Chapter 11
Carter
Given all of the information we had gathered from Eliza the last few months and how small her town was, it wasn’t hard to find out where Eliza’s parents lived.
Now that Eliza had her license, she and Jax didn’t always have to work at the same time, so we waited until a day Jax didn’t have to go in and headed to their house when Eliza went to work.
It wasn’t that we wanted to lie or do anything behind her back, but we had decided not to tell her about our mission in order to protect her. No matter what happened, it would probably be upsetting for her, and we didn’t want to cause her even more pain.
We parked down the street from the address we had for her parents’ house and slowly (and hesitantly) walked to their front door.
Even though it had been my idea to do this, I was highly regretting it when I lifted my hand to knock on the door.
I forced my hand to move, and after knocking, prayed that no one was home even though there were two cars parked in the driveway.
A few seconds later, a woman opened the door. She had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as Eliza, but her hair was styled as a bob. There was a pleasant smile on her face as she looked between me and Jax, which wasn’t at all what I was expecting. “Hello, there! How may I help you?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get any words to come out.
Jax placed her hand gently on the small of my back. Even though it was a small gesture, the woman’s eyes seemed to clock it immediately, and some of her pleasant demeanor faded away.
“Mrs. Abrams, I presume? We’re here to talk to you about your daughter,” Jax said firmly.
What was remaining of the woman’s smile turned to a scowl. “Who are you?”
Jax scoffed. “We’re not from the state if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Bernice, who is it?” a stern male voice called from somewhere down the hall.
When she didn’t immediately answer, he stomped down the hall and greeted us with a grimace.
Instead of shrinking away how I wanted to, Jax stood a little taller. “We’re here to talk about your daughter,” she said again, even more firmly this time.
The man looked at his wife then back at us. “As far as we’re concerned, we don’t have a daughter.”
Even though that was pretty obvious from everything Eliza told us, it was still shocking to hear him say it to our faces. Just like at the cafe with Brian, my blood boiled with hatred for these people. Any fear I had of speaking up oozed from my system.
“Wow,” I said, not even recognizing my own voice at first. “I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of hatred that must be inside of your hearts to erase your own daughter.
” The man opened his mouth to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him and shook my head.
“Honestly, I feel sorry for you, because in the end, it’s your loss.
Eliza has been staying with us for the past three months, and she’s a wonderful young woman. ”
The man shook his head, which was now turning beet red. “Wonderful young women don’t do what she did.”
“She made a mistake.” Jax’s voice thundered as she said the words, and her passion made me shudder.
“She made a baby,” Bernice (what kind of name is that anyway?) said with a scoff.
I shook my head. “She made your grandchild, who is going to arrive in the next three months, which is why we are here giving you one last chance to make it right.”
The man, whose name really didn’t matter to me, put his hands on his hips as if he was trying (and failing) to appear tough. “We have no interest in having any involvement with that girl or the bastard child she created.”
Bernice rested her hand on her husband’s arm as if she was trying to calm him down, but I could tell by the look on her face that whatever came out of her mouth next was going to be just as bad. “Maybe someday, if we believe she’s turned a corner, we can speak to her again.”
“No!” Jax stepped forward and jabbed her pointer finger into the woman’s chest. “This was your chance. Unless Eliza decides she wants to give you a second chance and reaches out to you someday, do not try to contact her. We don’t get to pick and choose when to love our children.”
“What do you know about that?” Bernice mocked as she looked between me and Jax. “Do you even have children?”
When Jax gave me a look that seemed to say do you wanna take this, I nodded my head. I let my eyes sear into Eliza’s mom and then her dad. “We do now—a teenage girl who has made the most of really shitty circumstances.” I put my arm around Jax and pulled her close. “And we are so proud of her.”
“And one more thing.” I thought Jax was going to stick up her pointer finger to signify one, but instead she put her middle finger right in their faces. “Fuck you.”
She used the arm that was around me to twirl me around and then led us both away from the house. Much to my surprise, Jax started to laugh. “I just had the best idea.” She stopped in the middle of their sidewalk and dipped me and planted the biggest, most exaggerated kiss on my lips.
