Chapter 6
Six
“ H ey, Cannon. We’ve been expecting you.” Philip, his brother-in-law, opened the door and stepped back so Cannon could go in.
Monique, his sister, walked over, a baby in each arm. “Cannon. You came to see your nieces finally.”
“I did?” he murmured, and then he realized that he’d just told them he was coming, he hadn’t mentioned why. “Right. They look cute,” he said, looking at them and then back up at her.
“Where’s Lauren?” she asked.
This was going to be more awkward than he anticipated.
He had assumed that she would be here. After all, she and Monique had found out that they were expecting together.
Twice now, they’d celebrated together and been so excited.
And twice, Lauren had lost her baby, while Monique had had a son first and then twin daughters.
He just assumed that Lauren would want to go where the babies were. She was such a baby person.
She loved children. That’s why she became a teacher. He didn’t really understand the pull, but hey, if that’s what his wife liked, he was okay with it.
“She’s not here?” he asked, and he knew immediately that he had just opened a huge can of worms .
“She’s not here. Was she supposed to be?” Philip had shut the door and came over and stood beside them.
“I just assumed she was.”
“No, she’s not.”
Lonnie, the three-year-old son, zipped through the room, making truck noises and dodging around people and furniture and several toys that were strewn around.
“Watch the babies, son,” Philip said in a tired voice that almost made Cannon laugh. If he hadn’t been so concerned about his wife, he probably would have.
As it was, he couldn’t figure out where in the world she would be. She must have gone to Raspberry Ridge. And he found himself irritated that he’d texted her, specifically asked her to let him know if she wasn’t here, and she hadn’t.
He just assumed that meant she was. And he’d figured he was pretty clever for figuring it out.
Now he didn’t know what to do.
“Sit down. You can hold them. Are your hands clean?” Monique said while she kind of ushered him into a chair. He found himself going and sitting without even really thinking about it, and before he knew it, he had a twin in each arm.
They were so tiny, they looked so fragile, and they were ugly as sin.
Who in the world thought babies were cute?
Although, as he studied the one face, he could kinda see Monique in there. And to his surprise, he picked out a few features that looked like his brother-in-law too.
Wow. That seemed almost like a miracle.
It would be another miracle if the kids actually grew up looking halfway decent after starting out life looking the way they did.
Their faces were all scrunched up, and they looked a little bit like monkeys.
He could understand why people believed in evolution.
Although, being in the security business, he knew that things were often not the way they seemed.
And looks could be very, very deceiving.
But not Lauren. Lauren was as solid as a rock. How could she have left him?
“Quick, let me get my phone out and take a picture. I don’t know if we’ll ever get you to hold them again. We kept asking for a picture of you with Lonnie when he was a baby, and we never got another one.”
“You have plenty of pictures of Lauren, and that was good enough for me.” He loved looking at the pictures of his wife.
His sister always sent them to him, every time Lauren went down to visit, and she always looked amazing to him.
So alive, so happy, beaming with joy. It was always a nice break from taking care of her mom.
He didn’t mind the added expense of hiring someone to care for her mother while she was away for a day or two.
He’d always done right by her.
Except, sometimes she’d come back with the deep sadness that he wanted to be able to assuage but could never quite touch.
It wasn’t his fault that they couldn’t have a child.
She’d lost three that he knew of. Maybe more.
She just didn’t seem to be able to carry them.
But they kept trying. He enjoyed that part of course.
He figured trying was the fun part. Actually raising the kid…
He wasn’t so sure about that. But he’d do it for Lauren, because he’d do anything for Lauren.
And she knew it. Except…she’d left. And why?
“Hold still there,” Philip said, sitting down in a comfortable recliner facing his brother-in-law and looking lovingly at his wife, who hovered a little bit by Cannon’s elbow.
He wouldn’t mind if she took the kids back.
The longer he held them, the more he was afraid he was going to do something to hurt them or drop them.
