Edge of Paradise

by Lainey Reese

  “I’m Kiki, by the way. Who are you?”

  “Oh hi. Sorry, my name’s Sharon, and this is Christy—”

  “I’m Logan’s mom,” Christy cut in. She stepped forward with her shoulders back, head high, and a look on her face like she was expecting a punch. Sharon reached out and brushed her fingers on the back of Christy’s hand in support. When her fingers were caught and engulfed in a cool, firm grasp, Sharon tried to keep her expression solemn, but inwardly, she was elated. Doing couple things like holding hands in front of others was rare for them. Not that Christy ever objected—it was Sharon who was the more reserved of the two, so every time Christy responded so readily and with such easy openness, Sharon fell just a little more in love with her.

  “Oh shit. Hi. Nice to meet you.” Kiki’s eyes were huge as they bounced from one to the other of them. “Andie told me she ran into you guys. I guess I shoulda put two and two together, but I’m a little distracted,” she told them, gesturing toward where Andie continued to sit and gaze off into nothingness.

  “Logan is out in the big orchard today, supervising the harvest. He oughta be back this way for lunch in about twenty minutes or so. You’re welcome to wait, if you want.”

  “That’d be great. Thank you.” Sharon smiled warmly at Kiki, liking the easygoing hippie vibe she exuded.

  “So, are you two planning on staying in the area?” Kiki asked, taking a seat next to Andie and plopping her sketchpad onto her lap.

  “Yeah,” Christy answered, her eyes scanning the orchard in the distance as if willing her son to come striding out of the trees. “With Momma so sick, we had to come now. But we were talking about coming even before we realized Momma was so bad.”

  “We’re going to open a dance studio.” Sharon knew she sounded like an overhyped infomercial every time the subject came up, but she was too elated to care. “It’s been a dream of ours for about the last two years now. We can’t be wearing rhinestone bikinis on the Vegas strip forever. So, at first, we started pipe-dreaming about renting a spot and teaching little kids. Then, as time went by, the pipe-dreaming sorta morphed into actual planning, and then her momma needed us, so that put our plans into motion.” Sharon knew she was oversharing, but she did that a lot whenever the studio came up. “We’re gonna convert the barn. We don’t even have to find a spot to rent now; the barn is perfect. Still in good shape and everything. Just needs some dance floors, mirrors, a good sound system for the music, and we’ll have our own studio.”

  “It sounds wonderful. When do you think you’ll be up and running?” Kiki came across as genuinely interested, even though she opened her pad and started drawing as they’d spoken.

  “Well, the floors are going in next week after the insulation of the new drywall gets finished. Once that’s done, we have to install the interior touches and sound system. That’ll put us out for at least an additional week or two. We’re hoping, fingers crossed, the first of next month, but we have to wait and see how the floors go first. If a studio doesn’t have good floors, it’s dead in the water, even if you’re only teaching toddlers.”

  Sharon was so caught up in their plans she didn’t notice the tall and handsome young man approaching the porch until he was at the steps. He was unmistakably Christy’s. Her breath caught on a gasp of surprise. If Christy were to put on a short, dark wig and dress in drag, she’d look exactly like the young man standing in front of her. She had never really paid much attention to hereditary looks in people before. This young man was so obviously her lover’s child that it stopped the breath in her lungs and cleared every thought from her head save one: Christy.

  “Hello, Logan.” Christy’s voice sounded softer than Sharon had ever heard it. She spoke with a calm that Sharon was sure she couldn’t feel. “I hope you don’t mind too much that we came by. I-I’m ah… I’m your mom.”

