23. Internal Payload #2
“The reasons I told you about not wanting kids still stand. I made that decision because having kids meant having a family. People who cared if something happened to me.” I’m rushing my words, afraid she’ll leave again before I can explain.
“But if you can come to terms with that danger, I can’t help but be selfish enough to want to be with you. ”
“Wait.” Rose pulls back, shaking her head. “You’re telling me that the only reason you didn’t tell me you loved me and that you don’t want to have kids is because you’re worried something will happen to you in space?”
“Vance…” my mother’s soft plea barely registers.
“Lots of people with dangerous jobs have kids, Vance,” Rose says, sounding exactly like Ian. “My dad was a race car driver.”
“Yeah, and he’s dead.”
Rose flinches.
“ Vance .” The shocked, disappointed tone of my mother’s voice whips across my back.
“Yes. He’s dead.” Rose takes another step back, the distance between us growing. “And so is my mother. But not from racing.”
I frown. “You said they died in a car crash during a race.”
“Yes, an unsanctioned race during which my mother had no business being in the passenger seat. And they were probably under the influence of something.” Her neck juts out. “You can’t honestly tell me that you work like that? That you’d take those kinds of chances?”
“No, of course not.” But neither did my father.
“Then why do you think it’s such a sure thing that something will happen?”
“Because it might.” Because it did.
“Might and will are two different things.” Her exasperation ignites my anger.
“I’m not taking that chance.” I slice my hand across the air, like I’m drawing a line in the sand not to cross.
We’re silent. There’s no music, Bing Crosby having finished his song a few heartbeats ago.
“Rose.” I raise my hand to her cheek, thankful when she doesn’t dodge it.
“We… we don’t need to decide this now. We don’t have to argue about what ifs.
” Taking a breath, I try to order my thoughts and emotions.
Things, which around Rose, become scrambled.
“If, in ten years, after you’ve settled into your career and I’ve completed more missions, you’re still set on having kids, we can talk then. By that time, I could retire early.”
One tear slips between the fingers cradling Rose’s cheek. And just like that tear, I feel Rose slipping away from me as well.
“Don’t you see how much I’m already bending? How much I’m already risking by loving you?” Shaking my head, I plead, “Don’t ask me to risk more. Not now.” I wipe away the second tear that falls. “We have plenty of time.”
She covers my hand with hers, holding it tightly before letting both fall. “No, we don’t.”
A black hole opens in my chest. “What do you mean?”
With her head turned to the side, I watch tears drop like glitter onto the stage.
“Rose?” I reach out to hold her, but her hand moves between us, warding me back.
Finally, she looks at me, and I know . I know without her saying anything. I shake my head back and forth.
She nods in answer. “I’m pregnant.”
Everything stops. Even my breath. Blackness creeps along the edges of my vision. It’s hard to swallow the onrush of saliva in my mouth. The black hole in my chest grows, consuming me, leaving me exposed and vulnerable.
Rose apologizes and says something about the IUD failure rate. I don’t really hear it. Her words are drowned out by the pulsating rush of blood through my veins, the echo of rapid heartbeats in my ears.
Her hands fall to her abdomen, a small smile lighting up her tear-streaked face. Her lips keep moving, but I can’t make out the words.
A gathering hum starts. Probably more people talking. Something smacks against my back. It all sounds distant and otherworldly.
I’m drifting away, untethered from this moment in time, surrounded by the dark void of my emotions.
Fear and panic.
I’m hugging my father good-bye on the front steps, listening to him tell us he’d see us soon. Watching him walk away in his uniform.
I’m standing between his military portrait and his coffin at his funeral. Holding my sister’s hand. Surrounded by white flowers.
White flowers very much like the ones on my mother’s robe, that she wore for weeks after the funeral, walking around the house like a zombie, her eyes vacant and sad.
Except now it isn’t my mother, it’s Rose. Rose and a small child with wild blond hair, both of them crying.
The pain in my chest is excruciating.
I gasp, surprised to realize I’m in my SUV, driving north on the Gulf Freeway, my back throbbing from what I’m pretty sure was my mother’s fist.
But it’s not nearly as painful as the tear stains on my chest.
Rose
I have tears to dry.
My van’s powerful air-conditioning blasts at me as I sit in Flynn’s auto shop parking lot. It isn’t necessarily that hot out right now with the mild December temperatures and all. But I’m hoping the A/C will cool the fire burning behind my eyes.
