by Kira Blakely
I look over my shoulder at the window, the broad night sky beyond. Maggie is somewhere out there, and my heart pangs for her. Being a separated twin is like having a phantom limb. She’s out there, and I want her back so badly.
I go back to my letter with a tightened jaw, thinking about how far away we are.
I’ve been hunkered down pretty tightly for the past month, afraid of breathing too loud, because of the company agent tailing me. My boss answered the door one day and paid him off in cash. He won’t tell me how much he gave him, which makes me think that it must have been way too much for little old me. It has nothing to do with why I love him, but I’ll gush about that in person. If I tried to fit it into this letter—you don’t want to see that.
No matter how much Lucas gave the agent, he hasn’t been by here since, but it hasn’t been too long. I’m still nervous every time I go outside.
My face lightens and warms as I think about the family I can share with Maggie now. I know the kids so much better than I used to.
Oh, my boss’s oldest, C, he beat up his bully from school, and he had some lines in the school play! It’s been a hard transition for him, so it was great to see him succeed. He was so proud of himself and L was the perfect father. If he hadn’t taught him how to punch, he wouldn’t have felt confident enough to stand up to the bully. I see why you loved children so much that you studied them. I always thought that I might want to do something with traveling or hospitality, but these kids are bringing out a whole other side of me. They’re bringing out my maternal side.
Or maybe that’s all the pregnancy hormones in my body right now?
The only major problem now is that he has an ex-wife who’s really territorial and completely hates my guts. Of course she does. I would, too. But she’s a terrible mom! I’m sorry, she is! She never takes her medication, and she’s not safe for them. She’s not even allowed to have unsupervised visitation right now.
I know what I sound like.
I sound like a defensive, know-it-all stepmom in the making.
Don’t judge me.
His younger brother found out who I was and told on me, but finding out my true identity ended up only empowering my relationship with Lucas. He really knew me then. He could love me, and he did. You’d hate his younger brother. He’s such a total goofball, though he is a nice guy. He hates me, though. I’m sure of it. I think he might have bailed early on Thanksgiving because of me. And Lucas’s ex-wife… Wow. I don’t know if she was always the way she is now, but it looks to me like losing Lucas drove her completely insane.
I wish you were here to regulate all this madness. You were always the logical one. My instincts are great and I’m hard to catch, but you’re the one who’s cool under pressure.
I feel a little safer out in public now. Maybe in a few more months, I’ll even feel safe traveling back to visit.
I glance around the darkened room and fold the letter, slipping it into one of the envelopes in the top dresser drawer. I lick it and seal it, and then I consider the envelope, thwacking it against the inside of my palm. I do wish that I had Maggie’s guidance right now, but I’m never going to get it if I refuse to even divulge my address. What if they’re watching the mail?
But what if they’re not?
I throw the letter down and launch myself off of the vanity dresser, going to my closet and throwing on a long, warm winter coat in lavender, then some slippers. It’s going to be bitterly cold outside, but something in me likes the bitter cold. It’s exhilarating.
I go back to the vanity and look down at the letter, then glance over to Lucas.
Am I safe here? Will I be OK if I give her my return address?
I purse my lips. I do want a future here. I want a real, stable future here. And that means that I need to open up about where I am. I’m even going to have to open up about who I am.
The thought brings tendrils of ice into my heart.
I settle back down at the vanity and whip out a pen. That’s it. I’m going to do it. I have to start taking chances. I have to let my roots sink into this earth.
I scratch Lucas’s address in the top left corner of the envelope so that Maggie knows where I am, and she can write me back, then snatch it up and rush out of the bedroom before I have enough time to think twice about it. I race down the stairwell in the dark, feeling wild, and throw the front door open. Outside, the snow is still a rich white blanket on the ground, glistening in the moonlight, but it doesn’t slow me down. No elements have slowed me down yet, have they? And they’re not about to start now.
I rush down the drive, freezing my feet and kicking up icy plumes of glittering snow, and claw the mailbox open, jamming my letter inside and flipping the little red flag up. There.
