The next day was hard as hell. I felt like I’d been hit by a freaking truck. I just didn’t see how that could be true. Ophelia was a spitting image of him, always needing the control. I just couldn’t fathom it. No matter which way I put it, it wouldn’t sink in.

That’s what my mind was on when Paxton got home from work. I didn’t even hear him come in, not even his truck. I always heard his truck pull in. Rowan was on the steps in the pool, Vander and Phi were digging holes below a pine tree for their dinosaurs, and I was sitting on the end of a chaise lounge. My mind was somewhere in la-la-land, not even paying attention to what went on around me.

“Hey, guys,” Paxton called from right behind me.

“Jesus, Pax. You scared the hell out of me.”

All three kids ran to him like he’d been deployed for twelve months. Paxton paid the same amount of attention to all three of them. He checked out Ophelia’s shark tattoo she’d gotten at the drugstore, he listened to Rowan’s story about the lady screaming in the grocery store because a lizard ran up her arm, and Ophelia laughing at her.

She laughed again when the memory hit her, and then tattled on her cousin. “Mini-Van laughed, too.”

Van shoved her a little with his hip, shooting her a glare. I loved it so much; I just wished Izzy was there to share it. At least I would have had someone to talk to, and I would have. I would have told her everything.

“Hey, Uncle Pax. Did my boxes come with my stuff?”

Paxton sat at the top of my chair behind me and put his hand around my waist. “Not yet, buddy, but I got an email today. Tomorrow for sure.”

“Oh, my, God, Vander Clyde.”

“What’s the matter, Aunt Gabby?”

“Your mom left your birthday present here. It’s down in the cottage. Come on, let’s go see.”

“I’m coming, too,” Ophelia said, leaving her dad’s side for mine. Of course Rowan wanted to go, too.”

I took Phi’s hand, not caring that they tagged along. Paxton was the one that stopped them.

“Rowan, you’re going right to the front step and sweeping up that mess you made. You were supposed to do that before I got home, remember?”

“Phi has to do it. We traded. I cleaned up all her pine needles from the cabana bed, and she said she would clean up the chalk I smashed. She did, didn’t she, Mom?” Rowan explained, serious expression on me, begging for help.

“Yes, Phi made that deal with you.”

“Then I can go.”

“Why don’t you stay here with your dad? You guys can go make the Jell-O if you want,” I offered while reminding her of her request for red Jell-O.

“I want to come,” she countered.

Paxton stood, tossing both of them over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go clean up the smashed chalk and make red Jell-O.”

Vander and I walked to Paxton’s workshop to get the key for the cottage, talking about snow. He wanted to know how we could have Christmas without it.

“Look on the bright side. You get to go outside and play with all your outdoor toys. When it’s cold and snowy out, you have to wait until spring. By then all your toys are either broke or you’re bored with them,” I explained while I slid open the door.

I never even thought about her car being in there. I mean I knew Paxton brought it there, I just didn’t think about it being his mommy’s or how he would react.

Vander ran to the old car before I could stop him. “My mommy’s here. She came.”

“Oh, baby. No, she’s not here. We brought her car here for when she comes back. We just came in here to get the keys.”

“Oh.”

“I’m never going to stop looking for your mommy, Vander. I promise.”

Vander didn’t really respond. His excitement depleted before it ever got started. I wished I could give him that. I would have done anything to get his mommy back.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s go see what she got you.”

Vander cheered up a little when I let him unlock the door. We stepped in and his eyes saw it right away.

“Hey, this is the one I wanted! She got it! This is the one, Aunt, Gabby,” he said, excitement definitely taking over the gloom. Vander dropped the skateboard to the tile and jumped on it with the biggest smile ever. His little knees bent, and he flipped it with his feet, back to his hands, the smile never leaving his face.

“Look, new shoes.”

“Oh, that’s just like Charlie’s. She tricked me. My mom said the store sold all out.”

I took a picture of him with my phone when he plopped to the floor and removed his shoes, sliding the new sandals on his feet.

I handed him the wrapped box when he stood, stomping his foot off the floor, initiating blue lights.

“Here, Van. This one’s really heavy.”

His face dropped again, just like that. “I know what it is, but I don’t have my other ones anymore. I don’t know where they are.”

“Open it,” I coaxed with a finger, ruffling his hair.

Van sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the blue ribbon. “I can’t read yet,” he said as he handed me the card, pulling a snow globe from the box. He shook it, sending the snow falling all around the circus tent.

“I think I already heard this story.”

I opened the card with a frown, wondering what he meant, but didn’t ask. The ache in my throat was harder to swallow than I thought. I had no saliva to get it down with. My mouth dried when I saw her handwriting. She made her G’s the same way I did. Paxton always said they looked like 9’s

“What’s it say?”

It took me a second to gather my bearings before I could read it. Vander put his little face close to the globe, observing the tiny detail. Tiny lions, elephants, and clowns, placed around the tent.

Hey, my favorite Clyde.

You’re five. Wow. How did that happen?

