The overthinking had come full circle again tonight. He had to stop dancing with this same devil. He was constantly aware of her absence, so he either had to let her go or show up in Baton Rouge and demand an answer. But just like he always did, he talked himself out of that too. The ball was in her court. He’d already made the gesture.
He got up and went downstairs in search of something else to occupy his mind. He found his father in his study painting fishing baits—a hobby he had once loved and recently began to practice again.
“Can I help?” Colin asked.
“Of course,” Jasper said. “Pull up a chair.”
Colin picked up a dry bait and started to polish it. “These are really good, Dad.”
“Thank you, son,” Jasper said. “I had forgotten how much I enjoy this.”
“I need to find a hobby,” Colin said.
“That should be an easy fix. What do you like to do?”
Colin shrugged. “I like to build houses. Pretty large hobby, huh?”
“So build houses,” Jasper said.
“I’m working for you right now,” Colin said. “There’ll be time for that. Later.”
Jasper didn’t respond.
They sat in silence and painted, each of them preoccupied with his own thoughts.
During supper that night, Colin got ambushed. Ambushed was the term he’d used in the past when Jasper began grilling him out of nowhere about anything from his grades to his girlfriends. Only tonight, it was friendly fire.
“Son,” Jasper said, “your mother and I would like to talk to you.”
The words still had enough power to make him immediately uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” Colin asked.
“Nothing is wrong,” Jasper said. “We want to know how long you intend to stay here.”
“Are you kicking me out?” Colin asked, only half-joking.
“Not so much kicking you out as kicking your—”
“Jasper!” Ava said. “Don’t say that. You can stay here indefinitely, Colin. You know that. But your father and I are—”
“Worried about you,” Jasper finished.
“Why?” Colin asked.
“Because you are miserable,” Ava said.
“I’m not miserable,” Colin said. “I love being here. This is my home, and you need me here.”
“We appreciate everything you have done for your mother and me,” Jasper said. “We couldn’t have gotten along without you these past three months. But your work here is done.”
“I can look for an apartment,” Colin said. “Or move in with Joshua until I can find one.”
“This isn’t about moving out of the house,” Jasper said. “This is your home. It will always be your home.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Son, is there a woman in Louisiana you need to see?” his father asked.
Colin stared at his father, then looked at his mother. “How did you know about that?”
“Joshua visited today while you were at the office,” Ava said. “He might have mentioned something.”
Colin shook his head. “I’m gonna kill him,” he said.
Jasper leaned back in his chair. “Son, let me tell you how you lose a woman you love. You ignore her. You make her feel like she doesn’t matter. You put everything else before her. You make her unimportant.”
Colin put his head back and sighed. He didn’t really want to get into this with his parents. Who talked about their love life with their mom and dad? Then again, at this point, what could it hurt?
“I told her I loved her,” he said. “I told her, and she didn’t respond. What more can I do? I told her.”
“It isn’t what you say, Colin,” Jasper told him. “It’s what you do.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what to do,” Colin said. “If she wanted to see me, she’d call, wouldn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t,” his mother said.
Colin looked at her. The female mind was a mystery to him. “Why not?”
“Because I’d wait for you to convince me I wasn’t wasting my time,” Ava said.
“Don’t let another minute go by,” Jasper said. “Trust me. You never want to grieve a person who is still alive.”
Colin weighed those words and wondered how hard they had been for a man like his father to say. Maybe they were right. Maybe that’s what he needed to do: go to Jacey and bare his soul. Lay it all on the table. It had been months. He needed to see her, hold her, tell her. He needed to convince her.
He stood up. “I think I’ll . . . Are you all right? You feel good?” he asked his mother.
“I’m fine,” Ava said. “I feel better than I have in years.”
“Dad?” Colin said. “The company?”
“Will still be here when you take care of your other business,” Jasper said. “Go.”
“Are you sure?” Colin asked. “Because I can—”
“Get out of my house, Colin,” Jasper said.
Colin smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Colin took the stairs two at a time and packed a duffel bag. He was headed to Baton Rouge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Colin arrived in Baton Rouge shortly after nine P.M. He drove straight to Jacey’s condo but discovered no one was there. Neither Jacey’s nor Georgia’s vehicle was home. He pulled up in the driveway and turned off the ignition. He’d wait.
Thirty minutes later a car pulled up beside him, but it didn’t belong to either of the women. A man and woman got out.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“I’m looking for the girl who lives here,” Colin said, a little puzzled.
The man and woman exchanged a glance.
“I’m the girl who lives here,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Colin said. “You live in this condo?”
“Yes,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
“What happened to the other girls?”
“I’m not sure. I never met them.”
“Look,” the man said. “She just bought this place a week ago. Is there anything else you need?”
“No,” Colin said. “Sorry I bothered you. My mistake.”
