Chapter 3
Solo swung into the alley beside the garage and hit the dumpster.
Normally, that would’ve set off a stream of expletives and had her jumping out of the car to inspect the damage.
Today though, her triplets were lined up facing the custom-made maroon leather backrest in the rear of her vehicle, and they were all asleep.
Even Tia, and at this time of day, that was as rare as rocking horse shit.
But maybe that was down to Janie not being in the house, and after the night Solo and the triplets had endured, the last thing she wanted to do was wake them.
She pulled into her spot and got out of the car, with only rocket-fuel coffee and sugar keeping her upright.
Gabe was already in the doorway at the back entrance and began to walk toward her.
Keep it together. One bro-hug from Gabe, and Solo feared she’d dissolve into a puddle of useless pus at her feet.
“Fuck off,” she said when Gabe got close enough and opened up her arms for exactly that purpose.
Gabe pressed her lips together and dropped her arms to her side. “Got it.” She peered into the backseat and blew out a loud breath. “You overdose her on Benadryl? That’s the first time I’ve seen that kid with her eyes closed.”
Solo huffed. “I’d laugh if I wasn’t so fucked. None of us got much sleep last night.”
“I’m sorry, bud. This stinks.” Gabe stepped back from the car and shook her head. “Shay and RB have arranged a baby-friendly space in the DFAC. And Woody’s set up CCTV to some of the monitors downstairs, so you keep an eye on them while you’re working.”
“Great,” Solo said, unable to apply the illusion of conviction to her words. She popped the trunk and hauled out the triplets’ stroller. “I’ll start on this side.” She opened the door closest to Luna.
“Good idea.” Gabe joined her. “Leave the leader until last.”
Solo gave a half-smile. “The great Gabe Jackson is scared of my tiny Tia. If only I could tell the rest of the squad.”
Gabe shoved Solo lightly and jutted her chin. “They wouldn’t believe you.”
“Probably not.” No one other than Janie took her seriously, and now she was gone.
“Solo?”
“What?” She looked at Gabe, who gestured toward her chest. Solo looked down to see Luna and her bucket seat in her arms. When had she unclipped the retainer and taken her out? “Uh, yeah…” She clipped the car seat directly into the stroller and leaned into the back to get Chloe.
Gabe adjusted Chloe’s purple beanie after Solo had fitted her seat alongside Luna. “It’s going to be eighty-degrees today, right?”
“But right now, it’s only fifty.” Solo pushed the stroller around to the other side and opened the door to retrieve Tia. “I know how to look after my kids, Gabe.”
Gabe held up her hands. “Of course you do. I’m sorry.” She tapped her watch. “It looks like you’re good here; I’m going to lower the flag to half-mast.”
Solo glanced at her own wrist to see it was bare. Christ, she didn’t remember taking her watch off. She turned quickly as Gabe headed off. “What time is it?”
“It’s zero seven twenty-eight,” Gabe said. “We’ll be in the DFAC waiting for you.”
Solo shook her head. You can take the sarge out of the army, but you can’t take the army out of the sarge.
RB had built a nice-looking room for them all to eat and have some downtime; it was more than a dining facility, and they really should call it something else, something more civilian. Like a breakroom.
Conscious she didn’t have much time before the official ceremony to mark the 9/11 attacks began, she moved as quickly as she dared to unbuckle Tia and fasten her into the remaining stroller space.
She needed her luck to hold a while longer and keep the triplets asleep.
It was tough enough having to bring them to work any day, but on a day when she and the gang wanted to be in total silence six times, she’d need a miracle to keep the triplets quiet.
Solo locked the car and headed into the garage. Woody and RB were waiting at the foot of the stairs, and without a word, they helped her carry the stroller up to the breakroom. For the first time in too long, she smiled genuinely when she saw what the gang had done.
In the corner of the room, a large walk-in tent had been erected, and the door flaps were tied back, revealing three cots lined up along the wall.
Each of them had a color-coded mobile: orange for Tia, green for Luna, and purple for Chloe.
In front of the tent was a giant playpen containing all sorts of age-appropriate toys in the girls’ colors.
