“I want to hate that kid,” Saffron muttered as she and Halla headed to the Prius. “Or love him. But I don’t.”
“Me too,” Halla said. “As far as nineteen-year-old guys go, Joel’s pretty typical, but he’s definitely not ready to be a dad. Kendall seems like she’s getting a handle on it, though.”
Saffron hoped so. “You mean because she’s researched car seats? It’s a start. I wish he were a little more mature. She needs the support. I also wish that . . .”
“What?”
Saffron pushed the button on Vaughn’s key fob to unlock the car door. “Maybe if I’d stuck around, she would have learned from my mistakes. She might not be in this position at all.”
“And she still might be.” Halla went around to the other side of the car but didn’t get in. “You know what Lily says about what ifs. You can never predict anything and God has his own plan.”
“Right.” Saffron climbed into the car. “Either way, she wants to tell our mom about the baby tomorrow, and I’m not looking forward to facing my mother again. You know Kendall’s pregnancy is somehow going to be my fault, don’t you?”
Halla laughed. “Now you’re being silly. You haven’t been around for eight and a half years, and Kendall didn’t know why you left. Even your mother can’t blame her pregnancy on you.”
Saffron tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. Halla didn’t know her mother the way she did. Or was it possible the woman had changed? Saffron would consider the possibility, if she had proof, but so far Kendall’s fear of her didn’t testify to any change.
“I’d like you to come with me,” she told Halla. “As long as Kendall doesn’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Halla’s voice became grim. “There are only a few people I’d like to tell off as much as my father, and your mother is one of them.”
Saffron knew the others included the people who had most hurt the original foster girls. People who were supposed to have protected, supported, and loved them. “Thanks,” she whispered.
In all, the day hadn’t gone poorly. Kendall had forgiven her, she was still friends with Vaughn, she was prepared to face her mother, and Kendall’s boyfriend wasn’t the complete creeper she’d feared he might be. Plus it looked like Tyson was out of reach for good, which meant maybe she could finally go on with her life and forget him.
On their way through the lobby of the inn, she was considering the idea of visiting the hot tub for a little relaxation when a man stepped in front of her. At first, she backed up, intending to go around him, but his voice stopped her cold.
“Hi Roz.”
Roz. Only one person had ever called her that. Not Rosalyn like her family or Saffron like everyone in her new life.
Her eyes lifted to a face she’d wondered if she’d ever see again. He looked the same, and yet not the same. His face still had the square jaw she’d loved, and his eyes were still dark and endless enough to lose herself in. His tanned face was topped by the same thick, dark hair. But his features had matured, and he’d grown at least two more inches. He was handsome, this older version of the boy she’d loved.
The boy who’d abandoned her.
Words clogged in her throat as she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms. “Tyson,” she managed finally.
“Kendall told me you were in town.”
She nodded. “I needed to see her.”
“Just Kendall?”
Was he mocking her?
She felt a supporting hand on her back. Halla. She glanced toward her friend and nodded, straightening her shoulders. “How’ve you been?” It wasn’t what she’d come to say, but maybe it was a start. “I hear you’re a doctor now.”
He nodded. “First year pediatric surgery resident. I’m currently at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside.”
He seemed satisfied with the statement, and for a moment she shared his joy. “I’m happy for you.”
His smile sent her back in time, cracking the barrier around her heart. Pain filled her, seeping in from the fissure, blotting out all traces of joy.
“Kendall said you changed your name?”
“Yeah.” At first it had only been a nickname that a homeless woman with a love of books had given her after a self-done dye job had turned her hair decidedly orange. But within weeks, Saffron had clung to the name because it made her old life more distant and less painful, and eventually, it became a part of who she was. “I made it legal a few years ago. I’m Saffron now.”
“I like it.” He didn’t sound sure, and she could hear the question behind the words, but the reason for her name change wasn’t something she shared with everyone.
“So what have you been doing all these years?” he added. His eyes, wandering over her face, felt like a caress.
Trying to get over you, she thought. Trying to figure out why I’m broken.
No, she knew why she was broken. Because her family and the man she’d loved had let her down, had made losing her son inevitable, and those experiences had colored everything else in her life—all her relationships, even those with her foster sisters, who had loved her despite her inability to give as much as she was given.
Forget this, she thought. This wasn’t about how much she had accomplished or suffered in the past eight and a half years. She’d come only to discover why she was still hung up on this man, why he hadn’t wanted her, or if maybe there was a reason for what had happened. This last seemed unlikely now that she was facing him, but she wasn’t up to having this confrontation tonight, especially in a hotel lobby. And especially not after how he’d treated her.
“You know what?” she said. “I don’t feel like telling you what I’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s any of your concern. You made that clear years ago.” Maybe that would put him in his place.
“I made it clear? You’ve got to be kidding!” Anger flashed in his eyes, and behind that another emotion she couldn’t decipher.
Okay, so maybe they were going to do this in public. “You abandoned me,” she countered. “You left me to live alone on the street. I know you were only sixteen, but so was I and—”
“Abandoned you?” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “You’re the one who left.”