He got inside his truck and backed out of the drive. She had sold the condo. Where had she gone? And where could he start looking? Where was she? This is just like last year, he thought. He’d let it happen again.
Then an idea struck him. Georgia probably wouldn’t answer his call, so he’d go to the hospital where she worked and ask her in person where Jacey was. He made a U-turn in the street and headed to Baton Rouge General.
Colin pulled into the ER parking lot and went inside. “Can you tell me if Georgia Bankston is working tonight?” he asked the woman manning the desk.
“Georgia doesn’t work here anymore,” she said cheerily.
“What? Where did she go? To which hospital?”
“I’m not sure,” cheery girl answered.
“Is there someone around here who would know?” he asked.
“Actually, all of the old staff left at the same time,” she offered. “Something about pay raises and hours. I don’t know. I think they were trying to make a statement, but the joke’s on them. They just hired a whole new staff. Including me.”
“I see,” Colin said.
“Anything else I can help you with?” she asked.
But he was already halfway out the door.
Not this again. Colin felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. She couldn’t just be gone. He got in his truck and headed east. There was another hospital on Bluebonnet Avenue, so he would try there next. He would try them all until he found Georgia. She would have answers.
Two hours later Colin sat on his bed in his hotel room and fell backward against the pillows. He’d struck out. He went to every hospital in Baton Rouge and asked for Georgia Bankston, and everyone told him the same thing. There was no Georgia Bankston in their ER. Maybe it was policy and they couldn’t tell him. He understood that. But there h
ad to be some way to locate at least one of the women. He’d start over again tomorrow and again the next day and the next if need be. But he wasn’t leaving Baton Rouge without seeing Jacey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jacey tucked the boys in their sleeping bags on the floor of the den and lay down on the sofa. Sometimes she still had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. The adoption wasn’t final yet, but they were here with her and would be all hers in a few months.
Things began to happen very fast after Jacey called the sheriff last month. Turned out, there were already complaints lodged against Penny and her husband. Everything from withholding food and basic needs to hitting some of her foster children to “emotional trauma,” as the paper read. Jacey’s caseworker was able to convince a judge it would be more harmful to put the boys in another foster home when there was someone waiting to adopt them. Jacey had already completed the necessary classes, had passed three home inspections with flying colors, and was just waiting to bring them to their new home. In the end, the judge agreed. The day she picked them up at the group home was the happiest day of her life.
“Hi, guys!” Jacey said in the visiting room of the children’s home.
They were a little withdrawn from being yet again displaced, but they were happy to see her. They hugged her with their normal enthusiasm, and Devin climbed in her lap.
“Hi, Jacey,” Dewayne said. “Do you have to leave soon or can you stay with us awhile?”
“Well,” Jacey said, “that’s what I’ve come to tell you. We talked to a very nice judge who thinks it would be best for all of you . . . and for me, too . . . if you came to live with me.”
The boys didn’t react at all. They just looked at her.
“Did you hear what I said, fellas?” Jacey asked. “You’re coming home with me, to your new house.”
Dewayne burst into tears, and his little brothers followed suit. The little ones probably had no idea why they were crying, but they fed off of their big brother. Jacey cried with them, then laughed and cried some more.
“Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s go get your stuff,” Jacey said.
They raced down the hall and packed their things, which took only minutes. They didn’t have much—basically the clothes on their backs and a few more items. It broke Jacey’s heart to see their meager belongings, but they were going home to three closets full of clothes and shoes and dressers full of socks and underwear. Their Nonna had made sure her “three little soldiers,” as she dubbed them, were already taken care of.
Jacey laid her head on the sofa pillow and looked down at them sleeping soundly in their sleeping bags. They had been here for two weeks now and were adjusting very well. They loved their rooms with the Star Wars theme and played exceptionally well together. But come nighttime, the little ones ditched their beds and slept with Dewayne. She asked her caseworker if that was something she should worry about, but she assured her they were fine. Except when it stormed. Thunder scared Devin so much he wet the bed a couple of nights after they had arrived at their new house. Dewayne came into her room in the middle of the night to tell her.
“Jacey,” he whispered, shaking her gently. “Wake up.”
Jacey popped straight up in the bed. Since getting the boys, she’d learned the meaning of sleeping with one eye open.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You promise not to be mad?” Dewayne asked.
“I’m not going to be mad,” she assured him. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s raining and thundering,” Dewayne said. “It scares them. I don’t like it much either. But Devin wet the bed. Penny used to make him sleep in his wet pajamas. He’s crying and afraid to tell you.”
Jacey jumped out of bed, visions of Penny running through her mind. Sometimes she wanted to choke the woman. She ran into Dewayne’s room and scooped Devin up. “It’s okay, baby,” she said. “We’ll fix it.”
She ran a bath and quickly bathed him, then got him a new set of pajamas.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Devin said.
Jacey stopped. He had called her Mommy. She bit her lip—so hard she thought it would bleed—trying to keep the tears from her eyes. Mommy may be the sweetest word in the English language, she thought to herself.
