FIVE
Triss
IT STILL SURPRISED ME HOW quickly things could get done when you threw enough money at a problem. What probably should have taken weeks, I accomplished in a few days once Amber had put the money in my bank account that I had asked her for.
The first thing I had done was start the ball rolling for my mother. I had to have her transferred to a hospital in New York City before I could get her back to my dad’s house. That was better than being hours away from her when she would have been stuck in Buffalo. I made sure that she was comfortable in her own private room before I left to take care of everything else.
I had quit my job as soon as I had gotten home. Once the money was in my account, I had traded in my rundown car for a new SUV, one that was built like a tank so I wouldn’t worry about driving in the snow with the girls. From there, I had bought them new clothes, coats, shoes, and a few things for the girls, myself, and my mother. Nothing expensive. It had been nice to pull on a pair of underwear that didn’t have holes and a bra that fit my breasts perfectly rather than squishing them together like so many of my others did.
I didn’t go to my father’s house for a few days. Nancy and Kim were still living in the house, and I didn’t want to put up with either of them—or subject the girls to their presence. Therefore, I got us a hotel room until everything was taken care of and my house was emptied of the trash that had been living in it for so many years.
With Amber’s help, one of the ground floor bedrooms was being converted over for my mother and a nurse to use. On top of that, two of the upstairs bedrooms were being turned into rooms for the girls. I wanted them to have everything little girls could possibly dream of when we moved in. I knew it couldn’t make up for all the months we had been living off mac and cheese, but I hoped it would better help them adjust to our new living arrangements.
Lily was put in a new school; the same private grammar school I had been in when I was a little girl. I took her every morning and picked her up every afternoon. Having Daisy with me all day long was nice. She got to see our mother a little more than she was used to, which cheered up Savanna, and she kept me company throughout the day. Having her with me made it easier not to think about Dom.
Today was Saturday, and Amber had promised me that the house was ready for us, meaning that the girls’ rooms were finished. More importantly, it meant my stepmother and stepsister were finally out. The room for my mother would be finished on Monday. Then a private ambulance and her home health nurse would bring her home.
Despite knowing that the house was empty except for the staff that ran the place so seamlessly, I couldn’t help feeling nervous as I drove up the long driveway and stopped in front of the house. As I looked up at it through the windshield of my new SUV, I tried to remember all the good times I’d had in this house with my father. Summer had been my favorite time of year simply because I got to spend it with my daddy.
Even after he had married Nancy, I had looked forward to coming home to this house. Kim and I had been close, but that wasn’t why I had been so happy to come home every summer. That was all because of Dom.
From the first moment I had met him, there had been this connection. Not so much sexual, because I had only been fifteen and Dom had been in college by that time. He wasn’t the kind of guy who got a thrill out of having teenaged girls crushing on him and chasing after him.
Still, there had been a pull for us both. I had been closer to him than I was to Kim. When I had gone home at the end of the summer, he had texted and called me when he had time between classes. As the years had gone by, our texts had turned more flirtatious as I had grown bolder in my feelings for him.
It wasn’t just the flirting, though. It was how he had treated me when we were together. The subtle touches to my hand, tracing his fingers through my hair, even those damn smiles he would give me that told me without words he was thinking of me. For over a year, we had danced around whatever was between us, until finally neither of us could take it another second …
Then, all hell had broken loose and my life had been turned upside down.
“Is this a hotel?” Daisy asked from her car seat in the middle of the second row.
I turned to look at her, saw how her eyes were wide like the prettiest little owl I had ever seen, and found myself smiling. “Nope. This is where I lived when I was a little girl,” I told her as I unsnapped my seatbelt. “My dad left this to me when he died.”
“That was nice of him.”
My heart twisted in my chest. “Yeah, I guess it was.”
As I got out of the SUV and opened the back door for the girls, who had already unbuckled themselves from their boosters, I noticed the front door open. Seeing Amber, I waved then helped Daisy jump down.
Beside Amber was a little boy about the same age as Lily. They walked down to the driveway to greet us, and I had an odd sense of deja vu when I looked down at the boy.
“Hi, there,” Amber greeted with a warm smile.
“Hi,” I murmured, my eyes still on the boy.
“Triss, this is my son Jamie. It’s not my weekend with him, but when I told him I was going to be hanging out with three pretty girls, he blew his dad off and came with me.” She grinned teasingly at her son. “Jamie, this is Triss and her sisters, Lily and Daisy.”
The boy shook my hand then turned to the girls. Lily shyly spoke to him, but it was Daisy who was taking charge as always.
We started up to the house, the kids walking in front of us. “I married Sawyer Brannon for a few years,” she told me in a quiet voice, and I had a total “ah-ha” moment, realizing why the boy had looked so familiar.
I remembered Sawyer fondly, along with Brice and his sister Ash. Dom had fallen into a friendship with Sawyer and Brice, and naturally, we had all had fun together.
“But you’re not married to him now?” I asked, as we entered the house. Her last name was Allister, not Brannon.
“Nope, I married Leo over a year ago.” She closed the door behind us. “Sawyer is with Ash, actually. They’re getting married in June.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense.” I pulled off my gloves and unhooked my scarf from around my neck, making sure the girls did the same. “Ash always did have a crush on Sawyer.”
“You saw that?”
I nodded, and she grimaced.
“I wish I had seen it. I never would have married him if I had known my best friend was in love with the guy, you know?”
I shrugged. “It all worked out, though, right?” I glanced after the kids who were running into the living room now. “You got a really good thing out of it.”
Her grimace turned into a look of pure, motherly love. “Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t trade that kid in for anything.”
Over the next few hours, Amber showed me everything that the contractors had done over the last few days. All we were waiting on was a few more pieces of equipment for my mother’s room. The girls’ rooms were perfect, and they screamed when they saw them. Daisy had a huge doll house with plenty of other toys to play with, while Lily had an entire art station to keep her happy. Both girls had their own canopied beds and connecting bathrooms.
My old room was right across from theirs, and it was the room I decided to take. It didn’t feel right taking the master bedroom. Not when that had been my father’s room he shared with Nancy.
That evening, after Amber and Jamie were gone and I had the girls bathed and ready for bed, I finally went into my bedroom. It was the first time I had stepped foot in there all day.
As I lay in my old bed, dreading the coming days before me, I tried to forget about how I had gotten to this point. How desperate I had been, how scared and alone I had felt as my world had come crashing down around me. I didn’t know what to do to fix things now. No amount of money could repair the damage that had already been done, the time that had been lost.
I needed to look toward the future, but all I could see was the past right then.
A past that still held me prisoner.