On the Way Back

by Fox, Ella

  “My God,” I whispered. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes,” Goldie answered. “It really is. Are you okay?”

  I didn’t know what to feel. My mother was gone, and processing it was complicated because she’d never been a real parent to me. I was horrified to learn she’d been murdered, but I had no idea how to feel about the loss.

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” I admitted.

  I was trying to come up with something more solid than that when the door to the bathroom opened and Garrett stepped into the bedroom. Seeing the look on my face, he hurried to my side.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I told Goldie to give me a minute so I could fill him in. When I finished explaining what little I knew, I put the phone on speaker so he could be part of the conversation.

  “I’m just realizing now that I should’ve already asked—how did you find out?”

  The way she hesitated told me a lot. “Remember when I told you that I didn’t want to discuss what she said when she turned up at my house?”

  Frowning, I nodded. Then I realized she couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”

  “And remember how I also told you she was worse than ever?”

  I grimaced. “Yes.”

  “She wasn’t here out of the goodness of her heart. She came here to tell me she was going to sell her story to the press. Her new story,” Goldie emphasized, “was that you suffer from multiple personality disorder.”

  My stomach cramped with disgust. “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “I know. She showed up here with a baby in tow to throw threats around and demand money… and it worked. I told her to give me a few days to get it all together, and then I went to Alan. We weighed the pros and cons and eventually decided giving her money was the easiest way to get rid of her—so he wrote a check. Two days later, she came to the club and I gave her the check for one hundred thousand dollars after she signed off on the non-disclosure agreement Alan’s attorney drew up.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Garrett growled. “No one wants to speak ill of the dead, but… just, fuck.”

  “How did her getting money from you lead to you finding out she was murdered?” I wondered aloud.

  Goldie made a frustrated sound. “The contract she signed was in her bag—along with a brand new check for ten thousand dollars from the company that owns the Enquirer. Apparently, after the story broke that Garrett had been at my house, she came up with a different tale to sell. She went to the Enquirer and told them you were addicted to meth—and they were going to run it. I didn’t find out she died from the cops—I found out when one of the so-called reporters called Alan and filled him in.”

  That made me think about other stories I’d seen about myself over the course of the previous six months. I’d foolishly assumed they’d been fabricated bullshit from desperate-to-sell-magazines reporters, but knowing Jewel had a check in her bag from the media company that owned the Enquirer put a different spin on that. My thought process was quickly derailed when something far more important occurred to me.

  “What about… what about the baby?” I asked. “My sister. Where is she? We need to get her, Goldie. We can’t leave her… is she okay?”

  Goldie groaned. “Jewel lied, honey. The baby she brought here wasn’t hers—it was her boyfriend’s niece. His sister and her family live in Vegas—they’re completely normal, I had Alan look into it. Like Jewel, her boyfriend was the bad seed of the family. They came to town for the baby’s christening and I guess Jewel decided extorting her mother would be a good thing to do while she was close by. The bottom line is that as usual, she lied. You don’t have a sister.”

  A million and one emotions flew through me at high speed. Garrett’s frown turned to a look of panic when tears started pouring down my face. “Shit, Shae. Baby, it’s okay.”

  He wrapped his arm around me and tried to pull me in for a hug. At the same time, Goldie was asking if I was okay. Shaking my head, I sat up straight and wiped at my tears.

  “I know it’s fucked up to admit this, but I can’t lie. The reason I’m crying is that I’m relieved that little girl’s mother isn’t Jewel. She’s free of the mess and the destruction.”

  “I thought something very similar,” Goldie admitted.

  Knowing there was no baby left behind was a weight off my shoulders. That being the case, I wanted to focus on Goldie. She’d just lost her only child. Even though Jewel had been a horrible person, once upon a time Goldie had carried her in her body. I knew the bond that created in a mother’s heart, and I knew that losing her had to hurt like hell.

  “What happens now?” I asked. “With her body, I mean. What do you want to do?”

  When Goldie answered, her voice wobbled. “How would you feel about cremation? I was thinking… maybe… if you’re okay with it, we might scatter her ashes somewhere quiet. I have to think—to hope—that she’s finally found the peace that eluded her in life. I’d like her final resting place to reflect that.”

  “Then that’s what we’re going to do,” I vowed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Garrett— October 2001

  After Goldie called with the news about Jewel, I wasn’t even a little surprised that Shaelyn wanted to go home to be with her grandmother. We flew out of St. Louis the following morning, and I was beyond relieved that I didn’t panic on the flight. My nerves had settled, which was a huge plus.

  We’d been back in Los Angeles for a few weeks, and other than the afternoon we’d gotten on a boat to spread Jewel’s ashes into the Pacific Ocean, things were calm. That should’ve been good, but I worried that Shaelyn was mourning the loss of strangers in New York more than she was her mother. Yes, Jewel was a first-rate bitch, but my wife’s heart was marshmallow soft. I’d expected her to be a bit of a mess, but that wasn’t happening. She was seeing a new therapist—Dr. Tibby—so it wasn’t like she didn’t have the proper supports in place, but I still felt nervous about the whole thing.

