by Walsh, Chloe
“Kyle,” Mora sobbed, wrapping her arms around me tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m so terribly sorry.”
I wrapped my arms around Cam’s mom and held her, unsure of what the hell to do.
I glanced over at a baffled looking Derek, then down at Mora’s grief stricken face.
Why was she sorry? Why was she apologizing to me? This was all happening in reverse.
“I’m the one who’s sorry…”
I started to say but she didn’t give me a chance.
“I’ve been trying to contact you.”
Her voice quavered as she slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt. “I hope it’s not too late.”
She handed me an old, wrinkled piece of paper, folded many times over.
I stared down at it, my brow creased.
“I don’t understand,” I muttered. “Too late for what…”
I was interrupted by the appearance of Cam’s father.
“Mora, dear, please stop this. Let the boy be,” he said to his wife, as he tried to free her grip on my arms.
He looked at me with dead eyes. “Kyle, please ignore my wife, she hasn’t been herself since…Camryn’s passing,” he said, choking out Cam’s name. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She isn’t thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly,” Mora screamed, shrugging away from her husband. “For the first time in nineteen years, I am finally thinking clearly.”
Turning to me, her eyes filled up with tears as she asked, “How is Lee? Have they found a match?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s still the same, the doctors said…Why? What’s going on here, Mora?”
Cam’s mother burst into tears, and pointed at the sheet of paper in my hands. “There’s your answer. Go there, you’ll find a match for Lee.”
“Jesus, Mora, you can’t keep doing this,” Ted hissed. “Don’t you think that boy’s going through enough?”
Ted began to pull Mora away and I kicked into action.
“Derek, will you take Hope home? I won’t be long.”
Derek nodded, took hold of Hope’s buggy, and headed towards the exit.
I was confused as fuck.
Mora sure as hell sounded like she knew what she was talking about.
And I needed to know.
Unfolding the sheet of paper, I stared at it, confused for a moment.
“What is this?” I called after her, but she was gone out of earshot.
“Mora?” I shouted, jogging after them, towards the other exit.
“Let it go, Kyle,” Ted warned, as he bundled Mora into his car. “Go back to Lee, sit with her and pray for her. Hold her in your arms. I don’t want my wife upset any further.”
I shook my head, ignoring Cam’s dad. I focused on her mother.
“What did you mean when you said, I’d find a match? Are you talking about Lee?” I demanded franticly.
Excitement bubbled to the surface of my heart.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Do you know someone who can help her?”
“Did you hear what I said?” Ted snapped, as he slammed Mora’s door closed, and rushed around to his side of the car.
“Go home,” he said, as he opened his own door. “You’re chasing a dead end. Tear up that piece of paper and go back to your life and forget this conversation ever happened. Nothing good will come from it.”
“What life?” I demanded, at wits fucking end.
I threw my hands in the air, gesturing wildly. “My entire world is slowly dying in that hospital bed.”
Leaning down, I put my hand on the window of the car. “Mora, if you know something, anything that can save Lee, please, please just tell me.”
Mr. Frey slammed his door shut, and started the car.
“Wait…” I shouted, slamming my fist on the window as the car pulled off slowly. “You buried your world, don’t make me bury mine.”
The car slowed, and the window rolled down.
“Go there,” Mora sobbed, pointing at the piece of paper in my hand. “Find that address, and you’ll find Delia Bennett.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand?”
“Lee’s mother,” Mora whispered. “She’s alive.”
*****
The smell was the first thing that hit me when I got home.
“Dude, where the hell have you been?” Derek demanded when I walked into the bedroom.
“Sorry,” I muttered, loosening the knot on my tie. “I got a cab to the hospital. I needed to check on Lee.”
“Any change?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I gave Hope her night-time feed…I used the formula in the white tin, that’s the one she’s supposed to have, right?” Derek said.
I nodded, in amusement as I took in the carnage.
The floor was covered in wet wipes, clean diapers and stuffed animals.
Hope was kicking around on Lee’s bed, and Derek’s face and shirt was covered in baby powder, as he held a dirty-diaper away from his body.
“Thank god,” he said in relief. “I thought I’d poisoned her, but, nope, your daughter is just plain nasty,” he accused, throwing the diaper at me. “That’s her third number two, in an hour. She’s like a machine.”
Hope babbled contently, and I felt myself smile, for the first time in nine days.
I tossed the diaper back to Derek, who darted out of the room, holding it away from his body as if it was a bomb ready to detonate.
Shrugging off my black suit jacket and tie, I rolled up the sleeves of my white shirt, and walked over to the bed.
“Come here, baby girl,”
Hope gibbered, her tiny hands and feet splayed wildly.
“What did Uncle Derek do to you?” I crooned, as I adjusted her back to front diaper and redid the poppers on her onesie.
“You missed daddy, didn’t you, gorgeous?”
Dimming the light, I picked her up and rocked her gently in my arms, until her eyes began to flutter.
