by Mia Sheridan
I was so overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for her unbelievable kindness and the love she’d shown me, though she hadn’t really known me at all before tonight, that I could barely speak. “Thank you,” I managed and by the look in her eyes, it seemed like enough.
“Now come on,” she said. “I can only imagine what those boys concocted for dinner. Let’s just hope it’s somewhere in the same arena as enchiladas.”
I laughed and followed her inside. Alejandro had just arrived and when he saw me, a knowing look came into his eyes and he smiled warmly at me and then at his wife. He took her in his arms and kissed her mouth, and I smiled at the blatant show of affection as the boys muttered sounds of disapproval.
We linked hands as Alejandro said a blessing and then dug into the food. And I would always remember my first real taste of familial love as having the flavor of slightly burned cheese enchiladas. Darkness fell over the yard outside as laughter filled the room, and even though it had started as one of the worst nights of my life, I felt a warm glow in my chest and the lightness of having shared a piece of my heart and of being embraced for it. Embraced.
Not shunned. Not ignored. Not gossiped about. Not ridiculed. Not demeaned. Not passed over.
Embraced. Welcomed.
Make a fuss, mi amor, she’d said. I wasn’t sure how to do that yet, but I would work it out. I would work it out.
After saying goodbye to everyone and thanking Rosa again, she drove me to my car and I drove home. When I arrived and shut off my engine, I heard my cell phone beeping from the glove box where I’d left it and took it out to find several texts from Preston and a few missed calls. Surprised, my heart quickening with apprehension, I scrolled through the texts. They simply asked me to call him back. There was a voice message, and I listened to it, holding my breath as his deep male voice began speaking:
“Lia
I sat back, leaning my head on the headrest and closing my eyes as pain radiated through me. We need to talk . . . about the baby and about . . . us. It was glaringly clear to me what the talk about us would entail. He was dating Hudson’s nanny. The agony of seeing them together gripped me, but I breathed through it. I’d left, and I had to accept that Preston was now seeing someone else, even if he did still have a protective streak where I was concerned.
Had he really ever been seeing me anyway? Had we ever really been a couple or had I simply moved in with him, had his baby, and then . . . Mostly, that’s how it felt. Except for that night in the rain . . . except for that . . . but only for a moment that was far too brief. Because in the end, it had been nothing more than sex. I’d recognized that then and I knew it now.
I let out a shuddery-sounding sigh. I had to rebuild my life . . . once again. It would be painful to see Preston with someone else, but I could manage it. Tracie seemed like a nice girl, and she obviously cared for our son. Hudson was most important, the one I would fight for. I could put my own feelings and needs aside—I’d have to. It was my only choice.
It was too late to call now. We hadn’t started eating dinner at Rosa and Alejandro’s until eight, and it was almost ten o’clock. Hudson would be asleep and Preston would, too, since he woke before sunrise every morning to start the day. Or at least, he had.
I’d have to talk to Preston tomorrow at Hudson’s party. I was almost grateful it was too late to call. Every ounce of emotional energy was gone, and I knew I could do nothing more than fall into my bed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Preston
It was the perfect day for an outdoor party. The temperature had dropped slightly and the air felt fresh and pleasantly cool. The farm was lush with new green leaves on all the trees, flowers blooming everywhere, their scents wafting in the air, and the rows of plants in the distance a vivid, healthy green.
The land around us had once been dry and withered, but it had recovered and was now bursting with new life. I wondered distantly if people who had once been stripped bare and cracked open could recover, too, and thought that it was at least worth hoping for. Wasn’t it?
What was the alternative? The alternative was living as my parents had lived—just existing, mostly in silence with short bouts of anger that ended in more distance. God, it’d been exactly like that with Annalia the year we’d lived together, minus the short bouts of anger because Annalia would bite her tongue rather than lash out at anyone. Maybe it would have been better if she’d gotten angry. I’d needed something to snap me out of the fog I’d existed in. That night the rain had come had done it . . . but then she’d fled. I sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand over my face. I’d been too late. When it came to Annalia I was always too damn late. Just a little too slow, too many steps behind.
In the backyard, blue balloons moved gently in the spring breeze and a few tables had been set up on the lawn for those who wished to enjoy the fresh air and comfortable warmth.
I placed one of the gifts I’d gone out that morning and picked up for Hudson on the table next to the cake that was still in its white bakery box.
“What’d you get him?” I turned around to see Tracie and smiled.
“I got him a train table, but it was too big to wrap so I left it inside. That’s a couple of trains to go with it.”
“Oh gosh, he’ll go crazy for that.”
“I know,” I said, pleasure sliding through me at the thought of how my son would react to seeing the train table. He was obsessed with them. We’d read his few Thomas the Tank Engine books so many times I had them memorized. So did he, as a matter of fact. I knew because when I tried to skip pages, he’d call me on it by making a sound of outrage and turning back to what he knew I’d missed. “Is he awake yet?”
“He should be in a minute. I’ll go change him and bring him down.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I went back into the house. Lia hadn’t called me the night before, and I’d woken up with her heavy on my mind.
