Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)
Page 26
“Of course it matters!”
Her mom sounded like she did at night sometimes, just before she fell asleep on the couch after she’d been drinking so much that nothing Chloe did would wake her up again until morning. She was crying and sad, but she was so quiet, not yelling like she had been inside.
“It’s the reason for everything, right?” her mom said. “All the things you’ve hated me for, all the reasons you never loved me. It’s all about that night and what I let you talk me into doing. You blame me—”
“I’ve never hated you,” Dad said. “I don’t blame you. It could have been either of us. I was just as drunk as you were. I let you drive, Libby. It was my fault as much as yours. I’d make the same choice now that I did then, after the accident.”
“Of course you would.” Mom was crying even harder. “Because you’re perfect, and I’m the bad one. Ever since I got pregnant and you married me, even though I knew you didn’t love me, you’ve gotten to be the one who always did everything right. And then you went to prison, for me, when I was the one who was driving. You told the police and the court it was you, so there was no chance I’d get sentenced while I was pregnant. I never thought you wouldn’t do whatever your dad wanted. No matter how you felt about your family, I thought for sure you’d let them help you. But you wouldn’t even do that. Not you. What did you do? You went to prison for a year and a half for something you didn’t do, so you could spend the rest of our marriage making sure I knew you’d always be better than me.”
“That wasn’t it, Libby.” Dad reached for her, but she jerked away from him. “I loved—”
“Chloe,” Mom sobbed. “It’s always been about her, not me. I tried to make it up to you. I tried to make you love me when you got out, but I couldn’t, so I drank. And then we moved here, and I thought for sure you’d see how your brother lived, you’d see his perfect family and want the same thing. But no, you didn’t love me here, either. Coming here, everything you’ve done here, it’s all been for Chloe. I bet your new girlfriend is about Chloe, too, now that I’m out of our daughter’s life and you need someone to mother her.”
“You’re our daughter’s mother. You’ll always be Chloe’s mother.”
“Then why were you singing to that woman in front of our child and everyone else? Why haven’t you ever sung to me, not once, since Chloe was born? You win, Law. You’re the ex-con, but you’re the good guy. I’m Chloe’s mother, but I’m always going to be the bad parent, your awful, drunk ex-wife that you don’t want. No matter what I do, you’ve made sure she’ll always love you more. And now she’s going to love that woman in there. And before long, I won’t have any family at all…”
“You’re drunk, Libby,” Dad said. “You’re not making any sense. Give me your keys and I’ll take you home. Sleep this off. We’ll talk tomorrow. And then we’ll tell Chloe together.”
“No!” Mom backed away from him, whispering in a yelling kind of way. “Now! You’re not going back in there to that woman, not until we’ve told our daughter why she’s getting a new mommy, because you never loved the one you married the first time around.”
“Stop it.” Dad followed her mom around the front of the building.
Chloe and Fin didn’t follow them.
Because Chloe didn’t want to hear any more.
“My dad…” she swallowed. She couldn’t believe it. But Fin looked just as weirded out as she did. “He went to prison for my mom.” But that wasn’t the worst. “He went to prison for me, when he didn’t do anything wrong. And he hates my mom. My dad’s never loved her. How could he? That’s why Mom drinks so much. My family…that’s why we’re so messed up. My mom’s never going to get any better. Why didn’t he just tell me?”
Chloe looked at Fin, wanting him to say that she was wrong. But he was staring back, not saying anything at all. And then she was running away. She didn’t care to where—anywhere but there, where her parents were still fighting, inside now, probably, where everyone would hear them and know the truth.
Her dad had never loved her mom. It had all been a lie. Chloe had never really had a family at all.
“Stay,” Mallory said to Kristen near Pockets’ front doors.
“I…”
Kristen looked down at Law’s rose and then at the families having fun around her. She thought about the scene Libby had made, even worse than the one she’d made in November, and Chloe’s tears, and Law’s panic to get Libby out of there again. And even though Kristen should be staying put and trying to keep Chloe calm until her father came back, she couldn’t do this again.
“I know I’m being a…” she started to say, but couldn’t finish.
“A coward?” her friend asked. “You’re not, Kristen. You’re upset, and you have every right to be. That was bad. You’re not imagining it. But let Law handle his ex-wife. Let him explain. Everyone can see how much he loves you. Libby’s out of her mind. He had to get her out of here. Don’t leave without trying to understand the rest.”
“I do understand.” And she loved Law, too. She’d wanted to tell him after his song—her song. She’d wanted to say it in front of everyone, the way he had. But now…? “I don’t see how this can work.”
The Valentine’s party was in full swing around them. It was a beautiful night, exactly the kind of night that lovers and happy families shared and remembered and reminded each other about forever. But that wouldn’t happen for her and Law. He was going to regret this. He was going to regret her and how much being with her was hurting his daughter…his family.
