by J. Bengtsson
“No. Kids at school. They know you’re my uncle. They’ve told me stuff.”
My stomach knotted at just the thought of what this little girl might have heard about me. “You know, not everything people say about me is true.”
“They said you killed someone,” she answered, matter-of-factly.
Okay. Well, shit. That was true.
“I told them you’d never do that,” Sydney continued. “But then they showed me some websites that also said you killed someone.”
I purposely didn’t seek out Casey’s help this time, more out of shame than anything else. Sydney had been subjected to information she was entirely too young to know all because she was connected to me. I could only imagine the things Grace and Quinn had heard when my story was the only thing in the news in our town for a year. This was the moment I’d always feared, and one of the main reasons why I didn’t want a child of my own. There would come a time, as it had now with Sydney, that I’d have to admit to the things I’d done.
Swallowing back my pride, I said, “It’s true. I did kill someone. But I didn’t want to. Do you know what self defense means?”
“No.”
“It means if someone is trying to kill you, you have the right to fight back and defend yourself. That’s what I did. I fought back.”
“And you killed him instead.”
“Yes. But if I hadn’t fought him, Syd, I wouldn’t be here with you now.”
She nodded her understanding… or so I thought. “He would have killed you like that girl killed my parents.”
“Well, yeah. But…”
“I wish I had been in the car with my mom and dad. I would have self-defensed like you and killed that girl… and then my parents would still be alive.”
“No, Sydney, that not what I meant. It’s not the same thing. The girl who killed your parents, she made a terrible mistake. She wasn’t trying to kill them, though. I don’t want you to spend your life angry at her and avoiding places that remind you of your parents, because if you do that, you’ll grow up into a bitter, unhappy person.”
Tears trailed lines down her cheeks. “I don’t want that.”
“No, and your parents wouldn’t want that either. They’d want you to forgive that girl and move on. Honor your parents by living the best life possible.”
Sydney and I stood there staring at one another. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. So much for the pep talk I’d hoped to have with her.
Finally she answered, “Okay. I’ll go home.”
“And you’ll smile and have a good summer?”
“I said I’d go home. I didn’t say I’d be happy about it.”
I reacted to her sass with a quirked brow, and Syd actually laughed. I hugged her tightly to me, glancing at Casey for the first time since our conversation began. She was understandably emotional, but there was also mad respect in her loving gaze.
“Jake?” Sydney said, stepping out of our embrace.
“Yeah?”
“What about you? Did you forgive him?”
My heart began to beat forcefully from just the memory of that last day, our final confrontation. He’d mocked me, beaten me to within an inch of my life, and when I was flat on my back with no fight left, Ray had attempted to strangle the life out of me. I was only alive today because he’d failed. What had happened to me was no accident. It was cold and calculating, perpetrated by a man who thrived on the pain of others. A person like that didn’t deserve forgiveness.
Sydney’s rich brown eyes watched me intently, her innocence demanding a response. I could have lied – should have, probably – but for the sake of my tortured soul, I offered her the truth.
“No, Syd, I haven’t. And I never will.”
20
Casey: Forgiven
After bringing the kids back to Arizona, I lingered a few days at home. Just like Sydney, there were memories I hoped to recall and a person I needed to forgive. The woman who killed Darcy and Miles was barely a woman at all. Eighteen years old at the time of the accident, she’d also lost her life. Her family, in the throes of their own grief, had reached out to us at the time of the accident. They’d wanted to apologize, but at the time, none of us were ready to hear what they had to say. Now we were.
So I made the difficult call and arranged to meet with the woman’s family at a local park. Mom and Sydney had chosen to accompany me, and as we crossed the grass, the three of us locked arms in solidarity. We were in this together. Always. And what we found at the end of the path was not the family of a monster but grieving parents of a young woman who was missed just as fiercely by her family as Miles and Darcy were by ours.
Her name was Beth, and she’d only recently graduated high school. She’d been a student at the local community college at the time she’d made the decision to send the fateful text that killed not only my brother and his wife but herself as well. She was human and she was loved… far from the hideous beast I’d pictured in my mind. As they spoke lovingly of their daughter, I could feel the weight lifting from me as the anger began to fade.
Sydney had remained stoic throughout the short meeting. Even when Beth’s parents specifically apologized to her, she hadn’t uttered a word. It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that she finally spoke.
“I forgive her.”
I returned to Jake with only two weeks left before the end of the tour. He would have already been done by now had he not been forced to reschedule dates that had been canceled due to our family tragedy. I was ready to go home. It had been a year of such ups and downs that we both needed a chance to just chill.
After the emotional meeting in the park where I followed Sydney’s example and forgave Beth, I felt stronger and more determined than ever to reclaim the Casey I’d once been. Yes, I had bad days, but they were fewer and farther between. I poured myself back into work and spent more time around Jake’s crew, joking and hanging out. Even Lassen and I had mended our rift and were on good terms once more, even though I still took the opportunity to mess with him when the opportunity arose.
