Chapter Fifty-Five
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
NOW
“HOW IS brIE DOING?” Elizabeth asks when I find her in my office at our Winchester home. There are three sealed moving boxes near the door and another one at her feet, filled almost to the brim with things from the shelves along the back wall. The movers come in two hours to load everything up and drive it down to Jupiter. My office is the last thing that needs to be packed. We put the house on the market at the end of January and received a full offer two days later. We signed our part of the paperwork this morning, and the sale is scheduled to close in two days, on February 25 th , Michaela’s birthday. My sister and Finn are coming into town tomorrow so we can celebrate and they plan on scoping out a potential wedding venue. Why she has gone straight to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, I’ll never understand. That’s where they’re going to end up anyway.
“She’s asking when we’ll be home so she can come by,” I say, putting together two more boxes that can be used to pack up my desk and the remainder of the shelves. “She wants to plan out her room.”
Since we took Brie home the day after Ed Brown presented all of the information he had gathered about Juliet, she has been staying there until we could get things straightened out. Justin had been extremely surprised to see not only his niece but me standing at his front door on New Year’s Day.
The hour-long drive from Jupiter to Justin’s home on the furthest end of Mount Pleasant started normally; everyone was in decent spirits, but as we got closer, the mood shifted little by little until it plummeted the moment we pulled into the driveway of the brick home. We sat in complete silence for two whole minutes before Brie met my gaze in the rearview and, with a whole-body sigh, opened the car door. I couldn’t sleep the night before, tossing and turning with constant thoughts of everything going on. Contemplating the whys and the what-ifs and the how-comes. Too many unanswered questions, and I wasn’t sure Justin could or would tell me the truth.
I extended my hand toward Elizabeth as she rounded the front of my Bronco, and we followed the sidewalk around the front of the brick house to the steps that led up to the porch where Brie was greeting her uncle. I could hear him fretting over her. Confused. “You’re supposed to be at Cali’s until—Is that…Josh, is that you?” Justin stepped around his niece as Elizabeth and I reached the porch. “What are you doing here? I thought we were gonna meet next week.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I said, offering a tight-lipped smile, glancing from him to Brie and back.
He looked between us…once, twice, three times before asking, “Am I missing something?”
“I think it’s best if we go inside,” Elizabeth suggested.
“Wait, did you come together?” Justin turned to Brie, but she had suddenly found her boots way more interesting. “What in the hell are you doing with them, Brie? You’re supposed to be in Wichita! I bought the ticket myself, I-I don’t understand. How do you even know them?”
“Well, I was hoping you could shed some light on that,” I said, and Justin’s glare turned to me. “I’m—I’m her father.”
“Her fath—Oh my god.” Justin scoffed, rubbing the scruff under his chin. “You’re him .”
“Him?” Elizabeth asked.
“The guy Juliet never got over.”
I glanced at my wife, but she kept her stare trained on him, face pulled into a thin line. I imagined that wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but did it matter now? Juliet was dead, and even if she wasn’t…I only wanted Elizabeth.
“Jules said she heard that he’d ended up married to some rich bitch—”
“Watch your mouth,” I interrupted, taking a step forward, but Elizabeth placed a hand on my arm. Brie’s eyes snapped up at her uncle’s words and the threat in mine.
“—but I never guessed it was you two.” Justin turned to look at Brie over his shoulder. “You never went back home, did you?” He scoffed when she didn’t reply. “Go inside.”
“Get your stuff together, Brie,” I redirected her. “We’re leaving.”
“Do you have proof?”
“Justin, he is—”
But he cut Brie off. “Until we have a test proving you are her father, she stays with me. You might think you were special, but Juliet had a way of making people feel that way. You were just one of several.”
Elizabeth squeezed my hand, pulling the words right out of my mouth. When I met Brie’s eyes over his shoulder, my stomach sank. I didn’t want to leave her, but he was right. I didn’t have any proof—solid proof—that she was my daughter. I had no right to take her with me.
“It’s okay, Brie. We’ll get it figured out.” I tried to comfort myself as much as her.
“We have an appointment downtown for a test on Monday,” Elizabeth said.
“Great, we’ll see you there. You can go now,” Justin said, trying to usher us off the porch, but Elizabeth wasn’t done. She wasn’t leaving until he promised to bring Brie to the appointment. After a few more tries, he agreed to be there.
Justin and Brie were already at the office when Elizabeth and I arrived at the test center Monday morning. Elizabeth invited Brie to join her for a quick coffee and I took the opportunity to have a long overdue conversation. It wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to, but in the spirit of coming clean about everything else, I knew I had to.
“She really liked you,” he said before I could. “Juliet, I mean.”
“Hate to break it to you, but I liked her too.”
“She came home from that spring break telling her mom all about the guy she’d met. How she thought she had fallen in love. Of course, Dad popped that bubble and told her to keep her head out of the clouds. Then she found out she was pregnant…Dad didn’t want her to keep the baby, but Jules refused to give it up.” Justin chewed on the corner of his mouth, his eyes glazed over thinking back on the memory. He shook his head with a light scoff, turning toward me. “I don’t know why she never called you. I was too young to understand all of that, but I think it had something to do with Dad. He was so against her keeping the baby, but she was eighteen, there was nothin’ he could do.”
