2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
I barely remembered the drive home.
It was a good thing I knew the stretch of road between the Avery Company offices and our neighborhood like the back of my hand.
After the double shock of Samantha’s parentage and Caroline’s real identity, everything between leaving the parking garage and pulling into the driveway was a blur.
If Marcie spoke, I don’t recall anything she said—more likely she just held my hand as we made the best time we could on the drive back, trying not to think about blood tests or women in handcuffs.
Lakshmi was waiting for us on the front porch. “They’re in the kitchen,” she explained.
“Did Kiki call you?” Marcie asked.
She shook her head. “I dropped by to bring Samantha some tea to help settle her stomach.” She grimaced. “I’d just arrived when she got the call from the lab. I had a front-row seat to the breakdown.”
Jesus. “Thanks for being here,” I said.
Lakshmi nodded. There were women in my orbit who would have used the opportunity to say something flirty, even in these circumstances, but Lakshmi wasn’t one of those. It made me appreciate her even more.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll warn you—it’s bad.”
I knew it would be.
We went in together.
I could hear the whimpers the second I stepped into the living room.
For a second I was back at my wedding day, blindfolded, listening to my babygirl come apart at the seams when I told her that her parents had crashed the reception.
This was softer than that, but sounded somehow deeper.
Like the hurt was buried somewhere it couldn’t be easily dislodged.
“Babygirl?” A note of worry entered my tone. “Babygirl, I’m here…”
Samantha was on the kitchen floor.
Not sitting in a chair at the dining room table.
Not on one of the barstools at the kitchen island where we’d shared so many cups of coffee first thing in the morning together.
On the fucking linoleum. With her back against a cabinet and her puffy pajama pants on and tears streaming down her face.
Both hands rested on the gentle swell of her belly like she was going to be sick.
Yukiko knelt beside her. My princess looked up the second I entered, her face telling me everything she hadn’t dared say over the phone.
Help me, that expression said. I don’t know what to do.
That was a rare look from Yukiko, indeed.
“Jesus,” I muttered, crossing the kitchen and kneeling in front of her. “Babygirl, I’m right here…”
It was all I dared say. I got on my knees, turned around to sit next to her against the cabinet, and opened my arms. Samantha crawled into them like something trying to get out of the rain.
I held her against me, let her bury her face against my chest. A new set of sobs broke from her, and I put my hand gently between her shoulder blades and rubbed. When I glanced up, I saw Yukiko sitting behind her, both hands on her stomach.
Princess, you should not be on the floor, I mouthed, quiet enough that my babygirl didn’t hear it.
Kiki was already shaking her head. I’m fine, she mouthed back. Just need you to help me up.
I gave her a quick nod. When the time came, I’d be there.
It was a long time before Samantha spoke. “This sucks,” my babygirl moaned, hot tears staining the shirt I’d been planning to wear to my meeting with Tallulah Harrington. “Daddy, this sucks so fucking much…!”
“I know, babygirl,” I said. “I know.”
“Sam,” Yukiko said quietly. “If what I heard you say is what I think I heard, then I am so so sad—and so, SO angry on your behalf. This is not… nobody should have to have the rug pulled out from under them like this as an adult.”
“She wasn’t even my mom, Daddy,” Samantha whimpered. Her voice had a rattle in it like the ball at the bottom of a can of spray paint—like something deep inside of her was cracked and might never heal. “Is… is dad even my Dad!? Is it all lies?”
I hadn’t even thought of that. My gut instinct was that it couldn’t possibly be true. But then again, I would’ve told you Dawn Lowry not being Samantha’s mother was impossible, too. The two of them looked so much like mother and daughter.
Yet the idea that she could be completely unrelated to her parents had to be considered, no matter how absurd it seemed. What if she were fully adopted?
It didn’t mean anything to me. Honestly, her not having any connection to those people was probably a good thing. I doubted she would see it that way, though.
“Everything’s a fucking lie,” Samantha sobbed. “Every horrible thing she ever said to me, and she wasn’t even… Daddy, I don’t have her eyes. I don’t have her face.” I could feel her crumpling against me, going small and sad and terrified. “I don’t know whose anything I have!”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Yukiko said. “Samantha, there could be other reasons that test threw a negative result. Couldn’t there?”
My babygirl lifted her head an inch. “I know,” she insisted, her fingers digging into my shirt.
“The second I heard the tech, I knew it was true. I’m not a Lowry.