Most importantly, Jake and I had found our rhythm again. We were back to being a team. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the playful banter and sexy innuendos until they returned to our marriage in full force. In a year of extremes, it was only natural to keep the trend going.
“You got a minute?” I asked, sliding onto the couch next to Jake and grabbing the pillow to cradle in my arms.
He muted the TV and turned his body toward me. “What’s up?”
“So, you know how since Miles’s death I’ve been pretty erratic with my period, and charting my ovulation was all over the place?”
“Yeah.”
That one word of his was loaded. I could see by the look of concern on his face that he was guessing where this was going… and he’d be right.
“Well, I haven’t had my period for a while, and I thought it was just normal variation but, the thing is, I wasn’t really paying much attention to my cycle because all my focus was on the kids.”
“Just tell me, Casey. Are you pregnant?”
Jake didn’t seem thrilled, but he wasn’t upset either. If I had to describe his mood at the moment, it was decidedly neutral.
“I don’t know, but I thought all week I’d be starting and I didn’t. When I actually counted back, I realized it’s been eight weeks since my last period. I don’t know if I’ve ever gone more than six or seven weeks without one.”
“Do you feel different?”
“No, not at all. I don’t think I’m pregnant, but I also don’t know why I haven’t started. Anyway, I was going to ask Dom if he’d drive me to the store so I can pick up a pregnancy test.”
Jake pulled out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Sean. We’ve got all day. I’m going to see if he can get you a doctor’s appointment.”
“I don’t need to see a doctor, Jake. Women have been peeing on sticks for a long time.
”
“Right, but none of those women are my wife. We’re getting you an appointment.”
I relented to Jake’s request, and later that afternoon, we were brought in through the back door of the doctor’s office and escorted into an exam room. The first thing they had me do was pee in a cup. I eyed Jake. All this pomp and circumstance could easily have been avoided.
“I hate to say I told you so,” I said, exiting the bathroom with my brimming cup of urine. “But I told you so. Going on a stick would have been so much easier, by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pee within the parameters of the cup? I thought I knew where my urine stream was coming from but I was totally off. Peed all over my hand.”
Although not known for biting his nails, Jake was nervously chowing down. Upon hearing of my toilet trials, the stress lines in his forehead softened, the finger was removed from his mouth, and my hubby broke out into a grin. “Maybe keep that fascinating story between the two of us, huh?”
The nurse stopped in briefly to take my blood pressure before exiting with my pee cup. While waiting for the doctor to arrive, I examined the stirrups on the side of the table.
“How much would you pay me to put my feet in the stirrups and greet the doctor like that when he arrives?” I teased.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. “I would pay you nothing.”
“Yeah, he probably wouldn’t blink an eye anyway. Do you think he gets bored looking at vaginas all day?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, wrapping his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. “I wouldn’t.”
“All day, Jake. He looks at them all day. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t get old after a while.”
“Sure, Casey, whatever you say. It would be such a bore.”
I extended my leg out to playfully kick him with my bare foot, but his reactions were spot on and he managed to scoot his chair back in the nick of time.
“Why’d you have to get me a male gynecologist anyway?” I complained.
“He was the only one I could get on such short notice.”
“Oh, wonderful. Male and the last gyno left on the shelf. Goody.”
Jake grinned, shrugging his shoulders at my remark. “I honestly didn’t think it mattered.”
“Of course it matters. Would you want a female doctor sticking her fingers up your dick?”
“Nooo…” He laughed. “I wouldn’t want anyone doing that, male or female. Would you please just sit quietly until he gets here?”
“Fine, but he’d better not be hot.”
Jake’s eyes widened in surprise, but before he could respond to my off-color statement, the doctor walked through the door… and thankfully he was aging and rather unattractive.
He also cut right to the chase. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”
21
Jake: The Ugly Truth
I let the words sink into my dense skull. Casey was pregnant… with my child. I was going to be a father. Was it hot in here? The tingling sensation that had started in my toes had worked its way through my body and was now lapping at my ears. What had I been expecting? We’d been actively trying to get pregnant, so this outcome was bound to happen at some point, yet still it was shocking. Sure, I could play dad all I wanted with my niece and nephew, but they were already fully formed human beings. Any damage that had been done could not be credited to me. But my own child? Oh, man, I was going to have to mold that baby from birth.
While Casey peppered the doctor with questions, I let my mind wander. Fading into a trance-like state, I stared pathetically at the poster on the wall, which showcased the female reproductive organs. At first pass, it seemed fairly straightforward. I’d seen it all, you know, from the outside; but when I really started studying the inner workings, I honestly couldn’t tell you where my baby was currently chilling out inside Casey. On a side note, did anyone else think the diagram detailing the fallopian tubes looked like the Texas Longhorn’s mascot?
