Chapter 24 I Know
I Know
Ichuckled to myself as I grabbed a sweater and locked my apartment door. The first week of September, and the last full week off before school started, boasted chilly mornings, sizzling summer days, and weekend bonfires.
It was glorious.
Which reminded me, I had an email to send.
I jogged down the back stairs, bypassing the laughter and sweet scent of vanilla seeping under the door leading to Mary Lou’s.
It hurt my heart to give up the opportunity for my own chocolatier, but leaving Kian and Isaiah would shatter it.
Isaiah climbing into bed between us that morning, his eyes lighting up as soon as he saw me, solidified my choice.
Bridge! I didn’t know we were having a sleepover!
I laughed to myself as I let myself out the exterior door leading to the street and locked that as well, happy I opted for rolled up khakis instead of shorts as the morning breeze skirted around my ankles.
Squinting against the sudden brightness, I lifted my face to the sun and breathed deep. I probably looked like one of those women in a tampon commercial, but I couldn’t deny myself this small pleasure. There was peace in this place.
Space to breathe.
A door opened across the street, the chime and welcome easily reaching me.
A young mother pushed an enormous stroller holding tiny twins and a babbling toddler past me on the sidewalk.
A car drove past on the street, and if I listened really hard, I imagined I could hear the waves calling my name on the breeze.
“You’re happy.”
The world slowed.
Or maybe it was my heart that stopped.
The teeter-totter of hope and fear rocked wildly as I slowly turned toward the sound of his voice, his name on my lips.
“It’s Jake, now,” he corrected, offering me a lopsided smile. “You look like you used to in the old photographs of us.”
“How’s that?” I whispered, struggling to process the sight before me never mind the words coming from his mouth.
He had scruff on his face and his hair reached his shoulders. Long, lean, and lanky, only his eyes betrayed his ill-found maturity.
You look like you used to in the old photographs.
Jakey had the old photographs of us.
They flashed through my mind like an old-fashioned rolodex. I’d wondered what happened to them but refused to give Gary the satisfaction of asking.
Jakey.
Jakey was here.
Leaning against an old beat-up car, his hands in his pockets, feet planted on the sidewalk not five feet away from me.
“Happy.”
He was taller than the last time I saw him, but his sweet eyes, his lopsided smile, and the tentative tilt to his head when he wasn’t sure where he fit, those were the same.
And he was here.
Reaching out my arms, I ran, stopping short just as I reached him, suddenly unsure of my welcome.
He straightened and dipped his chin. After a moment, he opened his arms, and I sank inside them.
Willing myself not to ruin the moment by crying, I held him tight, equally as delighted as I was horrified that I fit so neatly under his chin. I closed my eyes to block out everything but him and the pounding of his tender heart beneath my ear.
He was nervous. God, how sickening was that? With me, he should never be nervous.
He drew back long before I was ready, but I released him immediately. “Jakey, it’s so good to see you? What are you doing here?”
I snapped my mouth shut and laid my hand on his arm. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, I’m ecstatic, but how are you here? They let you come?” I asked doubtfully.
He shrugged. “They don’t know I’m here, but I needed to see you. See for myself that you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I breathed, my exhale spilling into laughter.
“Seeing you, I’m great!” I glanced around.
“Do you want a treat, Jakey? Remember Aunt Anita? You still love chocolate chip cookies? Or maybe you want to walk with me on the beach?” I pointed toward the beach then swung my arm around to indicate the door I’d just locked. “How about you come up?”
“Jake,” he admonished gently. He smiled then shook his head. “I have to get back.”
Disappointment hit me like a Mack truck, but I tamped it down in order to revel in the unexpected gift of his presence, if only for a few minutes.
Tilting my head, I took him in once more. He was a glass of water, and I’d just emerged from a forty-day stint in the desert. For years, my life had been barren and empty save the sporadic moments I got with Jakey.
Jake.
Always supervised, they even monitored his cell phone.
“You drove all this way just to look at me for a minute?” I prodded softly.
I wouldn’t have blamed him if he was angry. He had every right to be.
