Tabby can’t be pregnant, he kept thinking.She was on birth control. We were so safe. We tried to be so safe. She just can’t be.
“… Tabby’ll be back before you know it,” Edgar said. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t help you with your mother. That must have been incredibly painful.”
“She’s a fucking cunt,” Sam sobbed.
“She is who she is, Sammy. And I don't think she'll be back if things happened at the café like you said they did.”
“Because she’s a fucking cunt!”
“Sammy,” Edgar said quietly. “Do you want a relationship with your mother?”
“Christ, no!”
“Then you must know how painful that is for Debbie?—”
“She left us!” Nicole interrupted. “She left us, and she never came back!”
“And she tried to kidnap Tabby,” Sam snarled. “Then she came back and made Tabby tattoo her, and then she tried to lure her away with all this ‘you’re just like me’ bullshit?—”
“Girls.”
Edgar didn’t say it angrily or even raise his voice, but both twins fell silent. Edgar picked up his tea. He seemed to grow older as he swirled the liquid inside the cup, the wrinkles beside his eyes and mouth deepening.
“Deborah failed you as a mother,” he said quietly. “She hurt you all badly, and for my part in that, I’ll never stop feeling guilty. But she’s already serving her sentence for what she did. She’s living in solitary confinement in her mind.”
“She doesn’t have to pay child support to her mind,” Sam snapped.
“We don’t need the money, Sammy. We already have everything we need, don’t we?”
Sam and Nicole nodded, fresh tears brewing in their eyes.
“We’rethe lucky ones. I know it doesn’t always feel that way, but it’s true. This house…” Edgar waved a hand at the modest kitchen. “… is our home. We have each other. Wehavea home. I won’t ask you to forgive your mother, but you don’t have to punish her either. There’s no worse punishment than having no family or place to call home.”
Toby thought of his empty beachside mansion. The waves crashing ceaselessly on his doorstep, the unbearable silence. He thought of his parents’ house, full of gory paintings of hellfire and even more unbearable silence, except when puppies yelped, torn away from their mother too soon.
He hung his head, pressure building in the backs of his eyes.
Please, he thought.Let Tabby come home. Let me be her home. Me and all these decent people. Let her come back, and I’ll make a life for her so beautiful and safe that she’ll never want to leave. Even if she doesn’t love me like I love her, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be her best friend. I’ll be anything she needs. I just want her to come home.
He tried to cry quietly but must have sniffed or something, because all the DaSilvas turned to look at him again.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sam demanded.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Ignore me.”
“Why would we do that?” Edgar said. “Come over here, Toby. Take a seat with your sisters.”
Toby blinked at Sam and Nicole. “I’m not…? We’re not...?”
“Oh, everyone’s family in this house,” Edgar said. “I’ll go make us some breakfast. Or is it dinnertime? I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Breakfast burritos all around, I think. And some coffee. Nicole, where have you put my French press? Or did you finally throw it out in my absence?”
Scott and Noah arrived just as they were about to eat. Nicole threw herself into her husband’s arms, and they kissed so long and deep that Edgar cleared his throat. Noah, who clearly hadn’t seen Edgar standing in the doorway, frypan in hand, blushed to the roots of his shaved head.
A bashful biker, Toby thought.Now I’ve seen everything.
“Hi, Ed,” Noah said, looking like he wanted to die. “How, uh, was the flight?”
Edgar looked highly amused. “Fantastic. Burrito?”