“What are you sorry for?” she asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You had an accident. Remember yesterday when I spilled the pitcher of Kool-Aid on the floor? Same thing. You just spilled some tee-tee.”
That made him giggle.
“Guess what, boys?” Jacey said. “I think we’ll have a slumber party tonight.”
“What’s that?” Derek asked.
“It’s where you sleep on the floor, right, Jacey?” Dewayne asked.
“Right,” she said. “Grab your pillows. I’ll grab the sleeping bags and I’ll meet you in the den.”
Since that night, if it rained, the boys asked if they could have a slumber party. Tonight was their third one in two weeks.
Jacey picked up her phone and checked the time. It was two A.M. She would’ve worried they would be too sleepy to go to school when they got up in the morning, but she knew better. All three of them loved school, and Jacey was surprised at how well they did in all their subjects. Her caseworker told her foster children sometimes had a difficult time in school, but not these boys. They were very smart and eager to learn.
Another surprise? How quickly her maternal instincts kicked in. She fought the urge to drive by the school ten times a day to see if she could spot them on the playground and make sure they were okay. They begged to ride the bus, but she took them every morning and picked them up every afternoon. She promised them she’d let them ride the bus after the first of the year, but she already didn’t like the idea.
She checked the weather on her phone. The storm would pass in an hour or so, and she hoped the boys would sleep through it. Devin seemed to be the only one who was really affected. The caseworker thought since he was so young, in time the memory of the flood and being on the roof during the driving rain and lightning and thunder would fade. Jacey hoped she was right, but when it stormed, she still thought of those days and nights. And of Colin. Always Colin.
She had decided she was going to call Colin and tell him about the adoption the day after she got them home. No matter how he did or didn’t feel about her, she knew he’d want to know about them. He was the first person who had been completely supportive of her looking for the boys. He deserved to know she had them. She had picked up the phone to call him while the boys played outside when Georgia told her something that devastated her . . . something Jacey wished she’d have heard about months earlier.
“Jacey, don’t,” Georgia said. “Just don’t.”
“I only want to tell him about the boys,” Jacey said. “I’m not calling to pledge my undying love to him.”
“But you are,” Georgia said. “You may not realize it, but that’s exactly why you’re calling him.”
Georgia had seen right through her, so Jacey didn’t deny it. “So what if I am?” It had been months since she had spoken to him. She was tired of pretending she didn’t care, pretending she didn’t miss him.
Georgia walked to the French doors and watched the boys playing. She bit her lip and turned around. “Jacey, I have to tell you something,” she said. “And the only way to do it is to blurt it out.”
“What is it?” Jacey asked, a little frightened at the tone in Georgia’s voice.
“The day you drank my smoothie and we went to the ER,” Georgia began, “I saw Colin in the hall at the hospital.”
“What?” Jacey asked. “Did you talk to him? Why was he there? Do you know?”
“No,” Georgia said. “Of course I didn’t talk to him. And he didn’t see me. I did some snooping around and found out his mother was there. She had heart surgery. But Colin was with that woman. That same woman from the beach that night. I saw him hug her. And I heard him tell her he loved her before she left. She said it
too. I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you, but I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Jacey handled the information like a champ in front of Georgia. She even thanked her for finally telling her, even though she chastised her for waiting. But later Jacey did cry. That night after Georgia had gone home and the boys were asleep, she lay in her bed and cried for the man she loved and the relationship that never was. She cried because she knew she would never feel the same way about another man. She cried most of the night, but the next morning she woke up with resolve. She didn’t need Colin or any other man because there were already three of them living in her house. Those were her men now, and she’d spend the rest of her life making sure they grew up to be honest, hardworking, and faithful. She was raising future husbands and fathers, and she was determined to raise them well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Colin called Julie the next morning. Since Julie was a paralegal, she would certainly have some tricks up her sleeve for locating Jacey.
“How do I find somebody in Baton Rouge?” he asked.
“Have you lost her again, Colin? This is getting ridiculous.”
“Look, she moved from her condo, she and her friend. They sold it,” Colin said. “Her friend is a nurse, so I went to every hospital in Baton Rouge looking for her last night, and they all said she didn’t work there.”
“They can’t give out employee information to you, Colin,” Julie said. “It’s against the law. You know how many crazies there are running around?”
“What do I do?” he asked. “I’m out of ideas.”
Julie sighed. “You say they sold a condo?”
“Yes,” Colin said. “A couple of weeks ago.”
“Go to the courthouse and tell them you want conveyance records for her and her friend. Vendee, not vendor. If they bought another place, it’ll be recorded in the county courthouse. Or parish, I guess in Louisiana. There will be an address on the deed. If it isn’t, then go to the assessor’s office and get it.”
The Sweet Smell of Magnolias and Memories Page 20