Leave him be. He’s got a right to be angry.
He’s not the only one who suffered a loss.
Looking into Jake’s wounded eyes, I understood Kian like never before. Because Jake may have towered over me at six feet, but he carried the wounds of a little boy.
A little boy who needed to expel his suffering if he hoped to move on.
And heal.
“More or less.” He grinned and shrugged, his cheeks turning pink. “The hug was a good bonus.”
I stepped forward and wrapped him up once more. “Jakey, Jake, if you ever want to talk things through, I’m here. I’ll listen. I’ll answer every question you have.”
His arms tightened and he laid his cheek on top of my head and nodded.
“I have to go,” he said. When he pushed back, I struggled to let him go, and he laughed.
As sweet and open as he was in my dreams.
With my heart in my throat, I watched him walk around the car to the driver’s side. Clutching my hands at my waist to stop them from shaking, I wracked my brain for something, anything to make him stay.
Even as I willed him to get back before they caught him.
He pulled open the door and stepped one leg in before stopping. Looking at me over the roof of the car, his eyes older than they had any right to be, he broke me.
“I knew, you know.”
I inhaled shakily. “What did you know, Jakey?”
He smiled. “Jake.”
I smiled back and rolled my eyes at my mistake and repeated, “Jake.”
Jake who I’d nursed through teething fevers and ear infections.
Jake who I walked to school every day for four years.
Jake who wouldn’t sleep without me when there was a thunderstorm.
Jake who I enrolled in little league, music classes, and swimming lessons.
Jake who stood tall and lanky before me, his size twelves balanced on the cusp of manhood.
And he would be a good man. I could see it, I could see it all unfolding right in front of me. And I had hope for the first time in years that I’d be a witness to watching it all play out.
My eyes filled as I smiled through my tears.
At Jake.
Who despite my failures and his parents’ abuse, was still, just maybe, a little bit mine.
His smile widened for a fraction of a second before fading altogether. “I knew what they were doing wasn’t right.”
I stared back at him, my own smile faltering. My failures, and there were many where he was concerned, had cast the past in deep shadow.
That same shadow darkened his eyes.
“I fought them every step of the way.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Until I figured out I couldn’t possibly win.”
Hopelessness.
Despair.
Helplessness.
He battled it all alone.
We both did.
“I tried to talk to them, Jake. I had your pediatrician explain to both of them how damaging their actions were, but it only made everything worse. In the end, it seemed the best thing to do was to go along with them. At least that way I got to remain in your life.”
His eyes narrowed.
I braced myself, opening my heart to receive whatever he needed to give me.
He shook his head. “How could you stand it? How could you stay with him for so long?”
I replied quietly. “I got to see you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” he snapped, anger coloring his words.
“It was worth it.”
He cocked his head to the side, challenging me. “Then why did you leave?”
Why did you stay?
How could you leave?
“He kicked me out. By the time he wanted me to come back, I realized just how much of myself I’d lost.”
“He told me you didn’t want to see me…”
My grief gave way to a fury so deep and wide it threatened to burn me alive.
I shook my head sharply and gave him the truth. “He said if I continued trying to contact you, he’d send you away to school.”
Mouth dropping open, his cheeks went ruddy as tears filled his eyes. “Fucking bastard.”
Oh my God, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Because while I was safe and cozy in Sage Ridge, he had to live with them still.
“If there’d been any other way…” I trailed off. “I was waiting until you turned 18 and left for college to track you down.”
He stared back at me, wide eyes a kaleidoscope of shifting emotions.
Anger, confusion, sorrow, and grief spun in through his dark gaze. My throat closed tight as an all-encompassing mourning, one that had permeated the very marrow of my bones for years, rose up to choke me.
His wary eyes searched mine. “You were going to track me down?”
I opened my mouth to speak but I had no words. I nodded tightly. “I promise.”
“In my heart,” he continued though his voice quavered, so much braver than I’d ever been. “You’ve always been Mom.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, as if that could possibly stem the force of my grief.
My rage.