  Sharon was watching the boy closely and saw his slight flinch at the word mom, and she felt Christy react to that as if she’d taken a hit. But she kept speaking in her soft and soothing tones, even as she once again slipped her fingers into Sharon’s and clung for support. Emotions big and small clogged Sharon’s throat as she gladly clung back and tried to channel strength into her lover.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to see me. I know this isn’t fair to you at all. I know I left and that it was wrong and that you have every right to h-h-hate me. You don’t owe me anything. Not even a chance to explain.” Try as she might to stay calm, her voice was cracking, and tears filled her over-bright eyes. But Logan wasn’t objecting—as they’d both anticipated. All things considered, he was being a lot more receptive than either of them hoped for. He wasn’t turning his back on them or shouting—and they’d role-played every hurled insult and accusation they could think of to prepare for this too.

  Instead, he just stood there, solemn-eyed and stoic, looking for all the world like a kid who was as lost and hurting and scared to hope as Christy was. Lord, Sharon thought. They were goners. That boy was going to have them both curled up at his feet in a week. Sharon loved him already. This sweet and damaged boy who stood as brave as a doomed soldier before them, trying to face the world and all its hardships with his head high and his chin thrust out. He was Christy’s boy, all right.

  “If you want us to leave, we will. If you want us to stay away, of course we will. But if you want—and only if it’s what you want—we’d… I’d like a chance to get to know you. I would love a chance to talk to you about why I left, which, just so you know that I know, was all my fault. I was wrong and selfish, and it was the worst mistake of my life. Ever. And if you never want to see me again, that’s perfectly within your rights, and nobody, especially me, would blame you. But if you only believe one thing about me, just one, let it be that. Always remember that leaving you was the worst decision I’ve ever made, and not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for it.”

  Christy was crying. Sharon was crying. Even Logan was crying. Tears leaked slowly from the corners of his eyes, and he was taking gulping breaths while he nodded as she spoke. When Christy got to her feet and took a hesitant step forward, Sharon held her breath. If Logan rejected the hug she was so clearly aching to give him, that would demolish her. And Sharon was afraid it was too much too soon, but Logan finally looked up and met Christy’s gaze for the first time.

  Both of them let out a sob, and Christy flew down the steps and wrapped her arms around her son after nineteen painful years. He didn’t stand cold and reserved in her embrace either. The young man wrapped his arms around Christy with the same desperation she had to him and cried openly as he buried his face in her neck. Sharon gave up trying to be cool, covered her own face with her hands, and let the tears come. She hadn’t realized the level of fear she harbored for this moment. God, if she was this crazed by it, it’s a wonder Christy hadn’t been driven mad.

  A warm hand rubbed soothingly on Sharon’s back, and she realized she’d completely forgotten there were other people besides them here. She looked up, and Kiki smiled warmly at her, her own eyes sparkling with emotions, and she gave Sharon a supportive smile. Andie was still looking off into the distance; the drama and emotions swirling around her couldn’t reach where she had gone inside herself, and Sharon’s heart ached for her. Christy had lost her child too, but life had apparently given him back to her. Andie wouldn’t be that lucky. Her child would be forever out of reach, and the devastation that loss left in its wake could seem insurmountable.

  “We didn’t mean to do this here,” Sharon told Andie and Kiki in a quiet voice as mother and son cried while they rocked together. “We wanted to just drop off the potatoes for you and ask if we could see Logan to invite him over. We never would have bothered him at work if we thought it would take up his time.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Kiki told her as she wiped tears and blew her nose. “It’s fine. Really fine. I’m so happy for him. For them both. This is just the kind of positive energy and good vibes we need right now anyway.” She patt
ed Andie on the arm and then laid a sweet kiss on her forehead. “Isn’t that right, Ands? Positive energy. We need all we can get around here.” Andie gave a slight nod, made a grimace that only the wildest imagination could be interpreted as a smile, and snuggled deeper into her blanket. Into herself.

  It was heartbreaking.

  Sharon thought she might just short circuit her brain if this kept up. On her right, the love of her life was embracing her long-lost son, and how thrilling was that? On her left however was grief that would know no limits. She longed to cuddle the bereaved mother in her lap the way she often did with Christy, while the other half of her wanted to jump for joy with the mother whose grieving had come to a miraculous end.

