Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Kylie
Nineteen days.
That was how long I’d been home. Eighteen full days if I wanted to get technical about it. Which I didn’t.
Using the hidden key to Travis’s office, I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
With the Pledge and a dust rag, I gave purpose to my existence by dusting the house, keeping it clean since I had little else to do.
Actually, I had nothing else to do. Coming back from the dead meant coming home to a world where you no longer existed.
Under the ruse of deciding my future, I was passing the time the only way I knew how.
I walked over to Travis’s desk, moving the few items out of the way so I could clean the already clean wooden top. Within a minute, it was gleaming even more than it had been. Then again, I’d cleaned it last Thursday, so there wasn’t much time for dust to collect.
With that done, I took a seat in Travis’s chair and spun around so I could clean the credenza. This was my favorite part because of the framed photos that he kept there. Cleaning in here gave me a chance to reflect back on the good ol’ days.
I wished I could say things were normal again, that I didn’t feel out of place anymore, but that would’ve been asking a lot of those nineteen days.
That amount of time paled in comparison to how long I was gone, so I figured it was to be expected.
It was getting better; I would admit that much.
Mostly. The kids seemed more accepting of my presence with each passing day, although my relationship with each of them was vastly different than before my death.
Picking up the antique brass frame, I smiled at the girl grinning back at me.
The picture was of Kate perched on one of Curtis and Lorrie’s horses.
Evidently, she had started riding lessons last year, and she had taken to it to the point she was asking for her own horse.
From what I could tell, Travis and Gage weren’t on board yet, but they assured her she could still take her weekly lessons at her grandparents’ house.
It was humbling to realize that my daughter had been happy without me.
As for her reaction to me being back … well, Kate was clingy when she used to be so independent.
It took effort to get her to go to school because she insisted she needed to be home with me.
After the first couple of days, I assured her I would be home when she got here. And I was. Every day.
I put the photograph down and picked up the next one.
The frame was distressed wood, the picture inside of a boy with a grin the size of Texas.
It was taken at Kalahari Resorts, during Kade’s sixth birthday party back in September.
His hair was wet and plastered to his head, but he didn’t seem to mind one bit.
He looked so happy there. Much happier than he seemed now that I was back.
Kade was … I wasn’t sure how to describe how he was.
Watchful, perhaps. He was more leery, that was for sure.
More than once, he’d asked me why I made his dads cry when I left, questioned why I would trick them like that.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him what actually happened.
I didn’t want my children to know the horrors that had taken place during that time.
Setting the frame down, I moved to the next one.
It was silver and embedded with glittering stones.
The girl in the photograph looked sweet and shy, the camera capturing her personality perfectly.
Avery was holding a sign that read: First Day of Kindergarten.
I dusted the edges as I studied the picture of the little girl who was always checking on me, ensuring I was still present and accounted for.
At night, Avery would ask me if I would still be around in the morning.
Every night she asked that. I attempted to assure her that I would never leave her again, but I don’t know whether she believed me.
“One day you will,” I assured the little girl in the picture. “I promise.”
Putting that frame back in place, I picked up the next.
Another wooden frame, though this one had jute rope glued around the edges.
The photograph of Haden had been taken at Curtis and Lorrie’s.
He was beaming with pride as he bit into a huge piece of watermelon.
Haden was the one I felt most disconnected from.
I had heard him arguing with Avery that I wasn’t the same mom he used to have.
That broke my heart and made me want to do vile, illegal things to Martin Calloway.
The bastard hadn’t just locked me up for all those months; he’d stolen my children from me.
Repositioning the frame on the credenza, I lifted the next one, my eyes tearing up.
My sweet, sweet Maddox. For some reason, when I looked at the picture of him with his birthday cake, I felt like I’d been there with him that day.
He was the only one who acted as though I had never left.
Which was strange since he’d been so very young.
I was shocked he even knew who I was. He was the same sweet boy I remembered, only bigger and more animated now.
At three, he was a completely different child from the one I had seen on that fateful day when I disappeared from their lives.
I swallowed hard as I set that photo down and picked up the next one. This one was of Travis and Gage standing in front of a magnolia tree. On their wedding day.
My chest tightened with sorrow. Not necessarily because they had married but because they had done as I’d asked in the letter.
Travis had shown it to me a few days ago, the paper worn around the edges because he had kept it in his wallet all this time.
They looked so happy in that picture. So … complete.
Although I hadn’t caught them in the guest bedroom again, neither of them had so much as kissed me.
Every now and then, I would get to cuddle with one of them in the morning, but as time went by, those instances were few and far between.
Initially, I thought they were giving me space, allowing me to acclimate to being home again.
But the more time that passed, I was starting to wonder whether they no longer had those same feelings for me.