When she lifted me back up, we laughed together all of the way back to the car. I didn’t even bother to turn around to see what their response was to the kiss. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.
When I took my spot in the passenger seat, I noticed my hands were shaking from all of the adrenaline. I held my shaky hand up for Jax to see. “I don’t know if I’ve ever hated anyone more than I hate those two people.”
“Me either.” Jax gritted her teeth as she gripped the steering wheel. “That’s exactly why they aren’t worth our time. Or Eliza’s. We need to focus on what’s important—our family.”
“Our family,” I repeated softly. I loved the sound of that. No matter how our talk went with Eliza, I had no doubt that she would always be family to us in one way or another.
That night, Jax and I prepared all of Eliza’s favorite pregnancy cravings for dinner—macaroni and cheese, hotdogs with sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes.
It wasn’t the most normal combination, but we wanted to make this dinner extra special for her.
We also got sparkling grape juice to drink during the meal and a cake for dessert.
Jax had suggested we write “Welcome to the family” on the cake, but I didn’t want to jump the gun. It would have been really awkward if Eliza said she wasn’t interested in our proposition and then we pulled out that cake.
When Eliza walked in the house after work, I could hear her sniffing. “Oh my god, something smells so good. Is that sauerkraut?” she asked as she joined me and Jax in the kitchen.
“It sure is,” Jax said proudly.
Eliza walked over to where the sauerkraut was warming on the stove and closed her eyes while taking a deep breath through her nose.
“Ugh, I love it so much. Do you know I had never even tried sauerkraut before I was pregnant? I always refused because I thought it looked and smelled so weird. I wonder if I always would have liked it this much or if it’s just the pregnancy. ”
“I guess you’ll find out in a few months,” I told her.
One thing I was pretty sure she wouldn’t like if she wasn’t pregnant was sauerkraut not just on her hotdog, but also over her mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, which was exactly what Eliza did when she filled her plate.
“That looks… appetizing,” Jax teased.
“Hey! Don’t knock it till you try it,” Eliza joked back. She stabbed her fork into her sauerkraut covered mac and cheese and held it out toward Jax.
Jax grimaced, but she still took a bite. She made inquisitive faces as she chewed. “It’s… interesting. Not bad, actually. But, I think I’ll continue to enjoy them separately like a normal person.”
Eliza playfully shoved Jax. “You’re not allowed to be mean to me.”
Jax chuckled. “Says who?”
Eliza put her free hand on her stomach. “Says the baby.”
“Fine.” Jax sighed. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”
As they continued to tease each other, I poured sparkling grape juice into the champagne glasses we had gotten for our wedding and still hadn’t used after all these years because of fear of breaking them.
“What’s the occasion?” Eliza asked when she noticed the glasses.
“We actually want to talk to you about something.” I tried to keep my voice as level as possible so she couldn’t tell how nervous I was.
Eliza’s smile dropped slightly and a look of worry took over. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” Jax said quickly. “We think, or at least hope, you’ll be happy about this. But please know that you can say no to anything we bring up here. Hell, you can say no to all of it.”
“Okay…” Eliza’s voice still sounded very unsure, so I figured we shouldn’t waste any more time before telling her.
As someone with anxiety, I knew how hard it was to know an important conversation was coming but not knowing what that conversation was about. Even being told it’s positive never helped me.
“As Jax mentioned, you can say no to this, but it’s something we’ve been considering for a long time. We wanted to make sure it was in everyone’s best interest before bringing it up.” God, why am I rambling? That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do.
Jax put her hand in mine. “As you know, Carter and I are ready to start a family. If it’s something you’d be interested in, we’d like to adopt your baby.”
I squeezed Jax’s hand to let her know I was tagging myself in. “But we only want to do that if it’s something you're comfortable with. You are our first priority. We want you to have a home, and honestly, from the moment you got here, our house has felt more like home than ever before.”
Now Jax squeezed my hand. “We want you to stay here. You don’t have to call us mom and mama or anything, unless you want to, of course.
