Law wanted to drive over to Libby’s, drag her out of bed, and force her to face the fresh pain she’d caused their daughter. Instead, he watched Kristen walk up to him and Chloe. She was carrying her rose. He saw the worry and love in her eyes, and he felt a flicker of peace come back to him, after the darkest night of his life.
“Chloe heard you two arguing in the alley,” she said.
“She heard…” Law leaned back until he could see his daughter’s tear-streaked face. “You heard what, darlin’?”
“Mom…” Chloe hiccupped the word, and then the rest came gushing out. “…saying that you hated her and you always had, you’d never loved her, and you’d done it all for me, marrying her and staying with her all these years and…going to prison, even.”
Law looked again to Kristen, who nodded. She knelt beside Chloe and rubbed a gentle hand down his daughter’s back.
“I don’t think your dad knows how to hate, sweetie,” Kristen said.
Law wasn’t so sure about that, no matter how much it touched him to hear Kristen say it. He thought of his parents, whom he’d be content never to speak to again. And his impossible situation with Libby all these years. But then there was Dan, the brother Law had thought he hadn’t wanted in his life either, and everything Dan had come to mean to him again.
“Did you?” Chloe asked Law. “Did you always hate Mom, and only try to have a family because of me?”
Law swallowed, trying to find the right words, wanting to be honest when he’d hidden the truth from his daughter for too long. “I’ve never hated your mother, Chloe, but the things she’s done to hurt you...”
“Like sending you to prison?”
“No. That wasn’t your mother’s fault. I don’t think that, and I never want you to.”
Law thought of the chance he’d had to plead to a lesser charge and stay out of the system. He remembered the rage he’d let consume him, because his father had still been trying to control his life, even then. If Law had just swallowed his pride and done whatever his father had asked, he’d have never been taken away from Libby or Chloe. He’d have been there for his daughter’s birth, her first year, and who knew how much of the damage between him and his ex-wife could have been avoided.
“I was just as drunk as your mother that night. The accident could have been my fault as much as it was hers. I don’t want you to blame her, Chloe. We both made mistakes when we were young, before you were even born, and you’re still having to pay for them. That’s what I hate. That’s why I’m so angry with Mom now, that she’s still so reckless after everything we’ve already put you through. She’s never made the changes she needed to, for you.”
“Like you have?” Chloe turned her head toward Kristen. She looked back at Law. “Like you’re trying to give us a better family, now that you’ve found someone you really love, like Mom said?”
Law cupped Kristen’s cheek. “Yes, that part of what Mom said was true. That’s exactly what I’m hoping we can have, if it’s still what Kristen wants.”
Chloe shook her head, breaking Law’s heart with the confusion clouding her already sad expression. She looked at Kristen again, but only for a second.
“So you really don’t want Mom in our family anymore?”
Law pulled Chloe into another hug. “Of course I want your mother in our family. I’ve always wanted your mother for you. I always will. That’s why—” He cut himself off, not wanting to talk about the accident again until Chloe understood what was most important. “All I’ve ever wanted is for your mom to be the best mom she can be for you. As long as she can do that and stop hurting you the way she is, as long as she gets better and stops hurting herself, I’ll always want her to be part of your life.”
“But if Kristen...” Chloe trembled. “If you love her like you’ve never loved Mom...”
Kristen took Chloe’s hand and waited for her to ease away from Law and look at her. “That just means more love in your family, Chloe. Not less of your mom. I’d never try to take her place. I’d never do that to you or your dad. And I hope she gets better, too, for you both. I just want the chance...”
Law brought Kristen’s other hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, hoping she could see in his smile how much he still needed her, how he’d love her forever.
“What do you want?” He gave her lips a gentle kiss.
“I just want to be part of it,” she said to him, and then she looked at Chloe. “I want the chance to love you, both you and your dad, the best I can, the way your dad’s always given you his best. I want to know what that’s like, Chloe. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have someone in your life who loves you that much? I want to learn how to love the same way, to love you any way you’ll let me, and to...” Kristen smiled up at him. “I love you, Law. I love you so much.”
Law pulled Kristen into his arms, bringing Chloe with her, encircling them both.
“Thank God,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do if you hadn’t come back to me. If you hadn’t brought Chloe back...”
He held on tighter, never wanting to let go, kissing Kristen again, and then the top of his daughter’s head until Chloe started squirming to be free.
“But what about Fin?” she asked.
Law brushed her damp bangs from her eyes. “What about him? I thought he came back home when you did.”
“Yeah. But he doesn’t have anybody like I do. Not really. And now he’s in trouble. Who’s going to love him when the foster people find out he ran away again, and they take him away from the Dixons—because he took care of me last night?”
Now
“You don’t have to tell me exactly what made you and Chloe run away together,” Mrs. Sewel says, after I finish telling her about how cool soccer has been since November, and how much better school has been, and how I even liked last night’s Valentine’s party, and even a little about running away with Chloe.
“You said I have to tell you everything.”
We’re still sitting in the chairs in front of her desk. We’ve been there forever, while I finished saying how it had hurt Chloe to have her mom show up at the party the way she did. I’ve told Mrs. Sewel a lot. But I’m not telling what we heard outside, or what made Chloe run.
