21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Trent
I only rewatched my little session in the office with Em once when I was here alone one night, and then I deleted it.
And for that, I’m quite proud of myself, because seeing it play back felt like a lifetime highlight.
The video was the first time that it hit me full in the chest that I’m going to be the father of Emily Sullivan’s kid.
Me, Trent Castillo, and Emily Sullivan. And the way she so clearly wanted to be with me, wanted me when I watched the video, was a bit awe inspiring.
When I was serving time, if someone had told me that this is where I’d end up—running my own shop, trying to have a kid with Em, I’d have told them they’d done too many drugs.
Every part of me is glad to be where I am right now in life, but I definitely don’t think I deserve it.
Not any of it. Even if we’re hiding our arrangement, Em and this life still feel like mine.
Mine in a way that it shouldn’t. She doesn’t want another relationship, and with my past, I’d only drag her down.
She’d be foolish to want anything more than what we’re already doing.
And I need to keep sight of that—that we’re temporary.
Enjoy every second, but don’t turn our situationship into a relationship, not in my mind and definitely not out loud.
“Trent,” my mom calls from the front reception. “Emily is on the phone.”
My mom has decided that helping me out three days a week gives me a chance to be in the shop with the guys when she’s here and learn the front office when she’s not.
Ever since Grady paid off her house and all her debts, she’s been semiretired, only working when she feels like it.
She’s refused to take payment from me, but I’ve been trying to set money aside to give to her when I take over all the finances from Emily next year.
I clean my hands and head to the closest phone. “You okay, Em?” I ask when my mom patches Emily through.
“I’m sorry to call you at work,” she says, her voice shaky, and immediately my hackles go up.
“What’s happened? Are you okay? Is Amir okay?”
“There’s an envelope from the genetic testing facility,” she says. “I should have just waited until you got home. Sorry. It’s just…” There’s a thickness to her voice that makes my chest tighten in response. “I panicked.”
“Do you want me to come home?” I’m already mentally shuffling work to other mechanics to be able to leave.
“No,” she says, but there’s a hitch in her voice. “That would be silly. Whatever’s in there will be the same later.”
A surge of protectiveness runs through me at how she’s barely holding herself together. I’m ready to slay a fucking dragon, and all I need to do is open an envelope and read the response so I can either find an impossible way break the results to her gently or help her celebrate.
If I’ve told her I’ll be the one to pick up the pieces or hold them or whatever she needs, I can’t let her down today of all days.
“I’ll be home in thirty minutes,” I say.
“You don’t—”
“I’ll be home in thirty minutes,” I reiterate firmly.
“Okay,” she says, her voice quiet. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
I hang up and go to my mom to look over her shoulder as we check appointments. I’d love to reschedule some of them for later tonight, but if the results are bad news, Emily and I will be a fucking mess. Instead, I go to Brett, who’s my most senior person and the one I trust the most.
“Do you mind working a bit late tonight?” I ask as he stands under a car removing the exhaust.
“Overtime?” he asks. “Got a last-minute booking?”
“Last minute family emergency,” I say.
Brett glances toward my mom, Penny, in the front office, but he doesn’t ask any more questions. “Yeah, I can handle whatever’s left over at the end of the day. Just push people back, if you can.”
“I’ll let my mom know. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“I hope whatever’s going on works out okay,” Brett says.
“Me too.” My heart is already feeling a bit heavy at the alternative.
When I get home, Emily is sitting at the kitchen table, hands in her lap, staring at the envelope on the table like it’s a fucking viper ready to strike.
“Is someone picking Amir up from school?” I ask. Though it’s just before noon, I don’t know what kind of shape either of us will be in, and I remember Emily saying how she tried so hard to pretend to be fine for Amir, even when she’s not.
“My mom,” she says. “I didn’t tell her why.”
“Open it now?” I ask, running my hand across her back and dropping a kiss onto her temple.
“I don’t think I’m ready,” she whispers. “I’m really regretting even getting it done, to be honest.”
I take the envelope off the table, and I fold it, stuffing it into my back pocket.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her eyes rising to face me.
“We’re going to get out of here. I’ve got somewhere in mind, and when you’re ready for me to open it and take about ten years to read it, you can let me know.”
“It won’t take you ten years.”
“You clearly have no idea how slow I read. There’s a reason I do most of my learning through hands-on experimentation.” I trail my gaze down her off-the-shoulder summer dress. “There are some benefits to that method.”
Her cheeks turn pink.
“Did you cancel all your work for the rest of the day?” I ask, taking her hand and leading her toward the door.
“I moved everything around to tomorrow and the rest of the week. Though I honestly…” She shakes her head, and I know what she’s going to say because I feel the same way. If the results aren’t what we want, tomorrow will come too soon for a lot of things.
“Take it as it comes, right?” I suggest as she slides her feet into her sandals.
“Am I dressed okay for wherever we’re going?”
Her anxiety in the question, in what we’re prolonging, is so obvious that I stop just before the door and turn to examine her. I slide my hands into her hair, and I press my lips to her forehead. She sighs and leans into me, her hands resting lightly on my sides.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she whispers.
“And you’re never going to find out,” I murmur before drawing her into a tight hug.
“We’re going in that?” Emily asks, her tone brimming with disbelief.
We’re facing a battered red rowboat while standing on a dock on Lake Speers. It’s a small inland lake not far from Little Falls that stocks fish and has little rowboats, paddleboats, and other small watercraft. Since it’s a weekday, it’s not too busy.
The sun is shining, and there’s a gentle breeze rustling the leaves on the older trees that circle the lake while fluffy white clouds roll overhead. Under other circumstances, it’d be the perfect day.
