by Cee Bowerman
Just as the door shut behind Sonny, a cheerful nurse came in holding a clipboard.
“Ms. Lane! How do you feel?”
“Rested,” I remarked humorously. “But I have to pee.”
“Let me take that IV out for you, make it a little easier.” The nurse made quick work of the IV in my arm and slapped a bandage on it before I’d even realized she’d removed the needle. “You can put your own clothes on now if you’d like.”
Last night, I’d been wearing a pair of panties and one of Mace’s t-shirts that came almost to my knees. I didn’t want to walk through the hospital wearing that get-up, but it didn’t look like I had much choice.
“There’s a bag in the bathroom. Lena brought it earlier,” Mace told me. “Do you need help?”
I stood up on the cold tile floor and wavered just a little bit. I held onto the bed rail until I got my bearings, and then held the back of my gown closed as I made my way to the bathroom.
“Is there a toothbrush?”
“Shower stuff and everything,” Mace explained. “Lena said she hooked you up with everything you’ll need to feel human again.”
“She’s awesome,” I whispered. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”
“I have your discharge papers ready for the doctor. He should be here within the hour, Ms. Lane.”
“Thank you!” I told the nurse with a grin.
I felt like I’d slept for days. I’d seen my kids and could keep them with me now. My lifelong nightmare and constant worry was over and life was going to be great. I was moving in with my boyfriend and while I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain that to my children, I felt sure they’d be fine with it.
I knew for a fact that both kids already loved Mace and his brothers, and they’d both be over the moon at the thought of living out in the country where they could run and play. After my whispered conversation with Cyrus just last night, I was sure he’d jump at the chance to take our relationship with Mace to the next level.
“I love you,” I told Mace as I stopped to look into his eyes. “Normally, I’d be all pissy that you planned out my life, but I’m glad you want me to live with you. I want to and I’m not even worried about what the future will bring.”
“You shouldn’t be.” Mace smiled. “I love you back and want to spend the rest of my life making you and the kids as happy as I can.”
22.
“Is this the part where the woman snaps and boils a rabbit or something?”
Liberty
REBA
“Uncle Grunt said that we are going home with you and we’re going to live in Mace’s house now!” Vada whispered. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“I was going to talk to you about that,” I whispered back. “We haven’t even seen Mace’s house. What if he’s a slob?”
“Cyrus is a slob and he does better when you yell at him,” Vada remarked as she glanced across the room at her brother whose face was covered in icing from the cinnamon roll in his hand. “If Mace is a slob, you can yell at him and he’ll clean his house.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“So it’s settled then?” Mace asked me with a smile. “Vote of approval from the masses?”
“I told Mama that we’re going to marry you already,” Cyrus explained. “I guess she didn’t tell you yet.”
“No.” Mace grinned at me. “She didn’t ask me to marry her yet. Maybe tomorrow?”
“She’s slow about some things.” Cyrus let out an exasperated sigh. “Sometimes you’ve got to get onto her more than once to get things done.”
“You think so, huh?” I growled at my son with a pretend glare.
“I’ve been telling you we need a treehouse for months now, Mom.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly in the budget, son.”
“I happen to know a family who owns a construction business. They might be able to hook you up with a treehouse,” Mace said slyly. “Just depends on who you ask.”
“Really?” Cyrus whispered. “I can have a treehouse?”
“Can I have a fort?” Vada wiggled in the bed where she was sitting next to my hip. She jumped down and ran around the end of the bed toward Mace as she yelled, “Please let me have a fort!”
“I think a treehouse and a fort could be arranged,” Mace said with a chuckle. “Or better yet, why don’t we skip the treehouse and build a fort on either side of the yard? We could connect them with a zipline or something. We’d have to get with my brothers and see what all of us can come up with.”
“I don’t think that’s…” I started to argue, imagining the broken bones that might entail.
My argument was drowned out by the deafening whoops of joy from both kids. When I looked over at him, Grunt was laughing. The door of my hospital room opened and the nurse who had helped me earlier was accompanied by a silver-haired doctor. Mace picked up Vada and sat her on his knee so that she was out of their way. While the doctor gave me instructions on what to do if I had any more problems, I glanced up to see that Vada was leaning back against Mace’s chest while she ate her donut.
She looked comfortable and happy and when I saw Cyrus lean over and whisper something to Mace, I smiled. Both of my kids had fallen for my man, and it looked like he’d done the same with them.
“Can we go?” Vada asked me as the nurse and doctor left the room. “To our new house?”
“You want us to keep them for one more night or …”
“Thank you so much, but no,” I said as I shook my head. “I want them with me.”
“Figured as much, but had to offer.” Grunt laughed. “I’m headed home then. I’ll bring their stuff by. And we’ll see the four of you for dinner in the next week or two?”
“Yes!” I smiled. “Thank you again, Grunt!”
“Sweetheart, it was a pleasure,” Grunt ruffled Cyrus’s hair and then pinched Vada’s cheek. “Bye, squirts.”
“Bye, Grunt!” Cyrus said through a mouthful of donut.
