Chapter 15
Cindy snatched up her squealing niece as the toddler hurdled forwards, arms stretched wide. “Hello, my lovely Sara! I’ve missed you.” Danny, her older-by-eighteen-months nephew, bounced around, waiting for his turn. She dropped down to her knees and pulled him in to join the hug.
She heard Jonas introducing himself to Bill and Juanita. She kissed both faces several times, then stood back. “Guys, do you want to meet my mate, Jonas?” Danny nodded solemnly and Sara ducked her head.
Jonas knelt down next to her. “Hi,” he said. “You must be Danny.” He held out a hand and Danny shook it enthusiastically.
“And you must be Sara.” He held his hand out, but Sara leaned in and kissed his cheek, then buried her face in Cindy’s chest. Cindy picked her up and stood, finally turning to her brother and his mate.
“Hey, kid,” Bill said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m happy for you.”
“Just for me?” she asked with a grin.
“Both of you,” he assured her.
“How about all three of us?” she asked.
His eyes went wide, and then he hugged her again, causing Sara to shriek in laughter from between them.
“Congratulations,” Juanita told her when she finally managed to get her own hug. “That’s fantastic news.”
“We haven’t told anyone yet, it’s very early days, so keep it to yourselves for now.”
They went into the lovely adobe house. Bill had offered to pick them up from the airport, but Cindy had insisted it was easier for them to rent a car. She had agreed that they’d stay a couple of nights, though, so Jonas carried their bag in as well.
Sara ran off to get her doll to show them and Danny countered with his teddy bear. They took turns with Cindy and Jonas, bringing in different toys until there was a small pile on the table and Sara was falling asleep in Jonas’ arms, having long abandoned her initial shyness.
Bill took the kids in for a nap and Juanita brought snacks to the table.
“All right,” Bill said when he returned. “Tell me what’s going on with Mom and Dad.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think you should talk to them about that.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“If they wanted you to know, they’d tell you.” She paused. “Why, what do you know?”
“You guys are third of your pack,” Jonas interrupted. “And according to our alpha, your alpha knows everything. Seems like he’d share that, especially with the son and daughter-in-law of the two people most affected.”
Cindy scowled at her brother. “Yeah.”
Bill’s lips twitched at that, but he didn’t laugh so she didn’t have to hit him. “I wasn’t sure you were in on all of it, and I didn’t want to pass along privileged information just because you’re my sister.”
Cindy rolled her eyes. She couldn’t exactly disagree, but still. Since she believed him, she gave a quick summary.
“Has Mom or Dad said anything to you about the money?” she asked.
“No. I thought about going to talk to them, but wanted to wait since you were coming, see what you think.”
“Now that we know what we know,” Juanita said, “it’s easy to see that they were anxious and upset the last few years. But they never opened up to us.”
Cindy scoffed. “Well, if they didn’t open up to you guys, we know they weren’t going to talk to me about it. At least they weren’t until the Brenda thing happened and they felt they had a reason to yell at me and that would help them.”
Bill shook his head. “They were under a lot of stress, otherwise I can’t imagine them thinking that was okay to do.”
Her gut clenched at the memory. She felt she’d come a long way in not needing their validation and support, but that didn’t mean the lack of it didn’t suck.
Juanita sighed. “I’ve never understood how two people can be such good parents to Bill and our family and such lousy parents to you.”
“They treat you like a typical black sheep, but you don’t have any of the benefits of being a black sheep,” Bill agreed.
She laughed. “I’m the most boring black sheep out there. I never dyed my hair, I never blasted heavy metal, and I went off to support myself with a good career. I suck at being a black sheep.”
Jonas took her hand, knowing that just because she could joke about it, didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
“After Sara was born, Dad and I were having dinner together, just the two of us. I don’t remember where everyone else was.
Anyway, he’d had a couple of beers, and was sipping on a whiskey so he was a little more talkative than normal.
He said that he and Mom had always known they’d have a son, and that he’d be powerful.
” He made rabbit ears with his fingers on the last word.
“And they were totally surprised when you came along. It’s like they never quite believed they were supposed to have a second child. ”
“That sort of makes sense,” she agreed.
“It’s awful,” Jonas said.
“They weren’t terrible to me,” she pointed out. “They just weren’t great. Or even particularly good.”
“Which was made worse by the fact that they were great with me,” Bill added.
“Yeah.”
“I hated that you left, but I was proud of you for doing it, and for doing it so well,” Bill said.
“Aww, I know it. You were good about letting me know. And making me the cool auntie, letting me have that even though I don’t see the kids that often.”