“I didn’t have a choice. Not after she found out about the baby.” Saffron felt strangled now, and she wanted nothing more than to flee.
“Why couldn’t you trust me?” he asked.
That was too much. Oh, how much she had trusted him! Tears started down her cheeks, and for an instant, she didn’t see Tyson or the hotel lobby but saw instead the tiny face of her son. Coming back had been a mistake. Expecting him to heal her had been an even bigger one. She didn’t deserve to be healed, not after she’d ruined the one good thing in her life.
Heedless of the tears, she lifted her chin and said, “I did trust you. We both did—your son and me. And you failed. Look, you’ve hurt me enough. Please leave. I can’t talk about this tonight.”
Blindly, she turned and walked away, glad to feel Halla at her side, guiding her.
How could it hurt so much?
Roz—no, he had to think of her as Saffron now—had grown from an attractive girl into a beautiful woman, one who turned heads and stole men’s hearts without even trying. In a single instant, her tears had wrenched away all his fury and righteous indignation. The hurt in her face was real—he knew that as well as if they were his own feelings. Her hurt was still fresh like the pain now running through his heart. He’d wanted the best for her—always the best at whatever the cost to himself—and this moment felt like a betrayal of who he was. He’d somehow hurt her, but how? What did it mean?
He only knew that watching her leave felt like all the other times he’d had to let her go home alone, knowing he wasn’t welcome, that her parents thought he wasn’t good enough for her, and how he’d silently agreed with them.
He couldn’t let her go like this. “Roz!”
She whirled and said through gritted te
eth, “It’s Saffron.” She turned again and stalked away.
Tyson’s mind raced. Something wasn’t ringing true here, and he was going to find out what. “Saffron, please. Let’s talk.” He started after her, but the tiny blonde with the extremely short hair jumped in front of him.
“Later. It’s been a long day.” Her hands pushed at his chest with surprising strength. She looked ready to defend Saffron to the death, and he was glad Saffron had a friend like her.
He lifted his hands in defeat. “Okay. But I need to know what happened.”
“I’ll talk to her.” The blonde hurried after Saffron, and he watched until they disappeared.
Well, if he couldn’t get answers from Saffron, he’d find out what he could elsewhere. He drove mindlessly back to his parents’ house, hoping his mother was still up. He found her in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, waiting for him. Tears leaked from her reddened eyes.
“You’ve been to see her,” she said quietly.
He nodded and sat in the chair across from her, clasping his hands together on top of the table. “How did you find out about the baby and that she was going to a clinic?”
“Her mother called me.” The furrow on his mother’s forehead deepened. “She told me she and Roz were taking care of it, but that I needed to do my part by getting you away from here. Away from Roz.”
“You told me Roz had killed the baby!” My baby. A child like the children he treated every day at work. “Not that her mother said they were planning to. There was still time. I might have stopped her.” How could his mother have done this—taken away his choices?
She sighed, her eyes pleading. “And then what? Please try to see it from my point-of-view. You were just a kid. My only child. I did what was best for you. You couldn’t have supported a wife, much less a baby.”
“No, you’re right.” He stood, propelling the chair behind him backwards with so much force that it crashed against the newly painted wall. “I couldn’t have. At least not without support—which I didn’t have. But it still should have been my choice.”
Instead, his mother, and probably his father too, had conspired with Saffron’s witch of a mother and sent him off to finish high school at the military academy his father had been pushing on him. Now he understood why his parents had changed phone plans and his number before they shipped him off. He’d barely had time to put a forwarding on the old number, hoping for a message that never came. Had his parents deleted the forwarding request? At the boarding school, he’d called and left repeated messages on Saffron’s phone—only to be met with her standard message. He’d called long after her phone was disconnected, until finally one day a man who definitely wasn’t Saffron answered.
He’d been such an idiot. A sixteen-year-old idiot who had blindly let others control his life. No wonder Saffron had looked at him that way tonight. No wonder she believed he’d failed her. He really had.
Now that he’d seen her again, it was so clear. No way would she have left him without interference. No way would she have destroyed their child—even if his mother had believed it.
Then where was the baby now? No, not baby. A child now, a son.
Hope sprang up inside him. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He had to see Saffron, to make her talk to him. Would she understand that he’d been lied to, that he hadn’t meant to abandon her?
“I’m sorry,” his mother said. “Can you forgive me?”
“I don’t know.” The words filled him with sadness. He turned on his heel and strode to the door.
“Tyson,” his mother called.
He paused and said without looking at her, “What?”
“She called. Saffron called your phone before we changed numbers, but I erased the messages. I blocked the number.” The sorrow in her voice sounded real.
“What did she say?”
The seconds stretched out between them. “That the test you bought together was positive, and that her mother knew and had taken her phone. She left a number where to reach her. But it was only for a week.”
By that time, he’d been transferred to the other school. “So no mention of an abortion?”
She shook her head. “But her mother made their intentions clear, and I figured that phone number was wherever she was staying for the procedure, and that afterward, she’d be recovered enough to go away to another school.”