“Bye, Uncle Grunt.” Vada smiled up at him from her perch on Mace’s leg. “Love you.”
“Love you too, kiddo.” Grunt gave Mace a nod and me a two finger salute before he let himself out of my hospital room.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked Mace, unsure how we should proceed. “The kids' stuff is still at the house, isn’t it?”
Mace shook his head. “Nope. Everything that could be moved is already in my garage. Your Aunt Sandy made arrangements to have what wasn’t salvageable hauled off and then a cleaning company will come in and take care of the rest. You might not get your deposit back, but it will be in decent shape.”
“And just like that we’re moved in?”
“Just like that.” Mace smiled. “I like that I got my way and there was no argument from you. I also appreciate the fact that neither of us had to carry a single box.”
“You’ll be carrying plenty helping me unpack and finding places in your house for all our stuff.”
“Why are we sitting here talking about this?” Cyrus asked the two of us. “Didn’t the doctor say we could take you home?”
“Shit,” Mace blurted. “The kid’s right.”
“Let’s go home,” Vada said as she hopped off Mace’s lap. “I want to see my new bedroom and tell you where to put my fort.”
“I’m older. I get to choose first,” Cyrus dictated as he stood up, half a donut in his hand.
“No you don’t. I asked for a fort before you, so I go first.” Vada argued.
I couldn’t even get onto them for arguing right now. I was just too happy to have them here with me and even happier knowing that I would be able to kiss them goodnight when it was time for bed. There was no way to explain the peace of mind that came with having my life back to normal. Even if it was a new normal.
◆◆◆
MACE
The four of us drove up to my house, our house now, and I pulled into the driveway. Before I even got the truck turned off, Vada and Cyrus were both out of their seatbelts and piling out
of either side. They took off like a shot around the side of the house leaving Reba and I sitting there in shock.
“Well, I think they’re okay with us moving in with you,” Reba said with a giggle.
“Are you?”
“It’s sudden,” Reba admitted. “I’m more of a planner.”
“That’s understandable,” I decided. “But I feel like it’s right. Don’t you feel that?”
“I do,” Reba agreed softly.
“And now I don’t have to spend a night away from you again,” I told her as I leaned across the console for a kiss. “I love you, Reba.”
“Come on!” Vada yelled from the doorway. “Mace! We picked our spots for the forts. We even agreed on it and everything.”
“Well, that’s one thing solved.” I shook my head laughing as I reached up and hit the button to open the garage door. We were greeted with a wall of boxes and furniture.
“That’s all of my things?”
“Yep. They said they brought everything over. They put the stuff that was already in boxes over to the side - decorations and what not. They sorted the rest by room.”
“What are we going to do with all of it?”
“Well, honey, we’re going to put it in the house,” I tried to tamp down my exasperation. I wanted this. I wanted her and the kids to live with me. I wanted a family. I wanted Reba.
“I’ve never even been in your house,” Reba fretted. “There’s so much I don’t…”
“Come in and see my house. Look around. Check the closets and look under the beds. I don’t have a basement, but I do have a pretty big shed out back. That’s where I do my human sacrifices by the light of the full moon but only in February.”
“Whatever,” Reba giggled. “But what about the kids; beds and their furniture? Their toys?”
“We’ll get it figured out, baby, but first we have to do the really important shit.” I squeezed Reba’s hand as I glanced over her shoulder. “You go into the house and look around. I need to grab a can of spray paint and mark the areas where they want their forts. They’re not arguing, so we need to get this set in stone now before they have a chance to start.”
Mace slid out of the truck and grabbed a can of spray paint from a shelf before he hurried around the corner toward the backyard. I sat there for a second laughing to myself.
Our entire lives, both mine and Mace’s, had been turned upside down and back again and he was worried about backyard forts. I, on the other hand, wondered about bathroom space, water pressure, and whether or not the man was a slob.
“Grown up problems, right there,” I muttered as I got out of the truck. I squeezed my way through the stacks of boxes and plastic bins in the garage, getting a faint hint of gasoline as I walked through. I opened the first door I saw and found the water heater, so I moved to the second door. It opened up into a mudroom of sorts.
Directly in front of the door was a bench seat built into the wall. It had cubby holes under it with a shelf on the bottom. To the right was a laundry room, so I moved that direction to see what I’d be working with.
I leaned against the doorframe in shock, and then smiled when I thought of how convenient this room was going to be. The washer and dryer were on the left next to a large farmhouse sink. On the right side of the room was a long counter with shelves under it and a rod above it to hang clothes.
No more scrambling around trying to hold a basket on my hip while I maneuvered myself around and tried to get to the washing machine. Definitely none of that here.
“Who would have ever thought a laundry room could make me happy?” I laughed softly as I headed into the kitchen. It was a dream. The cabinets and floor were white, the countertops were gray, and the island in the middle of the room had a small sink and a stovetop with a rack of pans hanging above it. “And then she saw the kitchen.”
I made my way through the kitchen into the dining area beyond it and then through a doorway into an actual dining room. The table was long with six chairs on each side and one on each end. An empty hutch sat on one wall, and I got excited at the thought of displaying my ‘good dishes’.
