Chapter Thirteen
God, she’d bought a lot of stuff.
Kate surveyed the shopping bags lined up in her living room, and with a hand on her head took stock of her score. Several bags of toys—some educational, some just for fun. Bedding, a handful of outfits matched to both Ren and Eva’s sizes as provided by DHS. Odds and ends like toiletries, toothbrushes, a footstool for the sink in the spare bathroom, new towels, a few children’s books for Eva and chapter books for Ren. She ran a hand through her hair to figure out what she’d missed. There was so much to do to get ready for…them. She’d go grocery shopping later that week so she’d be stocked up on foods they liked when her first round of official overnight visitation hit. Ren was definitely the pickier of the two, but she could work with that. No fish and only select vegetables.
Kate was exhausted, nervous, but also really excited. In the end, this was going to be a good thing. For all of them. And once she’d settled things with the kids, maybe then she could think about going back to work. Maybe. The trickle of trepidation appeared right on time when she imagined fighting another fire. Didn’t matter. She loved her job and would find a way to swallow that fear.
“What’s with all the bags in the back room?” Ren asked a few days later, once the visit commenced.
“Just some stuff I picked up for when you guys are here,” Kate told him.
“That’s really cool of you.” He stared at her as if trying to piece it all together. They hadn’t talked about her plans just yet. They’d get there soon. “Can I play outside?”
“Yeah, go for it, dude. Dinner’s in an hour. Burgers.”
“Awesome,” he said, and let himself into her backyard with the soccer ball she’d presented him.
Eva walked around the space for the third time. “This house is nice,” she said.
Kate followed her. “Nothing special, but it’s mine.”
“It’s on my same street.”
“That’s the reason I met you, remember? We were neighbors.”
Eva nodded emphatically, realizing the connection. “You’re right! I like this street.”
“Good,” Kate told her, and ruffled her hair. “Me too.”
Eva looked up at her. There was a long pause as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say. “How come you’re so nice to us?” she asked, finally.
The question squeezed Kate’s heart. She knelt, understanding that not everyone in Eva’s life had been. “Because you’re the best little girl I know. My very favorite in the whole world.”
Eva seemed awestruck by the comment. “Me?”
Kate nodded. “You.”
Eva seemed shy, and she was never shy. “Oh.” And then, “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for.” Kate stood. “I’m gonna start dinner.”
“I can help!”
Kate chuckled. “I was hoping you’d say that. Follow me to the fridge. Let’s see what we can make happen.”
“Okay. Guess what? I like princesses.”
“Well, who doesn’t?”
* * *
Autumn hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy. She had, however, taken four more tests, and all had produced a faint second line. After celebrating on her own for the rest of the day, comping drinks for her favorite customers, humming a little tune as she worked, that joy had shifted pretty quickly to abject terror.
What the hell had she been thinking, venturing out to be a single mom? That had been a crazy idea, and now what was she supposed to do? There was no going back. The deed was done. She would devote the next eighteen to twenty-two years raising someone who would likely wind up dodging her calls and cursing her name. Oh, God! What if she turned into her mother? Vicky was awful, but what if somehow (and okay, she wasn’t sure quite how) Autumn was even worse?
She didn’t sleep the next couple of nights. Instead, she’d lain ramrod straight in bed, clutching her sheets, and envisioning all the ways she could screw this up.
Tonight, she’d given up on sleep altogether and sat at her kitchen table, reminding herself of all of the reasons she’d set off down this path, and of her long-standing desire to be a mother, to enrich her own life and someone else’s. The rationalization had worked, and slowly but surely, she came to understand that her excitement still existed beneath the thick blanket of fear. She’d had a temporary freak-out about a major life change. That was all.
“So, what else is new?” she asked her kitchen, which she was apparently talking to now.
The takeaway floated to her like a feather in the breeze. She closed her eyes and smiled as serenity returned. She was going to be okay. In fact, she would be better than okay. She would be the happiest version of herself in just nine short months. The internal pep talk had done wonders, though the late nights had added up, leaving Autumn exhausted and bleary-eyed when she headed in for her official blood test that next morning. She was powering through the workday and fighting off the exhaustion when the call came that she wasn’t pregnant.
The world came to a screeching halt.
“I don’t understand,” Autumn said to the nurse on the other end of the line. “Are you sure?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
She shook her head, trying to keep up. “I took an at-home test. Four of them. Two lines on all of them.” There was no way this was happening.
“The reason we advise against testing prior to your official blood test is that often the trigger shot might still be in your system and can produce a false positive.”
“The trigger shot,” Autumn repeated blankly. She hadn’t known it could do that. The stupid shot had supplied the extra line. All the excitement and celebration and fear and excitement all over again had been for nothing.