Squinting to get a better look at the illustration, I was interrupted by the doctor. “Jake, do you have any questions for me?”
Um, yeah, I had a whole buttload of them, but none I actually wanted to ask out loud. I must have made some ambiguous gesture with my head because both Casey and the doctor exchanged amused grins. Now I had to come up with something tangible to save face.
“When?” I asked. “How?”
“How?” Casey giggled. “Did you need me to explain?”
I glanced back at the diagram. Yes, actually. That might be helpful.
“No,” I shook my head. “I meant… how old?”
“Haven’t you been listening at all?” she asked.
“Sorry. I’m a little shocked at the moment.”
“No worries,” the doctor came to my rescue. “We’ll get a more accurate age assessment once your wife has the ultrasound, but from what Casey has been telling me, I suspect she might be about two months along.”
…and all I heard was, You’ve got seven months to get your shit together.
Casey was beaming from ear to ear as her legs swung back and forth from the raised table like an excited child. The doctor was answering more of her questions, but like before, I wasn’t listening. My focus now was solely on my wife and that look of absolute exuberance on her face. How could I not be happy… for her? I needed to get with the program, and quick. This was happening whether I was ready or not. By acting like some drugged-out lunatic, I was robbing her of this moment.
Plastering a smile on my face, I grabbed Casey’s hand and squeezed. Her eyes lit up, sparkling as if they’d been created from diamonds. I loved seeing her this way and would do anything in my power, and pay any price, for that smile to never fade from her lips for as long as we lived.
I knew what had to be done. I needed to be the man she thought she’d married. The man who’d promised her his whole heart, but so far had only given her a sliver. If only I’d had the strength required to face my issues head-on, I wouldn’t be standing here now, at the eleventh hour, wishing for a miracle.
After saying our goodbyes to the doctor, Casey hopped off the examining table, grabbed my face, and kissed me with a loud smack of her lips.
“I love you so much. I can tell by your crazy eyes that you’re a little freaked out, but I promise you, this is a good thing. You’ll see.”
Casey stripped off her gown and stood before me in her underwear and bra, her hands caressing her flat stomach. “Isn’t it just incredible, Jake? Can you believe our baby is growing inside me?”
There was just something so graceful about her standing there stroking the baby she had already fallen hopelessly in love with. She looked like an angel. My eyes clouded in love, I wrapped her up in my arms. “You’re so beautiful, Casey.”
We held each other for a long time before she pulled back a little and ran her fingers over the worry lines in my forehead. “You’ve got that face again. What’s wrong?”
“You want the truth?”
Casey nodded, appearing distressed. She’d obviously learned to brace herself over the years when it came to morsels of honesty from me. She needn’t have worried, though. I wasn’t about to ruin this moment for her. I pointed to the diagram on the wall.
“Where the hell is the womb?”
Once we were back on the bus, Casey went straight to the computer to read up on all things baby while I took a couple of Tylenol and lay down. I needed more to take the edge off, like a bottle of vodka, but I didn’t want to offend Casey. It’s not that I was unhappy with the news. I was just ambivalent. The struggles that lay ahead for me were tremendous. Not only was I going to have to take a trip back down memory lane, but I was also going to have to face them… the ghosts that haunted my dreams.
“Can we talk?” She asked.
Casey stood in the doorway, and I blinked her in. She looked different than she did this morning before she told me the news. No, there was no baby pouch or telltale signs of pregnancy, but ther
e was definitely a change to her. She was calm and serene, as if the baby she was carrying had brought her the confidence and happiness to alter her entire mindset. I envied her. Would I ever get to the same place?
“What’s up?”
She sat on the edge of the bed and lay her hand on my leg. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Not giving you a choice. I’m so happy about this baby, but I also feel guilty because I pushed you into being a father, and I knew you were only doing this to make me happy. And now I’m ecstatically happy, and you’re not.”
“I’m not unhappy about the baby, Case. I’m just worried about not having enough time to fix all the things I need to fix before it comes.”
“There’s no rush, hon. Just try to achieve perfection by Christmas.”
“Oh, right.” I laughed. “That’ll totally be doable.”
Casey climbed over me on the bed and straddled my waist. She batted her eyes at me and used her fingers to mold a huge smile on my face. “I want to see a real smile, Jake. You’re going to be somebody’s daddy. Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?”
“It is pretty cool,” I conceded, smiling for real like she’d asked.
Suddenly the flirty girl was gone and Casey was peering intensely into my eyes. “All jokes aside, Jake. Do what you have to do. For me. For baby. For you. Just get it done.”
Casey took an impromptu nap shortly after our conversation, but sleep was impossible for me because I kept playing her words over and over again in my head. Do what you have to do. She was right. I had to pull it together. The time for excuses had expired.
Taking out my phone, I clicked on my contacts, scrolling through until I found the one I was looking for. He was the last person I wanted to talk to, but the only one I really could.