” Jax chuckled. “But we do want to help you through everything. We want to get you through school, watch you graduate, and help you with college, if that’s something you’re interested in.
Above all, we want you to always have a place to come back to, no matter where you end up.
We want that to be here, if that’s what you want too. ”
A loud sob escaped from Eliza’s throat. “Yes. Yes, I want that. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.
” She put her hand on top of me and Jax’s linked hands.
“You two feel more like family than my parents ever did. In this short time, you’ve shown me what a family should be.
And obviously I would love it if you adopted this baby.
Then I would know they are in a good home. ”
“But would you be okay living with the baby you carried and gave birth to? That wouldn’t be too hard on you?” I asked.
Eliza shook her head and wiped at her tears.
“As much as I didn’t want to get attached to this baby, I feel like I already have.
I know I couldn’t be a good mom, especially since I have my own dreams I want to pursue, but I’d love to be part of its life.
” Her tear-soaked eyes shined as she smiled widely.
“I could be like the cool older sister who just so happened to birth them.”
Tears now streamed down my face as well. “That sounds perfect. We love that idea.”
“Family hug?” Jax said with a strained laugh, and when I looked over at her, her face was wet with tears as well.
Eliza jumped from her seat and held out her arms. Jax and I also stood up and the three of us hugged and cried.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like this, but when we pulled away, my eyes burned and my face hurt, but my heart was full.
Jax lifted up her champagne glass and held it out toward us.
“To the four of us and all of our crazy adventures to come. May we somehow figure this out together.”
Eliza picked up her champagne glass and held it out, while resting her other hand on her stomach. “To the four of us.”
I had to fight back more tears as I tapped my glass against both of theirs and took a sip. When we had finished hugging and crying, we sat back down to actually eat our dinner.
“So, I was thinking,” Jax said as she shoveled food into her mouth. “We should go shopping tonight. Eliza needs to get stuff to really make that room hers and we need to get stuff for the nursery.”
“You want me to stay in the room I have now?” Eliza asked, looking truly stunned. “It’s the biggest room in the house.”
“Of course.” Jax laughed. “We’re not going to give all of that space to a baby. That seems like a waste.”
Eliza looked between us. “But what about you two? I know you said there was a reason you had chosen your current room, but are you sure you don’t want more space? Especially now that you’ll have a baby to take care of.”
I shook my head. “We have no interest in switching rooms. That one is special to us.”
“Do you mind telling me why?” Eliza asked.
“Of course not.” Jax went on to tell her the more PG version of what happened in that room, including how my moms had their first kiss on the roof outside of the room and we kissed out there as well as also getting engaged there, just like my moms. Luckily, she left out the part about us hooking up in there before my family knew anything was happening between us and how my grandma made a big deal about my bed bug bite.
Eliza put her hand on her chest and pushed out her bottom lip when Jax finished her explanation.
“That is so sweet. You two are so romantic. Between my parents, friends of my parents, and everything that happened with Brian, I was starting to think that romance didn’t actually exist. I hope someday I’m able to find a guy who looks at me the way you two look at each other. ”
“You will.” Jax winked at me. “No matter how long it takes, you definitely will.”
When we were done eating, we all worked together to clean up dinner then left to go shopping.
We were able to get a ton of things that we needed, while also figuring out everything else we needed that we couldn’t find.
When we got home, we put on our pajamas and snuggled together on the couch to buy the other items.
When we were done, Jax let out a low whistle. “This is going to be a lot of work, isn’t it?”
“I can help,” Eliza said enthusiastically.
“If you really want to, you can help with anything that doesn’t involve heavy lifting or painting.” I knew I sounded like a parent, but if Eliza was going to be living with us now, I guess that’s kind of what I had to be in a way. It was now fully our responsibility to keep her safe.
Eliza held her hand out toward me. “Deal.”
I looked at all of the boxes sitting around us and thought about everything else that was about to be on the way as well. “You’re right though. We could definitely use some back up. I know just the people for the job, but first, we have to announce our plan to them.”
My family is going to be so excited.