When Gabby and I were around seven, we got to travel with a circus for a whole summer. We had so much fun, Vander. We even got to do a trampoline act with basketball hoops. It was only the pre-show entertainment while the ringmaster waited for the tent to fill, but it was still our show. We were really good. We called ourselves the Twin Duo. We even had cool circus outfits. This globe is to remind you to go to the circus. Go laugh and have fun with a silly clown. Even when you’re forty. I know I haven’t been the best mommy these last couple years, and I’m sorry, baby, but I promise to have you home by the end of summer. That’s a promise solider.

I love you so much little man. You’re going places. Happy birthday.

Love you always and forever,

Mommy

“It’s a Transformer,” I said while I turned the card, showing him the front. I swallowed away the tears, wanting to grab him and hold him so tight. Of course I didn’t do that. I had a hard enough time trying not to cry. I would have sobbed like a baby if I did that.

Vander took it from me with a smile. A happy smile. I loved him so much already, and my heart hurt because he didn’t have his mommy.

I put Vander to bed that night, spending a little more time with him than I did the girls. We talked about his mommy. I may not have remembered who she was, but at least I had Vander to tell me how special she was. He knew a lot about me, and that made me sad. I never told my girls about her. I kept her hidden away in a past I didn’t remember.

~~

We intended on watching the last of our videos, but I had another breakdown instead. I cried. A lot. Paxton held me, and kissed away my tears, but did little with words. I couldn’t tell him what was wrong. I didn’t know. Just a flood of emotions that I couldn’t control.

He was there for me the best way he knew how to be, and then it turned on a dime. I don’t think either of us saw it coming. It showed up out of the blue, and I’m not even sure which one of us started it. One minute I was ugly crying and the next we were making out. I think I was the one that slid my tongue between his lips, but it was both of us who responded. This was very interesting, to say the least. I don’t think I quit crying at all. Not even when I felt Paxton’s fingers slide through the elastic in my panties. I opened my legs for him.

Paxton brought me to orgasm with two fingers while tears streamed down my face, and then he moved on top of me and made love to me. This wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. This was over the top emotional. Not only for me, but him, too. No doubt I was the first person Paxton ever made love to while I cried like a lunatic.

By the time I felt him still inside me, I was all out of tears. Paxton smiled down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “All better?”

I kissed his nose, and assured him that I was fine. “Yes, I’m good.”

“I hate seeing you cry.”

“I couldn’t help it. I feel so bad for him,” I confessed.

“Yeah, I know. He told me he saved all the red M & M’s out of his pack for his mommy today.”

“Where could she be, Pax?”

“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”

~~

I put off the last session again the next day, knowing not only was Vander’s things coming, but so was the box from Izzy’s adoptive mom. I didn’t want to ruin that day either.

Vander was on cloud nine when he got his things. The girls helped him decorate his room with everything he had. That wasn’t a lot, but what it was, meant something to him. Vander was extremely attached to his things, knowing the story behind everything he owned.

My box was heavy as hell, like she packed it full of rocks, but it wasn’t really for me. Or was it? I had a box full of snow globes, twenty-one to be exact. I don’t think I have ever seen so much excitement on a little boy’s face. Those snow globes were special, and he was ecstatic that he had them. I sat on the floor between Paxton’s legs with Vander and the girls, our stones recharging in the center. Vander excitedly told the story of every globe he had with great detail. He remembered them all, and all the stories from his mom. Most of them including me. It made me sad that I couldn’t add to it. A sense of guilt fell over me as I listened to him exaggerate the time Izzy and I went out on a shrimp boat and got caught in a tropical storm. He believed it, and the girls believed it with wide eyes, but I wasn’t so sure that I did. If it did happen, my girls never heard it from me, because I didn’t tell them. I hid her. I didn’t remember her at all, but I knew I loved her.

I thumbed through a yearbook from John’s Town High, listening to my new favorite guy. My sister was quite a basketball star. Varsity point guard four straight years in a row.

“What’s this one about, Van?” Phi asked, finger on a globe with the twin towers.

“How about we save that one for another night? It’s bed time. Let’s go brush.”

“That was when my mommy played basketball. My daddy did, too. I’m going to play basketball, too,” Vander assured us when I flipped open a photo album of Izzy growing up in Michigan. She pretty much started playing basketball right away. I was sure the first couple pages we were still eleven. She looked happy, like she had a good life. She was busy with extracurricular activities, and there was a whole album full of rewards and recognitions. Izzy was smart.

Rowan and Ophelia were fascinated by the resemblance. They knew about her by now, but I don’t think it really sunk in until that moment. The baby book from Vander up until he was about three was filled with a happy family. A man, a beautiful young girl who looked just like me, and a little boy who looked a lot like my Ophelia stood in front of a flatbed truck. Izzy did the modeling, using her hands to showcase a logo on the side of the truck. Jonnie and Clyde Lawn Care in purple letters.