I don’t think you’re available for anyone. You’re still not over Annalia.
I’d admitted it to myself, and I’d admitted it to Tracie. The question was, what in the hell was I going to do about that? Anger hadn’t worked. Denial definitely hadn’t worked. So what now?
Open up to her, my mind whispered. Do it. Be brave. Could I? And after I’d closed myself off, turned away, hurt her when she’d been so vulnerable, would she even listen to anything I had to say? Could I take the chance that she might just be . . . done?
I’d almost picked up the phone and called her first thing this morning, but I’d known I was going to see her in a few hours so I’d held off. It would be better to talk in person anyway. That and part of my morning had been spent running out to get a gift for Hudson.
“Preston, darling, there you are. Have you seen Tracie?”
“Yeah, she’s out back.”
“Wonderful. Didn’t she do a marvelous job with the party setup? She really is a gem.”
“Tracie’s great, Mom.”
“How did your date go?”
“It wasn’t really a date. We just had dinner.”
She put her hands on her hips. “It sounded like a date to me. And I’m so glad you took my advice. I think—”
The doorbell rang, and I used the excuse to escape my mother, walking out of the kitchen into the foyer. My heart skipped a beat to find Lia on the other side, biting her lip, and for a moment I felt like a seventeen-year-old boy, tongue-tied and dry-mouthed at the mere sight of her. Annalia gave me a nervous smile. “Good morning.”
“Hi,” I said, pulling the door open wider. “Ma’am.” I nodded to Lia’s mother who was standing beside her, and she nodded back, giving me a thin smile. I’d never given her too much of a reason to like me, although I had paid for her apartment and
any minor expenses she incurred when Lia had stopped working and moved in with me. And I’d kept supporting her financially when Lia left. She was Hudson’s grandmother and what had happened between Lia and me wasn’t her mother’s fault. Plus, I was the one who had gotten her daughter pregnant and essentially put the family breadwinner out of commission.
In any case, though, I was pretty sure her mother was a withdrawn person and getting her to warm to me would be a Herculean task that I definitely didn’t have the skill or the charm to tackle. Cole could have. Of course. But not me.
During the few times in the past year she’d visited, she’d barely looked at me and had seemed impatient to leave. Of course, given that her English was so limited, if she’d wanted to say anything to my mother or me, Annalia had to interpret. That probably added to her discomfort.
When Lia left, we’d had no way to communicate that wasn’t cumbersome and inconvenient. The time I’d gone there to question her about whether she knew where Lia had gone, I had to use Google translate just to ask simple questions. It had been awkward and strange, and I’d been wrung dry with panic and hurt and only stayed long enough to find out Lia had told her she was leaving but hadn’t told her where she was going.
Lia stepped forward and the mere memory of that time made me want to reach out and grab her, shake her, and then wrap my arms around her and beg her not to leave me again—not ever to cause me to experience the misery and dread of loss.
I forced myself to relax, my eyes moving from her hair to her sandal-clad feet, her loveliness washing over me like a balm. She was wearing a flowered sundress in different shades of purple and the bright colors made her bronzed skin look rich and flawless. Her hair was loosely braided and fell over one shoulder.
A sudden vision filled my mind of Lia curled up in the upholstered rocker in Hudson’s room with her hair in just the same way, the baby at her breast and how I’d stood and stared at them, a desperate pride filling my heart so full that it had hurt. She’d opened her eyes and the look in them had been . . . desolate. I felt a dull throbbing in my chest now, the phantom pain from a memory I’d purposely put away, because looking at it out in the open made me feel guilty and raw.
I’d turned away, walked out of the room, and gone into mine. When I’d closed the door, I had stood with my back pressed to it as if I’d needed to bar it against something. Only . . . the thing I was running from was inside of me—a deep, aching torment I couldn’t escape. Not with hours and hours of backbreaking work, not with the silence I’d built around myself, not by pretending I didn’t see how much Lia was hurting, too.
Is that why you left, Lia? God, it must be. How did you stay as long as you did?
My heart clenched. She held a gift in her hands, and judging by the look on her face, felt incredibly unsure as if she wasn’t certain she was wanted . . . at her own son’s first birthday. I’d been an asshole. What mother should fear that? I smiled at her and put my hand on her arm and she glanced at it, understandably surprised by my touch. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Her eyes met mine and the relief that passed over her face was like a stab to my heart. God, she’d always been so incredibly tender. She’d never lost that—through all the heartache she’d lived through, she’d somehow managed to hang on to that. It suddenly seemed like a small miracle that life hadn’t hardened her. In some ways she was still that little girl with the wide eyes and the strawberry-stained lips. The one I knew I’d always love.
“Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself when you fell last night after—”
“No, I’m fine,” she said softly. I nodded, wishing I had a few more minutes alone with her.
I guided them into the kitchen and out through the back door where several other people who’d come straight around the house into the backyard were mingling. Mostly my mother’s friends. Lia looked around at the decorations and smiled. “The farm looks wonderful. All your hard work paid off.”
I wasn’t sure about that. The farm, yes, but then the truth smacked me. All that time I’d been trying so desperately to keep it alive, had Annalia been dying right in front of me?
