The word shot through me, and pinged against one of my still healing ribs. I didn’t react to it though. I just ignored it. I had to get through the day.
“I understand that, and I think that while he’s a cold fish, you’ll be safe there. Let me know if anything at all goes wrong?”
“Of course.” Standing, Dre reached down for his brother. “Come on, man. We got a roof and food and it’s time to go home and see if we can do this.”
“Foods?” James asked, grabbing his brother’s hand. “I’m hungy. Sammich?”
“Peanut butter?”
“Wif honeys?”
“You got it,” Dre said, the smile spreading across his face. “Come on.”
Pulling the door open, he walked James out of the office and into the hall where Alistair was waiting. He nodded them down the hall, and the door closed.
I wrapped my arms around my middle, and let out the groan I’d held back earlier. Busted ribs were shit. I hated them. They made it hard to walk, talk, even think sometimes.
After the real pain had passed again, I stood. I could sleep later and let them heal more. I had things that had to get done.
Locking up the office, I shut the lights, and headed for the parking garage. Finally, weeks after the incident, the news had stopped following me around and asking me for more information on what was going on.
We’d never know why Ira Higgins had lost his goddamn mind and shot up a school of babies. He was dead now, and so were his ex and his baby mama. I was glad he was gone, but I could also understand how all those parents would never get justice for their children.
My heart hurt.
I walked up to the now-empty daycare. There were just a few news trucks around, but after two weeks, the media had moved on.
The assistant medical examiner, Reid, was inside walking around, taking photos and notes. I had just a few more notes to take myself before the building would be razed.
“The end of this, Doctor Sadowski?” I asked.
He glanced up at me and, to my shock, had tears in his eyes. “The end of this, yes. But those families… Shit. I don’t even know how to process that.”
“I can’t imagine,” I mumbled. “Losing a child like that?”
“I wish I could give them back.” He sniffled.
Nodding I moved around him to take my notes. I wanted to make sure that no one had any questions, and I knew exactly what had happened in here.
Reid and I walked around each other in an eerie silence, the occasional click of his camera the only real sound as the sun headed for the horizon.
“Are they going to clean this?” I asked, after a while.
“No.” He shook his head. “They are just going to tear it down.”
“That seems so wrong. Like, children were killed here. Couldn’t they at least clean it up?”
“It’s a practical matter. No need to waste resources.”
“Feels wrong.”
“Totally agree.” He scratched on his notepad.
The silence settled again.
My mouth ran off without me. “Have you ever been married, Reid?”
“Not in this life,” he mumbled, then jerked around to look at me. “No. Not yet. Why?”
“Just…” I stared at my notebook. My mouth did it again. “I’m pregnant and my husband doesn’t want children. I guess I was hoping for a married man’s input.”
“Do you want children, Paige?” He held my gaze with his own.
“Yes.” I didn’t hesitate. “I always have.”
“Didn’t you talk about this before you got married?”
“I brought it up. He said no kids.”
Reid’s forehead wrinkled in disapproval. “And you didn’t leave?”
“He loves me.”
Tipping his head forward, the look on Reid’s face said a lot. “He can love you all he likes, but if you have completely different goals, it will never work. Marrying someone who wants four kids when you want two, that’s negotiable. But one versus none—you can’t break that stalemate. There’s a canyon between one and none.”
Go ahead mouth, just do what you want at this point. “I thought I could convince him of just one kid. Just one. That would be all the family I really needed in my life. I love my foster kids, and do my best by them every day. But I wanted one of my own. One that didn’t come with any baggage.”
“Sounds to me like you should have run, Paige,” he said.
“Love is so hard to come by though…”
“Were you looking in the right places?” His eyebrow went up.
“We met in a bar,” I answered.
“Were you looking for the right thing?”
“For…” I blinked at him a few times. “The right thing?”
“Were you looking for someone to love you, or someone to just fuck you? Were you looking for someone who doubles as your best friend, or were you looking for someone who just wanted a woman around the house?”
“He cares for me. Lets me do all my foster work. He doesn’t ask much of me, just what usually happens in a marriage. Cleaning, food, sex…”
Reid shook his head. “I’m totally unconvinced that this man loves you in anyway. And that’s the thirty second impression, Paige. Lets you do things? Normal things in marriage? Your eyes don’t light up when you talk about him. Not like they do when you’re working with the kids.”
Pausing, he cocked his head again and studied me. “How hard have you tried to convince him to have kids?”
I stuttered, then spilled the truth. “I’ve had three abortions. This would be four.”
I didn’t know a jaw could actually fall open like that. He corrected himself quickly, and tossed the clipboard on the desk next to me. He grabbed my hands. “Did you go for them, or did he make you?”
“They were his choice,” I whispered. “After the last one, I couldn’t do it anymore. I used so many different birth control methods I was sure I was going to throw a clot—and it didn’t work. At all. I’m almost at the second trimester. I had no idea…”
Tears I didn’t know I had in me started pouring out. I sobbed and shook, and couldn’t catch my breath.
It was so true. I couldn’t do this again. I couldn’t. “I want this baby so much. I want to be someone’s mother. I know it’s wrong, it’s not healthy, but for just a little while I want someone in my life who loves and trusts me unconditionally. Just to know what it feels like…”
He pulled me into a hug. “Oh, honey.”
I gasped at the crush of his arms around me, prodding my still sore ribs.
“What was that?” Reid held me at arms’ length again.
“N-nothing,” I managed to squeak out.
“What’s wrong with your sides?” He pressed on my rib cage before I could pull away. “What happened?”
“They’re bruised. I fell the other day.”
“You’re a liar, and a bad one at that, Paige.” He ran his fingers over the bruise I managed to mostly conceal with heavy makeup. He traced it up, under the hair I had brushed over the stitches and saw those at the edge of my hairline. “What is all this?”