“I think he’s trying to say he wants to still be dating you in what, three more months?”
“It’s like two and a half,” Daisy says, sounding bored. “Whatever. I’m over Tyler.”
Holly rolls her eyes. “You can’t be over him. Can you just try to be supportive?”
Before an argument can break out, we hear the sound of the garage door opening, and both girls fall silent.
“Hey,” I tell them, putting a supportive hand oneach of their knees. “It’s going to be okay. Come on. Grab the albums.”
The girls grab the books they’ve made with some help from Jax, and we stand, waiting for the door to open. When it does, Phantom comes in first, followed by Shayla.
“Mom.” Holly collapses into tears and runs to grab her mother.
“Baby.” Shayla wraps her arms around her daughter and rocks back and forth. “Oh, my sweet, sweet baby.”
Daisy throws herself onto the pile but isn’t quite as emotional as Holly. Phantom walks up to me and wraps an arm around my waist. He silently kisses my forehead.
“Okay, okay, enough of that. Let me say a proper hello to Poppy.” Shayla releases the girls, but she holds their faces in her hands and kisses their foreheads. “Poppy, would it be weird if…” Then she comes over to me, hesitating like she wants to hug me.
“No, of course it’s okay.” I open my arms and give her a quick hug. “Let me call Jax down to say goodbye.”
“It’s okay,” Shayla says. “You don’t have to bother him.”
“No, it’s all right. He’ll want to say goodbye.” I walk over to the stairs and call for Jax to come down.
Meanwhile, Shayla sits with the girls on the couch. “So you’re going to be able to write to me,” she says. “And the case worker I talked to said, depending on how I’m doing, I might even be able to make calls.” She looks at Phantom. “I’ll coordinate any calls through youfirst. I don’t want to disrupt what you’ve got going on here.”
Phantom doesn’t say much. He just nods. “Whatever you want, Shay.”
It’s been a rough eight weeks for the kids. After Dylan turned himself in, Shayla spent two weeks in rehab but then relapsed. She overdosed twice during that time, and it was Phantom and Savage who picked her up and checked her in to an inpatient program. That seemed to work. She’s been accepted into an immersive three-month rehab program in California. Phantom has given her the money for it.
If Shayla is clean and sober, she can have a relationship with her kids. If she can’t stay clean… Well, as a mother, I don’t want that for her or the girls.
The kids give their mom the cards and photo albums they made for her to take to California. Holly is an emotional wreck, and Phantom and I have already set up some counseling for her to help her navigate the next few months. She’s got a lot of guilt about what’s happening with her mom, and making sure she deals with it as best she can is both of our top priorities. That’s why Mom booked us a one-night getaway and why we kept the kids out of school.
After Phantom and the girls drop Shayla at the airport, we’re going for a one-night family staycation. We’ll eat dinner on the beach, play games, and get our minds off the fact that Holly and Daisy won’t hug their mother again for at least three months.
Jax bounds down the stairs, and he waves a polite hello to Shayla.
“Hi, sweetheart. Thanks for coming down.” Shayla nods at him and then tells her daughters to be good to their new brother. “You always wanted a brother. You couldn’t ask for a better one, huh?”
Daisy nods, and Holly starts crying again.
“We should roll,” Phantom says quietly.
Shayla nods and gets back up from the couch. She walks straight up to me. “I know I wrote that letter when I was in detox,” she says. “But I have something I want to say to you.”
I look at Phantom, and he shrugs.
“Of course,” I say. “What is it?”
“Just thank you. I’m sure you can imagine, if you were in my shoes…” She stops as tears start running down her cheeks. She blots them with her palms and keeps talking. “Maybe you wouldn’t do drugs and would never have an addiction like this. But if you had to leave your kids. If you got sick or hurt…”
“Shayla,” I say. “It’s okay. I love them. As their dad’s girlfriend and their friend. They’ll only ever have one mother. But I’ll be here for them until you can be.”
She nods. “Thank you, Poppy. For everything.”
Then she turns to Phantom. “I appreciate the ride.”