  I’d just hung up from a call to Alan about what was going on with Goldie, who was struggling. Shaelyn was most affected by that, and I knew she worried a lot about her grandmother. I believed Goldie would be fine eventually, but I knew first hand how hard it was to lose a daughter.

  Regardless of all the bad, Goldie had loved her child. I didn’t think she’d believed in or expected that Jewel would change, but grief didn’t care about any of that. Goldie’s emotions were to be expected—it was Shaelyn’s lack of emotion I worried about.

  My anxiety built as I made my way from my office to the kitchen, where I’d expected to find her making lunch since she’d told me earlier she was going to make chicken and cheese paninis. With my heart racing, I made my way toward the living room. I found her sitting on the sofa, head tilted down as she read the script in her lap. Dread filled my stomach as I stared at her and wondered if the depression that had consumed her before was rearing its ugly head all over again.

  As soon as I stepped into the room, she looked up and smiled. “Hey, honey. Crap—am I late making lunch?”

  She looked fine. Her voice was fine. My anxiety wasn’t fine, though. I’d let us both down before by staying silent when I should’ve spoken up. That would never happen again.

  Making my way to where she was, I sat on the cushion next to her. “Baby, look me in the eyes and tell me you’re okay.”

  Her brow furrowed as she closed the script and set it to the side. “I’m fine, I just got caught up in this script and lost time. You need to talk to me about why you’re asking for assurance. Are you okay?”

  “Are you sure?” I pressed.

  “I’m positive,” she said firmly. I searched her face for signs that she was pretending, but found none.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I keep waiting for you to crack about Jewel,” I blurted. “I just got off the phone with Alan and he said Goldie was emotional earlier. Other than the few tears you shed when the ashes were scattered, you’ve been a
mazingly even-keeled about this. Are you avoiding your feelings, Shae?”

  “Ah,” she said. Smiling softly, she reached out and ran her hand down my cheek. “I hate that I made you worry, but I love that you’re the way you are. I’m not avoiding my feelings, Garrett. I’ve talked to Dr. Tibby about this pretty much exclusively since I started with her, and she’s helped me to accept that I can’t force emotion where there isn’t any. My grandmother is upset because that was her child. A child she gave up her whole life to have, at that. When she was born, Jewel was innocent. Although they’re more than two decades old, Goldie has memories of Jewel that are good.”

  Taking a breath, she continued. “That isn’t true for me. My memories start when she was a selfish, bitter teenager who saw me as a burden. Things only got worse from there. She put me in countless situations that were uncomfortable, if not downright unsafe. She treated me like shit, always. There were no hugs or affection of any kind. That’s what I’m working through—what I’ll likely continue working on for a long time to come. I’m sad that Goldie is upset. I’m sad that Jewel’s life was ended in violence. But, as far as mourning her goes… I can’t—at least not in the traditional way. I mourn that I didn’t have a mother who loved me, and I mourn that Jewel was such a nightmare that she broke her mother’s heart, but that isn’t the same as mourning her loss in my life.”

  It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I nodded my understanding and squeezed her hand in encouragement. One of the things I loved most about my wife—something I’d fallen for nearly immediately—was how genuine she was. As someone surrounded by professional fakers, her honesty was something I valued more than I could say.

  “So you’re okay, but clearly I’ve got some work to do on dealing with my own nerves,” I pointed out.

  She shook her head. “Don’t do that,” she said firmly. “You’re allowed to be nervous, honey. We went through a hard time and you suffered in silence while I fell apart. It’s natural that you’ll have some residual feelings about that.”

  “Remind me to send bonus checks to your therapists,” I said as I lifted our intertwined hands and dropped a kiss on the back of hers. “Whatever they’ve said and done has worked.”

  “They’ve helped almost as much as you have, but it’s bigger than that,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  She gave me a sad smile as she nodded. “I had what Dr. Tibby calls a life-altering thought.”

  I knew she felt very, very strongly about what she’d been through that day, but she’d never said anything about a life-altering thought. “What was it?”

  Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath. When she opened them, they were bright with tears. “You know how I told you that we saw people jumping?”

  I nodded.

  “Those men and women had no way to survive, which resulted in them making that horrific choice. Standing there, completely unable to do anything to stop what was happening, I wondered about what they thought about on the way down. People always say that your life flashes before your eyes before you die—an entire series of moments and memories play out in a blink. Every time another person fell, I prayed that the end thoughts were good. After the second plane crashed when I realized we needed to evacuate, I made a promise to myself, to you, and to God.”

  My throat was thick with emotion as she explained that to me. “What was your promise?”

  Several tears slid down her cheeks before she answered. “I promised to pull all the way up from the kamikaze mission toward the ground I went on after Melody died. The men and women who jumped had no chance to turn around, but I do. No matter how hard it is or how much work it takes, I’m coming all the way back. Life is a gift—as is the fact that I’ll be spending it with you. I’m not wasting a minute of this ever again.”

  Unable to hold back for another moment, I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly.