I thought I would’ve handled the fallout better than this. I mean, I called it. I said Vance knowing about the baby wouldn’t matter. That he’d still leave.
I’d only stared after him for a moment before leaving myself. As I reached the doors, Helen called out, “He loves you, I know it.” She said the words like they’d somehow ease my pain instead of gutting out the rest of my heart.
Because I know he loves me; I could tell he meant it when he said it.
Hashtag but not enough to stay.
Not knowing where to go, but realizing my tears were a driving safety hazard, I found my way to the shop.
Might as well tell Flynn now that I’m here. Pour salt into the heartbreak.
Though it would probably make more sense to tell Holt first, seeing as he’s the oldest and the one usually in charge of West family affairs. But the ranch is a longer drive, one I’m not sure I can make right now.
I stick my face closer to the air vents and blink, trying to stem new tears. I’m not sure I can blame these on hormones.
Watching Vance leave hurt more than watching Flynn and Holt walk away from airport security after waving good-bye on my way to boarding school.
It hurt more than watching the dust cloud behind Dad’s ’68 Chevy Malibu as he hauled ass down the ranch’s dirt lane drive. Off to find my mom, or to a race or to some dive bar to drown his regrets.
It hurt more than every single time Mom left. Whether she had a bag packed or not, she’d leave without a backward glance or farewell. And I never got used to it, right up until the day she never came back.
“Rose?”
I smack the back of my hand against the closed window. “Son of a bitch!”
Mike, my brother’s right-hand man at the shop, tilts his head in amusement. “You all right, there?” But as he asks it, his smile fades, probably taking in the tears sliding down my cheeks.
I gasp, trying to both calm and lock down the pain. Wiping frantically at my right cheek, I put on a smile and lower the window with my left. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
Mike arches one eyebrow, calling me on my bullshit. “Is that so?”
I nod, eyes wide, trying to keep any more tears from falling.
Mike snorts and walks around the front of my car. “Open up.”
I manage to find and hit the unlock button before he pulls the handle.
He hops in, his blue coveralls sliding against the leather seats. He glances around the interior. “New ride?”
I wipe the other cheek. “Um, yeah.”
Mike and I have never been very close. I know him, he knows me.
Or rather he knows of me. I’m sure Flynn’s told him enough Rose stories to give him an interesting impression.
And there have been occasions like Flynn’s wedding, random get-togethers, and times when I was bored and decided to cause a little mischief at my brother’s shop where we’ve had a few conversations.
And lord knows he’s had to bang out a lot of bumpers and doors from minor accidents I may have caused over the years.
I always had the impression he didn’t like me very much.
“It suits you.”
For some reason, this observation makes me laugh. Maybe it’s the deadpan way in which he says it, or maybe I’m at the tipping point between sobbing and laughing and my heart just can’t take any more tears. So I laugh.
Mike smiles. He’s always had a nice smile. “You got car trouble already?”
“Um, no.” I sniff. “I’m just here to talk to Flynn.”
“It’s Sunday.”
Shit . I forgot. Pre-Jackie the shop was open seven days a week. Post-Jackie the shop is closed on Sundays except for special appointments. Flynn doesn’t like anything getting in the way of him and Jackie spending time together.
Mike doesn’t look like my distress bothers him. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
I’m tempted, but... “Nah, that’s okay.”
He nods. “That’s cool.”
We sit for a bit, neither of us saying anything, not a hint of pressure coming from him to talk.
Mike opens the glove box and checks out the console. “I’m seeing someone.”
“Really?” The admission catches me off guard.
Mike is one of those deceptively good-looking guys.
He’s handsome, very much so, but he is so under the radar that you don’t much notice it.
In the few years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him talk about a girl.
And the fact that’s he’s talking to me about her surprises me one step out of my current pit of emotional despair.
He reaches down the right side of his seat and messes with the controls. His seat slides back, allowing him to lower his legs out of their hunch. “Well, I’m trying to, at least.”
I can’t help but find his mellow demeanor amusing. “And how’s that going for you?”
“It’s hard.” His eyes meet mine for a moment, a seriousness there I didn’t expect. “Anything worth having is.”
I hum in acknowledgement.
“She has trust issues, you know?” Seat adjusted, he drops a hand on the arm rest. “Doesn’t think I’m serious about her.”