Honest Love

by Lauren K. McKellar

  “You met a guy there?” I guessed.

  She twisted her lips. “I think I met me there. Just discovered who I was, what I wanted, you know?” She shrugged one shoulder as she poured herself a water. “Anyway, the day I was due to leave I met a man at the airport. He was handsome, tall, blond, and oh-so charming.”

  “Sounds like a real catch.” The words caught in my throat.

  “I thought so too. That’s why, six months later, I agreed to marry him.” She shrugged. “We came back to Australia, but he was from Sydney, so I moved there, studied midwifery.”

  “You’ve always been big on kids, huh?”

  “Always.” She nodded. “Ever since I was a little girl. My sister used to get annoyed at me—I’d try to swaddle her, even when she was a toddler and far too old for that kind of thing. I guess in some ways, I was more of a parent to her than our mother ever was.”

  “Huh.” I could just imagine this powerhouse of a little girl, trying to care for her baby sister. Protecting her. Looking after her.

  Everly moved to the stove and pulled it open, checking on the contents.

  My eyes widened. “Is that … pizza?”

  “Yeah. Leftover Dominos from last night. I thought I’d share my Tony Pepperoni with you.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t had pizza since …” I couldn’t remember when.

  Everly dropped the oven door. It crashed to the end of its hinges. Her tone turned accusatory. “Since when?”

  “Since … maybe five years ago, at a party for a friend?” Yeah, that seemed right. Sitting around a campfire, my arm draped over Bella’s shoulders. The smell of smoke lingering in the air. Someone forgot to bring the meat for our barbecue, so I’d ordered a dozen pizzas for the fifteen hungry hikers. Bella and I met the delivery driver in the parking lot.

  After five years of friendship, I finally told her how I felt …

  “Well you, my friend, are about to be welcomed back to the land of the living,” Everly continued, as if she wasn’t privy to the barrage of memories assaulting my mind. “Truly, your lack of commitment to carbs is astounding.”

  “I don’t eat a lot of carbs.”

  She gasped, clutching at her chest. “Blasphemy.”

  I chuckled. “That’s a bit much. I just … I eat clean.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t a story about me, remember? You were telling me about you. The man you met at the airport and shacked up with in Sydney.”

  “Fine, but we are so revisiting this.” Everly waggled her finger at me and closed the oven door. “Five minutes until you and pizza have a blissful reunion. So, our marriage started off like every normal marriage. We loved each other very much. But we both wanted to be parents, more than anything, and no matter how hard we tried …”

  Her body, naked. That gorgeous, hot-as-sin—

  No. I couldn’t think like that.

  “We went through all the testing, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong, why we couldn’t conceive. We went on diets, took holidays to try and avoid stress in case that was our blocker, but … but no matter what we did …” Her voice cracked over the words.

  I stilled. She … she wanted a child.

  The pain in her eyes—that connection I’d felt. It all made so much sense.

  It all made so much sense, and yet it didn’t, because how could we live in a world that allowed that much pain? How could we continue to exist when so many others did not?

  “Sorry,” Everly breathed. She ran one hand up and over her face, not meeting my gaze. “I just need a …”

  I stood and moved to the window by her side, placing one hand on her back. “Hey.” I ran my fingers in a small circle. “Hey, it’s okay.”

  My words were her undoing. A sob ripped from her mouth. Her body crumpled like a leaf.

  I jolted my arms out, catching her around the middle and bringing her upright. I held her close to my chest as she cried, and cried, and cried, great big ugly tears that seemed to harbour so much pain. So much agony.

  I pulled her to my chest, still running small circles over her back, and for the first time since I’d met her, she seemed frail, as if perhaps she was just this tiny human I had to look out for, just as I did Piper. As if she might need me.

  Just like I seem to need her.

  No.

  I froze. I didn’t need her. Didn’t need anyone.

  It was safer that way.

  My circles slowed, and I shifted my weight, stepping back just the tiniest bit so her boobs weren’t pressed against my chest. The gap between us felt larger than just this whisper of space. It felt like my body ached from missing hers.

  My action didn’t go unnoticed.

  Everly’s sobs quietened. Her shoulders stopped shaking, and she stepped back farther again, swiping under her eyes with the side of her pointer finger. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be.”

  “No. I am. This …” She gestured at her face, down her body. She looked as if she’d just come out of the ocean—her eyes somehow more blue, her cheeks flushed pink. “This isn’t what anybody wants to see. You barely even know me—”

  “Does anyone really know anyone these days?” I worked a small smile. “I live in an apartment in Newcastle. A sweet little old lady lived next door to me for months. One night, I came home late from work and found her making out with some young guy in a fireman’s uniform up against her door.”

  Everly coughed out a laugh. “What?”

  “I know,” I said. That had sure been weird. “I guess what I’m trying to say is we don’t ever really know everything.”

  She nodded slowly. “I guess. I mean, look at my ex. I thought Bentley was so in love with me, with us, with our little family … then I found out he had an affair.” She looked up at me from under her eyelashes. “Cheating. With someone from work. The oldest cliché in the book.”