Solo looked above it to see a camera trained on the area and another one just inside the tent.
There would never have been a good time for her wife to have walked out, but at least she’d waited until Solo was surrounded by her friends again, and she could rely on them to help her pick up the pieces.
Her smile was quickly followed by a burning sensation at the back of her eyes, and she looked up at the ceiling, willing her imminent tears to fuck right off.
God, she’d gone soft. What would Gabe and the others think if she started spurting happy tears just because they’d done something nice?
Solo looked at it again. It was a damn sight more than something nice.
It was spectacular. Honestly, she hadn’t thought it through, beyond the inflatable playpen she’d shoved into the trunk.
And their food. And nappies. And wipes. And a few toys…
Maybe she’d been more organized than she’d given herself credit for, but still, this looked more permanent and less of an imposition.
And they’d obviously all been working on it since she’d texted Gabe yesterday afternoon to tell her Janie had left and she’d have to bring the babies into work.
“You like it?” Shay slapped Solo on the back.
Solo swallowed hard and turned to face her. “I love it. Thanks, everyone.”
There was a chorus of dismissive noises and hand gestures, making her glad she’d ushered her tears away. RB and Woody would’ve ribbed her for life if she’d shed so much as one drop of salty liquid onto RB’s custom-made flooring.
Shay nudged her shoulder and pointed to Tia. “Gabe says the orange one is the little human we should all suck up to. Is that right?”
“Tia.” Solo nodded. “If you want a quiet life, yeah.”
“And the one in green is like a little Buddha?”
Solo chuckled at the characterization. “I hadn’t thought of Luna like that before, but I guess that’s a perfect way to describe her. She’s kind of oblivious to Tia’s powerplays and Zens out when Chloe is having a crying fit.”
“And Tia messes with Chloe, the one in purple, quite a lot?” Shay asked quietly.
“Tia messes with everyone and anyone.” Solo grinned at her eldest, who looked like an angel when she was asleep. But when she was awake, she could give any fallen angel a run for their money. “And Griff is her mighty steed.”
Shay frowned. “Griff is the dog?”
“Yep,” Solo said. “He’s with a neighbor today, but I’ve got to figure something else out. And soon.”
“It’s time,” Gabe said as she turned up the NPR broadcast.
Solo turned as she registered the victims’ names being read out, and she and Shay joined the rest of the gang in the center of the room, lined up side by side.
They all assumed the parade rest position and clasped their hands behind their backs.
A few minutes later, the bell tolled to indicate the first moment of silence.
She could remember exactly where she was when she heard that Flight 11 had hit the North Tower, could still smell the hot Syrian desert air that she’d never gotten used to, even after two years.
It had been the hottest part of the day due to the thermal lag, which was useful for once, because her intense sweating had disguised her tears.
In the minutes following, one by one, the gang had found each other and come together, reinforcing their bond in the face of the horrendous attack on their homeland.
Now she kept her eyes front, and her gaze unfocused, though she was praying that none of the triplets woke during what was left of the minute’s silence.
And she fought the tears, not just for the victims but also for the state of her family.
The silence gave oxygen and space to all the swirling thoughts of darkness that she’d been desperately trying to quash for the sake of the girls.
Because every time she thought about how their perfect little family was now broken, the grief threatened to drown her in her own tears.
And as much as part of her wanted to slide down that snake into a pit of despair, the rest of her was battling hard to stay present so she could keep the triplets safe.
Another bell sounded, and Gabe turned the radio down slightly, so that it was still loud enough to hear the reading of the names as it continued. She gestured to the monitor showing their first customers waiting outside. “Looks like our sign worked,” she said as she headed downstairs to open up.
RB and Woody followed, and RB pointed to the wall clock fashioned from giant gears. “We’ll be back in sixteen minutes.”
Shay put her hand on Solo’s shoulder. “Take some time to settle your kids in. None of us can really start any work until after ten thirty anyway.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t trust her voice to hold, so she just watched Shay jog down the stairs, her braids bouncing on her shoulders.
Solo drew in a deep breath and walked back to the stroller.