Libby wasn’t better. She was worse than she’d been last fall. She’d driven herself over here so drunk she wasn’t even making sense. But the one thing she had made clear was that Kristen was the reason she hadn’t stayed sober. She would always be the reason Libby never let go, never stopped hurting Law and Chloe like this.
“How could I have thought this was going to work?” Kristen was going to be physically ill, watching everyone dance and laugh and eat and enjoy themselves.
I don’t know how to stop wanting you, Law had said. And she’d always want him, too. But Law was probably outside now, thinking of how he was going to tell her this had all been a mistake.
She’d listened to his beautiful song and let herself imagine what the rest of their lives could be like together, her and Law and Chloe.
“I’m so scared of losing him,” she finally said.
“I know.” Her friend pressed both hands over her belly. “We’re all a little scared of the ones we love. It’s just that you’re not as used to it as the rest of us mere mortals.” Mallory smiled at Kristen, understanding, but she’d also put her pregnant body between Kristen and the front door. “Tell him how you feel, Kristen. Trust him. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this can’t work. But you two need to figure out together what happens next.”
Mallory nodded over Kristen’s shoulder. Kristen turned as Law approached alone from the side of the building where he’d left with Libby. He reached her in three long strides.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but he looked so furious and worried. He looked around her instead of taking her hand or kissing her. His gaze never quite made contact with hers.
“I got Libby into her car,” he said, “and I’ve taken her keys. I need to drive her home and…try to get her calm. And then…” Resignation ruled his expression. Ten years of it. He scanned the party. “I need to talk with my daughter. Where’s Chloe?”
“I…” Kristen looked around then, too, realizing she hadn’t seen the little girl in several minutes. She looked back to where they’d all been standing beside the DJ. Chloe’s rose was abandoned, crumpled on the ground. “I don’t know. I…”
He glanced back from studying the crowded party. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Marsha Dixon approached them, looking apologetic for intruding. She also looked concerned.
“No.” Law shook his head. “I’m trying to find Chloe, too.”
Kristen’s heart clenched. “They wouldn’t have...”
“They wouldn’t have what?” Law’s attention snapped back to her.
Kristen swallowed. “I’m so sorry, Law. I don’t know how I could have let her slip away.”
“Slip away?” He took her arm, finally touching her. His grip was so fierce, it hurt. “You think she’s run away?”
“I…I don’t know. I don’t think so. I hope not. I’m so sorry, Law. I…”
Kristen reached for him, suddenly desperate not to let go, but she touched only air. He’d backed away. His expression was hard, distant now, like it had been during their first discussion about Fin.
“I asked you to wait for me with her,” he said. “Just a few minutes. I needed you to trust me, trust us, for just a few more minutes, and watch out for Chloe while I couldn’t. And you couldn’t even do that. Of course she’s run away.” He looked behind Kristen, toward the front door. “Why wouldn’t my daughter run from me and her mother, when that’s exactly what you were doing, right?”
Chloe had thought about running before.
She’d been jealous of Fin, because he’d run from school and made it look so easy. And sometimes she’d wanted it to be easy for her, too—leaving everyone behind and never thinking about them again. He’d show her how now, she’d thought when they’d left Pockets—how to really not care about her family and how they’d never been right, no matter how much her dad had promised they could be.
Only Fin hadn’t wanted to go this time. He’d stayed with her all night. He’d said he wasn’t going home until she did, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone what they’d heard if she didn’t want him to. But he’d been trying to get her to go back, too, and he’d said he wasn’t going to let her leave Chandlerville. Not the way he’d left so many places before he’d moved in with the Dixons.
“You have to go home, Chloe,” he said. “It’s morning. We both have to go.”
“If you want to go, go. Why are you here anyway, if you won’t help me?”
“Because…you’re my friend. I’m not going to leave you. You don’t know anything about being by yourself. You’d just get hurt.”
He made her want to see her dad again when he said things like that. Her dad had said he’d always be there, and that he’d make everything all right and that they had to stop letting what Mom did, when she did bad things, hurt them. But why hadn’t he told her? Why had he told Chloe it would all be okay, when he’d known all along it was a lie?
“It’s not so bad,” Fin said, for like the hundredth time.
“You saw my mom. You heard her. My dad went to prison when it should have been her. He stayed with her when he never loved her. She’s never going to forgive him, or give him up, or stop drinking. My family’s…”
“The worst, yeah. I know.” He’d said that a lot, too, like he didn’t really believe it but he wanted to be nice.
They’d been sitting inside the Y rec center all night, in the dark. At least they hadn’t been outside, where it was colder. He’d known which window one of the staff people always kept cracked, and he’d known how to get it all the way open so they could sneak inside. He’d done it once before when he’d run away, he said.
“My mom was the worst, too,” he said. “She never got better, either. Until she was…”
“Dead.” Chloe looked at him, crying again, because Fin looked so sad. He’d looked sad all night, no matter how much he’d told her things weren’t so bad.
“Your mom could still get better,” he said.