The mailman will take that to Ohio, to Maggie’s mailbox, and she’ll see where I am, for better or worse.
Because I’m tired of hiding, especially from my own twin sister.
I breathe hard, skin as porcelain white as snow from the cold, I scurry back inside and kick off my drenched slippers. I lock the door behind me and stare down at the doorknob, still gasping for breath and bright-eyed.
It’s the first real risk I’ve taken since forcing myself to go out to that Christmas play at the middle school—and that felt good, too. It all feels good. Maybe being pregnant has changed me. Or maybe it’s Lucas’s love that has changed me.
Whatever it is, I’m ready to live again.
Chapter 34
Lucas
“Don’t run to the car!” I belt after Charlie and Madison, infuriated at the way they’re fucking sprinting across the parking lot. That’s dangerous. “You’re in a parking lot!” Both kids obediently slow down, clutching their bags tight to their chests. It is Christmas Eve, and I do have a strict policy about not buying presents for the kids any time after November unless they’re Christmas gifts.
But there’s a Christmas shop in this narrow little strip mall, and it’s an annual tradition to pick out a decoration that symbolizes your year. I pick a little porcelain cabin made out of tiny porcelain logs to signify the move and let the kids pick theirs.
I turn to Sofia to suggest that she grab one, too, but she’s lingering close to the exit of the Christmas shop. “I want to check something out in Mama 2 B,” she tells me and ducks out without another word.
Now I’m scanning for her through the glass and catch a glimpse of a smiling exchange with the cashier at the register. She’s gesturing to all the different lotions stocked on the front desk and I want to yell through the glass that they’re all the same overpriced hooey. She shouldn’t be wasting our money on that kind of hogwash.
“Lucas?” a chilling female voice draws my eyes away from the glass doors of Mama 2 B, and my eyes freeze in a kind of panic, my mouth trapped in the same rigid straight line. Holy fuck. This could only be worse if I was strolling Sofia out of labor and delivery in a wheelchair, holding our squalling bundle of joy tight to her chest. She’s only inside a maternity store, but it’s almost as bad.
Knowing Astrid’s imagination, it might as well be labor and delivery.
“Astrid?” I half-laugh, nerves all bound up in my gut. I can’t believe it’s her. “I sent the kids to the car. Let me get them back out here. Come on. What are you doing here?” I tug her away from the doors of Mama 2 B, and Astrid follows, her eyes fixed on me. She doesn’t realize that she’s being lured away from her prey.
“I came up to surprise you,” Astrid confesses with a little simper. “But I got a hotel room if there isn’t any room at the cabin for me.”
I open my mouth, and I want to tell her that it’s not appropriate for her to drop into town without saying anything to me, expecting that she can stay in the same house. We were once married and she’s the mother of my children, but we’re not married anymore, and the last time I saw her, she was verbally assaulting my nanny.
She doesn’t look like her mania has relaxed one iota since then. If anything, it’s worse. She’s wearin
g a cloying, off-the-shoulder cat suit in white, and it’s obvious that she’s squeezed herself into some unforgiving shapewear that gives her a dramatic but fake hourglass figure. She also wears straw-colored wedge boots and a khaki ruffle coat with an explosive fur fringe. She looks like someone from a music video, and I think she’s had a collagen injection in her lips since I last saw her.
I wish she would come here as the kids’ mom, and not in some overwhelming and desperate attempt to get me back. I want more than a dramatic figure and big, shiny lips. She ruined our relationship. I hate to see her flouncing around like this. She thinks that all she needs to do to fix things is to wear a new outfit around me?
This is exactly why Sofia’s femininity appeals to me: because it’s natural. It’s a part of her clever but nurturing spirit. At first, especially from a distance, Astrid was appealing. Over time, though, that kind of overdramatic superficiality starts to wear down on a person. And it wore down on me. I missed seeing a real face looking up at me.
“Hold on, hold on, I’m coming,” Sofia calls. She has no idea I’m with Astrid right now. I pray that Astrid didn’t see which store she came out of, but I see her blond curls flouncing their way toward the Jeep. Shiiit.
