3. Parker Cain
3
PARKER CAIN
Molly Blanchard was dead.
My best friend since elementary school.
The first person I’d ever kissed. The first person I’d ever come out to. The first person I’d told my horrific dating stories.
The only person who wasn’t a blood relative that I loved with all my heart and soul.
She was dead, and it wasn’t fair.
Everyone said that when they lost someone who was dear to them, but in Molly’s case, it was fucking true.
She’d had her entire life ahead of her, a fan-fucking-tastic life with her brand-new baby girl.
Now she was gone, and all I could think on repeat was that it wasn’t fair.
Getting from the office to the hospital where she’d been taken was a complete blur. Then it had been rushing to the daycare to find out what they’d needed from me so that I could pick up Molly’s daughter, Joy. It wasn’t until I’d had the baby in my arms in Molly’s apartment that I’d dared to call Molly’s parents with the horrible news. And my parents.
Thankfully, my parents and my older brother, Jack, had jumped on a flight that night to help me through those first few days.
The one thing that was a breeze was taking custody of Joy.
I was her biological father, after all.
My dear sweet Molly had always had zero interest in dating and marriage. She’d just wanted a child. That was the only family she’d needed to feel complete. So, when my oldest friend had asked me to donate the sperm she’d needed to have a baby, how could I say no? At Joy’s birth, my name had been put on the birth certificate as her father. Molly’d even had a lawyer draw up more documents to make me Joy’s legal guardian if something should happen. To me, it had seemed unnecessary, but Molly had wanted her daughter protected at all costs.
Fuck . I remembered her laughing as she’d showed me those stupid legal documents, saying how there was no way I was getting my hands on her baby.
But now I was sitting here in this funeral home filled with colorful floral bouquets as a steady stream of friends and distant family shuffled by Molly’s casket to say good-bye to her before giving their condolences to Molly’s elderly parents.
Five days had passed since I’d received that horrible phone call, and I felt hollowed out and just shy of numb.
Someone touched my shoulder, and I mentally jerked awake. I started to jump out of my seat, ready to rush to help whoever needed me. But my eyes focused on a familiar face, and I froze in a half-standing, half-sitting position.
My mom stood beside me. Lenore Cain was a small, slender woman who had worn her dark hair in a jaw-length bob for as long as I could remember. Lenny to her friends, she was the type of person who always had a smile on her face for a stranger, an ear to lend to a friend, and some bit of advice for her four kids. But today, her smile was worn, and worry filled her pale-blue eyes.
Without her saying a word, I could feel her questioning how I was holding it together while she cradled Joy in her arms. I managed a nod that probably didn’t reassure her, but it was the best I could do right now. My mom sat in the chair beside mine and I dropped again, instantly reaching for Joy. I didn’t want to be away from her for too long. There was something inside me that was still afraid of someone attempting to take her from me, despite all the legal documents and rights that had been established.
Molly’s parents had announced that they were happy that I could be there to raise Joy. Molly had been a late-in-life baby. They had given up after years of trying and had been shocked to find they’d been blessed with a daughter. But both of them were now in their seventies and didn’t have the strength and stamina needed to take on a newborn.
“She finished most of her bottle and fell right to sleep,” my mother stated as I got Joy settled in my arms. “We can try to see if she wants the rest after she wakes up later.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I murmured as I checked to make sure her little pink floral onesie was settled around her comfortably.
I didn’t know enough about kids to raise Joy, but I was determined to learn everything I could. Since my mom’s arrival, I’d soaked in every word of advice and wisdom she could give me. She’d wrangled four of us and had somehow made it look easy.
“Before they depart for the cemetery, I’m going to head back to your apartment with Joy and your brother. There’s no sense in dragging her to the cemetery in this heat. Dad’s going to stay by your side and drive you home. Unless you’d rather go to that lunch her other friend is hosting.”
At the mention of my father, my eyes went searching for him. It took a second to locate Lester Cain standing near the doorway, talking to one of Molly’s uncles. A year had passed since I’d last seen them both thanks to a hectic work schedule that had made it impossible to get out to Arizona. He was still the same lean, tall man with a friendly, open face. It seemed as if more of his brown hair had gone gray in the past year. He was getting older. Both of my parents were.
I shook my head, knocking that errant thought away. Sitting in a funeral home at my best friend’s funeral was drudging up all kinds of dark thoughts. I forced my brain to what my mom had been saying. “No. I spoke to Violet already and thanked her for putting the lunch together. She understands I need to focus on Joy. I want to go straight home after the cemetery.”