“She doesn’t want to. She’s never wanted to, not when my dad…”
“Yeah…” Fin wiped at his own eyes. “But your dad is great, though. Look at what he did for you.”
Chloe shook her head. She didn’t want to think about that, about how much he’d done, and how it had all been for her, and how it had somehow still meant she’d never had a family. It was too confusing. It made her too scared. It made her want to run again.
“I wish my dad…” Fin looked away, out the window across the room. “I wish I’d had a dad to at least try to make my mom be better. Even if it didn’t work, at least I’d know…”
“What?” Chloe felt even worse.
“At least I’d have known,” he said, “that someone loved me like that once.”
“You have the Dixons.” Chloe scooted closer to where Fin was sitting next to the wall. “You have that now.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He didn’t sound like he believed it. He sounded scared.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to get into trouble.”
“For running away again?”
He nodded.
With her. Because she’d been so freaked out about her family, and he’d been her friend.
“Then don’t stay with me!” she said again.
She was crying harder, thinking about being alone. But she wasn’t ready to face her dad yet, or her mom. She really wasn’t ready to face her mom. But Fin had to go. She didn’t want him to get into trouble because of her.
“Don’t do something stupid,” she said, “just because I’m too scared to…”
“Have a family?” Fin asked. “Your family may be totally messed up, Chloe. But at least you have one.”
“So do you.” It was starting to get light in the rec room. She could see that Fin was more mad now than sad.
“All I got is foster families, from now on,” he said. “That’s the worst. Don’t you see…?”
“What?”
“Messed up is okay. As long as it’s yours, and you get to keep it, and no one can ever take it away. And no matter how bad your mom acts or if she never gets better, no one can take your dad away from you, not like people can take the Dixons from me.”
Chloe shook her head.
“They wouldn’t do that,” she said. “The Dixons and Kristen will talk to the people who decide. You’ve been better since the last time, at school and at home. Even my dad will tell them how great you’ve been with soccer.”
Her dad, she realized, would never let anyone take Fin away now, just like he’d made sure Chloe hadn’t gone back to her mom’s until he’d known if Mom was better for real.
Fin shrugged. “I’ve run away a lot.”
“But this time you did it for me.”
He nodded. “But I won’t tell them why, Chloe. I mean it. Not if you don’t want me to.”
She believed him. He was her friend. He wouldn’t do what Summer or Brooke would do—blab to everyone who’d listen, if they’d heard what he had last night. He wasn’t going to say he was her friend but act like he wasn’t as soon as Chloe turned her back. Fin wasn’t like them. He wasn’t like her mom, who Chloe didn’t think she could ever trust again. He was like…her dad. Messed up and all, her dad had always been there for her, no matter how much it had hurt him.
She moved closer to Fin, sitting next to him on the carpet.
“Go home,” she said, “before you make things even worse.”
“Where are you going to go without me? You can’t stay here. The Y will be open soon. You don’t know how to stay out of sight. I do. I’m not—”
“You’re going to get in trouble.”
He shrugged again. He was scared of what would happen when he went home, just like she was.
“You’ve got to go,” she insisted.
“So do you.”
Chloe looked out the window they’d crawled in through. She thought of trying to run away from him, and of staying out of sight on her own and hiding from everything forever.
Then she t
hought of what Fin had said, about her still having people who’d never be taken away from her. Her dad. Her mom again, maybe, one day, if she wanted Chloe enough to get better. And even Kristen. Chloe’s dad really liked her. Last night, while Chloe had listened to him sing to her, and he’d given both of them roses, Chloe had figured out that he more than liked Kristen. He loved her, and that had felt ... okay, she remembered now. More than okay. It had felt great, until her mom ruined everything.
Chloe felt herself start crying again. She loved her dad so much. She loved her mom still, too. Maybe she even loved Kristen. How could that have made her so scared she didn’t want to go home and face anybody?
Except, if she didn’t go back, Fin wouldn’t go back. And then he wouldn’t get to keep the Dixons. And she couldn’t let him do that. She had to help him—the way Fin had helped her, and her dad had helped her, and Kristen had, too—no matter how hard going back would be.
“I have to get her back,” Law said to the police officer who’d come to Dan’s to take Law’s statement for a missing persons report. He and Marsha had jointly filed one for both Chloe and Fin.
“You will,” Dan said, standing beside Law the way he had been all night. Neither one of them had slept. “You’ll get them both back.”
They shared a long look.
Dan had seen Libby’s meltdown inside Pockets, along with the rest of the Valentine’s partygoers. He’d been close enough once Law had come back inside to witness the awful moment by the door with Kristen and Mallory and Marsha, when they’d realized the kids had run off together. And when Law had lost what was left of his sanity and blamed Kristen, because he hadn’t taken better care of his daughter.
He’d had no idea all these years that Libby had been so out-of-her mind fixated on the accident—her obsession feeding her insecurities about them, even after the divorce.
“Do you have a recent picture?” the officer asked.