  “He’s an idiot.” I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “That guy—he doesn’t know the first thing about life. About love.”

  Bentley had had it all—and he’d thrown it all away. Why? Why would he do something like that? Why would he do something like that when I would do anything in my power to keep the things I’d once had?

  Love.

  Happiness.

  A new life.

  “Cam.” Everly’s chest heaved, and damn it, I didn’t want to, but I noticed. I noticed the swell of it, the way it rose and fell, the way I just wanted to touch those sweet, soft curves.

  I closed my eyes.

  Long. Red. Hair.

  Fucking honeysuckle.

  I blinked my eyes open again.

  “Cam,” she repeated softly, slowly. “You’re hurting me.”

  My eyes widened. I followed her gaze to my hands, wrapped around her arms, pulling her closer. Her skin had turned white around the edges of my touch.

  I dropped her arms as if they were made of fire. My lids drooped closed, and I shook my head as I stepped back. What was I doing? When did I even grab her like that?

  All I could think was that the anger that lurked in the back of my mind whenever I thought of that day had come back. Even though I’d sweated the worst of it out in the garden behind Everly’s house, in the garage late at night, it had returned.

  I had to get out. I had to get out in case someone got hurt.

  Again.

  “I have to go,” I blurted, stepping backward. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I—”

  “Cam.” She stepped forward, resting a hand on my arm.

  “I can’t do this.” Tension wound inside me like a tight coil, itching for release. “I have to go. I have to—”

  “Cam.” She squeezed my bicep, ever so gently, and I stopped.

  Paused.

  Breathed.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay.” Steady blue eyes held my gaze. I focused on them, the never-ending blue that seemed just like the ocean, a startling depth that ended in a thin dark line. “You didn
’t mean to hurt me. I know that. I just … did you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  Yes.

  For the first time, that answer lurked in the back of my throat.

  But I wouldn’t burden Everly with that. Not when she had so much on her plate already.

  “Okay.” She let me go, nodding.

  “Thanks for the drink.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “And the pizza.”

  “You didn’t have any.”

  “And the …” Words failed me. I studied her again, and God, my chest ached.

  But at the same time, it felt the slightest bit good.

  No one should have been treated like she was. Her ex was a jerk for doing that to her, and after they’d been through so much …

  But I couldn’t put that into words.

  If there was one thing my past had taught me, it was that talk was cheap. Actions counted.

  “And for you,” I finally finished. “Just thanks for you.”

  Chapter 11

  One hour.

  Sixty minutes.

  It wasn’t much time, and yet, as I pulled the metal chair in at the table, nodding to the guard, I couldn’t help but feel as if these would be some of the longest minutes of my life.

  “Piper.” Giselle’s voice was high, loaded with emotion. She rushed across the room from a door in the corner, her baggy green top swimming against her small frame. Her hands reached for her daughter, and she snatched Piper from my arms, pressing her to her chest.

  The little girl snuggled in, and I felt something. Like a bite from a mosquito. Being a parent seemed to come so naturally to her, despite her circumstances.

  Or perhaps it was because of them.

  Perhaps the warmth and life of her daughter was the very opposite to what she’d been experiencing in here.

  And she’s had nine months to practise, I told myself. I couldn’t be jealous of that.

  As Giselle held Piper in her embrace, I looked at this woman, this mother, as if seeing her with new eyes. Back then, she’d been … like Bella. A bitter taste flooded my mouth. Here, though? She was different. Harder round the edges. And yet one thing shone through it all—love. She loved Piper—I didn’t doubt it for a second.

  How much pain has letting her go caused?

  “How is my beautiful girl?” Giselle pulled back to look at her, brushing a slight curl from her forehead. “Is that a bruise?” She glared at me. “You bruised her?”

  I’d forgotten about that. Yesterday at Everly’s house, she’d hit her head on the table leg as she was crawling. She hadn’t even cried, and the mark was really very small. “She hit her head—”

  “My poor baby.” Giselle clutched her close again.

  I rolled my eyes. “Giselle, cut the act. I’ve been to your house. There’s no way she didn’t suffer a few bruises there.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my house. It’s our home,” she emphasised the word.

  “A home where you sell and distribute drugs?”

  Her eyes shot daggers at me. “How dare you?”

  “How dare I what?”

  “Act as if you know shit about being a parent when really, you’re hurting my little girl?”

  I should back down. She was living in extreme conditions; she wasn’t being rational.

  But something about the way she spoke, as if I didn’t care, as if I let Piper bruise herself on purpose—that sent prickles along my spine.

  “Your house was a mess. Things were broken, rundown. There was dirt everywhere, and where have you been?” I flung my arms out to the side in question. “In jail. What sort of a mother gets herself in a situation where she has to leave her child like that?”

  “What sort of a father doesn’t take responsibility for his little girl?” she asked, her voice raised.

  I felt the eyes of the guard on me. I lowered my voice. “You didn’t tell me she even existed.”

  “You never called. You never wanted anything but to pretend I was your dead fucking fiancée,” she spat. “She is my baby, Cameron. Mine. You’ll never take her away from me.”