The world dimmed.
“I am so sorry.” The nurse said the words as if they were the most delicate of objects, each one capable of breaking and shattering Autumn. And each one did. “Why don’t you take some time and give us a call when you’d like to move forward.”
Move forward? As in start all over at the beginning again? She tried to imagine that as everything in her mourned for what would not be. There was no baby. Just Autumn and her sad little life, once again. “Well, thank you for calling,” she said, tears strangling her voice.
It was all she could manage.
* * *
Two days later, as her friends trickled into the shop for breakfast, Autumn kept her head down and assembled their various drinks. Focusing on tasks, any kind of busywork, helped occupy her mind and keep her emotionally afloat. “Hey, Cody?” she asked her new employee, a surfer kid with shaggy blond hair and a tendency to drum on every surface he encountered.
“What’s up, A-Dawg?” He glanced up from his solo on the nearby bar stool.
“Would you put four old fashioned donuts on a plate and take them to the table my friends are sitting at over there?”
He glanced over at the women and seemed caught off guard. On alert now, he straightened and took a moment to smooth his eyebrows, then toss his hair. Oh, Cody. He had no idea of his uphill battle.
“Who’s the new kid?” Isabel asked several minutes later, admiring the foam Autumn had shaped into a sun just for her. “He asked me for my digits. Who says ‘digits’?”
“Cody does. He might write you a song composed entirely of drumbeats.”
Isabel’s jaw fell. “My lifelong dream.”
Autumn tried to laugh, but it never quite manifested itself. She felt Gia’s eyes on her. She and Hadley exchanged a look.
“Autumn, you doing okay? You’re not yourself,” Hadley said. “Nervous about the results?”
It was now or never. “I have the results. It turns out that I’m not pregnant. At least not this go-round.” She tried to sound hopeful, strong, so they wouldn’t know what a pitiful basket case she was. She was over her repetitive role as the sad, vulnerable friend. She reached for a donut as the table sat silent. “What?”
Her friends glanced around the table at each other. “I think that fucking sucks,” Isabel said, setting her drink down. This time Autumn did smile. No one put things quite like Isabel.
“It does,” Gia said. “Just wasn’t the right time, I guess. Like you said. Next round.”
“Definitely,” Autumn said, nodding. Underneath it all, she didn’t know if there would be a next round, if she was up for it.
Hadley had yet to say anything. She stared at Autumn, her eyes sad. Then something remarkable happened. She burst into tears. Not Autumn. Hadley. Her friend sat next to her sobbing.
Autumn leaned in. “Had? You okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Hadley managed, finally pulling in a loud lungful of air. “I just know how badly you wanted this for yourself, and I wanted it so badly for you. You deserve some good news, Autumn, and this just feels so unfair.”
Hadley of the Big Heart had showed herself yet again, this time in a touching display of empathy. Autumn placed a hand on Hadley’s shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Had.”
“You are,” Isabel choked out.
Wait, was she crying, too? “Iz?” Autumn asked. “Are you—”
“I’m not crying,” Isabel spat out. “Had’s crying. I don’t ever cry. I’m a sarcastic hard-ass, okay? You’re seeing things. Move along.” But then her face crumpled and she covered her eyes. “Damnit,” she whispered.
Unable to comprehend what was happening, Autumn’s gaze flew to Gia, the tough athlete, unflappable in the face of cutthroat competition when all the world was watching. Remarkably, she, too, had tears pooling in her eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and shrugged. “Just love you is all.”
Well, that did it. Autumn’s carefully constructed walls came crashing down, and her own eyes filled, sad for herself and touched by her friends’ compassion. An uncomfortable lump arrived in her throat right on time. Bollocks. “We can’t all be crying,” she whispered to the table.
Isabel pointed. “Hadley started it. She should find a way to make it stop.”
Hadley balked as tears cascaded down her face. “Do you think I have control over this? Have you met me?”
“Here.” Gia picked up a stack of napkins and passed them around the table. “Guys, wipe your eyes. People are looking.”
“No one’s looking,” Isabel said, wiping her face like a maniac. “Drummer boy over there has them all captivated with his one-man performance from Stomp.”
“I really like Stomp,” Hadley said meekly.
“We all do, sweetie,” Autumn said, and patted her hand.
So they sat there like four idiots, crying side by side in a coffeehouse. But those other three idiots belonged to Autumn, and she wouldn’t trade them for anything. They weren’t crying for her, they were crying with her, a testament to how much they cared. In what felt like a very dark time in her life, having lost Kate, having lost a pregnancy she never really had, Autumn felt surprisingly solid.