“They love the shit out of you,” he said.
She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she had so many amazing people in her world, she didn’t particularly need those two who’d given her life.
“Anyway, I might go talk to them, but I’m not feeling particularly inclined to bail them out.”
“You better not,” Bill growled. “They have not earned that from you. They still work, they can still save for retirement. We’ll see how things are when it gets closer to that scenario.”
She just raised her eyebrows at him but didn’t argue.
“How is your pack doing? It must be hard having a member of your hierarchy fail her people so badly.”
“It’s been tough,” Juanita said. “People are confused and hurt. The loss of trust is really hard. We’ve had pack members here to dinner most every night so they can talk and vent and get reassurance. They need to spend time with us, confirm their trust in us.”
“To be honest, that’s what gave me the strength to leave all those years ago. Not trusting Brenda, and not trusting that I could share those feelings with Mom and Dad. That’s when I realized staying here was sort of pointless. But I am sorry that I didn’t speak up about Brenda.”
“Oh no, don’t take that on yourself. You didn’t have enough information, you were just out of college, and besides, she wasn’t doing enough for anyone to really call her on it.” Her brother gave her his best stern expression.
“No, but it might have been enough to question her, keep an eye on her.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Bill’s right, none of that is on you, and nobody thinks otherwise,” Juanita said.
A weight she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to lifted. “Okay.”
“Here’s an idea. You tell me if you’re comfortable with it,” Juanita said.
“We take you guys out to a nice dinner, celebrate your finding each other and the pregnancy. We ask our usual babysitters, your mom and dad, to come over while we’re out.
When we get back from dinner, if you feel up to sitting with them, we can do that.
Together. And if you don’t, Bill and I see them off with thanks, as usual. ”
She thought about it. Thought about telling her parents that she and Jonas were having their grandchild, giving them a chance to be better. Was it worth it, to open herself up to that? Maybe.
“Okay. That’s a good plan.”
They went to a wonderful mom-and-pop restaurant with terrible lighting, rustic tables and fantastic steaks. She enjoyed watching her mate get to know her brother and sister-in-law. Jonas was clearly pleased to see that Bill and Juanita were good to her, after the fiasco of meeting her parents.
When they got back to the house, they gathered in the living room. Bill told their parents about the meal, small talk to make things easier. When he was finished, her dad turned to her.
“Cindy, I want—we want—to apologize, for before. We let the situation get out of hand, we were stressed. It’s not an excuse. We should never have treated you that way, and we’re sorry.”
Her mom took his hand. “You’ve been a good daughter. Always. We haven’t told you that.” She looked at Jonas. “You made us look in the mirror, see what we’d done. Or hadn’t done. Thank you for that. And thank you for being there for Cindy.”
Cindy’s throat tightened. She’d told herself she didn’t need their validation, and she didn’t, but it was really, really nice to have it. She took a deep breath. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Her father looked like he was going to launch into more, but she held up a hand. “Let’s leave it at that for now. It’s late and the kids will be up early.”
They looked disappointed, but didn’t argue, just said their goodbyes.
Cindy hugged Bill and Juanita and took Jonas’ hand.
They went into the guest bedroom and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight while they listened to the other two close up the house, turn off the lights, check on the kids.
When they heard the bedroom door close, she lifted her face out of his sweater.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” she whispered.
“It was a lot. You’re allowed to feel that.”
“Let’s go sit on the porch.” She felt like a teenager sneaking out of the house as they tiptoed through the dark rooms to the front door.
It had begun to rain on their drive back from dinner, but the porch was covered.
He grabbed a blanket that was on the back of the living room sofa and wrapped them up in it before sitting them on a chair that wasn’t meant to hold two. But he made it work.
“I want one of those porch swings. With a bunch of pillows,” she told him.
“Bright colors,” he guessed.
“Of course.”
“It should only be a couple more days and the land is officially ours.”
“I’m so happy,” she said.
“Me, too.”
The rain fell all around them, but they were snug in the little cocoon. They’d be able to do this at home, she thought. Watch the rain or the stars. Sit together after a long day, when their own child was asleep inside.
“We have to start thinking of names,” he said. “Start a list.”
“Yeah. And tell your parents. They’ll be so freaking excited. We should think of a fun way to tell them. World’s Best Grandparent shirts, or something like that.”
His arms tightened around her, and she knew she was home. Didn’t matter that she was at her brother’s house, in a different state. Didn’t matter that the beautiful house they wanted to build didn’t exist yet. She was wrapped up in his arms, so she was home.
*****
Thank you for reading Going Deeper!