“Sleep tight, baby girl,” I whispered as I laid her in her crib, and tucked her up. “Daddy’s got a plan.”
I leaned down and kissed her tiny head of brown curls.
“Mommy’s gonna be home, real soon.”
*****
After settling Hope down for the night, I joined Derek on the couch.
“I need your help with something,” I said, popping the cap on a bottle of beer Derek had set out for me.
“Kyle, it’s been a really long fucking day,” Derek groaned, as he stretched his legs out in front of him, and laid his head against the back of the couch.
“I’m exhausted. I’m not a nursemaid for Christ’s sake. Besides, I still smell like shit from the last favor I did for you.”
“I found out something today,” I said quietly, taking a sip of my beer. “Something big.”
“Don’t wanna hear it, man,” he said, closing his eyes. “I need a quiet night, just one drama-free night.”
“Lee’s mother is alive.”
I still couldn’t believe it.
Derek’s eyes shot open, beer squirted from his mouth.
“Holy shit,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with his hand, before chuckling. “Good one, Kyle. For a second there, I thought you were serious. Pretty sick joke, dude.”
I placed my bottle on the coffee table, and twisted on the couch to face him.
“I’m not joking around, Derek. Mora told me that Lee’s mother is alive.”
I pulled out the sheet of paper and handed it to him. “And, apparently, she has been living right under our noses.”
Derek read the address on the note.
“Denver?” he asked, confused. “I thought that Lee’s mother died when she was a baby?”
“So did I. So did Lee, for that matter.”
“So, what, she’s come back from the fucking dead or something?” Derek jumped up and paced the room.
“That’s all I know, Derek, well, that and the fact that she’s living only a twenty minut
e drive from here.”
“This just keeps getting better, Kyle.”
He ran his hand over his shaved head. “A miscarriage, a poisoned dog, a gun attack from fucking psycho ex-girlfriend, a murdered ex-girlfriend, and now a reincarnated mother...What’s next, is Elvis gonna join us for a spot of tea in the kitchen?”
He stopped ranting and stared at me. “And Cam’s folks told you this?”
I nodded.
“Fuck,” Derek hissed. “So, what, they’ve known Lee’s mother is alive, and has been living in Denver all these years, and said nothing? Shit, Kyle, do you think Cam knew?”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t imagine Cam keeping something like that from Lee. She loved her too much to hide that kind of a secret from her.”
“Well,” Derek urged. “What the hell are you waiting for? Go get her, and drag her ass to the hospital.”
I leaned forward. “My sentiments exactly.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kyle
“Dude, you look like a fucking kangaroo,” Derek sniggered, as I sat Hope, face forward, into the baby sling on my chest.
She fussed a little as I secured the buckles, hating the restraint of the pouch.
“You have a lot of growing up to do, Derek,” I muttered, as I adjusted her sun hat, and picked up her polka dot changing bag.
I had a lot of fucking pink attached to my body right now, and Derek’s smart comments were doing wonders for my masculinity.
“You’re sure that’s the house?” he asked, pointing at the white painted cottage.
I nodded, re-reading the address on the page in my hands. “That’s the one.”
Derek sighed. “You want me to come with you?”
“No,” I said, and then looked down at Hope. “We’ll do this together, won’t we baby girl?”
I walked up the narrow flowered-filled path, and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
Well, screw that, I wasn’t about to give up now.
I walked around the back of the house, and peered over the garden gate.
“Can I help you?” a short, attractive brunette, in her early forties asked from behind the garden fence.
Here we go.
“Yeah, I’m looking for someone, Delia Bennett?”
The woman’s face paled as she moved backwards.
“No, no, no, I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “What do you want? Did he send you? Does he know?”
I opened the gate and followed her into the yard.
“My name is Kyle Carter. I’m here about your daughter, I need your help.”
“Im sorry, I don’t have a daughter,” she hissed, as she slipped inside her back door.
I stuck my boot in her door, stopping her from slamming it shut.
“Please,” I begged. “She’s sick. I need your help. I’m desperate.”
The woman’s eyes lowered to Hope, and her hand shot up to her mouth, a startled cry burst from her throat.
“I’d know those curls anywhere,” she whispered, looking up at me. “She is yours?”
I nodded.
“Yes, she is my daughter, and your daughter is her mother.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here?” she asked again, desperation in her voice, and fear.
It didn’t take much of an imagination to guess who she was referring to...
“He has no idea,” I said.
I found myself wanting to reassure the tiny woman in front of me.
“And I promise, Mrs. Bennett, if you help me, he never will.”
She seemed to ponder that for a moment, before shaking her head.
“You better come in. And I go by Tracy Gibbons, now. Never call me that, again.”
*****
“Shot?” Tracy gasped, appalled at what I had told her.
I didn’t know the woman, and she had abandoned Lee as a baby, but there was something about her that made me relax and I’d ended up telling her the whole story, instead of the version I’d rehearsed.
