Chapter 2
Roman
“Steve! Steve! Where are youuuuuu?”
I roll my eyes and slump against the counter. All I wanted was a few minutes of quiet with a cup of coffee before I did possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
But of course fucking Steve has to go and ruin it.
My daughter races into the kitchen, the pounding of her feet echoing off the hardwood. No wonder why Steve always hides. He’s a skittish son of a bitch, and she’s basically a wild pony disguised as a little girl.
“Daddy!” She pants as if she’s run a marathon. “I looked all over, and I can’t find Steve!”
I swallow down a gulp of my coffee, watching her in silence. This game we play always makes her giggle. Her informing me of her latest mystery—she can’t find her Elsa Crocs, lost the TV remote, missing her hairbrush—and me staring at her until she confesses that she didn’t really look.
“I checked under the couch!”
I sip my coffee.
“And under my bed.”
With a sigh, I set down my mug. There’s no way around it. I gotta get on all fours to find this floppy-eared motherfucker.
Mazie crawls next to me, doing her best to appear as if she’s searching for him, but she’s merely laughing at me.
I check all his favorite hiding spots. In the closet, which is why it needs to stay closed; behind the television stand, which is why I set up the stupid wired gate around it; and in my bedroom, beats the hell out of me why that fur ball likes to hang out in there.
The house is a ranch, so there aren’t many places he can hide. And yet it takes me ten minutes to locate him. Behind the toilet, up on his hind legs, cleaning himself by licking his paws and running them down his long ears, tugging them toward his face.
Fucking adorable.
I slowly reach out my hand, holding my breath.
He freezes in profile, studying me with one beady eyeball, nose scrunching up and down.
Prey and predator.
I nab him and bring him to my chest as Mazie throws her hands up, cheering. “You got him, Daddy! Good job!”
Steve nestles against my pec, and I hold him close, stroking my thumb between his ears, dipping my chin to kiss him. Because, yeah, I love the little guy.
Mazie begged me for months to get her a rabbit. The counselor at her last school had an emotional support rabbit, and Mazie spent a lot of time in her office. After hearing about that goddamn rabbit for so long, I finally gave in.
Steve’s not the easiest animal to take care of, but he’s cute as shit.
And Mazie really does love him.
Plus, he is an excellent emotional support animal. Like right now, with my anxiety bubbling right below the surface, the only things keeping me from completely melting down are my kid and this rabbit.
She tries to pet him, straining her arm up, but I don’t stop my trek back to the living room, to his bunny duplex in the corner.
“Maze, if you’re gonna let him out, you need to watch him.
” I bend, releasing the rabbit so he can hop back into his home.
“If he ever chewed through a wire, Steve wouldn’t live with us anymore. He’d live in bunny heaven.”
When I shut and latch the door, Mazie presses her face against the cage. “I knoooooow.”
“If you know, do it.”
She huffs, and I poke her shoulder. “Watch the attitude.”
She twirls away from me, a puff of pink in her best dress for meeting her aunt and uncles.
I’d started putting my plan in motion over a year ago, waiting until I had everything in order—money in the bank, my job in place, and the house—before I put Mazie and Steve in the car to make the move to a town I haven’t seen in over a decade.
But I’m back to begin a new life for Mazie and me.
And now, I have to face everything and everyone I left behind, starting with my siblings. Taryn, Griffin, and Ian agreed to meet me here at ten, and every minute closer spikes my pulse.
I’m not looking forward to seeing them—I mean… I am. They’re my brothers and sister, but I’m not looking forward to the conversations we need to have. The questions I’m sure they’ll ask. The very possible responses they might have when I give them answers.
My journey back home has been a long time coming, and I understand why they may not accept me with open arms. But as much as it might be a struggle to get back in their good graces, I am here for my daughter.
She deserves a life with a family, one that I can only give her with the very people I turned my back on.
I don’t expect their forgiveness, yet I am hoping for it.
I sweep my gaze around my home as Mazie dances to a song in her head, and it occurs to me one more time how unbelievable it is that I’m here, in the house my parents once owned.
The house my mother used to pace when I cried as a baby.
The house that I don’t have any visual memories of as a child, but that I remember by the scent—a mixture of Tupperware and watermelon.