  “I’ll be heading home now.” All heads turned to the young man who’d been standing off to the side this whole time. He’d been so quiet Sharon hadn’t realized he was there until he’d spoken. He tipped his old-fashioned Quaker’s hat in their general direction and left without waiting for a reply. She assumed nobody thought this was out of character for him, since no one bothered to say anything. A few minutes later, Amish dude passed by them in an honest-to-God horse drawn buggy. Kiki waved, shouted out a happy goodnight in her cheery voice, and he lifted a hand in response. It looked straight out of a movie with him a shadowed silhouette outlined in the brilliance of a country sky. Today, it was bright blue and bursting with fluffy white clouds. With sights like this, she could see why people loved it here. She almost didn’t miss twenty-four-hour delivery.

  “Hey? What’s goin'— oh.” Luke stepped out onto the porch, his arms loaded with a platter. A tall blond man was right behind him, and so was a young woman Sharon had yet to meet. Luke just stood in the doorway, blocking the others from coming out and staring in obvious confusion at his son embracing his mother. It was almost painful watching him process, and Sharon felt a pang of sympathy.

  She pushed to her feet and reached out to take the dish from him. “Looks like we’re going to be getting to know each other. Let me help with that.” He gladly handed over his burden with a quiet thanks, and though his eyes were glued to his son, he made his way to Andie, scooped her up, blanket and all, and then plopped into her place with her on his lap and his arms wrapped tight around her.

  So, that’s the way the wind blows, she thought and smiled faintly when she looked at Andie’s face. The woman still looked haunted and wounded, but she also looked protected. And cherished. Sharon didn’t think grief stood a chance against the fierce-looking man who held her so tenderly. Even as his expression looked fierce, his chin nuzzled her temple and his eyes closed briefly while he just breathed her in.

  It was a beautiful thing to see, and Sharon’s heart went out to them both. Andie wasn’t the only one who had lost a child. As Luke stared intently at his son reuniting with his mother, Sharon’s sympathy swelled. Luke had a child, a beloved one; he knew exactly the depth of the loss they suffered. She wished there was something she could say. Some gesture that would make a difference. Unfortunately, she knew there was nothing that could make this time any easier or better. The only choice they had was to knuckle down and get through this first wave. If it didn’t drown them, then they could face the next one that came down on them and then the next.

  No doubt about it, those waves were real, Sharon mused, and they would keep coming until they pulled you far from the rocky shore of initial loss, with its dangerous undertow and deadly snares. And eventually, you’d find yourself floating along on a sea of grief. Some days are calm and beautiful, and you can convince yourself you’ve made it through. Then the waves will kick up and pound on you until you’re sure you’re going to drown after all. But then, the waters calm again and the sun breaks through the clouds, and you can find hope one more time. A ray of it off in the distance, just bright enough to entice you to keep going. Just promising enough that you decide you can hang on maybe one more day. Then one more day after that, and before you know it, you’re back on calm seas again, and you realize this is the new normal. No more dry land, firm under your feet. No, now you’re a sailor, forever afloat, and never again will your feet know solid land beneath you. Life will still be beautiful at times like before the loss. And that’s something to hang onto.

  Luke and Andie may never see dry land again, but they could build the boat of their choice to survive on. Right now, they were in blow-up life rafts and still being dashed against the rocks, but eventually, they could end up on a cruise ship if they didn’t give up. Sharon watched tears leak from both Andie and Luke’s eyes as they held each other, quiet in their grief, and she wished fervently for them to get that cruise ship.

  She fancied herself aboard a pirate ship, complete with snapping sails, a crow’s nest atop the highest mast, and luxurious captain’s quarters. The oceans beneath her own vessel were stirring, waves kicked up from proximity to another’s storm, but Sharon wasn’t worried. She’d been adrift on these waters for six years now, and she learned to ride out the storms. Sometimes she even relished them, threw herself into the squall like Lieutenant Dan from Forest Gump to rage at the fates, daring them to give it their worst, swinging from the mast and howling like a madwoman. Anger, sorrow, love, and joy, they were all weapons of survival, and depending on the storm she battled, Sharon fought with every one of them. And she prevailed.

