Chapter 10
CASSIA
I held Ivy on my hip, her sleeping head a warm weight against my neck, as I watched Memphis dig through an enormous metal toolbox he’d wheeled in from the garage. He pulled out a silver bit and handed it to Lucky, who was sitting on the floor, surrounded by the wooden pieces of Ivy’s crib.
Memphis had just gotten down on his knees to help when a man called out, “Mem! Bring me the seven-sixteenths and some pliers!”
“Shit.”
“What does he need? I’ll take it up,” I offered.
“Thanks. They should be right there on the top.”
“Seven-sixteenths of what?” I asked as I stared into the maze of metal.
Lucky and Memphis both stopped and lifted their heads to stare at me with identical looks of confusion.
“That’s just an oddly specific measurement. Wouldn’t it be easier to just say ‘half’?” When they just continued to stare at me, I sighed in exasperation before I pleaded, “Just tell me what I’m looking for.”
“The seven-sixteenths socket for the wrench,” Memphis said, his voice hovering somewhere between disbelief and amusement.
“I’m not good at gauging measurements. Do you have a measuring tape in here so I can . . .”
Lucky burst out laughing, and Memphis smacked him on the arm before standing up and plucking the correct tool out with practiced ease. He then attached a small part to a silver handle.
“This is a socket wrench with a seven-sixteenths socket,” he said gently as he held it out to me along with a pair of pliers.
I took the tools from him and said, “I’ll be right back.”
As I was walking out, I heard Lucky say, “This is going to be so much more fun than I imagined.”
I paused just outside to hear Memphis’s reaction and was surprised to hear him defend my ignorance. “Not everybody grew up in a garage, man. Give the woman a little grace.”
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I just realized that half the shit you say is going to seem like a foreign language. It’s gonna be fun to watch you try and translate.”
“My guess is she speaks more languages than both of us combined. From what I’ve gathered, she’s been all over the world.”
“So have you.”
“No. I’ve been to venues and seen cities from moving cars and hotel windows. She’s lived in places we only see on the news and think of as hell on earth.”
“Why would she move from one shithole to another?” Lucky asked, clearly baffled.
“Her parents were doctors who went to places where people were in dire need of medical care. I guess they took their kids along for the ride.”
“Into war zones? On purpose?”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
Lucky mused, “You’ll be taking Ivy all over the world in a different way.”
“In a safer way,” Memphis vowed.
I tuned out their voices and thought about what they’d said.
I’d never said it out loud, but since having Ivy, I’d given a lot of thought to my upbringing.
Yes, I was born into a war-torn country.
I had survived things that most people only saw in documentaries.
But then my parents adopted us and brought us to America.
But that was only temporary. They eventually took us right back into the devastation.
I couldn’t imagine taking Ivy to any of the places we’d been, even for a short trip. I damn sure wouldn’t let her live in a camp of refugees or witness the horrors my siblings and I had carried for years.
“Memphis! Come on, man!”
I jerked away from the wall where I’d been leaning and jostled Ivy. She wiggled, letting out a soft sigh before she started breathing evenly again. I hurried up the stairs toward the voices.
I hadn’t ventured upstairs yet. I looked down at the sunny living room before I inspected the landing where Memphis had a television set up with two couches and two more huge bean bags.
Before Ivy, I never would have thought twice about it, but now I eyed the staircase with maternal panic. They weren’t the carpeted, solid steps we had at home. The risers were open with gaps big enough for her little body to slip through.
I was horrified at the thought of her falling, and made a mental note to talk to Memphis the second I got back downstairs.
I bypassed the empty rooms, following the sounds and voices toward the end of the hall. I saw Erisa in the room to the right, already busy organizing her dresser there. I turned to the room across from hers–Iliana’s–and found two men inside.
One was Rocky from the garage, and the other was a younger man I hadn’t met yet. When he looked up at me, his eyes got wide. He scrambled to his feet so frantically that I instinctively took a step back.
Rocky chuckled, not looking up from the bed frame he was tightening before he said, “Down, Chevy! You’re scaring her.”