I don’t know why, but the very vague yet semisweet smell of the fruit always lingered in the back of my mind. Along with plastic. Orange and hard. The feel of my fingers against the accordion lids.
The first thing I did when I received the keys was to search high and low for where the smell came from.
I couldn’t pinpoint it. Nor could I find any of the vintage Tupperware I assumed my mother used to own, which is why it’s always been in my memory.
Obviously, it was nowhere to be found, but I needed to search anyway.
To be sure.
I don’t have many pieces of my childhood left, and even fewer of them pleasant memories, but what I do have all start and end with Mom. And I knew that if I wanted to give Mazie the life she deserved, I had to come back to where my mother gave me the life I threw away.
The one I always should have had.
I don’t realize how much time has passed before the doorbell rings, and I’m stunned into place. I knew it was coming, that they were coming, but now that the moment is here, I can’t make myself move.
Fear washes over me, and I briefly wonder if they’d think I’d lost it by carrying Steve around with me.
“Daddy! They’re here!” Mazie screeches from somewhere in the house, probably her bedroom, with the big window that looks out front.
My palms turn clammy and my mouth goes dry as I shuffle toward the front door, my feet heavy, all of my practiced words evaporating from my brain the closer I step to it.
I place my hand on the knob, my heart beating out of my chest, my throat clogged.
I open the door, muscles so tense they’re vibrating, and I hold myself very still, bracing for the worst as I take in my siblings.
Ian, with his graying beard and hair, a lot older than the last time I saw him yet somehow even more imposing with his muscles and tattoos.
Still the best man I’ve ever known. Griffin and Taryn are behind him, the Irish twins.
I can’t see my brother’s eyes under the shadow of his ball cap, though his scowl is quite clear, while my sister is staring at me slack-jawed.
I don’t know what to do or say, physically unable to move. My organs are barely functioning. My nervous system shut down.
But all at once, Ian has his arms around me, and I’m no longer forty years old. I’m five, hugging my brother after I fell off my bike. I am fifteen when I took Mom’s car out for an illegal drive and banged it up. I am twenty-five when he begged me with tears in his eyes to go to rehab.
My exhale is jagged, finally releasing the breath I’ve been holding so many years, and I hug him back, gripping him hard, my face against his shoulder. Even though I have three inches and quite a few pounds on him, I’ve never felt smaller.
The nagging fear that they very well could turn me away like I did them fades the longer Ian embraces me, and I make sure the sting in my nose and eyes is gone as I step away from him.
Then I shift my gaze beyond his shoulder, ready to greet Taryn and Griffin, who I know will not have the same enthusiasm as our eldest brother, but before I can say anything, Mazie appears at my side, grinning at all of us.
She has been beyond excited to meet everyone ever since I informed her a few weeks ago that we’d be living here so she could hang out with all of her cousins, aunt, and uncles.
She’s practically buzzing, and I place my hand on her head, clearing my throat.
I look at each of my siblings in turn then back to Mazie. “This is my daughter.”
Their stunned gasps are audible and in chorus. “What the fuck?”
Mazie, who delights in cursing, props her fists on her hips. “Yeah, Daddy. What the fuck?”
A moment of shock passes, and then all three of them burst out laughing. Even Griffin, who is more stone-faced than I remember.
But my foulmouthed daughter makes for a good icebreaker, and I open the door wider for them all to enter the house we shared when we were younger.
The moment they step inside, their amusement clears, voices silent as their gazes drift around the walls, maybe trying to imagine what it used to look like since they have more memories than I do.
They had more years here because Ian is twelve years older than me, Griffin four, and Taryn three.
Ian’s the first to take a few tentative steps toward the kitchen, his hand brushing along the doorjamb. “Mom used to measure all our heights here,” he says, after clearing his throat a few times. “I thought…maybe…”
Although I don’t recall her doing that, I had the same thought. Maybe when I opened the door, it would be the same. She would be here.
Taryn crosses the living room, voice quiet. “This used to be carpet.” Then she kneels down to Steve’s house and sticks her finger through the cage, offering him a sniff. When he doesn’t run away, she pets the space between his eyes. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Steve.” Mazie perks up, skipping to my sister’s side. “He’s a Holland lop and a little son of a bitch.”
Taryn shoots her dark eyes to me, her face so much like Mom’s, minus the constant smile. Taryn frowns at me. “I assume she got her mouth from you.”