Searching for Neverland (44 page)

“I’m Caleb,” Caleb offered, as if there was some kind of question, and I had to stifle a laugh.

Savannah just sucked her thumb and stared wide-eyed at my mother.

“Well, it is nice to meet you, Caleb. I’m Liz, and I’m Taylor’s mom.”

He nodded. “Is Tanner here?”

“Tanner was just taking a shower, but he’ll be down in a few minutes. What do you guys think about having some
ice cream
while we wait for him?”

“Yeah!” Savannah cheered, taking her thumb out of her mouth.
Caleb just shrugged.

“Mom, can we
actually get them some real food?”

Caleb had told me they’d gone through the McDonald’s drive-thru around three, but they hadn’t eaten anything at our house, so I knew they were hungry.

“Sure, sweetie. Why don’t you get them settled, and I’ll heat up some leftovers.”

I smiled. My mom had been so used to cooking for a big family that s
he never really stopped, so
leftovers were always plentiful.

“Come on, kids,” I said, ushering them over to the breakfast nook. “Van, you want some milk?”

“I want
juice,” she told me.

“And I want a soda,” Caleb told me.

They both earned a raised eyebrow at those requests. “You can have milk or water. It’s eight o’clock at night.”

“Milk,” Savannah said cheerfully, and Caleb said, “Water’s fine.”

“Okay, I’ll get your drinks,” I said, as my dad walked in, followed by Tanner, whose hair was still damp.

“Well, who
do
we have here?” my dad boomed in his larger than life voice.

“Daddy, this is Caleb,” I said, as I placed my hand on top of his head, “and this is Princess Savannah.”

“I’m a princess?” she asked, looking up at me wide-eyed.

“You sure are,” my dad said, as he slid into the chair next to Savannah. “Where’s your crown?”

Savannah looked at me. “I don’t have one.”

I raised an eyebrow at my dad, hoping he knew what he was doing. Now that he’d brought up a princess crown, Savannah would want one.

“Well, it’s a good thing I do,” he said, producing one of the crowns Taryn had won in the three years she did beauty pageants when she was around Savannah’s age.

Savannah’s eyes got wide as my dad placed it on her head. She turned to me in amazement. “I’m a princess, Taylor!”

I nodded. “You are a princess, Van – a very beautiful princess.”

“I know a story about a princess,” my dad offered. “Do you want to hear it?”

Savannah nodded eagerly as she looked up at my dad in awe when he launched into his make-believe story.

I looked over at Caleb who was engrossed in some new video game my brother was playing on his NintendoDS. He looked up when he felt my eyes on his. I smiled and he smiled back. I knew he would be okay.

It would take time, but he would be fine. He’d mentally prepared himself for this night, not that it made it okay, but because of that mental preparation, he’d manage through. Savannah would be a different story, but we weren’t telling her anything until the next day when we could all tell her together.

“Taylor, can I go upstairs and play DS with Tanner?” Caleb asked tentatively. “I can stay up late since there’s no school tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, you can stay up later, but only after you eat your dinner,” I told him. I figured he’d earned a break after the night he’d had.

“Dude, it’s so good. Mom made chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. My brother was a cool kid in so many ways, but he was the only kid I knew who got excited about vegetables.

Caleb made a face. “Do I have to eat my green beans?”

“Um, yeah. Why wouldn’t you,” I told him.

“Aww, mann,” Caleb grumbled.

My mom laughed behind me, and I turned around to look at her at the same time the microwave dinged, so I got up to get the kid’s food. She was grinning at me as I came around to her side of the bar.

“What?”

“You’re really good with them,” she commented. “And they listen to you.”

“Yeah, well, they lived with us for a month, so we established boundaries already. Caleb knows he needs to eat his vegetables.”

She laughed again. “You sound like a mother.”

I froze, and then a warmth spread throughout me at her words
that hadn’t been there before when I’d been accused of the same thing. Maybe it felt different because it was coming from her, and she was the best mother I knew
.
I wasn’t sure, but it sort of made me look at the situation we were in just a little differently.

“I do?”

She nodded. “Yeah, you do. Get them settled, and
then
why don’t you and I go have a cup of tea outside. Rick will keep an eye on them, won’t you dear?”

“You got it,” my dad responded, and I knew he was loving being back in his element. It had been a long time since he’d had a little girl to tell stories to, but he’d always been so good at it
when Taryn and I were little. “I’m just practicing for my role as grandpa. Maybe Taryn will have a little girl.”

My heart warmed at the thought that my parents were so open to Taryn’s situation. I was glad she’d have the support she needed since she apparently wasn’t going to ask Noah for it.

“You’re a grandpa?” Savannah asked my dad.

“I will be in a few months,” he told her.

She looked at him speculatively. “Can I call you Grandpa?” she asked, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from gasping out loud. “I’ve never had a grandpa.”

I thought my dad might tear up right there. “Sure, you can call me, Grandpa,” he told her, and she beamed.

He looked up, caught my eye and winked, and I just smiled at him.

A few minutes later, m
y mom and I settled on the back porch with our cups of tea.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Who the hell knows. I told Caleb they would stay with us, but I don’t even know if that’s feasible.”

My mom’s eyebrows shot up. “Taylor, do you understand what that means?”