  Whatever came at us, we’d get through it. Together.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Shaelyn— December 31, 2001

  Déjà vu washed over me in a wave as I walked to the beginning of the rose petal festooned aisle and stopped. Three years prior I’d stood in the same spot, minutes away from marrying the man of my dreams. Now, we were doing it again. Not getting married, Garrett would remind me. There was no need for that since we’d never gotten divorced. What we were doing was symbolic—a reaffirming of our vows and our commitment to one another.

  The location was the same, as was the guest list, the menu, the officiant, and even my dress. My jewelry was different, thanks to the urn necklace I wore at all times. The other difference was my flowers. Instead of peonies and baby’s breath, I carried larkspur and water lilies, which were Melody’s birth flowers. Garrett’s boutonniere matched my bouquet.

  Although we’d lost our daughter, we would always carry her with us. It still hurt like hell, but therapy had taught me how to incorporate that pain in the healthiest ways possible. Some days were harder than others, and they always would be. I believed that I honored my daughter by living. When I got to heaven and saw her again, I wanted her to know that I hadn’t spent my life being miserable every time I thought of her. She’d been a blessing—taking that beauty and turning it into something negative was no way to honor her memory. There was a place in my heart for her, always. There was also room for more.

  I held Garrett’s gaze as I walked up the aisle to Here Comes the Sun. My heart skipped a beat when I slid my hand into his, and he gave a gentle squeeze. As always, the warmth of his palm against mine filled me with peace.

  * * *

  I smiled as I stepped out of my wedding dress and turned in a slow circle. I was clad in a champagne colored bustier-style bra with a matching pair of panties and a garter belt that attached to nude stockings. The white heels I wore completed the look perfectly.

  “That lingerie is sexy as hell,” my husband growled.

  I grinned as I took the few steps between us and wrapped my arms around him. “You like?”

  “I fucking love,” he corrected.

  “Yeah?”

  He squeezed his hands at my waist before he slid them down and behind me so that he could cup my ass. With a firm grip, he brought me forward so that I could feel just how much he liked what he saw.

  “Your tits look amazing.”

  Seeing my opening, I grinned. “That’s because they’re already starting to get bigger.”

  His stilled as his eyes flew from my breasts to my face. “Shae?”

  “We’re having a baby,” I whispered.

  The way he hugged me was everything. I’d known he would be ecstatic, and he was that and then some.

  It was beautifully bittersweet to tell him that we were having another baby. I held tight to him as we both shed tears, for the moment we were sharing and all that it meant. In life, you had to remember that joy could follow heartbreak.

  Melody was our first miracle, and nothing would ever change that. Even though we never got to take her home, she was always with us. It was because of her that I knew I had a heart full of love to give a child.

  The baby I carried was another miracle—the one we'd been blessed with on the way back.

  * * *

  June 2002

  We chose not to find out what we were having because I'd needed some things to be different from what we did when I carried Melody. I'd gone into my second pregnancy with a full heart and the firm determination to stay positive. On the days it was hard, I let myself cry and mourn the daughter I'd lost.

  I saw Dr. Tibby once a week and had a phone session with Dr. Cohen every week as well. They both reminded me that any mother who lost a child in utero couldn't block those memories. The anxiety I experienced, while heartbreaking, was natural.

  Every time my baby kicked, I celebrated.

  Sometimes there was panic. Mostly it was unwarranted and passed quickly. There was one terrifying moment in my thirty-fourth week when there was no movement for what I felt was
too long a time.

  Garrett had been right at my side through it all. When he called my doctor she very calmly instructed that I needed to sit down on the couch, put my feet up, drink a glass of orange juice, and rub my hands over my belly while I concentrated. "Tell the baby you want him or her to move."

  Three minutes later, my baby went back to auditioning for the soccer team inside my stomach. Garrett and I both cried a river of relieved tears that day.

  Other than that since I’d gone through thirty-nine weeks of pregnancy before, I'd known what to expect. The difference came at breakfast smack dab in the middle of my fortieth week. Once my water broke, I was in uncharted territory.

  The delivery experience was completely different than it had been with Melody. There was a lot of activity, a lot of talking, and even some laughter. There was also a shitload of pain. Anyone who said labor was easy was high as a kite, lying their ass off, or both. With every contraction, I reminded myself that the pain was worth it. Once I got through it, I'd get to hold our child.

  Seventeen hours after my labor began, it happened. With a death grip on Garrett's hand, I pushed for the last time.

  "Perfect, Shaelyn! That's it!"

  There was a flurry of activity, but for me, the only thing I saw was my husband's eyes. The way he held my gaze let me know we were both waiting for the same thing. He could've looked away, but his eyes stayed on me instead—like he'd decided that whatever happened next needed to happen to both of us at the same time.

  When our baby let out a healthy-sounding wail, we both lost it. I'd lived for that noise—had prayed for it multiple times each day. I knew it would be emotional, but I'd never realized just how incredible it would be.

  "It's a boy!" our doctor announced.

  We'd asked that our baby be placed on my chest right away. Garrett helped me adjust the hospital gown so that I could be skin to skin with our little boy. When they set him on me a wave of love so big I could barely stand it slammed into me. Garrett rubbed his fingers over our son’s head as we both looked at the life we'd created.