She wasn’t alone.
These three, as different as they all were from one another, sat right there with her, holding her up, crying so she didn’t have to anymore. The strength she drew from that small action was staggering.
With her friends by her side, maybe she would find a way to make it through all of this.
* * *
Right on time, Kate registered a knock on her front door. She took a moment to smooth her clothes and check the mirror to make sure she looked warm, like someone you’d be fine sending kids off with. Jennifer had mentioned that the first home visit shouldn’t take too long but that the social worker would have some questions to go over. She’d made a mental list of what those questions could possibly be so she’d seem prepared. She’d organized a tour of her house, as well, meticulously deciding the route.
It was now or never.
She took a deep inhale, smiled, and opened the door, surprised to see Jennifer herself standing there. “Hi,” Kate said, glancing behind her for the social worker who had been assigned.
“Hey, there,” Jennifer said. “Can I come in?”
“Oh.” Kate glanced behind her. “Of course. I didn’t realize you’d be doing the visit yourself.”
“I asked if I could be the one to stop by.”
“Great. Follow me. And before you ask, yes, it’s true that Ren skinned his knee outside. But I applied some Bactine and got him bandaged up. He seemed okay.”
“I’m sure you handled things just fine.”
Kate slid her hands into her back pockets and glanced around. “Thanks. So…how does this work? Should I show you around? We can start with Eva’s room.”
“Can we sit down first?” Jennifer asked.
There was something in Jennifer’s voice that snagged Kate’s attention and had her on high alert. “Sure. What’s going on?”
“Well, there’s been a development.”
Kate narrowed her eyes, her mind already racing as to what the development might be. “Okay. What kind of development?”
“Meredith Higgins showed up in my office yesterday.”
Kate felt the blood begin to drain from her face but played it casual. Jennifer, however, seemed anything but. Her face pulled at the edges as if she were uncomfortable with this part of her job. “She’s had a change of heart. Said a woman visited her and she couldn’t get her words out of her head.”
“I see.” Kate’s blood ran cold.
“She wants to begin steps to take the kids.”
Kate swallowed. While it was good news, it was awful news. All Kate seemed capable of focusing on, however, was the awful. They weren’t going to be a family. The kids weren’t hers. The future was now wildly off-kilter. All her plans were melting away. Wasn’t this the path she was supposed to be on? Weren’t those kids placed in her life for some higher purpose?
“Oh.”
“I’m guessing you were the one who paid Meredith a visit. I can’t imagine who else.”
Kate glanced up, nodded, and realized she couldn’t sit still anymore. Not with the shape of everything changing all around her. She stood and ran a hand through the hair she’d only recently made sure was combed. How far away that moment felt now. “She wants to take them to Santa Barbara? For good.”
Jennifer nodded. “She’s guilt-ridden for having left them with their father and wants to make it right. Solid employment. A decent-sized house. There’ll be some more vetting, of course, and monitoring of the situation, but it’s looking like a very viable option for the kids.”
Kate nodded. It made more sense. They’d be with their mother. How could she get in the way of that? She turned back to Jennifer. “I guess that’s it, then?”
“I think the state would give preference to a parent who’s come forward, provided she checks out, but that doesn’t mean you have to withdraw yourself.”
“Yes, it does,” Kate said softly. “It’s the right thing to do. They’re a family. I’m just…someone from down the street.”
Jennifer offered her an apologetic smile. “You’re a good person, Kate. You’ve been there for those two every step of the way.”
“Yeah, well, I was the one who got them into this, so…”
“Not from where I’m sitting, and I’ve worked this thing start to finish. You’re the one who made sure they have a life ahead of them.”
Jennifer’s words helped, but they didn’t take away the disappointment, the confusion. “When do they leave?”
“There’s some state-to-state paperwork that would have to be in place for Meredith to be granted temporary custody. The permanent legalities would come later. So, maybe a few days?”
“A few days.” Not only would the kids not be coming to live with her, but they were leaving Slumberton altogether. She might never see them again. “What did you think of her?”
“She seems like a good person who took the wrong path for a time in her life.”
Kate nodded. “Glad to hear it. Thanks for coming over here personally.”
“I wasn’t going to let some stranger tell you.” They smiled at each other, their common goal over the past few months uniting them as kindred spirits. She let Jennifer out and turned around to face a home that would remain empty. She could take all her recent purchases back to the store, but the thought hurt her heart more than she could tolerate.
There was nothing holding her there anymore.
She’d come back to Slumberton for Ren and Eva, and without them, what was left? In the face of shock and devastation, there was only one thing Kate wanted. Only one person whose shoulder she wanted to cry on, but she was so many miles away.