27 Truths: Ava's story (The Truth About Love Book 1) (28 page)

***

We walk into the NICU, and Logan stands up.

“Dad can take you home,” I say, giving him a hug. “Get some sleep.”

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna take a cab, Logan?” Dad asks.

“No,” I insist. “I am fine, okay? I love you both, but look around. There is a ton of people here. I’ll be fine.”

“Give me a minute with Chance,” Dad says over his shoulder as he walks over to the sink and scrubs up.

I bite my tongue and let Dad hold him first. I know they all love them, and they love me, but ten weeks with everyone around is a bit much.

I sit in the rocker, feeding my little man. He is nearly six pounds and nurses just as well as Hope.

“Okay, little rock star”—I rub his cheek to remind him he is eating—“you need to hurry up and heal. Your sister is missing you. I am missing you. And your family—God love them—is driving me nuts.”

His eyes open and his lips curve a bit. I know it’s gas, but I smile back at him.

“I’ll take that as a promise,” I coo. “I will. I’ll hold you to it.”

His eyes are a brilliant blue, and his hair is jet black. Some babies, you can’t tell if they are a boy or girl, but Chance already looks like a little man.

“I wish you looked like your daddy, but you’re stuck looking like me except that dimple. That’s all your daddy’s. That’s all Thomas’s.”

His eyes are wide, and it’s like he is taking in everything I say. I wonder if it’s because he sleeps less than Hope that he seems more alert. That thought hurts me because Chance is awake more since he is poked and prodded all day.

I see the doors open, and Dr. Yoman walks in. He is a neonatologist, and his bedside manner is much better than Dr. Kennedy’s.

“Hey, Chance,” he says, smiling. “Looking good, little guy, or should I say, big guy. Six pounds at last weigh-in.” He gives him an air fist bump. “You know what else is going on? You’re breathing and clearly eating on your own. You have had four out of six nights that your apnea machine didn’t beep, so that means you’re sleeping well. And let’s top that with the fact that your NEC scans are clear. The port still needs to stay put for about ten days, just in case, but if your mom here thinks she can make sure to bring you in every other day for scans and blood tests, I see no reason you can’t be released in say”—he paused and signs a paper then holds it up—“about ten minutes.”

“Are you serious?” I gasp, startling Chance. His little lips quiver around me, and I lean down and smile at him. “You did it, Chance. You did it!”

“Should I give your father a call?”

“Are there car seats here at the hospital? I’d like to do this alone.”

He seems to understand and nods. “I’ll be back.” He sets paperwork on the side table next to me and walks away.

***

I don’t like having to be wheeled out of the hospital, but it’s policy, and if it takes that to get our boy home, I will sit and stew in silence.

The cab pulls up, and I let out a breath as I stand. Suddenly, I am nervous about letting someone I don’t know drive our son.

“We can do this, Chance. We can,” I say as we get inside, and I strap the base in.

I give the cab driver my address and tell him to please be careful. He looks in the rearview and nods. Then I sit back, buckle my seat belt, and he pulls away from the curb.

When he pulls up in front of our building, he does so in the only place possible to park.

I don’t want to get out. I can’t.

“Can you drive around and pull up closer to the entrance. We’ll get out quickly, I promise.”

He nods again and drives around the block before pulling up beside my Dad’s SUV. I pay him and quickly get Chance and I out and onto the sidewalk.

I walk in and fish through my purse, grabbing my key, then board the elevator. Chance is awake and alert, sucking furiously on his pacifier.

“We’re home. You are going to love what your father has done for you.”

When we get off the elevator, no one is in the open space that is the living area. I take a big deep breath and feel calmness for the first time in over two months.

I set Chance’s carrier on the counter and unbuckle him. Then I hear voices, so I pick him up and walk toward the office that has acted as home base for all of our family.

“You tell her to back off, Lucas,” my mother snaps. I am not happy that she is back to her old tricks.

“I never should have told you a damn thing, Ash. This isn’t about you and me; this is about Ava, Hope, and Chance.”

“Ava, Hope, and Chance will be fine. Jade needs to mind her business and leave it alone.”

I walk a little closer, wanting to hear everything.