“That’s my daddy,” Vander said with a pointed finger right to the very tall black man. I didn’t know what Vander had been told, but I was sure this man wasn’t Vander’s daddy. With every page that I turned, I changed my mind. This guy may not have been Vander’s real dad, but he was definitely his daddy, and my sister loved him.

“Where is your daddy, baby?”

“He got hurt with a tractor and my mommy couldn’t get the bucket off his neck,” he explained with both hands around his throat.

Ophelia placed her hand on his back and apologized. “I’m sorry, Van. I can share my dad with you. It doesn’t matter what daddy loves you, right Mom?”

I smiled at her, feeling proud, like my five-year-old daughter had just given me the permission I needed to let it go. Those videos didn’t mean anything to me. This did. This family did.

I liked learning my past through Vander, and hearing all the stories his momma told him about our adventures. I was pretty sure only about half of them were true. Like the one where Izzy and I rode over Los Angeles in a hot air balloon when I put him to bed. I guess it could be true. Vander seemed to think so. He had a snow globe to prove it.

I kissed his little head and told him that I loved him, and then I told him that his mommy loved him. Vander hugged me tight, handed me his little stone, and rolled to his side. I smiled and placed his little pebble on his stand, feeling like we were going to be okay, like we might actually make it out alive.

~~

“I can’t do this, Lane. I changed my mind.”

“No you don’t, Gabby. No you don’t. You’re doing this. It’s set. You’re going to park that car like you do every Tuesday. You’re going to get out and get into the silver SUV waiting on you there.”

“I can’t, there’s a tropical storm heading our way.”

“You’ll be long gone before it hits. You’re getting on that plane.”

“What the fuck, Paxton? Are you serious right now?”

“What’s he talking about, Gabby. What SUV?”

“Turn it off. What are you doing? You can’t do that. Where’s Nick?”

“I told him you were coming. Sit down.”

I slammed the laptop shut to get his attention.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now, Paxton? You’re doing this?”

The look in Paxton’s eyes reminded me of something I didn’t remember. Something dark, that I didn’t like.

He was on his feet faster than I could step away, and I was planted against the cold glass, his hand tightly around my throat. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Let go of me.”

“Were you going to leave me, Gabriella? Were you planning on taking my kids? Answer me, goddamnit,” he screamed, a fraction from my face.

“I don’t know, I have amnesia,” I smartly said.

Paxton shoved my face and let me go, but I didn’t let him go. I followed a few steps behind while he glided down the stairs twice as fast as me.

“Paxton, stop. Why are you doing this? We were fine.”

That turned him in his tracks and I backed down. “We weren’t fine, Gabriella. We’re the fucking lie in this whole fucked up circle. You and me, bitch. We’ve been living on lies since the day we ran into each other on that beach. Let’s get them out. Let’s lay it all out.”

I continued to follow him, knowing damn well where he was headed. Paxton opened his office door, and then unlocked the vault behind a picture of Rowan and Phi, dressed in matching clown costumes while they held pumpkin buckets.

I closed the door behind me to keep from waking up the kids. Paxton was pissed. He didn’t even give me a chance. He just ripped it open, dumping it all to his desk. Passports, fake identifications, birth certificates, new social security cards, and a flip phone.

“Fucking passports? You were going to take my fucking kids from me?”

I didn’t answer, but I did jump. Right after he smashed the phone against the wall

“This isn’t fair, Paxton. You know I don’t remember that.”

“So if you hadn’t went to the store for milk, I wouldn’t have them right now? What gives you the fucking right?”

“Shh, you’re going to scare the kids.”

“What else is there, Gabriella? What else are you hiding? My guess is it has something to do with your one on one video. Did you tell me everything? Did you, Gabriella?”

I gave it right back, but not quite as vicious as Paxton. “Did you, Pax? You had a one on one, too. Did you tell me everything?”

“Get the fuck out of my face, Izabella. Take your fake ass and get the fuck away from me before I hurt you.”

I tried talking to him in a quiet tone, rationalize with him, but it was hopeless. “Pax.”

“Go.”

I left because that’s all I could do. Paxton wasn’t about to listen to me. He already slipped on his blinders, and I knew it was pointless until they were off. I went upstairs with my sister’s things, wishing to God I had her to talk to.

Mi called my phone five times before I made it back to my room. I closed the door and called her back.

“Jesus, you scared me. What happened? Nick said you closed the video out. He can’t get it back now, none of them. They’re out in cyberspace.”

“I don’t care, Mi. I don’t want it.”

“What happened, honey?”

I planned on sitting there and telling her everything, letting her be my Clyde, but something familiar caught my eye, but I didn’t know why it was familiar. “We just had a fight. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“Sure, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Thanks, Mi.”

“Anytime, babe.”

I picked up a pink notebook with a big red daisy planted right in the center and opened the cover. Poem after poem filled the pages, and I knew they belonged to my mother. I reached for my tablet and flipped it on, going right to the folder where I knew they were in. They weren’t verbatim, but some of them were close, and I knew my mother had written these poems, I was merely trying to hold on to them. Keep them close to my heart. Every time something fell into place, something else fell apart.