  “And I’ll never goddamn try.” I pushed back from the table. This was not what I’d signed up for. I thought by taking Piper to visit her mother, I was doing a good thing. This was just plain abusive. “But I don’t have to stand here and take this. If you’re not going to be civil, I’m taking Piper and we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “No,” Giselle squeaked. Her voice was small, like thin, tempered glass, ready to break. “No, I’ll be nice. I’m sorry. I’ll be nice.”

  “Giselle …” Damn it. What was I supposed to do here?

  Piper looked up at me and smiled.

  “Please, Cameron?” Giselle asked, a sugary sweet tone to her voice.

  “Okay.” I folded my arms, settling back into the chair. “Okay.”

  For the next fifty minutes, I watched Giselle and Piper interact. Giselle made cooing sounds. Piper cooed back. They crawled around the ground, taking it in turns to follow each other, and I had to admit, it was kind of … nice. It was nice to see Piper so relaxed, having fun with a woman she clearly knew and loved. It was also surprising to see this side of Giselle. A softer side. A caring one.

  One I never expected.

  And when the hour was finally up, a part of me hated that I was taking from Piper the one thing she seemed to crave the most.

  Time passed, and the week fell into a routine.

  In the mornings, I woke to the sound of Piper’s playful shrieks as she threw every stuffed toy I placed in the top of her crib onto the floor, one by one. Regular as an alarm clock, I counted on her to shoot me awake, my heart pounding in fear before it returned to its regular pace once I realised her screams weren’t those of terror. That they didn’t belong to Bella or Dad.

  Then, I fed her breakfast, and she played around on the floor for a while I checked my phone, researching whatever parenting dilemma had come to me overnight, mostly using Everly’s blog and occasionally the Facebook group she let me into. Should a nine-month-old be speaking yet? How do you stop babies pulling televisions on themselves? What happens if she gets bitten by a spider—how will I know? My mind was constantly on alert. It felt as if I were walking Piper along the edge of a volcano, and any moment, the smoke that thickened the air would hide the rim and we’d tumble into the molten lava below.

  Once the research was done, without doubt, we wound up on a walk that just somehow led us to Everly’s house.

  She never seemed to work, but she said she was studying, with a part-time job at night to help pay the bills. I presumed that was the blog, and didn’t ask further questions. Instead, I helped her in the garden for six solid days, until finally, the dirt was laid and the sleepers were in place. We’d even turned the soil, added fertiliser and watered it all down. All that was left to do was for her to select her plants and put them to earth.

  At night, I punched that bag in the garage, getting all the anger, the hurt and the confusion out of my body, sweating it, bleeding it until I had nothing left to give. My new set of gloves arrived in the mail, and I broke them in, each thud of rubber a jolt to my heart.

  And I had no reason to be there, but on the morning of the seventh day, I slowed the pram out front of Everly’s house again. She was on the deck, waiting, and she invited me in without mentioning the garden. Even though I had no obligation, no sense of duty to help this woman, I was there, and she didn’t seem to think that was weird. I didn’t know what to make of that.

  A cocktail of scents reached me as I walked through the doors. Garlic, banana, basil, and was that chocolate? I parked Piper’s pram then followed Everly through to the kitchen, shaking my head. “What is going on in here?”

  The kitchen bench heaved under the weight of junk food. Cake—I was sure that was cake in the corner. A pizza on a wire rack. Cookies with chocolate chips dotting their surface spilled from an open jar. Some kind of strange bread littered with gr
een and red had steam coming from it on a rack on top of the stove. And there in the oven, chips were cooking. Pickles were out on the bench.

  Pickles, fries … all that was missing was the ice cream.

  She knows.

  Somehow, Everly had figured out my fake online identity.

  I should never have told her about my aversion to junk food. Or was it Piper? Had I mentioned her name in the Facebook group when I’d asked one of my many questions?

  “Today we are going to conduct a taste test,” Everly said, a smile on her face as if perhaps she wasn’t mad at me for pretending to be someone I was not. “I have here an assortment of junk food, and some healthy food, too. You’re going to try one, then the other, and tell me which is better.”

  “Everly …” So maybe she didn’t know. But was this really a good idea? “What time did you get out of bed this morning?”

  “A little personal, don’t you think?” She parked her hands on her hips with a challenging stare.

  “I meant to have time to make all this.” I gestured to the spread.

  “This?” She shrugged. “It’s not as exciting as it looks. I baked some last night, some this morning.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but—”

  “But what?” she challenged, her arms folded across her chest.

  From the first moment I met her, I’d sensed she had this inner strength. In this kitchen, this close to knives, her fierce determination was something I just didn’t want to mess with.

  “Sit.” She pointed to the stool at the bench.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I meekly pulled out the seat, sat down, and slid it back in.

  She grabbed a long blue piece of material from where it was draped over the couch and proceeded to fold it in on itself before sliding the silk over my eyes.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  “It’s a blind test,” she explained, tightening a knot at the back of my head. “To heighten your sense of taste.”