“Oh, it’s the tartlet,” Astrid murmurs under her breath, giving me a sideways look of disapproval then forcing a one hundred-watt smile on Sofia. “Hi, Maggie. Merry Christmas. How are y—?”
I hear Astrid’s voice jam in her throat like someone clapped their hand right over her windpipe.
She’s staring with hard, glazed eyes.
I follow her gaze to Sofia and see that she has a small plastic bag dangling from her wrist.
The bag says Mama 2 B, and Astrid looks from the bag to Sofia and back to the bag and back to Sofia.
“Is that for you?” she wonders in a voice as small, fragile, and bitterly cold as falling snow.
“It’s—no, no, no,” Sofia lies, opening the passenger door of the Jeep and shoving the bag inside. Astrid dives toward the bag, like she’s going to pry it open whether Sofia consents or not, but Sofia slams the door and smiles brightly up at Astrid. “That’s for a baby shower I’m going to,” she lies easily. “Not for me. I’m not pregnant. I’m single, Astrid.”
My jaw clenches, but I let Sofia keep lying. We’ll need to tell everyone the truth sooner or later, and the longer we lie, the shittier we’re going to look. But it’s Christmas, and Astrid is here. Without my foreknowledge. Without my consent. Expecting to stay in the house with the kids and with Sofia, even though she has a volatile and contentious relationship with the woman. Even though she’s not just the new nanny. She’s going to be my fiancée. And then, she’s going to be my wife.
“Maggie, would you stay with the kids in the car for a moment?” I suggest, and Sofia acquiesces, climbing inside with her bag.
I mostly want her to be somewhere behind glass and metal, in case Astrid loses it.
“Astrid,” I say, looping my arm comfortingly around her shoulders and guiding her away from the vehicle, “let’s talk for a minute.”
Astrid glares up at me suspiciously as we traipse across the parking lot, back toward the sidewalk lining the strip mall.
“I appreciate that you want to spend time with kids over the holidays,” I begin, speaking in a soothing tone. “That’s an important step in healing your relationship with them. But you can’t show up here unannounced whenever you want to see them. That isn’t the kind of relationship that we have, you know? Sometimes I have plans with them, too. And those plans might cause such a complication that they’d end up having a terrible Christmas instead of a great one.”
Astrid pulls from beneath my arm and turns on her wedge heels, glowering up at me. “Oh, I see how it is,” she snaps. A blush of rage creeps up into her cheeks. “Now I’m here, and it’s going to be a terrible Christmas. Well, excuse me for thinking that it might be a nice surprise!”
“It is, Astrid, but you can’t move in because you thought it would be a nice surprise,” I say, struggling to maintain my own emotional calm. She’s always ready to ratchet the tension up in a fight, and it’s hard to keep it cool and mature. “It’s not going to work this year.”
Astrid’s eyes tick toward the Jeep, and she makes eye contact with Sofia. Sofia looks away quickly, and Astrid smirks, flicking her gaze back to me.
“It’s the goddamn nanny, isn’t it?” she sneers.
I take a deep breath, and I say the words out loud. Someone has to tell her. It will be a messy explosion of drama on Christmas morning if I don’t. What if she sees the prenatal vitamins? What if she notices Sofia’s morning sickness? It’s too risky.
“Maggie and I are together,” I say. Let’s start there.
Astrid’s eyes bulge, and she throws her head back, literally roaring. It would have alarmed me if I hadn’t already seen it before. This is how she handles things when she’s off her medication: like a toddler.
“Everything is going to be OK, Astrid,” I reassure her, reaching out for her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” she growls, jerking away. Tears crop up in her eyes. “I fucking knew it. She is pregnant, isn’t she? You’re a piece of shit, Lucas!”
“We’ve been separated for two years!” I remind her. “I haven’t dated anyone. There was no one I wanted to date. I saw how you acted on social media. So, don’t pretend that I’m the first one to sleep with someone else, Astrid. You and I both know that you were over this relationship until you saw me with Sof—with Maggie.”