Anger raged inside him, spilling from his mouth like a volcano after eight and a half years of holding it in. “Her mother could never be trusted. She hated me. And you know what? If you had ever made an effort to get to know the girl I loved, if you’d cared even a tiny bit for her like I did, none of this would have happened. And that grandson you’ve been wanting would already be here. Yes, it was a boy, and thanks to you, I have no idea what happened to him or where he is now.”
Without another word, he turned from the devastation in his mother’s eyes and walked out of the house.
His phone buzzed as he climbed into his silver Infiniti. He pulled it out, staring at Jana’s number. For a moment, he was tempted to ignore it, but maybe hearing her voice would pull him out of this nightmare.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.” Her voice was silky, like her skin. She’d smell of flowers and taste sweeter than any dessert. “When will you be here?”
“Uh, change of plans. I’m not going to make it tonight. I’m staying over here. Tomorrow too. But I’ll see you at the hospital on Monday.”
“Everything okay with your dad?”
“Yeah, and we got the ramp in. He loves it.”
She laughed. “Good. I can’t wait to see it.”
He should extend his mother’s invitation now, but he didn’t feel like a nice family dinner, and it wasn’t fair to throw all this at Jana without warning. He’d mentioned Saffron in a conversation about former dates, but he’d never told Jana about the baby or of how in love he’d been. He wished he had now.
“We should be finished with all the repairs here by the end of Monday. After that there are just little things for me to do, like stain the ramps. I’ll show you all of it soon.”
“Nice. Well, I’m going to miss you tomorrow, but I guess Monday will have to do.”
“Let’s have lunch,” he suggested.
“Okay. Give your parents my love.”
“Will do.”
She hesitated only a second before adding, “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
But it felt like a lie. Because as much as he cared about Jana, right now all he wanted was to see Saffron.
After thanking Halla for helping her back to her room, Saffron locked herself in the bathroom and took a shower, letting the scalding water wash away her tears and steal her energy until she couldn’t cry anymore.
She dried off, examining her body in the foggy mirror. There were no stretch marks on her stomach from the pregnancy—she hadn’t gained enough weight for that, and even when her milk had come in and she’d ached for her baby, she barely filled out her bra. No permanent signs remained to mark his existence.
She wrapped the towel around her, running over the encounter with Tyson. He’d been upset—shocked, even—at her words. Something didn’t make sense about their conversation. Almost, it felt as if she’d been the one to wrong him. Was there something she wasn’t seeing after all?
Or maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe tomorrow, she could face her mother and be done with this town forever.
I’ll ask Kendall to come home with me. Saffron didn’t know if Kendall would agree, but at least she wouldn’t feel abandoned by her entire family as Saffron had. Saffron wouldn’t support Joel, though, so he’d have to work out a plan for himself. Lily might have some ideas about that.
Relief began to trickle through her sadness. Lily would always be there—and her foster sisters. And hopefully Kendall.
The phone on the bathroom sink buzzed with a message. Saffron wasn’t sure why she felt a slight disappointment when she saw it was from Kendall. Was s
he expecting Tyson?
Tomorrow at two, it read. After lunch. She’s always better after she’s eaten.
Saffron couldn’t help smiling at that because her mother had always been that way.
Okay, she told Kendall. I’ll text you when I get there.
Love my earrings!
You’re welcome.
How different these texts felt from the stiff ones they’d exchanged before. Whatever wounds Saffron’s encounter with Tyson had reopened, the heartache was worth getting to know her sister. She had an opportunity at a real relationship, and she was not going to mess it up. Not this time.
She stared at the phone somewhat blankly for a few more minutes, but there were no more texts from her sister. She clicked into her conversations with Vaughn, scrolling through old messages. Teasing texts, planning texts, texts about how much he couldn’t wait to see her.
I miss you, she typed. But she deleted the words without sending them. No way could she say it, even if it was true. She couldn’t lead him on. Because as much as she did miss him, at the moment she longed more for Tyson and what might have been.
8
After stalking from his parents’ house, Tyson found himself back at the Rodeway Inn, this time checking in as a guest. The space from his parents was welcome, given what he’d learned, and it was better than the hour-long drive to his apartment. Plus, he was still close enough in case something serious happened with his dad. His father had experienced a few episodes in the night these past months, but since the new wheelchair-accessible bathroom and the lower kitchen counters had been installed, those had mostly disappeared. His parents should be all right for the night.
Except his mother would be crying.
He sighed. Now that the initial shock was over, he realized the emotion he felt most was relief. Saffron hadn’t betrayed him—at least not in the way he’d thought. Or the way he’d chosen to believe. Had he instinctively known something wasn’t right all those years ago? Was that why he’d kept calling?
Maybe he hadn’t wanted to know.
An uneasiness made him unable to sleep. He tossed and turned on a bed that was far more large and comfortable than the one in his old room at his parents’ house. He kept seeing the betrayal in Saffron’s eyes.
Broken Lies Page 8