“I’m going to flash everyone when I get in,” she says, holding onto the bottom of her skirt while I grip her elbow to help her step down into the boat.
When she sits down on the triangle seat at the back, the whole thing shudders and shakes, and she turns wide eyes up to me.
“Don’t tell me that Emily Sullivan hasn’t been in a rowboat before?
” I say, stepping into the boat where the paddles sit, getting comfortable.
Truthfully, I’ve only been in the boat once before with Amir, and my reaction was much like hers just was.
A total “what the fuck am I doing?” when the thing swayed with wild abandon.
This one is bigger than the one I rented with Amir, and though it’s rocking a little, it doesn’t feel quite so much like we might tip in. I learned that lesson last time as Amir and I tried to fish and I kept a hand on the head loop of his life jacket, terrified he’d fall in.
“What’s the plan here, Castillo?” she asks, gripping the sides of the boat as though we’re all about to go down with the ship.
“We’re going to row out to the middle, and then we’re going to lie in the boat and watch the clouds.”
Her earlier tone of disbelief is now followed by a look to accompany it. “You’re kidding.”
“No. It’ll be relaxing. You’ll see.” Or at least it seems relaxing in my head. I even grabbed one of the blankets I keep stashed in the back of my truck so we wouldn’t be lying on the cold steel.
Once we seem to be close enough to the middle that we won’t drift quickly to the shore, I lock in the paddles and lay down the blanket.
The lake doesn’t allow any motorized boats, so we aren’t in danger of being hit by anything fast moving.
I shift onto the blanket, the boat rocking, and I gesture to Emily to come down with me.
“Couldn’t we have done this in a field?” she asks with a hint of a laugh as she carefully wobbles down to lay beside me.
“Probably,” I admit, but the truth is that I wanted us to be somewhere we’d never been before together so that nothing we know and love becomes tarnished with a bad memory if the result isn’t good.
I don’t want to remember sitting in her kitchen or being at my favorite thinking spot or the best coffee shop—I want to be somewhere that we’ll never have to go again, somewhere we’d have to actively choose to go again, if I open the envelope and her world falls apart.
The middle of the lake is also pretty private for whatever might come.
She lies beside me, and we stare up at the cloud-filled sky. As one particularly large cloud passes by, I point to it and declare, “Elephant.”
She turns her head slightly. “More like a hippo.” With her index finger, she points to another, “That’s a cat.”
“Clearly a dog,” I say with a chuckle.
Then we’re off, debating cloud shapes and combinations, drawing what we see with our fingers on the clouds as they pass us by.
Emily’s laughter over some of my claims makes the tightness in my chest loosen a little.
The envelope in my back pocket still feels stiff and heavier than it should.
I want to open it, and I want to leave it tucked in there forever.
“That’s weird,” Emily says, pointing to a cloud. “That one looks kind of like it’s on fire with the way the sun is coming through.”
I don’t say anything, but she’s right. It does look strange, almost otherworldly. “The aliens are sending a message,” I say, my tone teasing.
“And that one,” Emily says, pointing behind it. “That looks like an ax.”
And again, it does. I can’t even pretend like it’s something else. “Yeah,” I murmur, not following how or why her voice has changed to a tone tinged with confused excitement.
“Oh my god,” she says with a baffled laugh. “That’s a fire hydrant and a fireman’s hat. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
I wouldn’t even try. It’s like someone placed them in the sky, perfectly formed, as though made from a cookie cutter.
She curls into me, burying her face into my chest, and I hold her close, surprised for a beat.
“Open the envelope,” she says. “Can you open it? I don’t want to look, but I need you to open it.”
I shift, keeping her close, and I awkwardly dig it out, rip off the top, and tug out the letter. My heart is hammering, but I’m trying to pretend it’s not. She keeps her face buried, and her palm rests on my chest. She can probably feel and hear the rapid beat of my heart.
It really does take me forever to read and comprehend something, so I read it very carefully the first time, and then I read it a second time to be sure I’ve really understood it. I can’t get this wrong.
“It says,” I say, my voice rough with emotion, “that he doesn’t have any of the gene mutations known to cause ALS. He’s at no greater risk of developing ALS than the rest of the general population."
Emily doesn’t say anything, but she clutches onto me, her hand on my chest clenching my shirt into a fist. She releases a sob so strong that I wonder if she’s been holding it in for years.
I drop the letter into the boat, and I hold her tight, trying to keep my own tears of relief at bay.
The weight that rises off me is probably nothing compared to the one that’s been laying on her since Omar died, since she realized there might be a genetic component.
I don’t even know what I would have done if the result had gone the other way. I run my hand along her back in a soothing motion, kissing the top of her head every once in a while. She cries and cries, and I don’t try to stop her or convince her she doesn’t need to.
I can’t help but think she’s crying about more than the relief over Amir, but also about her dad and maybe even about Omar still. She’s held onto a lot of grief and uncertainty the last few years. She deserves to let it out.
When her crying quiets and she pulls back, she sniffs and stares up at the sky. I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything. The silence between us is comfortable.
“I ruined your shirt.”
“It’ll wash, and if it’s going to be covered with any kind of tears, tears of relief are the best ones.”
We’re both quiet for a beat before I say, “What made you decide to open it all of a sudden?”
“Omar was a firefighter,” she says.
Holy shit . All those shapes in the clouds. It hits me like a blow to the chest, and I turn my head to look at her, but she’s still staring up.
“And I just knew,” she says, “that no matter what was in the envelope, it would be okay.”