I turned left and walked out into the living room. The L-shaped couch was a dark chocolate brown and went perfectly with the light hardwood floor. There was a recliner off to one side and a coffee table in the middle that was bare except for coasters and a stack of books.
Pictures along the mantle reminded me of the ones I’d seen in the nursery at Finn and Lena’s. There was a glass vase full of rocks at one end next to a picture of his Mace and Greer that I knew must have a story. The patio doors led out into a sunroom. I couldn’t wait to put that to use later.
I glanced to the left and saw a hallway and then another doorway and a hall to my right. I went to the right first and was shocked to find four empty bedrooms and two bathrooms that looked like they’d never been used. I crossed the living room again and went down the hall.
There was a library with a wall full of books that I knew Cyrus would love, a guest bathroom, and then I found the den. A long couch and two recliners took up most of the floor space and at the end of the room was the biggest television I’d ever seen. I crossed the hall from the den and found myself in Mace’s bedroom.
There was a king-sized bed on the far wall with nightstands on either side of it. A chest of drawers and a long dresser matched the bed and when I walked into the giant closet, I saw another chest of drawers in there that matched too. One small section of the closet was being used by Mace to hang his jeans and t-shirts with only a few button-up shirts at the end. I smiled when I spotted a single hanger holding a pair of slacks and a jacket, a tie wrapped around the neck of the hanger.
My man was not one to dress up, I realized.
“Well, he definitely has the space for us,” I whispered to myself as I turned around to walk out of the bedroom. I walked back out into the living area of the house and turned to go out the patio doors and hopefully find my little family.
Once I was in the sunroom, I stopped and looked around in shock. Floor to ceiling windows looked out over the backyard. A pool was over to the left and there was a circular area that held a firepit and several comfortable chairs. Beyond that, next to the French doors I’d noticed in Mace’s bedroom, there was a hot tub sunken into the concrete.
I spun back around and saw the big grassy area where my kids and Mace stood with all of his brothers. They were having an intense discussion that included a lot of arm waving and occasional pacing from one spot on the lawn to another that had to be the sections the kids had chosen for their forts.
I slid the glass doors open and walked out onto the patio so I could listen in. I sat down on the end of one of the lounge chairs by the pool and just soaked in the scene in front of me.
“The second floor will have the zip line, but it has to be covered too.” One of the Ros motioned upwards and twisted his body toward his twin who was at least 30 feet away in the grass. “We’ll have a section open where they can go out on the landing and then push off to get to the other side.”
“We’ll need a pulley system,” Mace argued. “They can’t just push off. It’s too flat here - they’ll get three foot out and be stuck. Some sort of track they can use pedals to go from one side to the other.”
I heard a noise behind me and turned around to find Lena and Violet walking through the sliding glass doors. Two other women I’d never seen before were with them.
“Hey, girl,” Lena leaned down and gave me a tight hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Before I could say a word, Violet pulled me in for a hug too. “I was so worried about you!”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her. “Thank you for packing up my house. I don’t think I could have gone back in there.”
“Oh, honey,” one of the other women started as she shook her head. “I don’t know you, but let me just say - you’re so much stronger than I am. It was nothing for us to go in there and do that for you.”
Lena looked from me
to the other two women. “Oh, hell. You’ve never met! Reba, these are Violet’s sisters, Loni and Liberty. You two, this is Satan!”
“I’ve heard lots about you,” Loni said with a laugh. “Even before all this, I mean.”
“And I thought I was the one with no filter!” Liberty, the youngest of the group of women, reached over and lightly slapped her sister on the shoulder. “Anyway, do you have any other siblings we need to worry about?”
“Um, no.” I laughed uncomfortably. “He was the only one.”
“Good,” Liberty said with obvious relief. Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket as she stood up and walked a few feet away to take the call.
“Well, you’ve got us now.” Violet smiled warmly. “I live with Angus and my sisters live just a few doors down. I’m excited to have you here and to get to know you and your kids better.”
“Isn’t she the sweetest?” Lena scrunched her nose up and then smiled at me. “Don’t you just love her?”
“She’s really a psycho under that cute exterior.” Liberty warned. “But she’s nice. I’ll give her that much.”
“I recognize your other sister from somewhere. Has she been with you at rehab before, Lena? I just can’t place her,” I pondered as I looked over at Loni talking on the phone.
“She sings,” Liberty told me. “Her real name is London.”
“Holy shit, that’s London Cunningham!” I whispered, my eyes wide as I looked over at Lena. “You never told me you knew London Cunningham! Mace never even mentioned it!”
“You’re a fan?” Lena asked me, confused.
“Well, um, sure,” I stammered. “I’ve seen her on television.”
“She is so not a fan.” Liberty giggled. “That’s fucking awesome.”
“No, no! Of course I am!” I tried to cover my tracks, afraid I’d just insulted some of Mace’s family.
“You don’t have to like her music to like her.” Violet smiled and reached over to put her hand on my arm. “When she’s home, she’s just Loni.”