I’m not Dawn and Warren’s kid.” It was as far as she got before the tears started flowing anew.
“At least when they were my parents I knew what I was fighting! Now I don’t even know what I am. Who the hell am I?”
“You’re my wife,” I said, holding her tight. “You’re Samantha Avery. That hasn’t changed, babygirl…”
Marcie entered the kitchen behind me. When she saw me sitting on the floor, holding Samantha in my arms, she ran over and sank to her knees. “Sam!”
Samantha raised her head, blinking through the tears. “Marcie?”
Marcie tried to force out a laugh. “What the heck are you doing on the floor, Samantha? Come on, let’s go upstairs. Let’s get comfy, okay?”
Samantha sniffed hugely. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, as if she were realizing where she was for the first time. “Shit, Daddy’s not supposed to be here, either. You’re both wining and dining that Tallulah lady…”
“Are you kidding me?” Marcie scoffed. “We came back as soon as we heard.”
“Mona’s getting it pushed back,” I assured my wives. “It’ll be fine.”
Yukiko looked at me. “What happened at the office?” she asked in a small voice.
I was already shaking my head. “We’ll talk about it soon,” I promised. “Not now.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Samantha murmured. “Fuck, I shouldn’t be here. I’m not me. I’m… I’m, like, an orphan or something…”
“Hey. Hey.”
Marcie leaned forward, taking Samantha’s chin in her hand.
The transformation in my angel was immediate and extreme. One second she was her usual, smiling, innocent self—and then, suddenly, Daniel Ramsey’s daughter knelt on the kitchen floor beside me. Samantha noticed it, too, her face filling with surprise.
“Look at me,” Marcie said, her voice firm but filled with love. “I am your wife, Samantha Avery. Your other wife’s sitting right behind you. She got down on the floor with you even though she’s pregnant with twins and Jack is totally going to have to help her up whenever we move you out of here.”
“I didn’t ask her to,” Samantha sobbed.
“You didn’t have to,” Marcie shot back. “Because she’s family, Sam.”
I understood what she was going for. For the first of what would be many, many occasions, Marcie and I hit the same wavelength the same way her father and I did back when we were tackling engineering projects together.
It was funny how that worked.
“Every person in this room chose you,” I said, reaching around Marcie to take Samantha’s hand.
“I chose you to be my babygirl. Kiki chose you to be a part of what was happening with her and me. You’re in our lives right now because everybody around you wants you to be.
” I held her tighter, my free hand straying to her lower back.
“Do you have any idea how much this family loves you, babygirl?”
Samantha sniffed hugely. “If I didn’t, this week certainly showed me,” she admitted, her eyes still red from crying. “I feel like shit for needing so much from all of you this week. I’m not normally this person.” Her expression fell. “I don’t even know what person I really am…”
“You’re Samantha,” Marcie said firmly. She embraced my babygirl from the side as best she could, burying her face in her hair. “Samantha Avery. Who the hell else could you possibly be?”
“Nobody is here because of blood,” Yukiko said fiercely. “We’re in this family because we want to be. That’s the only thing that matters.”
I felt Samantha relax against me the tiniest bit.
She wasn’t better: hell, after the week she’d had, it was probably going to take a very long time for my babygirl to start feeling normal again.
But she’d reached the bottom of the well.
She was ready for us to help her make the slow climb back into the light.
“We’ll figure all of this out,” I promised her, meaning it to the depths of my soul. “I promise you that, babygirl. None of us are going anywhere…”
Behind me, someone coughed.
I turned at the same moment Marcie looked up from Samantha’s hair. I assumed it had to be Lakshmi, because other than her I’d thought my wives had the house to themselves this morning—but it was Yukiko’s mother, Yui, standing in the doorway.
She sized up the scene in two ways, simultaneously: as a licensed clinical psychologist and as a mother. The second won out.
“Samantha,” she said thickly, entering the room. The older woman knelt between my babygirl and her daughter, giving Kiki a little look as she did to let her know her mom was both here and ready to help. “Darling, you’ve got the whole house on the kitchen floor! Did you fall?”
Yui knew she hadn’t. She was just using humor to cut through my babygirl’s defenses. It worked; Samantha managed a snort.
“I… I got a phone call,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Dawn, she’s not… they don’t think my mom is…”
“I heard,” Yui said with an understanding nod. “You poor thing. Let’s get you on your feet, alright? Marcie, could you get a glass of water?”