here?” she asked when he got out of his car.
“Rescuing Ian. We’re going to lunch after this.” He squeezed Ani’s shoulder. “He doesn’t like coming here either.”
“I don’t . . .” Ani started, but she thought better of it. “It’s not as hard as it was the first time, but it’s so impersonal.”
Shane nodded. “Ian said there wasn’t anything about a stone slab that reminded him of them. He goes for Brenda’s sake. It makes her feel like she’s doing something for them.”
“He told me Brenda waited for me to show up on the anniversary of their deaths and on their birthdays. She waited all day.”
“You’re here now.” Shane squeezed her shoulder again. His eyes strayed to a spot behind her. Ani turned around to see Jett’s family walking toward them.
Brenda pulled Ani into a tight hug. “Take a minute,” she said, nodding in the direction of the graves. “We’ll take a walk.”
If only to make her mother-in-law happy, Ani shuffled over to Jett and Mara’s graves. It was an awkward moment. What she’d said to Tori months ago was still true—she didn’t believe any part of her husband and daughter was there. If there was an afterlife, she hoped they had better things to do with their time than hang out in a cemetery.
Ani cocked her head as a thought struck her. If there was an afterlife, maybe her husband was just as tortured over the state of her life as she’d been with the injustice of his death.
She took a deep breath.
“I quit my job last month. Isn’t that strange? I thought about it for months, and it was so weird not to talk to you about it. That’s huge, right? Changing careers. It’s the kind of thing you should have a partner for—someone to support you, someone to lean on, and someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing.
“But I don’t want you to worry about me. It’s different, without you, but I do have support. Your family has been wonderful to me in spite of what I did to them. Even Ian. Poor Ian. I can hardly look at him, but I’m trying.”
Ani traced Jett’s name on the stone. “I’m getting off track. I quit my job to go back to school for a degree in social work. For now, I volunteer at the foster agency Tori was placed through. Shane—Ian’s boyfriend—helped me a lot with that decision. They always need people. I drive kids to visits. There’s a big brother type program, too. We try to help older kids like Tori begin to think of their future outsi
de the system.”
Tori had told her she was a glutton for punishment, but there had been a hint of pride in her sister’s voice when she said it.
“Tori and I . . . we have our moments. She lashes out sometimes, especially when she’s frustrated, but we’re working on it. We’re learning how to be sisters again. You would have liked her, Jett. I wish . . .” Her throat closed off, and she pressed her knuckles against her lips until she calmed down. “I just wish.”
A tear spilled over as she pressed a kiss to her palm and her palm to her husband’s headstone. She let herself imagine that the bit of the cold winter wind against her cheek was his ghostly kiss.
Talking to Mara was more difficult. She struggled for control so she could speak steadily, but her voice shook with tears. She talked to Mara about her cousins. As she suspected it would, Ani’s heart broke fresh every time she watched Carí and remembered Mara hitting those milestones. Soon Carí would begin to do things Mara never had. The injustice of it made Ani’s insides curl in protest. She tried to spare herself the torment of imagining what it would be like to watch Mara grow up with her cousins, but she failed more often than not.
“I’ll tell you what, baby girl, Carí and baby Jett are at a disadvantage. You would have enjoyed being a big cousin. You could have taught them a thing or two, couldn’t you?
“Then again, neither Carí nor baby Jett would exist if you and Daddy were still alive.” Ani bowed her head. “God help me, Mara, I’d trade them both, I’d trade them all, to have you and your daddy back. I would.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, but grief had her. She didn’t fight. She didn’t try to distract herself or shake it away.
It was getting easier to let grief take her when she needed it to. It was normal, her therapist said. Natural. She had to grieve, and it was going to hurt. It was normal to space out for minutes or even hours at a time. Her mind was finally beginning to process what she’d lost, and that could only help her accept it. The important part, he said, was to remember there were people who loved her, who would be waiting when she resurfaced.
Jett’s family helped her up from the cold ground. They kept their arms around her, guided her back to the car and drove her home. West was already there when they pulled up. He came over frequently, and he had a knack for knowing when Ani was going to have a tough day. Tori made them all a warm lunch, and Ani started to feel better.
By the time afternoon turning into evening, everyone but West had left. Tori had just taken her laundry out of the dryer when Carí woke up, crying from where she was laying on the couch near Ani. Tori looked between her laundry and her baby, frowning because she couldn’t take both up the stairs at the same time.
“Leave her,” Ani said, picking the baby up and patting her back to soothe her. “I’ll watch her while you finish.” She looked down at her niece and smiled as she settled. It hurt to hold Carí when she wanted so much to be holding Mara, but at the same time, the baby was a comfort. Warm, content babies often were.
Tori raised an eyebrow, but she nodded. “Okay. Call me if you want me to get her.”
Ani nodded and hugged the baby close.
“It’s a good look on you,” West said as he came to sit beside her on the couch. He paused but pressed ahead. “You think this is in your future? Kids, I mean.”
