“Yes!” I shout, causing her to rear back. I ignore her knee-jerk reaction instead of calling attention to it because she and Freyja can still be jumpy at times. With good reason. “I’ve got them in the hall closet. Are you on your bike? If so, we need to repack them into something other than the lawn bag I’ve got them in because it’ll be too big to fit on the back of your motorcycle.”
“I’m always on my bike no matter what the weather is,” she remarks. “I’m good at riding but I suck at driving.”
“So I’ve heard,” I reply, a smirk spread across my face. “From my understanding, Icer won’t even get in a cab with you and that man isn’t scared of or intimidated by anything.”
“It was one mailbox, and that man screamed like a bitch,” Chaney complains. “I barely clipped it.”
“You took it, the post, and the concrete from the ground,” I counter with my brows raised.
“It wasn’t installed properly,” she defends, which has my smirk turning into a megawatt smile. When she sees my shift in expression, she snorts, shaking her head. “Whatever. I still say the post wasn’t dug deep enough into the ground and was already leaning to the side when I connected with it so it was due to be recemented anyway.”
“As far as excuses go, that’s a pretty good one, except it’s all bullshit and webothknow it,” I joke.
“I plead the fifth,” she comments.
I lead her down the hallway to the closet and open it up. I have a garbage bag full of clothes Gage has outgrown ready to go. “I washed them all in baby laundry detergent and folded them so all y’all have to do is put them in his dresser or hang them up. Do you have numbing gel for Gunter’s gums? I learned while Gage was teething to keep some in stock and on hand, otherwise, you may very well lose your sanity.”
Chaney glances from the stuffed bag to me, admitting, “We have a few tubes spread out through the house and in his bag, and we even bought some of those pacifiers that you can freeze to sooth him.”
“He’s a little young to be teething, isn’t he?” I inquire.
“Splicer says it’s not common for a two month old, but it’s possible,” Chaney answers. “His teeth haven’t broken through his gums just yet, but he’s exhibiting all the signs that they will be soon.”
“That could happen for months,” I warn her. “Gage’s gums got rock hard a few months before his first tooth broke free.”
“Joy,” she mumbles. “I hate him being in pain. It makes me feel useless.”
“We can’t prevent nature from running its course,” I remind her. “When a kid’s body is ready to level up, for lack of a better term, we can’t force it to shift gears and backtrack.”
“I remember that well from when Freyja was small,” Chaney says, reminiscing.
“Was she a good baby?” I ask.
“From what I can recall, she was the best baby. She hardly ever cried, unless I put her down,” she tells me, grinning. “I wrapped her in this sheet and swaddled her to me with it. From day one, she’s been attached to me.”
“That’s because you weren’t only her sister and best friend, you were also her mother figure,” I respond. “Even though you were nothing but a child yourself.”
“She gave me a reason to fight,” Chaney admits. “She became my everything.”
“She filled those lonely days for you,” I add. “With her, you were never alone.”
“She’s the best thing Father ever put in my arms,” Chaney states. “I gave up so much to make sure she thrived.”
“How old were you when he did that?” I ask her. The girls don’t like discussing their ages or birthdays, I think they’re triggers for the both of them, but it’s not something they can keep ignoring. I’m not a therapist by any stretch of the imagination, but even I know that they need to come to terms with their past so they can flourish in the future.
“Too young to be caring for an infant,” she replies, leaning down and unpacking the bag. “Thankfully, I had the patience of a saint.”
I sigh before accepting her dismissal of my question. I can’t force her to face or deal with something she’s not emotionally ready for, but I wish she’d recognize that if she doesn’t, someday soon, it’s going to come back and bite her in the ass. I’m not sure why her age, even as tender as it is with her being in her early twenties, is a touchy subject for her, but we all have our theories. Mine is that she and Freyja are in the same age range of their father’s victims when he took them and played out his sadistic fantasies with them. Fuck knows that’d make me want to bury my head in the sand and pretend like my birthday never happened.
Chaney breaks my line of thought when she says, “I think instead of re-bagging them, I should just put them in my saddlebags and roll a suitcase out to my bike when I get home. It makes more sense to me than trying to find something that’ll easily be stuffed into them so I can cart them home.” She stuffs what she took out back into the bag and drags it out my front door. “Thanks for this, Van. I’ll see you later.”
“Do you need some help, Chaney?” I ask, concerned that I dug up some of her demons. I don’t want her dealing with them on her own.
“Nah, I’m good. Promise,” she swears as she tosses her hand into the air, waving.
“If you’re sure,” I say, taking a step back and pulling out my phone.
“Positive. Have a good one,” she dismisses me without looking over her shoulder and making eye contact.
