Chapter 10 Joe #2
“You look good playing nanny, Callum,” I tease him, and he shoots me an eye roll that’s meant to remind me that all of us are in this mess together, so I better keep my mouth shut.
“I cleared out the back of the van, should be enough room for all four of them, with the backward-facing seats,” I explain to Angelie, as I pull open the door and gesture for her to put them in.
“Backward, huh?” Angelie asks. “You guys feeling brave enough to go backward?”
“Yes!” Chrissie exclaims. Stephanie, even though she looks a little nervous, is clearly not willing to be left behind, so she goes along with it too. Once they’re all buckled in, the boys are placed opposite them, and Chuck looks a little uncomfortable with the new surroundings.
“I know, honey,” Angelie murmurs to him softly. “But look—how cool is this car? It’s like something out of a movie, right?”
He still doesn’t look convinced. I reach down into the back pocket next to him, pulling out one of the gloves that I have stuffed down there to keep them safe in case I’m called into action while we’re out on the road.
“You think you could hold these for me?” I ask him seriously.
He stares up at me for a moment, confused, but then opens his hand. “I think so…”
“Thanks, bud,” I tell him, and I gently place the glove into his hand before I straighten up and climb into the front once more.
Angelie flashes me a smile as she slips in next to me, clearly impressed at my handling of the situation. “So you’re all good with kids, or what?” she asks playfully, clipping in her seat belt as Callum lifts his hand to wave goodbye as we pull away from the cabin.
“I know how to handle myself,” I reply. I glance into the back of the van and a heavy weight grasps at my chest as I realize that I could be looking at my children right now, all four of them laid out before me like they’ve always belonged there.
“Damn, I could have used you all around when I first had them.” She laughs. “I had no idea what I was doing at first. Well, next to none, anyway.”
“I thought you were training to be a kindergarten teacher,” I remark, furrowing my brow. “You didn’t pick up anything useful there?”
“Oh, you can learn all you want about kids, but when it actually comes to having them, it’s an entirely different story,” she replies, shaking her head.
“And try multiplying that by four right off the bat. I had no clue what I was doing. I was just trying to keep myself from losing my mind the first few months. I think I knew it was going to be that difficult, on some level, because I finished up college early and came back to Devin Ridge when I found out I was pregnant.”
Neither of us are broaching the topic of how she fell pregnant, but that’s fine by me. The truth doesn’t need to come out yet, not until she’s willing to share it.
“That bad, huh?”
“No, not bad,” she replies, shaking her head as she leans her arm on the window, and I take the turn back toward her house. “I loved that first year, I really did. Seeing all of them go from tiny little newborns into toddlers with their own personalities…”
She looks back over her shoulder fondly, a smile lighting up her face as she sees Chuck who’s still holding the glove I gave him.
“It was amazing,” she confesses. “But exhausting too. And it didn’t exactly get any easier after that, because I started work when they were eighteen months—”
“You work too?” I reply, unable to keep the shock out of my voice.
She cocks an eyebrow at me, like it should have been obvious.
“Of course I do,” she replies. “Not like I wanted to sit on my ass doing nothing with the degree I worked so hard to get, right? And I didn’t want to teach the kids that there was no life outside the house.
If they didn’t see me working, who would be able to show them that they could go after their own career if they wanted to? ”
“So you spent all day at home with a bunch of kids,” I remark, screwing up my face as I try to make sense of it, “and then you started working at a place that would leave you around everyone else’s kids every day?”
“Something like that.” She giggles. “But I don’t see it that way. I went through a crash course in toddlers by raising my own, right? So nothing any of those kids can throw at me comes close to the stress of that first year of being a mom. I was inoculated against it.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I reply, but I can’t help but feel a nag of guilt in my chest, knowing that she went through so much alone.
Sure, she might have had her family nearby, but how much did that count for when she was dealing with four children?
She should have had the father here, whoever he is.
Shit, I knew all four of us would have stepped up to do our bit if we had been given the chance.
No matter who actually turned out to be the father, we were all committed enough to make certain that what needed to be done was done.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she remarks, furrowing her brow at me slightly. “I made it through in one piece. And so did they.”