“Hi! You must be Cassia!” the younger man said, nearly vibrating. He stuck his hand out with a big, goofy grin and said, “I’m Memphis’s brother Chevy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.” I said as I offered him the tools. He laughed and took them from me. Since my hand was free again, I adjusted Ivy in my arms. “This is Ivy.”
“I’m an uncle,” Chevy whispered as he studied her face. His expression lit up again in a huge smile before he announced, “My niece is adorable!”
I couldn’t help but smile back as I agreed, “She is, although this sweet, peaceful angel schtick is a complete lie. When she’s awake, she’s wild and crazy–but even more adorable.”
“I can’t wait to meet her. Mom made us promise that we would stay away, but Rocky called and told me Roar had to leave and he needed an extra set of hands to put the beds together.”
“Your mom didn’t want you to come meet Ivy?” I asked as my heart dropped at the thought of Memphis’s mom telling the family to avoid us.
“Oh, no! That’s not it at all! She said that moving is insanity and having all of us underfoot would just make things harder on you and your sisters, so we should give you a day or two to acclimate before we came by.”
Without thinking, I said, “I’d rather have a house full all at once than know everyone was on edge avoiding us for our own good.”
“You would?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. It was true. I hated the thought that they were forcing themselves to stay away for my comfort.
Just from the short conversations I’d had with Memphis since we met last week, I knew that his family was very close - so much so that most of them chose to live near his parents rather than move away.
“If you don’t mind, can you call your mom and tell her she’s welcome to come over and meet Ivy whenever she’s ready?
We don’t have that much to unpack since the only things we brought with us were our clothing and a few personal items.” I decided to extend the olive branch even further.
“If anything, having someone else here to watch Ivy while we get settled would be helpful.”
Chevy already had his phone out and was typing furiously. Within seconds, it started buzzing with incoming texts. He reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for that, Cassia.”
“I don’t ever want to be the reason your family avoids this house,” I said firmly. “All of you are welcome to see Ivy or come over anytime you want.”
“Don’t throw the barn doors all the way open just yet, sweetheart,” Rocky said from the other side of the room.
“Did you ride in on your pony, or what?” Chevy asked Rocky with a confused expression.
“I’ve been watching westerns lately,” Rocky answered with a shrug.
“You should stop,” Chevy muttered before looking back at me. “Thanks for the tools. We’ll get this knocked out in just a few minutes and then move the mattresses and box springs up before we bring in the rest of the boxes and totes.”
“Thank you.
“But if I were you, I’d go ahead and . . . ” Chevy glanced at Rocky and grinned before he affected an exaggerated Southern drawl. “–mosey on down the stairs, ‘cause company’s on the way.”
Rocky flipped Chevy off as I laughed at their banter.
I took his suggestion and headed back out into the hallway, assuming Memphis’s parents would arrive soon to get a peek at their granddaughter.
I wasn’t wrong. As I walked down the stairs, I caught sight of an ATV speeding toward the house, followed by a golf cart driving at a much more sedate pace.
From behind me, I heard Rocky call out in a singsong voice, “They’re here!”
The front door was unlike any I’d seen before–a huge pane of glass rather than wood or metal–making it easy to watch as the people who had arrived so quickly after Chevy’s text.
The older man, who I knew at a glance was Memphis’s father, hugged the woman, and then they turned together to walk up the porch steps.
I took a moment to study the couple I recognized from Ivy’s favorite television show.
I could see the similarities in Memphis, Chevy, and Scarlet.
They’d inherited a balanced mix of physical traits from their parents, which were now mirrored in the little girl in my arms. Even if I didn’t have DNA proof that Ivy was part of this family, just looking at them would have convinced me.
“I told them not to invade today!” I heard Memphis say from behind me. As his voice got closer, he added, “I’ll get rid of them, Cassia.”
“No! I told Chevy to invite them. I won’t be the reason you shut out your family, Memphis. I could never do that.”
“I just wanted you guys to have some time to settle in before the inevitable invasion.”
“We took a road trip, not a sea voyage, Memphis. Granted, it was with a toddler, so we should get extra points for that, but still, it’s not like we had to rough it in a covered wagon to make it here,” I scoffed.
“Besides, it was very mean of you to force them to stay away when I’m sure–or at least I hope–that they are excited to meet Ivy. ”
“You’re about to witness just how excited they are.”
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