Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ty
Right after I finished my phone call, Diane’s landline phone rang. She picked up the cordless receiver—what a relic—and stepped into the other room for a moment before returning with a beaming smile. “Come on. We’ve got to get going.”
“Going where?” The energy she was putting off was completely different than before the phone call. And she looked a full decade younger than when I arrived. “Who was that?”
“That,” she grinned, “was your mother. You need to go home. Immediately.”
I stood up, my heart beating like a drum as my whole body flooded with adrenaline. Call it an occupational hazard. “What’s wrong? Is someone hurt? She didn’t say it was an emergency—I just talked to her.”
She laughed, shaking her head hard enough that her wispy gray waves rustled against her glowing pink cheeks. “You’ll see. I’ll follow you.”
Something told me to trust her and not ask too many questions—another occupational thing. I was excellent at reading people. As I jogged through the house and to my truck, I realized a burden I’d been carrying had been lifted.
Finding out Noah’s mom knew about our relationship and approved filled me with relief. There was a lightness in my step that wasn’t there before. I started my truck and backed down the driveway, slowing down to wait for Mrs. Bell to get in her small gold sedan.
I drove down Main Street, my heart still racing. She said everyone was fine, and I would see.
When I pulled into my driveway, it looked like a party was already in progress. My mother’s Mercedes was there and…Lainey’s car. I recognized her silver Volkswagen instantly. This knowledge did nothing to calm my furiously beating heart.
I waited for Diane to park and get out of her car. She moved a lot faster than I anticipated and was on my heels in seconds, looking at me expectantly. “Well, go inside,” she encouraged me.
I stepped into my own living room, where Lainey and my mother sat opposite each other on the sofa and loveseat, each sipping from a mug of coffee.
Upon seeing me, Lainey, with trembling hands, rose from her seat and opened her mouth to speak.
But before she could get any words out, my mother leapt up.
“Look, it pains me that you two haven’t been talking,” she said, her gaze darting between the two of us.
I struggled to keep my jaw from dropping, and any words I thought about speaking were likely trapped in the same place Lainey’s were. She’d been rendered speechless and looked completely flustered.
“Exactly,” Diane agreed, coming to stand next to my mother.
Both women looked like they were going to give us a chance to explain, but before we could, my mother said, “We hate that you’ve been staying apart from each other because you’re worried about what we would think.”
Just then, the door squeaked open, and Lainey’s mother, Angela, stood there, brushing snow off her long black coat. Then she flicked a few flakes off her salt-and-pepper hair.
“Mom!” Lainey gasped. “What in the world is going on here?” She looked at each woman in succession. “Is this an intervention?”
Diane laughed, a soft tinkling sound. “That’s a good word for it. Tykari and Elaine, we are tired of the two people who knew and loved Noah the most, the two people Noah would want to create a legacy for him and to keep his memory alive, pretending like you barely know each other.”
“What do you mean? How can—”
“Your tattoos,” my mother interjected. “Tykari, I noticed at the funeral that you and Elaine have the same tattoo—the heart with the infinity symbol that’s on the inside of your wrist. And in the photos Diane shared of Noah, I saw he had one as well.”
My left hand flew down to my right wrist, my fingers wrapping around the symbol the three of us had agreed on a few months before Noah passed, one to symbolize our bond and commitment. We never expected anyone to notice we all had the same tattoo.
“But—” Lainey shook her head in disbelief.
“I contacted Diane not long after the funeral,” my mother continued to explain.
“I wanted to see how she was doing. We started meeting up for tea and coffee a couple times a month. I finally asked her about the tattoos, and she admitted Noah had shared about your relationship with her. Well, when she told me Lainey was expecting, I contacted Angela and asked her what she knew about the tattoo on Elaine’s wrist. I explained what it meant—that the infinity symbol with a heart is a symbol of polyamory. ”
“Oh my god!” Lainey gasped, and her mother went to stand by her.
“We kept waiting for you to tell us, especially after we found out Lainey is pregnant,” Angela explained. “But we wondered, if the baby turned out to be Noah’s, if you’d ever tell us at all. So, we were trying to be patient and wait for you two to come clean—”
“But we also hated the fact that you’re both grieving alone,” Diane interjected. “When you should be leaning on each other. When you should be preparing for the birth of your son or daughter, Tykari.”
Tears stung at my eyes. I would have never dreamed in a million years that our mothers would come together and support us like this. I looked up at Lainey, and she had tears streaming down her face.
I stretched my arms wide, and she ran into them, sobbing as she buried her face in my chest. I held her tightly against me, breathing in her scent that I’d missed so much and feeling the small bump of her stomach press into me.
“When Noah told me about you guys,” Diane continued, “he explained why he needed to keep it a secret. I tried to tell him that a mother’s love is bigger than any of that—big enough to accept any choice their child could make.
Well, almost any choice.” She laughed. “But I don’t think we have to worry about bad choices from any of you. We did a damn good job raising you!”
“Hell yes we did!” my mother chimed in, and Lainey’s mom gave her a high-five.
“Noah told me, if anything ever happened to him, I should make sure you two found your way together,” Diane said. “It was my last promise to him.”
I pulled Lainey back to look into her eyes. “See? We both made Noah promises. And we both want to make good on them.”
Lainey smiled up at me. “I want to get in on this promise action too.”
“You do?” I stroked a finger down her cheek.
She rose on her tiptoes to press a kiss to my lips. “I want to promise that, from here on out, we’re in this together,” she said. “You and me—no matter what comes our way.” She patted her belly. “No matter who comes our way.”