“I said I needed to understand what happened,” Mrs. Sewel says. “And I think I do now. You’ve helped me understand enough to guess that it was Chloe who ran first. From what you’ve told me about how important your friendship has become, it’s not hard for me to believe that you were worried about her. Is that how you got mixed up in this?”
I want to say yes. But isn’t that the kind of question adults always ask you when they want you to agree with them, so they can catch you doing something you’re not supposed to, so they can be mad? What if I say yes, and Mrs. Sewel says I still can’t stay with the Dixons, because I should have done something else?
“Why didn’t you come home last night?” Mrs. Sewel asks. “You have every other time you’ve run away.”
I can’t stop myself from staring at her.
She’s not supposed to know I’ve run from the Dixons before now.
“Your foster mother told me over the phone this morning about the other times. She wanted me to know how long it’s been since you’ve disappeared. She swears you like where you are now. But if that’s true, why didn’t you come home last night, when you knew your foster parents would have to call the police if you didn’t? Why not just help Chloe get wherever she went, and then take care of yourself?”
“Because...” What does Mrs. Sewel want me to say? She has my file open again, even though she’s still sitting next to me. She’s writing things down. Who’s she writing it all down for?
“Because?”
“Because she’s my friend, okay? Because I don’t care what you do to me, or who’s going to read about what I say. Chloe wasn’t going to come home, so I didn’t come home
!”
I’m expecting Mrs. Sewel to write some more. I’m expecting her to be mad, because I’m mad, and adults get mad when kids do. Instead, she looks up at me and smiles. She closes the file again and puts it back on her desk.
“Was that so hard?” she asks.
“Is what so hard?” I’m still mad. Or maybe I’m scared now. I don’t know. All I know is she shouldn’t be smiling, but she is.
“Telling me what I’ve been trying to get you to say all this time.”
“What?” What did I say?
“That you’ve learned how to care for your friend, Fin. You came home to your family, but only after you made sure Chloe was okay—that she was going home to her father to talk to him about what she needs to. You have made things work with the Dixons. Marsha and Joe are right outside, waiting for you to go home with them, and they’ve made it clear they’ll fight to keep you. They’ll fight my supervisor and her supervisor and whoever’s boss above him that they have to fight.”
“They will?”
“They already are. They want you, Fin. They’ve made you part of their family, and you didn’t run from that. You ran to take care of someone else.” Mrs. Sewel smiles again. “And then you came back, even when you knew you were in trouble. In my book, in my report, I’d call that a success. As far as I’m concerned, this is the last meeting Family Services will need to have with you, unless some event in the future shows us that we need another face-to-face. Otherwise, your foster parents can file quarterly paperwork from now on, just like they do for all their other kids. If that’s what you want. Is it?”
“I...” All their other kids. My family. My foster parents. “I get to stay in Chandlerville?”
“You get to—”
There’s a noise outside, a lot of voices, and then Mrs. Sewel’s office door flies open—and Chloe runs in.
“Stop!” she says.
Behind Chloe, in the hallway, I see Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. And next to them, Coach Beaumont is standing with his arm around Ms. Hemmings, both of them smiling at me like they’re there for me, too.
“Stop,” Chloe says again. “Don’t take Fin away from his family. He was only helping me, because of what my mom said. And he promised not to tell. But I will. I’ll tell you everything. Just let him stay. He ran away because of me and was gone all night because of me and wouldn’t come home until I said I wanted to. And now everything’s going to be okay for me, because he helped me to go back to my family.” She looks out into the hallway, too, at her dad and Ms. Hemmings. “Please let Fin stay with the Dixons.”
“Well, Fin?” Mrs. Sewel asks. “What do you think? Are you ready to go home?”
I don’t understand. It’s too hard to think about anything, with Chloe there when she shouldn’t be, and her dad and Ms. Hemmings, too. And then it’s too hard to think about anything else. Everyone being there for me. Chloe willing to tell Mrs. Sewel about her mom and dad, to help me. Remembering Mrs. Dixon hugging me this morning when I came home, the way Coach Beaumont is hugging Ms. Hemmings now. Like forever.
“Fin?” Mrs. Sewel asks again.
“Fin?” Chloe says.
But I can’t answer them. All I can do is run—to Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, who’re hugging me now, like they’ll never let me go.
“Play it again, Dad,” Chloe said, sitting between Kristen and Law, the three of them crowded onto the bench in front of Kristen’s baby grand piano.
Their baby grand, Kristen corrected herself with a smile. Since she’d asked Law and Chloe to move in a month ago—the night he’d first asked for Chloe’s approval, and then asked Kristen to marry him—Kristen had said she wanted them to think of her things as their things. She couldn’t imagine anything better than sharing her home with the family who had fallen in love with her.
“Why don’t we give Kristen another try?” Law asked.
“Me?” She sounded freaked out. Because she was freaked—by how bad she’d turned out to be at learning to play. She’d never been so bad at anything in her life. Not to the point where it felt like it was hopeless, which her learning music definitely appeared to be.
