Chapter 20
Parker
“At least pretend to be happy,” Anya whispered when she passed me the next present.
I gave her a look. “Don’t I look thrilled? Someone just gave us a Diaper Genie, and even though I have no fucking clue what that is or why I want one, I smiled and everything.”
Across the room, Sheila bounced back and forth with Leo in her arms, laughing at Sage and Olive, who were performing an interpretive dance with some blue streamers.
You know what happens when you have sisters?
A surprise baby shower.
The morning had been great. Really great. I got in a workout with Cameron, who took the morning off to hang out with me. Ian had done the same, joining us after he got Sage to school. Anya stayed back at the house with Sheila, Ivy, Poppy, and Leo, while Greer took Olive over to a jobsite so she could help pick paint colors. Harlow was on a deadline with her publisher, so she promised to join the girls after she finished writing her chapter.
I should’ve known something was up, though, when Sheila forced Anya and me to drive into town to pick up a grocery order after lunch. In the thirty minutes we were gone, all the women who’d conveniently missed the morning showed up, transforming the house into an explosion of blue balloons and streamers and some cake.
“Do you want more cake, Parker?” Poppy asked, watching as I set the diaper thingy aside.
“You mean the pink cake that says Congrats on your baby girl ?”
“I scooped off the girl part, you ass.”
With an arched eyebrow, I pointed at my plate. “Yeah, I know. You gave me the smeared piece.”
She sniffed haughtily. “Listen, you try to throw together a baby shower with one day’s notice. Choices had to be made, all right?” Her fork waved in the air, a piece of fluffy pink cake coated with white frosting about to fall off. “And this is delicious, so I don’t want to hear a single word about it.”
“Everything is incredible,” Anya said with a gracious smile.
Ivy was next. She walked forward and handed me an envelope with very little fanfare. “I don’t buy baby things,” she said by way of explanation. “I’m sure someday I’ll have to because your brother is obsessed with the idea of procreation, but until that day happens, I’m going with something more long-term.”
Cameron leaned back in his chair, eyeing his fiancée head to toe with a gleam in his eye. “Fucking love her,” he muttered.
Greer patted his back. “We know.”
“She did this for me too,” Poppy said as I ripped open the heavy cream envelope.
Inside was a printout. My eyebrows rose slowly. “You bought him a savings bond?”
Ivy crossed her legs, the sharp points of her stilettos bouncing rhythmically. “In twenty years, that’ll have doubled. He doesn’t need another stuffed animal, but when he gets out of college, he’ll love having that right there. You can tell him Aunt Ivy expects a wise financial investment with a good rate of return.”
It was highly likely that my blood pressure was sky high because the weight of all these expectations started to feel like they were stacking giant bricks on my shoulders.
“Thank you,” I told her.
My mom shook her head, squeezing Ivy’s shoulder with a warm smile. “Want to hold him, sweetie?”
“Oh sure, let Ivy hold him,” Greer grumbled.
Ivy’s eyes cut over to Cameron’s, and he couldn’t hide the sly smile at the sheer panic on her face. “I suppose I could try.”
My chest was tight watching Mom gently transfer Leo over to my almost-sister-in-law. She eyed Leo like he was an explosive device, her hands underneath his armpits as he stretched and groaned. Slowly, Ivy lowered him so that his butt was perched on her lap, almost like he was sitting up.
“He doesn’t talk yet, right?” she asked.
Anya coughed on her sip of water. Greer covered her mouth to hide her smile. Cameron smoothed a hand up his fiancée’s back. “Not yet,” he answered patiently.
“Try tucking him against your chest,” Sheila suggested. “Like you’re holding a football.”
Ivy cut her a dry look. “Like I’ve ever done that before. Let’s try a different reference.”
As they settled the baby in her arms, that tightness in my chest spiraled higher. Even Ivy was pushing past her discomfort and holding him. At my sides, my arms felt numb, like someone had disconnected them from the rest of my body. Made me think again about what Anya said about dead limbs flooding with feeling.
It happened like that, didn’t it? A sudden rush of blood and the prickling sensation overtook any sense of relief you might feel at knowing you can still feel something.
Greer came in front of Ivy and snapped a picture. “Awww, that’s so cute!” She flipped the phone around to show Cameron.
“Can we please have a baby soon?” he asked, loudly enough that we could all hear. Ivy’s face flushed pink, but she gave him a bewildered look.
Poppy groaned. “Stop, I beg of you. I’ve already seen you guys having sex. I don’t need to witness the discussion about it too.”
“You’re pregnant. With my best friend’s baby,” Cameron said incredulously. “I don’t think you get to tell me to do anything.”
Poppy shrugged, a happy grin spreading over her face.
My hand stretched out behind Anya’s chair, and I fought the urge to tap, tap, tap against her shoulder. The fact that I resisted was nothing short of a miracle. This whole shower thing was like being strapped to a runaway train, my family being the fucking train. They were acting like all of this was normal. Like we knew anything for certain, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand how they were all so fucking calm.
Unease churned restlessly under my skin, and no matter how many deep breaths I took or how much I tried to keep myself grounded in the moment, all I needed was one stiff push, and I’d end up neck-deep in a panic attack.
“Parker?” Based on the look on her face, Greer had said my name more than once.
I blinked. “Sorry. What’s up?”
She gave me a strange look. “Presents? We’re almost done.”