Swallowing past the ball of emotion lodged in my throat, I put the frame back and got to my feet. I put Travis’s chair back where it belonged and finished up in the room, dusting all the flat surfaces before heading out, locking the door once more.
Moving around the house, I continued tidying up as I did on most afternoons before the kids were due back from school.
With Travis and Gage at the resort on the regular, I spent a good portion of my time during the day on my own.
Well, when there wasn’t a well-meaning family member stopping by to check on me.
Jessie had come by for the first week or so, but her life was hectic, so I understood her need for routine.
I saw my dad most because he had taken some time off from work, wanting to be here.
He continued to ask me to go to lunch with him, but I had refused him up to this point, not sure I was ready to be in the public eye.
The thought of people staring at me like I was a circus act wasn’t something I looked forward to.
But soon enough, everyone would get back to their regularly scheduled lives, and I couldn’t blame them. I was more than ready to resume the life I’d had before.
I hated that word. Before.
Before the world went to shit.
Before Martin Calloway disrupted my life.
Before my family had been ripped away from me.
I was tired of separating my existence. The before and after was making me crazy.
Pausing near the kitchen island, I glanced down at my cell phone on the counter.
I remembered how I used to have that thing glued to me.
If it wasn’t in my hand, it would be in my pocket.
Always close. Always available. Back then, there’d been a constant barrage of ringing or chiming, signaling someone was attempting to get in touch with me.
That wasn’t the case anymore. My cell phone chimed a couple of times a day when Travis or Gage would text me, checking in.
It was radio silence from just about everyone else.
I had overheard Zoey talking to Kennedy while we were having dinner at Curtis and Lorrie’s, and according to her, they didn’t want to bother me.
Perhaps that was true. Or maybe they simply had lives to deal with, and because I’d been gone for so long, it was just easier to keep going as though I wasn’t there.
Taking a deep breath, I picked up my phone and brought the screen to life. Because it was new, I didn’t have a contact list to rely on, so I did a Google search and found Dr. Piper Briggs’s phone number. Without hesitation, I dialed.
An answering service answered. Within minutes, I had an appointment for tomorrow morning.
“This is a good thing,” I said aloud, ignoring the weird churning in my belly.
I needed this. I needed someone to talk to about what happened.
Someone who didn’t have an emotional connection.
I could tell Travis and Gage were curious, but I didn’t want them to know the details.
I knew how much it would bother them to know what I had gone through.
They loved me. Perhaps they didn’t love me the same now as they had before, but if I told them, it would certainly be the case.
They already looked at me as though I was broken, and maybe I was.
A little. But not so much that I couldn’t heal.
And that was why I wanted to see Dr. Briggs.
I was ready to begin the healing process.
I was on the mend physically; now it was time for some emotional relief.
As I was setting my phone down, I received an alert letting me know there was motion in the driveway.
At first, those alerts had made me hypervigilant, always checking to see what the motion was, who might be lurking.
Over time, they started offering a sense of comfort because I was always aware.
I wasn’t sure that was necessarily a good thing, but I had gotten used to it.
Making my way to the front door, I plastered a smile on my face. It was time to shut down all the doubts and put my Mom face on.
“Hey,” I greeted cheerfully when Kate came bounding up the front steps, her backpack dangling from her arm. Within seconds, she had her arms around my waist, giving me a bear hug as she did every day. “How was school?”
“Good,” she said, releasing me and heading into the house.
I remained where I was, waiting for Kade and Avery. As had become his preference, Kade gave me a fist bump before heading into the house. Avery offered a hug, but it wasn’t nearly as genuine as Kate’s. But it was something, I reminded myself.
“I wanted to ride the bus,” Avery grumbled as she walked away.
Behind Avery was Gage.
I took a moment to drink him in as I usually did.
The man was like fine wine, only getting better with age.
He was bigger than I remembered. More muscular.
From what I gathered, he’d turned to weights as a way of dealing with his emotional trauma and had continued with it. He looked good. Really good.
“Hey,” he greeted when he was on the step below, the two of us nearly eye to eye.
“Hi.”
As he stood in front of me, there was a moment of awkwardness.
It felt like déjà vu, reminding me of back when I first met him all those years ago.
A man seeking out someone who could renovate the very house we lived in now.
His motives hadn’t been pure back then because he’d learned that Travis was secretly married to me and had been using me to get back at him.
But by bringing me back into Travis’s life, Gage had single-handedly set our world to rights. All three of us.
While our initial encounters hadn’t been romantic, I could remember feeling the same as I did now. Hopeful and filled with anticipation.
Unfortunately, Kade chose that moment to holler for his dad.
“Excuse me a minute. Let me get them settled.”
I nodded, ignoring the painful churn in my gut. The one that reminded me that I was little more than a visitor in their house.
I was starting to detest that feeling.