Astrid’s eyes bulge. “I’m not going to take this fucking lying down,” she assures me, whirling on her heel and marching down the sidewalk. I have no idea where she’s going. This is always how arguments with Astrid end. Threats and a disappearance. “You’re going to lose the goddamn kids over this one,” she promises. “This isn’t over, Lucas!”
She shoves her way through a storefront, and its little bell tinkles.
I grimace and head back across the parking lot, opening the driver’s side door on the Jeep and collapsing inside.
Sofia slides a sympathetic look in my direction. “Everything OK?” she broaches gently, and I smile back at her.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.”
Now that I’m in the car, I can see which store she went into: the Fallaway Peak liquor store.
Chapter 35
Sofia
I try not to let the scene outside of the Fallaway Peak shopping center disturb me too much. It’s Christmas Eve, and there’s a lot of stuff to focus on. The dinner isn’t ready. Not all the presents are wrapped. I got a white karate uniform and belt for Charlie that still needs to get nestled under that tree. I got an art kit for Madison that isn’t under there yet, either. There’s plenty to focus on, but the image of Astrid roaring on that sidewalk keeps wafting back into my mind’s eye.
While I’m chopping apples for the apple pie, I pause and subconsciously fold one hand over my lower abdomen, protecting the little life inside of me.
“Nothing will ever hurt you,” I promise in a tiny whisper.
“What?” Lucas wonders, clomping into the kitchen with a bag of carrots under one arm and a bag of potatoes under the other. He slams them down onto the counter alongside me and shucks their bags away.
“Nothing,” I say, smiling meekly up at him. “Just talking to myself. Making the apple pie for tonight.”
“Fantastic. I’m going to line the turkey with all this good stuff right here. We’ve got plenty of time, so she should be fat and juicy by tonight.”
“When is James getting here?” I ask, and Lucas makes a “meh” sound.
“He goes where the wind takes him,” he reminds me, “but I’m going to play it safe and say ‘around dinnertime.’”
I nod and dump my apple slices into a bowl of cinnamon and sugar, tossing them. I clear my throat, then I ask my next question. The sounds of exuberant play leak from the den. No one can hear our whispers right now.
“You told
Astrid about me, didn’t you?”
Lucas hesitates in his chopping and nods. “Yes, I did,” he says. “And I don’t regret it. It had to happen sooner or later. Astrid needs to get used to the thought of us together.”
I purse my lips and nod. I don’t know why I’m so uneasy, so threatened by her. She’s just a woman. She’s never killed anyone. Hell, I’m the one who’s wanted—not her.
“OK,” I say. “I guess you’re right. I’m only going to get bigger, not smaller.”
“Well, it’s not just that. I need more boundaries with Astrid. That would be true if you were here or not.” Lucas’s eyes tilt down to me and he stops chopping. His hand drifts over to mine and wraps around my wrist, drawing my attention away from my bowl of apples. My gaze tilts up to him and I swallow, wondering what might be coming next.
“Actually,” he says, “I think we need to tell the kids before things go any further.”
My lips part in a mild shock. “Are you serious?” I whisper. “It’s still so sudden.”
“It is sudden,” Lucas agrees, “but it’s right. They love you. And I love you. And I don’t want to hide it anymore. I’ve been hiding my own feelings in my own house since the day we met.”
I slowly nod. “I understand how that feels,” I admit. “And I’m tired of hiding, too. I—I love you, too, Lucas.”
His hand runs down my cheek and tilts my mouth up to his, capturing me impulsively, right here in the kitchen. My body reels reactively to his touch, and my fingers go to hold his shirt. His tongue brushes mine and then he’s gone, leaving me simmering and begging for more, as usual.
“Let’s tell them now,” he breathes, and I smile up at him, feeling so treasured and secure. He does love me. He really does want me, no matter how inconvenient this entire arrangement is. He takes my little hand in his big one and tugs me toward the den.
Charlie bounds from one couch to the next, shooting a gun that blows plunger darts against the wall. Madison shrieks and rolls, his apparent target, even though he missed her by several feet. Still, her heart is in it, and they’re both over-actors.