The question wasn’t as devastating as it would have been once. West was getting good at pressing her to think thoughts that had been impossible not so very long ago.
And she had thought about it.
“Maybe. I don’t think I want to have another biological child.” It was fitting that Mara would be the only child of her body, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have another daughter or a son. She was slowly coming to realize she still had love left to give. “Maybe in a few years, when I’m done with school, I can foster to adopt.” It would be a second chance to right the wrong she’d done to Tori. She could save another child from her sister’s fate.
“That’s a cool idea.” West grinned at her. “A beautiful idea.”
West covered her hand with his in the space between them on the sofa. She considered for a moment and then flipped her hand, twining their fingers. He smiled, and she felt the first giddy stirrings of possibility in the pit of her belly.
Ani knew they were headed toward something more. He was a beautiful man, inside and out, and he cared for her. She liked him. Sometimes she thought she wanted to kiss him. She wasn’t there yet. The thought still set off a voice in the back of her head that screamed no. No, no. But the voice was getting quieter.
Someday she would be able to imagine a complete future that included her work and who she might want at her side.
Another hour or so later, when West was gone and Tori had long ago since come downstairs to retrieve her child, Ani went looking for her sister and found her in Carí’s nursery. Tori was leaning over her daughter’s crib, chatting in that you’re-getting-sleepy voice as she patted the baby’s belly. “So then your aunt decided to check on me, and that was kind of a clusterfuck.”
“You’re supposed to tell kids fairytales to get them to sleep. If she remembers any of the things you tell her, you’re royally screwed.” Ani leaned on Tori’s shoulders, looking down at her niece. The baby’s eyes drooped drowsily. “Play it cool, little one. Retain what your momma says. It’s going to make for excellent blackmail material in the future.”
“Your aunt is so rude, Carí. She interrupted my story. As I was telling you, a little over a year ago, she shows up out of nowhere. It pissed me off.” She shifted on her feet. “I think . . . maybe if I hadn’t gone to your daddy when I was so mad, you wouldn’t be here. And if you weren’t here, maybe I never would have called her back. Then what, huh? Life might be simpler.”
Ani stiffened, but Tori went on before she could protest. “But, hey. Simple is boring. The really complicated stuff can be worth the most. Like you.” She nudged Ani. “And your aunt. She’s kind of cool sometimes. I guess.”
Shaking her head, Ani kissed the side of Tori’s hair.
“So back to my story. When your aunt told me she wasn’t going anywhere, I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe your daddy either. Sometimes I still don’t. But it’s longer now between days when I wish like hell everyone would leave me alone. Maybe I’m glad they didn’t.”
Tears in her eyes, Ani wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders and squeezed. Tori tilted her head to rest against hers. “Don’t let people fool you with their b.s. about being happy. People talk like happiness is supposed to last. Like there’s someone on earth whose life is perfect. There’s no such thing as heaven on earth. And that’s fine. You don’t need heaven, little face. Purgatory isn’t bad.”
Acknowledgments
Oh my goodness.
This book was my first baby, and I’ve nursed it through so many incarnations for more years than I want to count. I’m very proud, but I’m also very aware that this book never would have been finished if not for the people who helped me along the way.
To Betsy, Eleanor, Julie, Jess, and Christine, thank you. Your insight, encouragement, and friendship is worth more to me than I could ever say. You make everything I write better.
To the Writer’s Collective ladies, Kayla, Autumn, Megan, Rhonda, Kim and Anne, who ripped my words apart so I could put them back together again. Thank you. I needed that. Mostly.
To Erika and Michele for their fine-tooth comb.
And to my big sister, who was fifteen when I was born. You didn’t have much time, but you left a mark on me I won’t ever forget. You’re the one who made me want to write about the bond between sisters, and I love you.
Also from Kristina M. Sanchez
One to Tell the Grandkids
Since she was a teenager, Taryn Sato skirted the edge of disastrous decisions. When she found herself pregnant after a one night stand with a complete stranger, she knew she was giving her family an opportunity to say “I told you so.”
Caleb Ryder was more of a big brother than best friend to Slate McKenzie. When Slate found out he was going to be a father, Caleb promised to be there for him. Though Caleb was the type of man to learn from his mistakes, history threatened to repeat itself in the form of Slate’s baby’s mother, Taryn.
A story about finding love when you aren’t looking and finding your place when your family tree is really a forest.
Duplicity
In Lilith Callicotte’s profession, being able to indulge in a little fantasy was a plus. Not much that came out of her pretty little mouth was real, but then again, what did her rich, playboy clientele care about truth? Lilith made lying more than an art—it was her life. But as lies often go, it only took one client asking too many questions for everything to unravel.
For news and other information, follow Kristina M. Sanchez on:
Twitter: @LyricalKris
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/krismsanchez
Website: KristinaMSanchez.com
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