Mercifully, all three of her girls were still fast asleep, so she wheeled them into the darkness of the tent.
She decided she wouldn’t disturb them by putting them in their new cots.
There was no point waking them before they were ready.
They’d all be super grumpy if she did. And after the lack of sleep they’d all had last night, it might even be possible that they’d sleep through the rest of the moments of silence and even through to lunch.
Boy, they’d be hungry then, and Chloe would probably scream the place down.
Solo couldn’t see the rest of the gang wanting to put up with this situation long-term, but what the hell was she supposed to do about it?
Her cell buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out to see her dad’s smiling face on the screen.
She swallowed hard. It’d taken her two years before she’d changed the picture of her parents to just him, but the absence of her mom, both literally and on screen, hit harder than usual, and she made a note to change it back when she had a second.
“Is it okay that I’m calling, Han?” her dad asked. “I waited until after 8:46 Eastern.”
“Sure. Is something wrong?”
“I was calling to ask you that,” he said. “I didn’t get my Sunday family time last night, and you didn’t answer any of my calls. I was starting to get worried.”
“I’m…” She choked on her attempt at a casual response.
Of course she wasn’t fine. Her life was falling apart, and she’d had to bring her children to a greasy, stinky garage because her wife had left her, and their nanny had quit earlier the same week to concentrate on her artwork.
Solo wished she’d never encouraged the young woman to open up about her passions.
“Han? What’s wrong?”
Solo dropped onto a nearby couch. “Everything,” she said, then somehow managed to get the whole sorry story out of her mouth in between long silences, where she glared at the ceiling and pinched her neck hard to prevent her tears from falling.
“I’ll get on a flight today,” he said. “My buddies Eric and Jeff will pack the house up and send everything after me.”
Solo laughed, not because it was funny, but because it just didn’t seem possible. “Don’t be crazy, Pops. You can’t upend your life…” Just because mine is falling apart.
“I’ve been wanting a change anyway, and this is just the motivation I needed,” he said.
She shook her head, not quite believing that her dad could be the solution to her current problems. “But you love Florida.”
“I loved your mom, so I loved anywhere she was.” He coughed, half disguising the slight break in his voice. “This place is making me old before my time. Everyone is three decades older than me and wants to play golf all day, every day. I want to see my grandbabies.”
Solo wavered. “I don’t know, Pops. You haven’t mentioned being unhappy before.
It kind of feels like you’re saying what you think I need to hear, so I won’t feel guilty about dragging you halfway across the country to rescue me.
Again.” She’d lost count of the times he’d come to her aid when she was a kid, getting into all types of trouble.
“You’ll be doing me a favor, I swear,” he said. “If I stay in this place any longer, I’ll be dead in a few years, and that would be something for you to feel guilty about.”
Solo snorted. “How’d you figure?”
“Because you’re blocking me from making a change right now. What if you say no to me moving closer to you and the girls, and I drop dead of boredom next week? How will that make you feel,” he said, sounding like he had to muffle a chuckle.
She looked across at the triplets, still fast asleep in the makeshift tent.
The gang had done her proud, and there hadn’t been a whiff of irritation or judgment that they’d had to create a nursery at breakneck speed just because Solo couldn’t keep her wife happy.
But really, how practical was it for her to be spraying a car and have to keep breaking off to tend to the triplets?
She couldn’t just stop in the middle of a panel. “Are you sure?”
“I’m more than sure,” he said. “I’m one-hundred percent certain.
Go on, get off the phone, so you’re ready for the next moment of silence.
I’ll book my flight and send you the details.
And don’t worry about picking me up from the airport; I’ll rent a car.
You can hook me up with something more permanent when you’ve got time.
See you tonight,” he said and hung up before she could say anything else.
Solo sank deeper onto the couch, but her dad’s imminent arrival lightened the heavy feeling in her heart just a little.
He’d always been there for her, no matter what scrapes and stupid situations she got herself into.
She couldn’t wait for him to arrive, but she had a nasty ache in her gut that told her he wouldn’t be able to make everything all right this time.