Anya’s elbow in my side was sharp and pointy and loaded with subtext. It was amazing how one appendage stabbing me in the side could convey so much. I removed my arm from the back of her chair and snatched her hand, weaving my fingers through hers so she couldn’t bruise my freaking kidneys.
Greer popped up with another box, handing it to her husband so he could pass it over. “Okay! This one is from Mom. I think this is the last one.”
Thank God. We’d gotten clothes and diapers and a stroller, books and bottles and a weird half-circle pillow that didn’t really make much sense to me. Too much, really. My phone was still silent of any news from Milicent, and opening all these presents, pretending I had any clarity on what would happen, made me feel like a fraud.
For all I knew, we’d come home, and the mystery girl would be waiting by the front door, ready to take him back after having a few days off. Christine was her name, based on the birth certificate. At least I knew that now.
I gave my mom a half smile. “Thanks.”
“There’s one more thing I need to add, but I’ll give it to you later. And you’ll have to be patient for the finished product,” she said, and the hopeful expectation on her face absolutely gutted me. “Olive helped me a little bit yesterday, didn’t you, pumpkin?”
Olive nodded, her eyes bright with excitement. Even before Greer married Beckett—an elaborate charade so my dad could walk one of his daughters down the aisle before he passed—I’d always had a soft spot for my teammate’s daughter. She was shy, only coming out of her shell for very few people. For some reason, I’d always been one of those people.
It was somehow easier to put on that happy mask for her.
I whistled, eyeing the box as Beckett handed it to me and Anya. “No kidding. Did you wrap this too, Olly Pop?”
She giggled under her breath, skipping over to cup her hand over my ear. “Grandma did,” she whispered loudly.
I winked. “I bet you could’ve done better.”
Her face was absolute bliss as she ran back over to my sister, scrambling up onto her lap while she watched.
“That’s nice paper,” Sheila said tellingly.
“That’s Mom’s way of saying she doesn’t want you to rip it because she can reuse it for someone’s birthday,” Poppy added.
I gave Mom a look. “Seriously? I’ll buy you ten more rolls at Christmas.”
She sniffed. “I don’t need you to buy me more when I have that. Don’t rip it.”
Anya had tugged her hand from mine so I could peel back the perfectly good wrapping paper that I’d probably be seeing at every holiday for the next four years. Underneath the crisp white and blue stripes was a normal delivery box, a little banged up on the edges and held shut with some masking tape.
Curling my hands into the seam of the box, I felt the brush of something soft, like a cotton T-shirt, and a spike of foreboding lodged itself at the base of my skull.
On the top of the pile was a faded light blue shirt with my high school mascot on the chest. Then one from college. Both with my name on the back. I must have left them at home because I hadn’t seen them in years. A football camp shirt, and another that I’d worn all through middle school, a bright yellow outline of the state of Oregon, established 1859 underneath.
“What’s all this for?” I asked.
Sheila didn’t answer right away, and I pulled the next shirt out, my heart stopping when I saw the next few neatly folded shirts.
Boom .
A dark blue shirt with a tiny hole at the neck, the Wilder Homes logo over the heart, Tim Wilder embroidered underneath. He’d worn it for years until Sheila told him it was long past time to update it.
“You don’t need your name on your shirt, Tim,” she said with utmost patience.
“Sure I do. What if I meet someone new, and they don’t know who I am?” He used to tap his chest. “Everyone wants to feel like they’re hiring a friend to build their house, not a stranger.”
Underneath that was the shirt he wore to every single one of my college games.
Underneath that was the shirt he wore to all my high school games.
One messy explosion after another, a relentless hammering inside my chest, my ears ringing from the impact.
“Brings you luck, kiddo,” he’d say. “What happens if I change my shirt out and you lose? I’d never forgive myself.”
The room was quiet while I stared down at the shirts in my suddenly trembling hand.
“I want to make him a quilt,” Sheila said in a quiet voice. “All the grandkids will get one. I have a whole closet full of your dad’s old shirts, and I can’t think of a better way to keep him with them. They can snuggle up underneath it, stay warm and cozy.” She swiped at her cheek. “He’d like that, don’t you think?”
Greer wrapped an arm around Mom’s back while Poppy cried quietly. “He’d love it, Mom. It’s a great idea.”
Anya carefully pulled the shirts from my grip, and my gaze flew up to her face. Why were her eyes so bright? I could see everything she was thinking.
The pity was thick. The sympathy made my head spin. The worry was the worst of all. What had I done to deserve this woman’s worry? Nothing.
I couldn’t even bring myself to touch her long enough to tap, tap, tap.
While my brain imploded, all the walls inside shaking dangerously, Mom had taken Leo from Ivy’s arms, and when I risked a glance up, she was kissing his forehead. “He would’ve loved to meet you, young man.”
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
There was nothing left. Nothing left to hurt, nothing left to destroy. It was just destruction. A burnt-out husk that felt like it would crumble in my hands.
“I don’t even know if he’s mine.”
The words were torn from my throat, the entire room going eerily still.
Sheila sucked in a breath. Cameron dropped his chin to his chest, and Ian’s brow furrowed. I didn’t even dare look at my sisters.
“Parker,” Sheila started.
I was up out of my chair in the next heartbeat, legs moving sluggish and slow like I was waist-deep in thick mud. By the time I shoved the front door open, I was pulling in short, gasping breaths, and the sound of someone calling my name again barely even registered as I jogged off the front porch and strode away from the house.