“When she saw Luke for the first time in Germany, he asked if the baby was his!” Dad snaps.

“He was drugged and a mess. Who the hell is she to assume that it’s my little girl he’s talking about?”

I step back when the weight of the world feels like it’s on my shoulders. I close my eyes tightly and shake my head, willing it away. These babies are mine and Thomas’s. I will not allow anyone to speculate otherwise. I need to make sure they know it, and I need to do so with the fierce belief that Thomas had in its truth. Clearly, it is true.

“Jade would never do this to Ava without warrant, Ash, and you know it.”

“Lucas, she’s a mother; she’s your friend. She is grasping at straws. Who the hell wouldn’t want Ava to be a child’s mother? She’s got her shit together; she’s driven; she’s smart; she’s clearly strong—”

“You are something else,” Dad huffs.

“I’m her mother, and I am telling you that you need to tell that bitch, if she wants to go dragging Ava’s name through the mud, I will make her life hell.”

“Will you, Mrs. Robertson?” Dad laughs. “Or will you throw up your hands and walk away?”

“You know damn well I will. Do whatever you have to do to get that woman to back down.”

“After I ask Ava if it’s a possibility, and she tells me it’s not, then I will.”

“She doesn’t need to be part of Jade’s head trip over her son who is clearly delusional. She needs you to show her support, Lucas.”

“She knows damn well I will support her. I have always been in her corner. You’re the one who ran off.”

“Well, isn’t it interesting that she has made her home here?” Mom says smugly.

“It’s her home because of T,” Dad says defensively.

“And what was it before, then?” She doesn’t give him a chance to answer. “Her mother, Lucas, and the fact that she is bigger than that little town or a young man who runs off at any chance he gets to blow shit up.”

Dad laughs haughtily. “You really are a fucking bitch, Ash.”

“You helped make me that way,” she counters.

I walk back to the door, holding Chance tightly to me. I don’t want them to know I heard them. I want to get to Hope and take my babies—mine and T’s—far away.

I have no idea what I will say if Dad confronts me. None. But I pray he doesn’t.

I hear the elevator begin to move, and I assume that it’s Logan. I have to let them know I’m here now before he gets out so they don’t know I heard them.

I take a deep breath, kiss Chance, and whisper, “You are ours.”

I set him in the carrier and yell, “Anybody home?”

They both come out of the room, looking shocked.

“What …? How …? Ava, do they know you brought him home?”

I smile because I have to. “Yeah, Dad, they do. Chance is home, and he is doing great.” I pick him up and smile. “T and my babies are home.”

“That’s great news, Ava.” Mom smiles as she walks toward me.

I now know where I get the ability to fake happiness. It’s from her.

“Isn’t it, Lucas?” she asks from over her shoulder.

He nods. “Yeah, it’s wonderful.”

Wonderful.

I remember vividly our first night together and when T’s mouth touched me everywhere and the way he made me feel.

“I’m not drunk anymore, T, and I’m not a child, and I want you to feel like I do.”

“How’s that?”

I told him, “Wonderful.”

Logan walks out of the elevator, his hair soaked with sweat. “Holy shit!”

“Go shower. I can smell you from here.” I smile at him then turn and look at Mom. “Take Chance a second?”

When she does, I walk quickly to the office, open the desk drawer, and pull out the journal.

I open it to page twenty-seven as I sit and grab a pen.

Page 27

Our Love is forever, Thomas Hardy. Yours, mine, and our children’s … forever.

I set the journal on the table next to my father’s phone charger, knowing he will get curious and read it. Then I get up and walk out.

When I pass the nursery, I look in. Hope’s crib has been moved to the window, and she is sleeping soundly with the sun on her back. I bend down and kiss her sweet, little head, and she stirs yet doesn’t wake up.

When I turn around to walk out, I am greeted with a father’s wish for his children: butterflies and a smiling sun.

I kiss my fingers and reach up, touching the cloud that Piper pointed to and told me he was sitting on. “Our love is forever.”

When I walk out, I see Dad warming up lunch, clearly something Tessa cooked for tonight.

“If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to.”

I hold my hands out and take Chance from Mom. “I’m actually a little hungry,” I say, walking over next to him.

