Zach
“Zach, dinner is just about done.”
“Okay,” I grunt over my shoulder, picking up the drill and securing another screw.
Finally getting around to fixing this damn handrail at Mom’s.
Honestly, it’s just something to keep me busy. Try to keep my mind off of Louise and all the ways I’ve fucked up and all the uncertainties of this new future I have in front of me.
Mom steps out the screen door, letting it slap lightly closed behind her, and I look up when she gets closer to me. She steps down onto the first step and then sits, turning the ten-month-old in her arms around so that he can sit in her lap and look around.
He babbles at me and I smile at him. Fucking cute kid. Declan.
If all goes to plan, the temporary foster placement will be permanent, and I can adopt him to keep him together with his sisters. Holy shit. My mind is still wrapping around everything, honestly.
“I still can’t believe you never told me,” Mom chastises for the hundredth time in the last few weeks. She kisses the top of his little blond head and he alligator twists in her arms to look up at her, reaching for her with one chubby little fist.
I sigh, setting the drill down. “I know. I’m sorry.”
I’d shown up at Mom’s after the court hearing. Joel came and picked the girls up to take them for ice cream instead of having her take them, because even as a forty year old man, in that moment, I needed my mom. And she’d held me while I cried and raged and tried to make sense of any of it.
She kisses Declan’s fingers as he grabs for her mouth, making him belly laugh. He’s a happy little shit. The girls adore him. Chloe has claimed him as hers. Bailey likes to put him in the bottom of the laundry baskets at home and race him around the new living room like a racecar. He loves it.
Abigail cried when I told her about him, explaining the best that I could what had happened at court, and why he would be coming to live with us. She can’t wrap her young mind around how their mother could just choose to abandon all of them, just deciding she doesn’t want any of them. My dad hadn’t been around to raise us, but he hadn’t disappeared entirely. We still saw him. He still provided for us. We knew he cared, even if his job kept him away.
This… this is a different level of pain, and I don’t know how to help. I’ve got her set up for counseling; I can only pray that it helps her process some of this grief and trauma in a way that I can’t.
I offered the option to talk to a counselor to Bailey, but she’d just shrugged, not at all phased over everything with theirmother, or the sudden introduction of a new brother they didn’t know about.
Chloe just asks for Lou. When can we see her? Why couldn’t she come with us? Why can’t she come see us here at our new house and meet baby Declan? She’d like baby Declan, after all.
God, she would love baby Declan.
Declan reaches for me and I take him from my mom. It’s been so long since I’ve had a baby to take care of, and damn, I forgot how exhausting it is. Thank God for my mom, and all the guys at work that banded together to get us all the shit I didn’t have for another baby at a moment’s notice.
We watch as Joel pulls into the driveway, parking next to my truck. He climbs out, stalking toward us. “Give the baby to Mom.”
I hand Declan to our mom and stand, concern knotting my stomach. “What’s wrong—”
Joel drops his head, angling his shoulders, and rams into me hard enough to take us both to the ground, knocking the wind out of me.
Mom just mutters, “Boys, really? In front of the baby?”
I wrap one arm around Joel’s neck and shoulder, at the same time cinching his waist with my legs. He grunts and punches at me, managing to get loose and stand up. His hair is wild around his head, glasses knocked off somewhere in the dirt. I heave myself to my feet, squaring off.
“What the fuck, asshole?” I snarl, throwing my arms out wide.
“Exactly my question! What the fuck?” Joel snaps back, swinging at me with a right hook that I dodge by inches. “You’re a real dumb bastard, you know that?”
“Would you like to explain or just keep throwing insults at me?” I ask, circling.
“If I have to explain, you’re even dumber than I gave you credit for,” he sneers, shaking his head. He reaches into the backpocket of his jeans and tosses a small manilla envelope at my chest. I barely snatch it out of the air. “You don’t even realize how fucking lucky you are, man, that even after you stomped all over her heart, she’s still thinking about you, about your kids. About makingthemhappy, despite knowing how badly it will hurther.That’sthe kind of woman you just trampled on, Zach!That’sthe woman you shoved away because you’re too much of a fucking coward to stay and fight through the hard shit!She’s not Brittanee, you dumb fuck!”
“Okay—” Mom calls over us, but Joel just throws up his hands in defeat.
“Don’t worry, I’m done,” he mutters, stooping low to swipe up his glasses from the dirt. He straightens, shaking his head, staring me down. Then, without another word he turns, stalking back toward his vehicle and climbing behind the wheel.
“I’m going to take this one back inside,” Mom says quietly, and I nod, grateful that she’s willing to give me a moment to collect myself after the physical and emotional beatdown my brother just gave me.
