“Papa,” I choked and scrambled to the floor, putting myself between his long legs and pressing my head against his broad chest. He held me around my shoulders and cried into my hair.
“You are everything your dad and I ever wanted. Everything we could ever dream of.” His breath was hot against my neck. “How could I ask for more by demanding access to Suda Kaye after she gave me you? How? I couldn’t.”
I shook my head and cried into his chest. I cried for him. For me. For Suda Kaye. For Catori. It all seemed so beautiful and tragically hopeless at the same time.
“Just know, my Isabeau, your mother stayed until she couldn’t any longer. With the life she lived, it wasn’t possible to be everywhere at once, and we all made our choices. Me, when I gave up Suda Kaye because I was young, broke and immature, and Catori giving us you because she was nothing but love and light. If she had it in her to give such a gift to someone she cared for, she set about doing it.” He tightened his arms around me. “But don’t you for one second believe you weren’t wanted or loved. That woman gave up her rights so we could be a family. Gave up her daughter so two men could love their child wholly and completely with every fiber of our being. Left us to be a family, a real family. And baby girl, that is beautiful. As heartbreaking as it is, and as much turmoil as we feel now, I’d do it all over again to have you.”
My dad hugged us both from the side. “We’d both do it all again to have you. You’re the best thing we ever did and will continue to be that until we take our last breaths on this earth.”
“I love you both so much even though my heart is breaking.” I pressed harder against my father’s chest.
“We love you more, baby girl.” My dad rubbed his hand down my back and my papa kissed the crown of my head. I pushed back and he held my cheeks in his big, strong hands. I looked into those amber eyes, the same color as Suda Kaye’s, and let more tears fall. I looked into my dad’s hazel eyes and saw my own as he shed a tear for all of us.
“I want to know them. Evie and Suda Kaye. No matter what happened twenty-four years ago, no matter what promises you all made to each other, I want to know my sisters. And I want to know who my mother was. Family is family, right?” I looked at my fathers and watched as they wiped their tears away and nodded. I looked at my best friend in the universe and waved him over.
He slid across the floor so fast you’d have believed he just powered down a black diamond mountain on a snowboard. He put his arms around me from behind and held on.
“Family is what you make of it. It’s something you build, work on and cherish your whole life long. I want to know them. I think I need to.”
Papa nodded. “We’ll help in whatever way we can.”
Three
Two months later
Jasper entered my room in a flourish of vibrant colors. I placed the picture frame of me and my fathers on the top of the clothes already packed in my biggest suitcase. Two other cases were on the floor filled with clothes, toiletries, special items and my favorite cooking utensils. A pastry chef wouldn’t dare leave behind the tools of her trade when she ventured off into the sunset, even if I had no idea if I’d be baking anytime soon.
“What the hell is this?” Jasper shook a full-size piece of paper right in front of my face as though he was not only angry with me, but also angry at the inanimate object.
I narrowed my gaze and tried to read the flashing words but couldn’t. He dropped the item on top of my suitcase and started to pace my childhood bedroom the same way he’d done a bazillion times before when he was in a snit.
“Jas, what is it?” I picked up the document and noticed our school’s logo in the top left-hand corner. Jasper and I were not only connected at the hip, we were as close as siblings, too. Twins would be more accurate.
Until now. Because I was leaving. Heading for Colorado for an undetermined amount of time. The goal: get to know my sisters. Find out who this Adam guy who left me so much money was. Learn more about my mother. I didn’t exactly know what I would do when I got there, just that I had to do it. And now I had the money to do whatever the heck I wanted.
“It’s a statement from school of my account.” He stole the paper from my hand and tapped on it angrily. “My mother almost fainted!”
I grinned, imagining Penelope, the petite woman with the corkscrew blond curls and the pixie-like face doing just that.
Jasper glared. “It says, paid in full. All forty-seven thousand dollars I still owed wiped clean.”
Oh, that was what this was about.
I shrugged nonchalantly, grabbed the paper, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it over his head and into the small wicker basket near my vanity, scoring a perfect three points.
“A shrug? You’ve got nothing to say about this?”
I shrugged again and snorted while closing up my suitcase.
“You paid almost fifty thousand dollars of my school debt!” He screeched as though he was entirely put out by this miraculous gift.
“Yes, I did.” I zipped up the suitcase and yanked on it, but it was so heavy I just left it there for one of my fathers to lift and bring to the car.
“Forty-seven thousand dollars!” Jasper again huffed.
“Yep.”
“Why?” His tone was soft and filled with awe.
I turned around and stood up. “Because I love you. Because I have more money than I need. Because your mothers worked their asses off to pay for the first twenty thousand. Because a dude I’ve never met gave me a boon that I never asked for. Because you deserve to be free of debt. Paid off my fathers’ house, too. Though they won’t know that until I’ve left, thank God!” I playfully winced. “Now, pick up the smaller suitcase while I take this one.” I gestured to the carry-on-size case that held the cooking tools I could not leave behind.
He grabbed the case and hefted it up. “It’s heavier than it looks,” he grumbled but dutifully led the way out of my bedroom.
I stopped at the threshold and put my hand to the knob, taking in the pretty lilac walls with white trim, my bed with the padded headboard, a dark purple floral comforter and tons of frilly pillows accentuating the design. My whitewashed wooden desk where I studied but mostly drew pictures of cakes and hearts filled in with the names of boys I had crushes on. The little ballerina music box that held baubles and plastic rings from quarter machines I collected as a child. This room held so many good memories. Jasper and I may have been bullied growing up but we both had amazing childhoods. My fathers loved me beyond reason, and I knew it to the core of my being. I never once felt unloved or uncherished by them. I was their whole world and looking at this room they provided for me, the schooling they encouraged me to seek, I was finally starting to realize just how much they loved me.