After eating, I drag myself to the shower, then dress. It’s chilly outside, but I need to get out of this room. The thin sunlight provides a little warmth as I make my way down the road toward the cemetery, a notebook I’ve been using as a journal in my pocket. With no one to really talk to, it’s become a comfort to write down how I’m feeling. I hope it’ll help me sort out my thoughts and figure out what to do from here.
The thoughts of Caden and Axton weigh heavily on me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I did this to myself. I’m relieved that they’ll at least know I had nothing to do with Caden being taken, but they’ll never forgive me for deceiving them.
I can’t imagine moving on without them, accepting I’ll never see them again, but the choice isn’t mine. And I have to go somewhere from here. But where? Even after the chaos calms down, I’m the infamous nanny now. I can’t go back to teaching or probably even working with children in any capacity.
My innocence in the eyes of the law won’t matter one bit in the court of public opinion. I’m afraid people aren’t quite as quick to forget as Dodie seems to think.
As I enter the cemetery, my legs carry me toward my mother’s grave. The chill of the ground quickly permeates the seat of my jeans when I sit and lean against her headstone.
“I’m back, Mom. Just thought you’d like to know I’m not going to prison. I don’t know where I’m going. For the first time in my life I don’t have any kind of plan. It’s hard to think or even care about what comes next when I just feel so…heartbroken and guilty.”
A lump forms in my throat and I choke out the next words. They’re hard to say even with nobody listening. “I loved him, Mom. I still do even after the things he said to me. God, the way he looked at me, like I was something disgusting he stepped in…”
I don’t know how something so hollow can ache so badly. Pressing a hand to my chest, I let the rest of the words spill out. “This is what it feels like to be in love and lose them. I understand more now. I understand more of what you must’ve been going through with Dad. You were with him for years and it must’ve been so much worse when he left. I almost understand how you could do it because all I want right now is to make the pain stop. To feel even a moment of relief, one second that I’m not missing them, feeling guilty and worried about Caden, hating myself for the pain I put them through.”
Laying my head back against the stone, I watch a few birds swoop across the white sky. “That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you. Because you had me, Mom. You always had me even if I didn’t have you, even if you didn’t much care that I was there. But I’m alone.
“And I just don’t see an end to it.”
Chapter Five
Axton
“Why have you been biting my head off all day?” Dani snaps when I give her one terse response too many. “I know you’re stressed. We both are, but—”
“I went to see her,” I blurt.
Dani’s eyes widen and she sits at the kitchen table. “Naomi?” she whispers, so Caden won’t overhear.
“I drove up to the bed and breakfast where she’s staying a few days ago, before she was cleared as a suspect. I had to hear it from her.”
“What did she say?”
Hope is what I first recognize in Dani’s expression. She still wants Naomi to be innocent. “A lot of bullshit about wanting to be close to Caden and make sure he was taken care of because he’s her only family.”
Her lips press together, shoulders dropping a bit. “She knew all along how he was related to her?”
I run my hand through my hair. “Of course she did.”
“I don’t understand. How did she do it? Milo picked that nanny agency.”
“Part of it was luck, if you believe her story. Her friend worked at the agency, saw Hatch’s name, and hired her.” I spend the next few minutes relaying the whole life story Naomi told me to Dani.
After a few moments of silence, she murmurs, “I don’t even know what to say. I thought maybe she was adopted or…something, and she didn’t know Caden is her nephew. All that time though, she was—”
“Lying.” The vehemence in my voice makes me pause and take a deep breath. I can’t keep taking my anger out on people who have done nothing wrong.
“Do you think…was she ever going to tell us?”
It takes me a moment to mull that over. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”
“Did she even apologize?”
The image of her crying and begging to see Caden, the devastation on her face when I said he was suffering flashes in front of me. “Yes, over and over. Because she wants to see him.”
Dani’s tone is cautious. “Are you going to let her?”
That’s the fucking question of the day isn’t it? Everything inside me says no. Fuck her and her manipulative, selfish bullshit. She hurt my son. She hurt me, whether I like to think it or not. Part of me wants to know I’m causing her pain every day she can’t see him. Every day that she realizes more and more that she’ll never see him.
That’s my selfish desire, but as Dani pointed out a long time ago, I’m a father now, and what I want doesn’t come first anymore. The real question is what’s best for Hatch.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
“I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do because god knows I’m doubting my own judgement at the moment, but I’ll tell you what I think. The kidnapping is all mixed up in your head with this, but it’s a separate issue. We know now that she had nothing to do with it, and her deception didn’t put him in danger. If the kidnapping hadn’t happened, and Naomi had come clean about her relationship to Caden, would you have been able to forgive her?”
When I remain silent, she adds, “If you can figure out the answer to that, I think you’ll know what to do. You’ll do what you think is best for Caden, either way, Ax. I know that much.”
I may have gotten screwed in the parent department, but I’m a lucky asshole to have ended up with Dani as my sister. “What did the doctor say this morning?” I ask.
Dani got in touch with a child psychologist who specializes in trauma, and I forgot she was scheduled to have a video chat with her today.
Sighing, she shakes her head. “Same as the other one. Give him time, get things back to normal and as routine as possible so he feels safe.”
He’s in a house he doesn’t know, and his main caregiver is gone. It’s pretty far from normal.
“She wasn’t concerned with his small weight loss. She said we underestimate how much babies understand, that they can grieve a loss, feel anxiety just like the rest of us. He knows something is wrong.”
I may not know what to do about Naomi yet, but one decision solidifies in my mind. “Let’s go home.”
It takes another day for Milo and the management to arrange the added security and precautionary measures I insisted on, but everything is finally in place and we’re on our way back home. I’m hoping that Caden will feel more at ease and less anxious in a familiar place.