Law kissed her. And then he insisted, “You.”
“I have no rhythm.”
“Me either,” Chloe said.
“Neither,” Kristen corrected. “It’s ‘me neither.’ ”
“Whatever.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “I’m just sayin’, I’m as bad as you.”
“You’re nine,” Kristen pointed out.
Chloe had celebrated her April birthday last week. The three of them had climbed into Kristen’s Mustang and escaped for a long weekend at Disney World—a shared, unrealized dream of Chloe’s and Kristen’s, since when Kristen was little her father had disapproved of well-bred children wasting time at amusement parks.
“And you’re better than me,” Kristen added. “You’re absolutely brilliant. Why can’t I just enjoy listening to you learn how to play?”
“You’re not supposed to quit things,” Chloe reminded her. “That’s what you said to me about my mom. I didn’t, and you were right. She’s getting better. She even sent me a birthday card, and I get to see her again next weekend.”
Law caught Kristen’s attention over the top of Chloe’s head. After the Valentine’s party, once they had the kids back safely, Dan had agreed to finance Libby’s three-month stint in a top-rated rehab center.
“That’s right, darlin’,” Law said, his tone light, the mischief in his eyes dimming ever so slightly. “Don’t let Kristen off the hook just because she’s pouting that we’ve found the one thing she’s not good at.”
Kristen jabbed him in the arm as Chloe started fiddling with the keys again, striking random notes but instinctively making sweet music with them, by ear alone. That she had all the makings of a natural musician had thrilled Law. It was fun to watch. But it was worrisome to hear Chloe getting excited about seeing Libby. It had taken most of the last two months for her to recover from how upset she’d been after the Valentine’s party. Kristen knew anxiety about next weekend’s reunion had been keeping Law up nights.
He had plans to rent his ex-wife a two-bedroom apartment near their old house—which he’d let the lease go on. He and Libby’s doctors had agreed that less responsibility would be better at first, while she eased back into her life. Law now had primary custody of Chloe. He was planning for their future, dealing with the last of the past, and he was creating a new life that Kristen would be sharing with them.
“I’m not pouting because I can’t learn how to play as well as a child prodigy,” Kristen teased Chloe. “It’s because you and your dad will be playing duets together in no time, while I’m still stuck figuring out ‘Chopsticks’ by myself.”
Law and Chloe laughed. The moment where they’d all been thinking about Libby passed.
Chloe noodled with the latest melody she’d discovered. Kristen and Law shared a moment of silent understanding. They’d handle whatever came next—as long as they dealt with things together. They’d already faced so much and were thriving. He was enrolled in a local community college’s summer minimester, in the music program. When the summer soccer season started up, Law and the Strikers, winter city champions, would be back. He and Dan were closer than ever, on the same bowling team now, in the Tuesday-night men’s league at Pockets.
And Law and Kristen…She fingered one of the red blooms of the beautiful roses Law had brought home from his day shift at McC’s. A dozen—half for Chloe, he’d said, and half for Kristen, the two women who owned his heart. Kristen would never look at another rose without thinking about the first one he’d given her and the song he’d composed to go with it. The afternoon light from her bay window caressed the velvety petals of his most recent bouquet, washing them in gold and making Kristen think of the crimson flowers and gold ribbons she and Law had chosen for the Christmas wedding they were planning.
&nb
sp; He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “You’re going to make a beautiful bride,” he said, as if he’d known where her thoughts had veered.
She nodded, visions of their beautiful day and every new day they’d spend together misting her eyes.
The music stopped. “Are you okay?” Chloe asked.
Kristen nodded down at her soon-to-be stepdaughter. “I’m just so happy. Sometimes it’s a little hard to believe still, that you’re both here. That everyone’s so…”
“Happy?” Chloe asked.
Kristen nodded again.
“Because of my mom?” the little girl asked.
“No, sweetie.” Kristen hugged her close. Law’s arm wrapped around his daughter, too, until she was cuddled between them.
“We all want your mother to get better, and to get happy, too,” he said. “Your mom will always be a part of us.”
Chloe nodded, even though she still struggled with all that had happened on those difficult days at the heart of her mother’s relapse.
“Mom’s going to stay sober this time,” she insisted.
“That’s what we all want,” Law agreed. “I know it’s what she wants. But whatever happens, I’ll be here for you, darlin’. Kristen, too, and the rest of our family and your friends. You won’t have to deal with anything alone, not anymore.”
Chloe nodded again. “I’m hungry.”
“Someone promised me a milk shake,” Kristen agreed, relieved at the lighter topic, though she’d have sat there into the evening if Chloe had needed to discuss things more.
They’d talked through a lot of long nights since February, Law and Kristen and Chloe, helping Chloe understand what had happened, including Law sharing experiences from his Al-Anon meetings and encouraging Chloe to go with him—which she had, several times. Chloe was finally dealing with the divorce and her mother’s disease—and healing from both. She’d never again have to lie or run or try to change who she was because she was afraid of her life. She was learning to face everyone and everything, all the good and the bad things, knowing that she could be herself, because she was supported and loved.
Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 28