Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Gage
As was the case when there was a house full of kids, chaos ensued by the second day Kylie was home.
And chaos was the theme of the day if the yelling and arguing were anything to go by. As usual, the kids couldn’t seem to agree on anything—what to have for breakfast, what to watch on TV, what craft to work on, what to eat for lunch. And so on and so on.
It probably didn’t help that they had been home for two days and were officially outside of their normal routine.
With the exception of Kate, the newness of Kylie’s return had worn off, and their energy level had ramped up.
Since we had kept them home from school so they could spend some time with their mother, they were quickly getting on each other’s nerves.
That wasn’t to say that all of them were accepting Kylie’s presence as a positive.
With the exception of Kate, who had practically been molded to her mother’s side whenever we were in the house, the others were a bit standoffish.
Kade was keeping his distance, skeptical that he could trust what was going on.
Avery was keeping one eye on Kylie at all times, probably wondering when she would disappear again.
Haden wasn’t necessarily staying away from her, but rather treating her like a friend who was visiting.
And Maddox … well, he was quiet as usual.
He seemed to have a connection with his mother that the others didn’t, but he, too, was still uncertain.
Not that I was worried about their reactions.
This homecoming was likely a shock to their systems. They’d lost their mother.
One minute she was there, then she was gone.
And she’d stayed gone for so long, some of that loss had begun to dissipate, and a new normal had been created.
Suddenly thrust right back into the emotional storm, they probably weren’t sure what to think or do.
“All right, hold up,” I said sternly, interrupting their most recent argument: which coloring book they got to use.
Kade and Avery looked up at me, eyes wide. Maddox peered on as though he didn’t have a care in the world. And he probably didn’t. He was our chill baby. Haden took the opportunity to steal the coloring book he wanted right out of Kade’s hands.
Which incited another argument.
Grinding my molars together, I looked up at the ceiling and prayed for patience. I was on my fifteenth deep breath when Travis walked into the kitchen. He whistled once and suddenly everything was silent.
“That’s enough.”
“But—”
“I said that’s enough. Kade, Avery, I talked to Pop. He’s gonna swing by and pick you up.”
“Yay!” they shouted in unison.
“Maddox and Haden, you two get to go see Ms. Bristol.”
Haden clapped, and Maddox stared, a goofy grin forming on his cute little face. The boy did love going to daycare.
Leave it to Travis to solve the problem.
“And Kate?” I asked, figuring he had a plan for her, too.
“She’s gonna stay here with Kylie.”
“I wanna stay here, too,” Avery said, her gaze darting toward the door separating the kitchen from the living room.
“Pop said he’s got some work for you and Kade to do.”
Her eyes widened. “He does?”
“Yep.”
“I wanna do wowk,” Haden said seriously.
I looked down and grinned. This could go on forever if we let it.
“Later,” Travis told him.
“When?”
It was a legitimate question, but Travis handled it well. He walked over and scooped Haden up, tossing him into the air and catching him easily before draping him over his shoulder, making him giggle more. “Let’s go hang with Ms. Bristol.”
“Wooo!” Haden squealed.
Yeah. What he said.
An hour later, I was pulling up to the storage building I’d rented to keep Kylie’s things.
I still remember the day I came here to rent it.
I’d been conflicted about getting rid of her stuff.
Not because I believed she would need them—we’d believed she was dead—but I’d been worried there might’ve been something that held an emotional connection, and we wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.
Granted, it had likely been simply grief since, by the time we got around to removing her things from the house, she’d been gone for almost a year.
After parking, I got out and headed for the door. I used the key to unlock the padlock, then removed it. I grabbed the handle on the large bay door and lifted, letting it slide up on the track and out of the way.
“You kept everything.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered Travis anyway. “I did.”
Neither of us said anything at that point. What was there to say? If we had gotten rid of it, we wouldn’t have it now. And no, I didn’t believe fate played a part in it at all. I’d merely been too grief-stricken to let go of my wife.
“When are the movers comin’?” Travis asked.
“I didn’t call them,” I admitted. “I figured I’d make a few trips, clean it out myself.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I thought that meant Travis was done, but he surprised me by walking into the space and grabbing a stack of boxes.