“She left the apartment, and I assumed that she came here.”
“She didn’t tell you where she was going?” Philip asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“She left a note?” Monique said, and she had the same suspicious look on her face that his brother-in-law had. Like he had done something wrong.
“She left a note, but it didn’t say where she was going. And no. If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t have shown up here.”
“Do you think something happened to her? Do you think she had a car accident?”
“The police would have contacted me, wouldn’t they? I’m her husband after all.”
Just because she apparently was a little bit miffed at him didn’t mean the police weren’t going to call him if something happened to her. He was still her husband.
“I would assume so. Unless she asked them not to.”
“Why would she do that? She’s married to me.
” He felt irritated at this line of questioning.
And he also felt antsy, like he’d messed up, and now he needed to run to Raspberry Ridge.
But then, what if she wasn’t there? What was he going to do then?
Because those were the two places he knew to look for her.
If he didn’t find her there, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
“Why did she leave you?” Monique asked, and only a sister could get away with a question like that. She didn’t seem the slightest bit upset about asking him either. She asked like it was her right. “What did the note say?” she said when he took a second to answer.
“Not much. Just that she was leaving. She didn’t seem mad.
She just seemed…” She actually seemed lonely, now that he thought about it.
He supposed he should have realized that she probably would be, with her mother being gone and all.
Maybe he should have taken a couple of days off work and done something with her.
“She seemed?” Monique prompted when he trailed off.
“Sad. Probably sad would be the best word.” He didn’t want to say lonely. Because that made it look like he was doing something wrong. And how was he supposed to know that she needed him to be with her if she didn’t say? After all, she had a mouth. She could talk.
But he knew that being married meant sometimes knowing things without being told.
Or figuring things out. After all, the Bible did say that a man was to dwell with his wife according to knowledge.
He knew it was his responsibility to have knowledge of his wife, and…
as he thought about it, he might have shirked his duties a little bit, but for good cause, since he was trying to build his business.
For some reason, it reminded him of Saul when he had taken the cattle and herds that he wasn’t supposed to, and when Samuel jumped him about it, he said that he was going to use it as a sacrifice.
He tried to make it sound like he was doing a good thing, even when he knew he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
That wasn’t exactly the point of the passage, but it seemed to apply right now to him. He had been doing what he thought was a good thing, but he knew that he had shirked his duty.
Well, as soon as he got to her, he’d apologize, and Lauren would forgive him, because she always did, and that would be that.
“Do you want to take these babies? I keep thinking I’m gonna drop one.”
“You know they have names,” his sister said, moving down to grab one.
“This one is Arianne, and this one is Mary Lou,” she said as she expertly scooped the babies up.
He figured they were six weeks or two months by now.
Something like that. Lauren had come down and helped Monique for a few days after they’d been born, but her mother had been in such bad shape, she hadn’t stayed long.
He’d figured she’d want to come back and spend more time with them. It made sense to him. But apparently he’d guessed wrong.
“I know. I just can’t tell them apart. I can’t believe you can.”
“Sometimes we do have trouble. We always dress Arianne in green, and Mary Lou gets pink.”
“That’s hardly fair. I’d hate to be the one who’s always dressed in pink,” he said.
His sister let out a laugh. “Maybe you better worry about your wife rather than the color of baby clothes.”
“Or the state of your marriage,” Philip said softly, but Cannon heard.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, shifting but not getting up. He was hoping that perhaps Monique had an idea of where his wife was. But he was going to have to take the grilling and the questioning if he wanted to find out what she knew.
“Just that you spend a lot of time on your business, and I think your wife felt neglected for a while.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“It might not be our business, but it’s the truth.
” Monique stood in front of him, a baby in each arm, looking at him with her older sister glare.
“She’s been through a really rough time.
Not only did she lose three babies in the last three years, but she lost her mom as well.
And you haven’t really been around to comfort her. ”