Violet was a lovely older woman who was a close friend of Molly’s at work. She was handling the reception after the funeral for Molly’s parents and her friends.
Joy shifted in my arms, and all my attention zipped to the tiny girl sleeping with her head on my shoulder. Her little red bow lips smacked and moved. The tip of her tongue poked out and then retreated as she settled into a deep sleep. In the span of a few days, things that had felt awkward were becoming second nature. Holding her was easier. I could change a diaper in the blink of an eye now. I was even learning the tenor of her cries, though all of them still sent a shaft of fear through me as I worried that I’d messed something up without realizing it.
But each time, she just needed a fresh diaper, a bottle, or to be held. All things I could do with ease.
I’d barely gotten Joy settled in my arms when the line to the casket ended and the local nondenominational pastor the funeral home had arranged for us came up to speak. Molly wasn’t religious and hadn’t gone to any specific church, but her parents wanted some religious leader to step up to say a few comforting words. I’d spent an hour talking to him the previous day about Molly, spilling out hundreds of wonderful memories. Her parents had done the same after they’d arrived from Arizona.
But now that I was listening to him regurgitate all these things I’d said, anger boiled up inside me. I wanted all my words and memories back. I didn’t want to share them with anyone because it felt like I was letting my best friend go. And I didn’t want to let her go. She needed to return to me so we could go on our stupid adventures and have more of our weekend chat sessions over good cheese and cheap beer. Only now they were going to include Joy. We were going to show Joy all the fun things we loved about this city and all the things we loved to eat and do.
How was I supposed to do these things now without Molly?
Tears slipped down my cheeks faster and faster. I tried to wipe them away, to keep them from raining on Joy, but it wasn’t easy to do while holding her. My mom reached across and swiped my cheeks with her tissue. My dad had shown up while I wasn’t paying attention and wrapped a supportive arm around my shoulders.
I looked up at them, and they appeared to be as heartbroken as I was. They’d known Molly for years, too. She’d been a regular fixture in our house throughout my childhood. We’d had her and her family to our house for cookouts and Christmas parties. She’d sat next to me, holding my hand tight enough to nearly snap my fingers, as I came out to my parents.
How was I supposed to let go?
Joy shifted in my arms, her tiny hand coming up to graze my chin, as if she were trying to say that it was going to be all right. That she was there for me. My little piece of Molly.
The funeral was way too long, and yet it was finished in a flash. My mom and Jack took Joy to my apartment while my father and I roasted in the scorching August sun as we stood in the cemetery and laid Molly to rest. I was grateful he was there to drive me to my apartment, because I couldn’t focus on anything. My mind wandered in a hundred different directions, from lists of things I needed to get settled prior to returning to work to when Joy’s diaper had last been changed to whether I had anything in the fridge for dinner.
Of course, my mom thought of everything. Upon arriving at my apartment, I discovered that she had not only fed, changed, and put Joy down for a nap, but she’d sent Jack for some fast food for dinner and had even put in a grocery order for me.
I hadn’t realized at the time that she’d been laying the groundwork for her most insidious plot.
“Sweetheart, I think you need to consider moving back to Phoenix,” she said the second I walked into the living room after changing out of my suit.
“What?” I gasped. My heart lurched in my chest, and I froze on my way to the sofa.
“Think about it. You’re not prepared to raise a baby.” Her tone was gentle and comforting, but it didn’t make her words any less painful.
“I’ll get there,” I snapped. “All of this was dropped on my head. Other than Molly creating those legal documents as a precaution, we never talked about me ever having custody of Joy. I need some time to get on my feet. Joy and I will fall into a rhythm in no time at all.”
“Park, your mom is just trying to think of both you and the baby,” my father called from the kitchen, where he was putting away the groceries that had arrived.
Jack jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands together. “You know, I think I’m going to head to the hotel and check in on my wife.”
I threw my older brother a dark look as the bastard beat a hasty retreat out my door before anyone could argue with him. Best to get out of firing range. If he didn’t, there was always the risk of my mother meddling in his life once she was finished with mine. Not that he needed help. He’d married Heather, who was a stricter version of my mother. She not only kept up with their two little ones, but she was adept at keeping my older brother in line as well.