She looks into the back once more, and I glance into the rearview mirror to see the quads’ faces lighting up as makes a face at them through the glass. It’s clear that they adore their mother, and it’s hard not to be charmed by it, the connection they so obviously share.
We grab some stuff from the house and then head to the motel where her family are staying. She texts ahead to let them know that she’s on the way, and when we get to the door, her sister is already there, hand raised to greet us.
“Oh God, you’re alright,” she gasps as soon as she sees Angelie step out of the van, rushing over to her side to give her a hug. Angelie laughs as she tightens her grip on her sister, as though she’s surprised at the reaction.
“Of course I’m alright,” she replies. “Nothing happened, okay?”
“Mom and Dad told me that you went to their place to get them out…”
“Sure, but they left pretty easy,” Angelie replies, pulling away to bring the toddlers out of the van. Her sister’s face lights up as she sees her nieces and nephews, scooping the girls into her arms and turning to bring them inside the motel.
“Are you going to be staying here too?” I ask Angelie, as it suddenly strikes me that she didn’t bring anything with her from the house.
She hesitates, then looks up at me, biting her lip.
“I think I want to come back with you guys,” she confesses.
“I know it’s going to be hard, being away from the kids, but…
I know Devin Ridge so well. And I couldn’t live with myself if I let something happen that could have been avoided if I had been there to help you guys out. ”
“Angelie—”
“I know what you’re going to say,” she cuts me off, lifting a hand to stop me in my tracks.
“And I get it, I do. But you have to understand, this place has changed since you were last here. There are details you never knew about. I mean, look at what happened with my parents. If I hadn’t been there, you would never have known that the road sign had come down and might have missed the turning… ”
I sigh heavily. I can already tell that the others aren’t going to like this, but she’s got a point.
We could use someone who’s been living here the last few years, someone who knows what they’re doing, someone who can navigate the land with the confidence of a local.
We might have grown up here, but she’s right—a lot can change in four years, and every bit of information we have could help us keep the fires under control a while longer.
Or maybe I’m just telling myself what I want to hear, because I know there’s no way I can let her slip through my fingers, not now that I’ve found her again.
“Alright,” I reply. “We’ll need to pick up some extra supplies on the way back, and don’t blame me if Carlisle turns you right around and sends you back here the minute you set foot in the door.”
“You don’t get to make the calls?” she asks, a small smile teasing at her lips. “You’re the oldest, after all…”
“Not how it works.” I laugh, shaking my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her parents emerging from the doorway of the motel, clearly trying to make sense of what’s taking their daughter so long.
Angelie glances back at them, chewing her lip. “Just let me tell them and I’ll be right with you,” she promises, hurrying over to the door to speak to her family.
I watch her as I lean against the van, waiting for her to return.
Her parents both look shocked at what she’s telling them, and her mother grips her arm tightly, her fingers digging into her skin for a second like she doesn’t want to let her go.
It reminds me of the way my mother would hold on to my father before he would take off for a call, the fear in her eyes like he might not come back at all.
But, as Angelie gives them both a huge hug, and then stoops down to squeeze her children, I realize that she’s going through with this.
Which means that her parents must put a decent amount of trust in us, if they believe we can keep her safe.
I know the guys will do everything in their power to make sure she stays that way, if they even let her back into the cabin at all.
The way Carlisle goes about his work, it wouldn’t surprise me if he kicks her out and tells her to stay out of our way just to make sure he won’t have to worry about her.
I can tell that he has taken her sudden reappearance in our lives particularly hard—and I’m pretty sure I heard the floorboards near his room creaking last night, for whatever that’s worth…
Angelie strides back over to the van, a smile on her face that’s clearly meant to wipe away any doubts that might still be clinging to her mind.
“Alright, let’s get out of here,” she announces, as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. As I pull open the door of the cabin for her, she scrambles past me and I catch the scent of her apple shampoo in the air.
And just for a moment, I’m back in that night, the night that I had her, the night that I made her mine. It’s a night I want nothing more than to repeat, even now—and a night that I know would be best left to memory, given that we still haven’t made sense of everything that came of it.
At least, that’s what I have to keep telling myself, if I’m going to find some way to be around her without losing my mind.