“You’re gonna help?”
“Of course I am,” he grunted under the weight of the boxes. “We’ll take what we can now, then swing by Walker Demo and grab one of the trailers.”
That would definitely make it easier.
So that was what we did.
Kylie
Kate and I were sitting on the front porch when Travis and Gage returned with the truck and trailer, weighed down with more of the things from the storage unit.
Apparently, they’d kept all of my things rather than donate them to charity.
According to Gage, that had been the plan, but he’d been unable to let go.
I probably shouldn’t have found relief in that explanation, but I did.
I was still trying to come to terms with them moving on, and though it was getting a bit easier to move around the house and not feel like a complete stranger, I still felt as though I didn’t quite belong.
The house was no longer home. Not to me.
Not yet. Right now, it was their home, and I was merely a guest, invited to come in and stay a while.
I figured at some point it would be my home again. Or rather, I hoped it would.
“Do you wanna keep all your stuff?” Kate asked from beside me.
“Probably not all of it,” I admitted, peering down at my little girl, who wasn’t quite so little anymore.
She wasn’t yet eight, but I got the sense she’d grown up a lot in the past couple of years.
What she’d been through had changed her.
It pained me that I hadn’t been there for her.
And thinking about that reignited my hatred for Martin Calloway.
Forcing him from my thoughts, I took a deep breath. I would deal with him later. For the moment, I wanted to enjoy time with my daughter.
The one thing that had stayed the same was Kate’s sweetness. And her beauty. In fact, she’d gotten even prettier in the past two years. Her dark hair was longer, her eyes more almond-shaped like Gage’s.
“I missed you,” I told Kate as I looked out at what Travis and Gage were doing. “I thought about you all the time.”
“Did you really?”
“All the time,” I assured her. “I thought about all the things we used to do. Sometimes I would imagine you were there with me because I didn’t want to be alone.” I smiled as I remembered. “You would tell me to hang on a little while longer.”
“That’s what you told me,” Kate said.
I looked at her. “When?”
“In my dreams. You would tell me to hang on a little while longer, so I did.” Her dark brown eyes met mine. “I knew you were comin’ home.”
A sob erupted in my chest at the thought of my sweet baby clinging to hope. She’d had no idea that I was alive, but somehow our love for each other was strong enough to travel the distance.
“Don’t be sad, Mommy,” Kate whispered.
I chuckled softly. “I’m not sad, baby. I’m happy. And grateful to be home. I’ve missed so much.”
“Do you wanna see pictures?”
Wiping a tear away, I nodded. “I would love to.”
“Okay.” She hopped up from the swing. “Stay there.”
I laughed as she took off down the steps, making a beeline for her fathers. She ran straight to Gage. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but a moment later, Gage passed over his phone. Kate planted a quick kiss on his cheek and then ran back toward me, a huge grin on her face.
She took her seat beside me once more, and I divided my attention between watching her pull up what she wanted to see and Travis and Gage unstrapping their haul.
“This was durin’ the snowpocalypse,” she said, turning the phone so we could both see. “We made a snowmommy.”
My eyebrows jumped. “A snowmommy?”
“Yep. So much cooler than a snowman.”
I laughed, looking at the images on the screen. The snowmommy, as she referred to it, was rather impressive despite its lack of snow.
“Are those my sunglasses?”
Kate nodded. “And your scarf. The rainbow one. Remember that?”
I giggled. “Oh, yeah. I remember.”
“Dad takes lots of pictures,” Kate explained. “So we’ve got a little bit of everything.”
“Do you have a phone yet?” I asked, curious since she seemed so adept at handling that one.
“No. Not yet. I want one for my birthday, but it’s okay if I don’t get one.”
“Why’s that?”
She looked up at me, so much love in her beautiful face. “Because you’re home. That’s the best birthday and Christmas present ever.”
Kate sounded so sincere as she said it, and it was then that I found the section of the puzzle where I was supposed to go. Where I fit. I wasn’t quite in the place I belonged, but I sensed I was inching closer.