Christ.
“It’s getting there. We only planted half of what we normally do. But . . . it’s more than I’d hoped for. Do you want to sit down?” She looked around, obviously searching for Hudson. “Tracie’s getting him dressed right now,” I explained.
She nodded and gave me a slight smile but it looked forced. Turning to her mother, she said something quickly in Spanish that I didn’t catch, and her mother nodded and sat down. “Do you need me to do anything? I’d be happy to help . . .”
“I don’t think so. I’ll check on the baby if Tracie isn’t down with him in a minute.”
“I guess he’s technically not a baby after tomorrow,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. We were having the party today but his actual birthday was the next day, which was a Sunday.
“I guess he’ll always be a baby to us.”
Her eyes met mine and she let out a soft breath. “Yes.”
I saw my mom heading toward us and my muscles tensed. “Hello, Annalia,” she said coldly. “Mrs. Del Valle.”
Lia’s mother looked up and nodded politely, her hands in her lap.
“Preston, Tracie needs some help with Hudson. Why don’t you give her a hand?”
I highly doubted Tracie needed a hand with Hudson. My mother had just said that to rub salt in Lia’s wound. A few days ago I might have even thought she deserved it. But now . . . I was confused and shaken up and couldn’t seem to get my footing. A very small part of me still wanted to punish Lia, to castigate her, but I knew I was far from faultless and was beginning to think I might even hold the majority of the blame. And regardless of who was responsible for what, looking in her eyes told me she held deep, deep pain. And now that I was seeing her clearly, seeing the situation more clearly, I didn’t want that. I never had. I’d just been blind with my own grief and self-hatred.
“I don’t think—” I started to say, but Tracie appeared at the back door, holding Hudson and the “ahh’s” directed toward him, startled him slightly and he began crying. Lia tensed and moved forward so slightly I didn’t think anyone had noticed it except me. Her reaction had been to go to him, and she’d held herself back. It caused my chest to tighten. He was her baby.
“Oh, doesn’t he look adorable?” my mother asked, leaving us to go to Hudson. He was wearing a shorts outfit with a tiny vest and bow tie and he looked sweet if just a little bit ridiculous. His dark hair was parted on one side and combed back, curling up at his collar. A tiny pair of glasses would have completed the little professor look.
I went toward Hudson, too, and stepped in front of my mother, taking him from Tracie’s arms with a soft thank you and heading back toward Lia. When I reached her, I held Hudson toward her, and for a second I worried that he wouldn’t go to her, but he reached out his little arms and Lia took him with a small laugh and a quick joy-filled glance at me. My heart swelled.
He’d stopped crying when I took him and now he snuggled into Lia’s arms, taking the end of her braid in his hand. She used it to tickle him and he giggled, his tears completely forgotten. “Gan!”
“Again?” Lia laughed. “You like being tickled, silly boy?” She did it again to his delight and elicited more giggles. My heart felt achy and far too full as I watched them together. My son and the woman who’d given him to me.
I had a sudden flash to the night he was born. I’d been so proud that night. I had a boy. A son. We named him Hudson Cole though I could barely stand to say the name. I’d held him in my arms that first night while Lia slept and had promised him I’d work even harder to bring back the farm so it would be his legacy as well as mine if he had farming in his blood the way I did.
God, maybe I had missed the whole point though. Instead of vowing to work harder to save his legacy, I should have vowed to save his family by working to mend the relationship with his mother. Annalia. Mine. She’d
always been mine. My God, I’d spent my whole life trying to deny it, and it’d brought nothing but pain. What if . . . what if I just stopped? What if I’d never attempted to deny it? What if I’d put all the reasons aside—my brother, a sense of honor that deep inside had always felt misguided, the guilt, the grief, and the pride. I couldn’t change the past, but what if I put all the reasons aside now? What if?
With a head full of whirling thoughts and a heart full of tangled emotions, I left Lia with Hudson and four older women who were all standing around her now. They’d initially given her barely disguised disdainful glances, but it was difficult to maintain negative emotions in the presence of Hudson’s sweetness. And Lia was obviously here by my invitation—me bringing the baby to her had to have made that very clear. They were now all vying for Hudson’s affection by leaning close and cooing at him.
More people arrived, and I got caught up in the duties of the party—taking pictures, cutting the cake that got thrust in front of me, a knife put in my hand as Hudson was plunked into his highchair. I looked for Lia and saw her sitting with her mother again but the look on her face was happy, and she was chatting to a woman next to them.
To everyone’s delight, Hudson smashed cake in his face, his hair, and all over his outfit. I couldn’t help laughing, too, but when my mother picked Hudson up and took him inside to clean him up, holding him away from her so he didn’t get blue frosting all over her, I stood up to go to Lia who was still sitting at the same table. “Will you walk with me?”
She looked up, seemingly surprised and a little nervous, and glanced at her mother who was still sitting quietly where she’d been, sipping a glass of iced tea and eating a slice of cake. She leaned close and said something to her mother, and she nodded and went back to her cake.
“Will Hudson be okay?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder.