“She didn’t change her mind that time. I kept thinking she would, kept thinking she would come back like she had every other time. I had this stuffed bear, you see. It was ratty and missing one eye and an ear, but it was mine and I loved it. I carried that bear with me everywhere. Except the day she dropped me off that last time. I didn’t have the bear with me that day.”
I look him straight in the eye. How am I supposed to explain to him the anguish that comes from being five and recognizing that she had chosen the drugs and alcohol over me? Even now, as an adult, as a fucking nurse, who understands that addiction is a disease that’s not easily conquered, there’s still the little girl inside of me that felt like she wasn’t smart enough, or good enough, or loveable enough to replace a dirty needle. That try as I might, that little girl still lives inside of me today. She fought each day with the knowledge that her father hadn’t wanted her at all, that her mother had thrown her away, that the numerous foster parents she had been placed with hadn’t wanted her enough to make it legal. That whatever higher power there was had taken Trevor from her, as well. Had taken him from Stella, and started my own little girl down that same tragic path. I simply refused to let her continue down it.
“I didn’t miss my mother, Owen. I didn’t have some misguided dream that she would finally get her shit together and decide she loved me more than the booze or the pills, and we’d live happily ever after. I just wanted my fucking bear back.” I reach for the mug of coffee again, the need to keep my hands busy, unstoppable. “The moment, the very second, I found out I was pregnant, I swore to myself that my child would never be so used to being thrown away that they would miss a fucking stuffed animal more than they missed me. I was going to make sure they knew that they were my absolute number one priority.”
“I’m not asking you to put me before Stella, Tristan. I’m asking you to let me show both of you that you’re both my priority.”
I shake my head. “You’re missing my point, Owen. I don’t question where Stella and I fall in your list of priorities. I question how long we’re going to stay on the priority list. No,” I snap before he can interrupt. “Not because of anything you’ve said or done, Owen. Because my father left before I could walk, my mother dumped me at five, and Trevor fucking died. No one stayed, Owen. No one stayed with me. I’ve never stayed the priority, so I don’t know what it’s like to have that happen and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure Stella never has to make that statement. You telling me about mo chuisle mo chori was simply a catalyst to make me realize that she’s already counting on you being there, and I have to make damn sure that you’re actually going to stay there. And not because of some stupid fucking story you’ve been told all your life, but because you want to be.”
“I want to be,” he whispers, taking a step toward me.
“I want to believe you, but I need to see it, Owen. I’m sorry I had a shitty childhood and that it makes it a million times harder to trust what you’re saying, but I need to see it.”
Silence stretches between us. He leans back on his heels, running a hand through his hair as his eyes stay lock on mine. Huck ambles over, rubbing his large body against Owen’s leg before moving up to sit next to me on the stairs. His body is a warm, welcome, reassuring weight against my side.
As I wait for Owen to say something, anything at all, I force my breathing to remain soft and even. I listen to the heavy beat of my heart, an erratic rhythm that picks up speed when Owen lets out a sigh and then moves to sit on the other side of his dog.
“I can’t pretend to understand where you’re coming from, Tristan. My parents are so wrapped up in our lives, sometimes it’s hard to tell where they end and we begin. I’ve never once doubted that they won’t answer when I call, won’t be there when I need them.” He bends over, picking up a rock off the ground and chucking it across the yard. Huck shifts like he’s going to give chase, but never actually moves from his spot between us. “What I can tell you, without a doubt, is that I want to be that certainty for you and Stella. If you say it’s going to take you a while to get to the point where you can trust that, I’ll wait. I told you to take all the time you need, and I meant that. I would like to add a caveat to that statement though.” His head turns, eyes suddenly intent on mine. “I need you to let me show you that I’m going to be there. I need you to let me show you that I have no intention of leaving. We can take a few steps back, move slower, as slow as you need to go, but you can’t shut me out entirely.”
I lick my lips, running my fingers through Huck’s fur. “I-I can do that,” I whisper. “I want to do that. I miss you.”
The first hint of a smile tilts the corners of his mouth up. “Yeah?”
“Maybe a little.” I hold my thumb and finger a centimeter apart. “Stella, however, hasn’t had much of a chance to miss you since you’ve been sneaking playdates with her at your mother’s house.”
“I didn’t want her to think she’d done something wrong and that was why I wasn’t coming around. Especially after everything that happened with the break-in. I wanted, no needed, to make sure she was okay.”
“I appreciate that.”
He reaches up with one hand, tucking a random stray strand of hair back behind my ear. His fingers linger, brushing along the edge of my jaw and down my neck. I shiver under the touch, instantly reminded exactly how much I missed him.
And instantly wondering why in the hell I want to slow things down.
“So, does taking things slow mean I can come in and cook my ladies some pancakes for breakfast?”
“We never turn down pancakes. I think I even have some chocolate milk in the fridge, and there’s a puppy in the yard.” I can’t help but think back to that first morning in Monroe’s kitchen, when Stella requested those exact three things. It warms my heart to know that I’m giving them to her.
Chapter Sixteen
Tristan
“So,” Dylan starts talking the minute I answer the phone, before I can even get my greeting out, “do you remember how you said I could come and visit you whenever I wanted?”
“Of course.” I lick some ketchup off my finger before snapping the lid back in place and tossing the bottle back in the fridge. After carrying the bright pink, plastic plate over to the table where Stella is sitting, I set it down in front of her, careful not to tip the hotdog over on its side. The last time the hotdog tipped over on her plate, she had a level-three meltdown, which was only rivaled by the time I put her milk in the purple cup and not the red one, or maybe the time her socks were touching her feet and bothering her.
The glamorous side of motherhood that no one bothers to tell you about when you’re pregnant or holding that precious, sweet-smelling newborn in your hands. Probably because there would be less babies in the world if the truth leaked out.
“Well, I’m going to take you up on that offer. Today.”
“Today?” I move back to the kitchen, grabbing a towel to wipe up crumbs on the counter. A quick glance at the clock tells me that Owen will be over within the next hour for his date with Stella. Originally the plan was for him to join us for dinner before I left for my evening out with Monroe and Nora, but he took a call over at the diner and was running behind. The rumor mill had already spread though, and word was that Norma Watson had thought her husband was cheating on her with her high school best friend. She’d apparently caught the two of them eating dinner together and gone into a full-blown rant, calling Mary Alice a conniving slut who has bigger tits than brains, and who has shamefully used her friendship to lure Norma’s husband away. The shouting match quickly escalated into items being thrown, resulting in a chair making its way through the front window of the diner and out onto the sidewalk.