After dropping onto an empty spot on the sofa, I motioned to the piles of baby supplies and whatnot I’d taken from Molly’s place. Right now, there was just too much stuff crammed into too small of a space, even though I had a rather spacious two-bedroom apartment. “Look, I know things are chaotic around here, but it’s temporary.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m not talking about this. I know how tidy you had your home prior to Joy’s arrival. I’m not talking about that. What I mean is later, things are going to come up and you’re going to need help. You don’t have a solid support system set up here if you need help. All your family is in Phoenix. Joy’s other grandparents are in Phoenix. What if you were to get sick? I can’t always hop on a plane?—”
“There’s no way I would ask you to or even expect it,” I cut her off. My teeth ached as I clenched them to hold in the anger that was rising to blot out my common sense. She wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings or imply that I depended on her to get by in life. This was her way of trying to do what was best for her kid. And it was damned hard for her to do that from eighteen hundred miles away.
“Park, you have to think about what’s best for Joy.”
“I am considering Joy.” After sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I straightened in my seat and glanced from my mom to my dad standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. “I appreciate your help. More than I can ever say. However, please keep in mind that I have a life here. I’m happy here. Molly was happy here and wanted to give Joy a life in this city. I feel like I owe it to them to at least try to do that.”
“But Parker…” she started again, but stopped when I held up one hand.
“I know it’s going to be hard, and yes, you’re going to get some very random phone calls about weird things coming out of the baby or whether she’s too young to give peanut butter?—”
“Yes,” my mother and father answered in unison.
I rolled my eyes. That hadn’t been a genuine question. I knew at least that much.
“The point is, I want to at least try to make it work here for a while before I throw in the towel and admit defeat.”
Mom scooted down the couch and took one of my balled fists in her hands. “You are not admitting defeat by asking for help. Moving to Phoenix isn’t admitting defeat. Everyone needs help. I believe in the old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. My heart weeps for those people who have no choice but to bring up a child without help. It doesn’t make sense for you to choose that path if you don’t have to.”
“I know. I just—I was getting my life settled here. To pick up and begin from scratch in Phoenix…” My head dropped so that my chin nearly touched my chest. Of course, everything was up in the air now with Joy. My big plans were put on pause, and I was going to need to scrap everything anyway, but I at least had a foothold on things here in Cincinnati. I had some friends, though no one as close as Molly was.
Molly and I had grown up in Phoenix, but we’d moved the hell out of there for college and never returned. We’d attended college at the University of Cincinnati and decided to stay. We liked the town, and after four years of school, it had become home for us. Nearly ten years later, the idea of moving back to Arizona felt so weird and foreign to me.
My entire life had changed in a heartbeat, but I felt confident that I could work Joy into all my routines here in Cincy. Going to Arizona would be too much change for both of us.
“Let me try it for six months,” I blurted out. “Let me at least try it. Joy and I have been together for less than a week. During that time, it’s been getting all her things here and settled. Then arranging the funeral and locating all the information that Molly had for Joy’s doctor. Not to mention working out the health insurance. We have had nothing that might resemble a normal day yet.”
Mom sighed heavily, but before she could speak, my dad cut in.
“He’s right, Lenny. He hasn’t been given a chance to find his footing. It’s only fair to him.”
“What about what’s fair for Joy?” My mother huffed.
“If life were fair, she wouldn’t have lost her mom.” I narrowed my gaze at her. “Did you do this with Jack at Olivia’s birth?” I asked, mentioning my oldest niece and Jack’s first child. “Were you worried about what’s fair for Olivia when it came to how Jack was raising her?”
“Well, no, but Jack has…”
“Jack has Heather,” I finished for her.
My mom huffed again and looked as if she were trying hard not to make an annoyed face at me. “I love your brother, you know that, but Jack has no common sense. He would have been lost without his wife. Still would be.”
I turned my hand in hers so that I could squeeze it. “Mom, no new parent knows what the hell they’re doing. You figure it out. You ask doctors and read books. Do you think I don’t have enough common sense to figure this out?”
“No, of course not. I just don’t want you to have all this on your shoulders alone.”
“I know, and I won’t. You and Dad will be there to answer my questions and cheer us on from Phoenix. And if things get too hard or more than I can handle, I will seriously consider moving back.”
“I think that’s a smart way to approach it,” Dad chimed in.
My eyes shot to my mom’s face. Her smile was tight and worry dug deep lines in the corners of her eyes, but after a second, she nodded as well. “Okay. As long as you know that we’re always there for you and Joy. ”
A pent-up breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in rushed out of me. Their support meant the world to me, but not nearly as much as their belief that I could handle this. I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had to believe I could figure this out. That I could at least try for Molly and Joy.