“I wish she had found a way to get in touch with me. I would’ve been there for her.”
“As much as she liked you, I think she was scared you’d only stick around because of the baby…not her.” He rubs at some invisible dirt on his hands. “Jules and I were never that close growing up, not until I was older and she was…sober. Her husband, Tom, was an asshole, but he helped her get clean. Helped her get her life back before…”
I didn’t have to look at him to know tears had formed in his eyes, I could hear it in the thickness of his voice. Justin cleared his throat, trying to rid it of the emotion, but it was still there when he spoke again.
“Juliet wanted to tell Brie’s father before it all happened, and I never knew if she got ahold of you. When they put Brie with Mom and Dad after she passed, I figured she never did or you rejected her. Either way, when you showed up the other night…I don’t know, I felt like the last bit of my sister was about to be ripped away from me.”
“I’m sorry, Justin.” It seemed like the only thing to say. “Truly, I am. There won’t be a day that I won’t be sorry for the time I’ve missed, but I’m just glad I can be here now.”
“I think you did okay for yourself.” He motioned down the hall where Elizabeth and Brie walked toward us. “Brie loves her. It’s been Elizabeth this…Elizabeth that…I’m like ‘Hey, nice to see you too.’”
I couldn’t hold back my smile, watching my wife and daughter laugh together. A strong bond had already formed between them, one that ran deeper than a simple parent-child relationship. They both understood the pain of such a devasting loss that the rest of us couldn’t.
“I’m sorry for how I acted the other day.” Justin sighed. “And I’m sorry for calling Elizabeth a ‘rich bitch.’ That was uncalled for.”
“Thank you, but I think that apology belongs to someone else.”
We sat there silently until we both attempted to start the conversation again. There was still one more thing I needed to say, to come clean about…Part of the reason I had kept in touch with him all of these years. We both waited for the other to continue, until finally I conceded. Taking a deep breath, I said, “There’s something else that I feel I need to apologize for.”
“What’s that?”
“Chadwick.”
Justin sat up a little straighter in his seat.
“I know you don’t remember much from that night, but...I’m the one who took you to the hospital.”
Justin looked at me like I had two heads. “But you weren’t there.”
“That’s the story.” I nodded. “I wasn’t there for what happened to you, but I was there afterward. And while the rest of those idiots stood around freaking out, I loaded you up and drove you down to Mercy Hospital.”
Before anything more could be said, a nurse stepped out of the door leading to the back. “Davis and Sinclaire.”
“Moment of truth,” I whispered, standing from my chair. Wiping the sweat on my hands on my jeans, I followed Brie through the door to the point of no return.
A week later, we had a result confirming what, I think, we all already knew…Brie was my daughter.
But since then, we’ve had to jump through hoops to get custody transferred to me and Elizabeth. You’d think it was easy to get custody of your own child, especially when you have a test and documents to prove it, but it’s not. It wasn’t until we proved that we were fit parents to the court that they granted us custody—that was last Friday. Brie will be moving from Justin’s house in Mount Pleasant to Jupiter with us at the end of this week. Justin didn’t say much following my admission; truthfully he hasn’t said much to me ever since. Whenever we’re in the same room, he keeps things cordial and respectful, but still far from the way we used to be. I can only hope that with time we’ll be able to get back there…for Brie’s sake.
“She was just there two weeks ago.” Elizabeth laughs, taping up the box at her feet.
“That was for paint. Now she wants to get the dimensions so she can make sure the new bedroom set will fit.”
“I thought you said you measured it out already.”
“I thought she did.”
Elizabeth leans her head against the back of my desk chair with a groan. “You two would give Nina a coronary.”
“Guess it’s a good thing Brina arranged a marriage to you, then.” I lean over the back of the chair to kiss her. “Want some help with this? Might go faster with two people.”
“You do the shelves, I’ll do the desk?”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” I salute her, earning an eye roll before she rips open the top desk drawer, and the first thing she notices is the manilla envelope stuffed on top.
“What’s this?” Elizabeth pulls it out, turning it over to see the name of my attorney stamped on the front. “Is this…You never opened this?”
“Didn’t see the need to. I knew what it was.”
“Josh,” she sighs, slipping her finger underneath the seal to free the flap.
“What? It’s not like anything is surprising about a divorce petition. Why would I want to—” My words falter when she pulls out a white envelope stuck inside of the manilla one. “What is that ?”
Elizabeth stares down at the envelope in her hands, running her fingers over it before looking up at me. Her eyes are wet with unshed tears, and I drop the book in my hands, crossing the room to her. “I wrote this for you and asked my attorney to give it to you…Actually, I asked him to give it to you before anything was filed, but I guess he missed that part. When I thought you didn’t respond, I told him to go ahead and file.”
“What’s it say?”
“Read it.” She shoves the envelope into my hands with a small smile.