“He looks like me, doesn’t he?” I ask.

“He does.” Dad nods.

“Except this right here.” I point to his dimple. “That’s totally T. Even Liam said so.”

Dad nods again.

“They have matching birthmarks, too,” I tell him. “Right on their left cheek.”

Dad looks at Chance’s cheek and then at me.

I smile. “Butt cheek.”

He kisses my head and turns to put the casserole in the oven.

“And to think, your daddy didn’t think you two were his and made me do a paternity test,” I say in a sickly sweet tone.

“He, what?” Logan laughs.

“Yeah, men.” I look back at Chance. “He said he loved me, anyway, but needed to know. Simple blood test and that stress was gone.”

“Hell, I could have told him it was his. If I remember correctly, I saw him Christmas night bare-assed, running after you.”

“Shh,” I say. “Not in front of the kids.”

“Or your father,” Dad says in a more relaxed tone.

“Condom broke.” I shrug. “Good thing we aren’t Indian; that would have been a hell of a name to be stuck with.”

Logan laughs, getting the joke. “Broken Condom and Bare Ass. Yeah, that would have sucked.”

“It wouldn’t have happened.” I smile at Chance. “No way would I have done that to you. No way.”

The police found the car that hit and killed T. It was registered to a ninety-year-old man who had dementia and an alibi. The police think that the car was stolen and that the old man never reported it because he didn’t notice it was gone. The plate was registered to a totally different vehicle. They didn’t close the case, but because of empty bottles and drug paraphernalia they found inside the car, they were sure they were right.

It didn’t help to know that no one was gunning for him. I never thought it to begin with. I had never seen Thomas Hardy unkind to anyone except Luke Lane. It didn’t help that they found a motive for why it happened. It didn’t help, because it didn’t bring him back.

That night, I dream of T, and when I wake up, I am confused.

You know that feeling when you walk into the bitter February cold and you take your first breath, and your breath is frozen? You feel the pain in your throat, your chest, and you think to yourself,
This is what it feels like when you are dying.

Or that moment you walk into the desert air, and you feel like your lungs are so full that you can’t take a breath when you desperately need one? None comes, and you are dying.

I can’t breathe. Death is strangling me. It’s bitter cold, it’s sufficiently hot, and then there is this.

I look around. I am in the middle of the twins’ room. Dad put a bed together for me in here so that maybe they could sleep, and when they did, I would.

I get up and look in their cribs, terrified they are going to be taken away, too. It has become a secret and all-consuming thought.

My dad rushes in the room, and I smile. It’s fake, so fake, but I need them to leave. I need to grieve and love and grieve and love repeatedly.

I walk past him, needing to use the bathroom, and quickly hide behind the door.

I grab a towel and sob into it as I climb into the empty tub and sit.

The door opens, and Dad walks in, steps in the tub, sits down, and holds me.

“Talk to me, baby girl.”

Everything rushes out, and I can’t stop it.

“Daddy, I don’t want to live, and I don’t want to die, but this pain … This pain is unbearable. I can’t do this. I can’t do it anymore. I want to die. I want to fall asleep and never wake up. I want our babies in my arms on a cloud high above the world that is so full of death and pain and suffocation. I want to open my eyes and see him. I want to see him and for him to sit on the cloud, pain free and breathing, looking at me the way he did, and for his babies to see him and all the love he has for them! They are his, Daddy. They are, and Jade is wrong!
You
are wrong! I heard you and Mom. Do you know what that felt like?”

“I’m sorry, Ava. I’m sorry I wanted to ask you.”

“Do you know what it would be like if they were his?
Do you?
It would be horrible, horrible and awful, and I don’t want it. I don’t want him. I want T, Daddy. I want him here with me so badly so that I can breathe and love and not think about death and sadness.”

“Ava, what are you saying?”

“I’m telling you that T and I did a paternity test when I first found out. Dr. Kennedy administered it. T is my babies’ father, and—”

“Could Luke have been, Ava?” he asks, his voice shaking in anger.

“No!”

“Okay. Christ, Ava.” He holds me more tightly. “Okay, baby girl.”

“It’s not okay. Nothing is okay. There is life, and there is death, and there is nothing else.” I sob.