  As she watched the couple in front of her, she hoped like hell she would get the chance to share her journey with them. It seemed useless otherwise to have come through so much. Maybe she could throw them a life preserver; maybe knowing they weren’t alone would make the tiniest difference. Sharon felt a sharp sting return to the backs of her eyes, turned away with a sniff, and a promise to herself to come back and offer what help she could.

  On the other side of town, Max put his car into park outside a dilapidated garage-slash-barn-slash-junkyard and looked around. Steven J. Palmer lived here with his elderly grandparents. According to the good sheriff, his grandparents had taken him and his brother in when they’d still been in grade school. They could’ve dealt with an alcoholic father, but when their mother suffered moderate brain damage from a non-malignant growth, the elderly pair had stepped in.

  Each Palmer kid had a sheet a mile long by the time they graduated. They ran their benevolent grandparents into the ground, at the center of every dust-up and skirmish at their schools and at the local teen hangout. Rumor had it that the boys could still be found there nine nights out of ten, which was disturbing, considering both of them were well beyond their teens.

  Max pushed the disgust aside and stepped out of the car. He put his shades on more to mask his thoughts than because of the glare then strolled over to the garden patch where he could see the elder Palmers working side by side.

  “Afternoon,” he called out, then called out louder when neither appeared to have noticed him. Mrs. Palmer saw him first, startled, lost her floral bonnet, and slapped a gloved hand to her chest with a small squeak. “Sorry, ma’am. I did call out. Twice. I sure didn’t mean to give you a scare.”

  “Oh that’s all right.” She was a sweet-looking woman with a helmet of tight white curls and eyes so light a blue the color rivaled the sky behind her. “Serves me right for not wearing my hearing aids today. Good thing you’re not a bear!” She laughed infectiously at her own joke, and Max fell just a little bit in love. With her garden spade, she poked her husband in his upturned ass and sniggered mischievously. The man must have known Max was there but apparently had decided his wife could deal with him just fine on her own. “Papa! You gonna make us stare at your backside all damn day or you gonna turn ‘round and say hello?”

  Chapter 19

  Hours turned into days. Days into weeks. And somehow, the world went on. It just continued on its standard trajectory as if things were business as usual. Like a flight that leaves on time even if not everyone is on board.

  The unfairness of it all brought the sting of tears to Andie’s eyes. She stared balefully over the orchards that used to bring her such peac
e and resented the beauty and serenity. She resented that everything looked exactly how it had before—well, just before—and that included her own body.

  She dropped her gaze to her lap, disgusted with the way her body had recovered. If anything, she was slenderer now than she had been before pregnancy. Now, when she gazed down, she could see every inch of herself from neck to knees. It shocked her how accustomed she’d become to seeing nothing but boobs and belly. How much she had come to love her bump. She hated this change most of all.

  Andie felt betrayed by her own body. It had rejected the life it was supposed to nourish. Banished the tiny, defenseless soul cradled within it out into the cold to die. And now she didn’t even have a stretch mark to show as evidence a child had grown there at all. Like a heartless evil queen who feeds off the souls of young girls to fuel her own youth and beauty, her body was restored. It’d just dropped her child like it was sloughing off an old shoe and traipsed away as if nothing of consequence happened.

  While her soul watched on in horror.

  Andie was trapped within this hateful, poisonous cage of flesh, and it revolted her. She longed to break away from her own body, distance herself from the evil it had done, because what happened had not been her will. She had not chosen to have this happen, yet it happened all the same. And it happened because of her.

  Sniffing, she bit at her lip until she tasted blood and tried to block out the thoughts of self-destruction that flirted at the edges of her consciousness. The vague thoughts were like hyenas circling just at the edges of a campfire—restless, waiting, hungry, and eager to tear her to shreds with their razor claws and rows of jagged teeth the moment her flames died out. Andie didn’t want to die.