I nodded. I’d been thinking about it ever since I’d told Caleb. “I do. It means they’d be ours, full time, for the next thirteen years, at least.”

“I thought you didn’t want kids, that you were happy with your carefree existence,” she said, and there was just the slightest hint of mocking in her tone.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I do, but at the same time, these kids don’t have parents. Their mother just killed herself, their only grandparent lives in Hawaii, and their only aunt probably can’t afford to take them on full-time. I can’t let them go into the foster care system. I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Have you thought about the impact it will have on your life and your life with Josh? You’ve only just started dating, and you two just bought the bar. What will you do now?”

I was starting to get agitated with her
and
her
twenty questions. I hadn’t even processed some of those things yet
.

“I don’t know, Mom. Everything just happened, and I’m still trying to
figure i
t all
out
. Josh an
d I haven’t even talked about any of this
yet. I just don’t know.”

“You might have to fight a legal battle.”

I sighed. I hated when she did this.

“Yes, Mother, I know. I’m well-aware that this could be a long, drawn out process, and that it could put a strain on our lives and our relationship, but honestly, could you turn your back on those kids?”

My mother glanced toward the bay window in the kitchen where w
e could see the kids
laughing at something my dad was saying.

“Did you give Taryn this same lecture?”

She sighed. “Your sister’s situation is very different. It’s her baby, and you know I don’t believe in abortion. She made her bed, and I think she should lie in it – with Noah or without him – but your situation is a choice.”

I shook my head. “And I don’t see it that way. I might miss my freedom, and I might have days where I feel like I’m in over my head, but I also love those kids, and I’d do anything for them and for Josh.”

She smiled. “Then I think you’ll be fine.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Was that a test?”

Was she trying to see if I’d say the right thing to prove I really cared about the kids?

She shrugged. “No, but Taylor, parenting is hard, especially when they’re not your kids from birth, but if you want to do this as bad as it sounds like you do, then you’ll be fine.”

I smiled at her. “And you’ll babysit when Josh and I need a break?”

“Absolutely. You know my biggest fear in life is a
n
empty nest. Maybe you and Josh will decide to have a baby of your own and keep them coming.”

I laughed. “Uh, I think we’re good for now. Maybe you can talk to Trey.”

She looked appalled. “Bite your tongue, Taylor. I don’t even want to think about my baby having sex let alone being a father. He’s much too young for that. He’d better not be so stupid as to get some girl pregnant at his age. I mean, come on, in this day and age of condoms and oral contraceptives, how does one get pregnant ‘by accident’?”

I laughed again. “You should ask your other daughter that question,” I suggested, and she just shook her head.

I knew she’d asked Taryn that same question, and Taryn hadn’t been able to supply a good answer. My mother didn’t know that her crappy receptionist job had offered her benefit
s only after she worked for the company
for ninety days, and Taryn hadn’t bothered to get supplemental
health insurance, so she’d gone off the pill and the condom they were using had broken. It was just a series of bad decisions that led to a giant ‘oops’ that she’d be dealing with the for the rest of her life, but maybe it would teach her to be more responsible.

A commotion in the kitchen caused us both to look in that direction, and I saw Josh standing in the kitchen as the kids assaulted him. He looked exhausted, although he had showered and changed.

“I’m going to head inside,” I told my mother, and she just nodded.

* * *

A few hours later, after the kids were settled in bed, Josh closed the door to my childhood bedroom and ran his hands through his hair.

“This was not how I expected today to go,” he said, as he sat down next to me and dropped his head onto my stomach. I stroked his hair.

“It just sucks,” I said, for lack of anything better in that moment, because truthfully, it did suck.

“How could she do that?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, because none of it made sense.

Then Josh sat up and looked at me. “No, seriously, how could she just aban
don her kids like that? They
already lost their father. She was all they had, and she just took it all away. She took away any chance she had of getting better and being the mom they needed her to be. And it pisses me off that she was so selfish.”

“Josh, she was really sick.”

He swiped at his eyes that had started to tear up. “No, she was fucking selfish, and she wasn’t better. She needed to stay in rehab and work on getting better, but she was in such fucking denial that she didn’t take it seriously. And the worst part is that I had her convinced to go back there. I’d talked her into checking herself back in the next day and getting the help she needed and even taking the medication the doctors wanted to put her on, but then she turned on me. She fucking turned on me, and
she pulled out that damn gun. And d
o you know what she said to me?”

I shook my head.

“She said she’d been a p
risoner for too long, and who
was I to send her back to a place where they were trying to hold her captive and do experiments on her brain. She was terrified, and I fucking kept pleading with her when it was the last thing she needed. She told me she was
trapped inside her body, and she hated it. She knew the things she was feeling and thinking were insane, and she hated being crazy. And she hated me for thinking she was crazy.
I tried to tell her that the medication would help, but she didn’t believe me. She just wouldn’t listen.
”

I reached out to take his hand, hoping it would calm him down. I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling.
My heart broke for Carlie and her mental illness that she couldn’t come to grips with
, but it broke even more for
the two amazing kids she’d left behind and for Josh who’d tried so hard to help her, even at the very end when she’d fought him
and push
ed
him away and refused to let him in
.
And then she’d threatened to kill him.

And that pissed me off.