She was harmless.
I’d known that the moment I‘d set eyes on her.
She had a sadness about her, a lot like the air of sadness that had surrounded her daughter, when I first met her.
It didn’t take a wild guess as to who had caused this sadness in them both; Jimmy Fucking Bennett.
“Yes,” I replied, concentrating on the topic in hand. “And without a kidney donor, then…”
“I’ll do it,” Tracy burst out. “Of course I’ll do it. If I am a match, that is.”
I sighed, the biggest fucking sigh of relief.
I hadn’t expected her to agree so easily. But, Jesus, I was grateful.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “Thank you, so much.”
Tracy nodded, and busied herself with making coffee.
She would be okay. Lee would get better. I couldn’t think about Tracy not being a match…She would be and that was that.
So many emotions rushed through me, that I felt a little light-headed.
“I know what you must be thinking,” she said, as she handed me a cup of coffee.
I lowered myself and Hope onto her small beige couch, and watched as Lee’s mother paced the floor.
“You are probably wondering how I could leave her, with him.”
I shook my head.
“Actually, no, I’m not. I’ve met the man. Believe me, I get it.”
She seemed surprised with my response.
“I tried,” she choked out. “I tried to take her, but he…” She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. “He hurt me. He hurt me so badly, that, one day, I broke.”
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “When she was three months old, I’d tried to get us out.”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to explain.”
“He must have known I was going to leave him,” she rambled, ignoring what I’d said. “I had all the things I could sneak without him noticing, hidden at Mora’s house.”
She frowned, as she remembered. “But the day I was going to take her, he told me to go to the store…said he needed more whiskey and I was to go alone.”
“He cut the brakes in my car, I know he did,” she said angrily. “My brakes failed, and my car went off Benny’s bridge into the creek.”
Holy Fuck.
“I was pulled out by Ted. And he and Mora…helped me disappear. I knew that if I went back there, he would kill me. Mora and Ted promised they would watch her. I didn’t have a choice.”
Holy fucking shit balls.
I was speechless.
I had no clue, what to say to the woman.
“I must ask you,” Tracy whispered. “Has she been harmed? Did he ever harm her?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
If I told her the truth it would obviously kill her. If I didn’t, she’d know I was lying.
“She has a good life now,” I said finally.
“And you, you’re her husband?” she asked, looking from Hope to me.
“I am, or at least I will be, when she eventually decides to say yes. She’s a little stubborn, your daughter. She’s making me work for it.”
Tracy cracked a smile and I could see the longing in her eyes to hold Hope, so I decided to use it to my advantage.
I took Hope out of her sling and stood up.
Tracy’s eyes widened as I offered her my child. Tears filled her eyes, as she took Hope with trembling hands.
“Hope, say hello to your grandma,” I crooned, stroking her curls.
Yep, I was using my baby as a pawn…as collateral.
I was a shithead.
“Hope,” Tracy whispered. “She is so beautiful. There is so much of you in her. But she has Lia’s curls.”
My head snapped up. “What did you call her?” I asked.
“Lia,” Tracy confirmed. “He called her Delia, but she was always Lia to me. My beautiful, little, Lia Rose.”
“She hat
es to be called Delia,” I murmured. “Her friends call her Lee.”
“And what do you call her?” Tracy asked, as she cooed at Hope.
I smirked to myself. “I call her princess.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lee
The world is dark and I am the darkest element. My heart, my soul, my inner being and core… Everything is dark. I can’t break into the light. There is only one thing, one piece of brightness, in this inescapable pit of despair. That light has a name. His name is Kyle Carter.
“Lee, baby, can you hear me? Come on, open your eyes, sweetheart.”
I could, oh, I could hear him.
I’d heard him every day.
His voice kept me company in the darkness. His voice kept me from falling into the darkness.
“Kyle,” I croaked.
My eyelids were heavy; they felt like they’d been sewn shut.
My entire body ached.
“I’m here, princess.” He sounded excited.
I felt my lips twitch into a smile. Oh good, at least I had some facial function.
For a moment, I’d thought I’d broken my head or something.
A hand clasped mine, and then another stroked my forehead.
I knew both hands belonged to Kyle. I knew his touch. I’d pick it out of thousands.
I tried to open my eyes again and this time, thankfully, they did.
Strong sunlight blinded me, and I had to blink a few times to focus on the face leaning over me.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Kyle said, his voice breaking a little. “Long time, no see.”
He brushed his lips against mine, lightly.
“So, my cocoa sucks, does it?” I croaked.
Kyle jerked back, eyes wide in shock. “Holy shit, you heard all that?”
I nodded. “Bits and pieces…not everything. Some stuff is fuzzy.”
Kyle shook his head.
“Well, shit,” he muttered. “I kinda feel like I need to do a mental recap on all what I said.”
“Where’s Hope? Is she…okay?”
“Yeah, she’s having some one on one time, with her Uncle Derek.”