I searched for my voice as he quickly spun away, its loss igniting panic. If he left like this, if he poured out his heart only for me to answer with silence?
“Jakey!”
Turning back with a tiny grin, he softly admonished, “Jake.”
Swallowing hard, I scanned the face I loved so much, this man child I raised only until he was seven but had nursed in my heart always. “Jake.” I nodded. “Being your mom is the greatest privilege of my life. In my heart, you’ve always been my son. In my heart, you’ll always be my son. I’m sorry—"
He shook his head sharply. “I don’t blame you for leaving. I saw what he was doing to you.” He cocked his head to the side. “I followed him once, saw him banging on your door. I called the police on him.”
I gasped. “That must have been so hard for you.”
His face twisted as he snarled, “Not as hard as it was to go back home and pretend everything was okay.”
Shaking his head, he bent to slide inside the car.
“Will you come again?” I blurted.
Eyes wide on mine, hope laid bare, he froze and asked, “Do you want me to?”
I nodded fervently. “If you can. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“You stopped calling.”
Aw, God, I’d explained once already, but that wound ran deep, probably deeper than I’d ever understand.
“He knew. It infuriated him. I thought it was better for you to remain at home and in your same school rather than risk them sending you away.”
He shook his head and laughed sharply. “It wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything,” I whispered. “I would have taken you with me if I could.”
His mouth curled up on one side. “I know that, too.”
I nodded, my throat tight.
He shrugged and offered me a wry smile. “Bye, Mom.”
I didn’t know how I came to be tucked into my bed crying in Kian’s arms. One minute I was standing on the sidewalk watching Jakey drive away, the next I lay crumpled in a ball on the stoop to my apartment.
And somehow, Kian was there, scooping me up into his warm embrace and carrying me up to my apartment.
Sun slanted through the trees at the window, dappling light onto the quilt on my bed while the sheers billowed gently in the breeze.
But no light, no air could reach the darkest corners of my mind.
“Aw, fuck, baby, baby, baby,” he chanted, pulling the covers up around us both as I shook in his arms. “I’m so fucking sorry. You didn’t deserve this. You never deserved this.”
“I should have stayed. Should I have stayed?” My body quaked as if I stood outside naked in the dead of winter.
“I won’t lie to you, I don’t know. It’s a fucked-up situation. Staying could have made everything worse for him.”
I nodded, my teeth chattering. “Gary said he’d send Jakey away to school if I contacted him.”
He cupped my jaw, massaging the joint with his thumb. “I love you, Bridget. I love you so fucking much.”
“That was Jakey. Jake,” I huffed out with a soft laugh. “Did you see him? He’s all grown up.”
“It looked like you had a sweet reunion,” he ventured, fingers massaging my scalp.
“He’s not happy,” I gasped. “They’re not good to him.”
Kian’s chest reverberated with a low, angry hum. “It’s unacceptable.”
“I think he wants to come again.”
“Let him,” he responded immediately.
I nodded. “He called me mom.”
It rose with a strength and fierceness I didn’t expect.
My muscles tensed, my body going rigid as I tried to lock it back down.
But this time the grief was unstoppable and erupted in ugly, wretched sobs, the kind with serrated edges, the ones that ripped through your defenses and left you empty, aching, and somehow whole-hearted.
I released all of it, spilled it over Kian’s wide chest while his strong arms held me together.
I cried until my tears ran dry, sniffing and inhaling shakily as the storm passed. Heavy-lidded and swollen, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
And with Kian wrapped around me, it was safe to close them.
“If that man shows his face here, I’m going to plow my fist straight through it.” He paused, breathing heavily. “He’s not getting anywhere near you, you hear me? Never.”
I stroked his chest. “Why were you even here?”
He exhaled roughly. “You forgot your purse.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Lucky you.”
“Yes,” he agreed firmly. “Lucky me. Because I would have died one thousand deaths to know you’d suffered through this alone.”
I tipped my chin up to look at him, offering him a tremulous smile. “One thousand?”
He studied me, the lines of his face harsh, then hugged me closer, tucked my head under his chin, and rocked me against his chest.
“At least.”