Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Bax
I spent most of the afternoon and evening in my room, working hard not to scream.
Images of Dixon’s baby kept flashing like neon lights in my head, and they warred with the image of Duo I’d conjured up and held tucked beneath my ribcage, behind my heart for three years.
It wasn’t the same goddamn kid! Had everybody forgotten that?
I fell in and out of sleep and dreams until I succumbed to exhaustion. And Bea never came back after she went to her cabin to call Brand. Where the hell was she? Maybe she decided to run after all. I couldn’t blame her if she had.
But when she was by my side, the strength I felt allowed me to act like a semi-normal adult again, and when she was gone, I felt like the same sorry guy I’d been the last few years.
The shit dad, terrible son, brother, and husband.
I felt like a failure, but how did that make sense?
My wife and child died, but it wasn’t my doing. How had I managed to make it my fault?
Why had I done that to myself?
And just to fuck me up even further, Candy was there again in my dreams, screwing up the deepest sleep I’d had in forever.
“You like that show I told you about?” she asked.
It was clear this was a dream because the dead mother of my children was dressed in flowing robes. I felt no wind, but the yellow thing billowed out behind her in the bedroom we used to share, and it fluttered like she stood on the tallest mountain peak.
She almost glowed, she was so bright with love. Her light reminded me of that song from the ’80s about wearing sunglasses at night. Candy loved ’80s music. We used to argue about it ’cause I could never stand it, but she hated country.
“Yeah, I like Bea.” I answered her question directly ’cause I was damn tired of talking in metaphors. “I love her.”
Candy nodded. She closed her eyes and smiled, like it was the answer she’d been looking for all along.
“It’s a good show.”
“And the baby?” I asked. What was her answer for him?
Candy shrugged, and she lifted her arms as if she wanted to give me something, but her hands were empty. “Watched over him as long as I could.”
Watched over him… like a guardian?
The delicate color of her skin began to fade, but somehow I knew this would be the last time she’d come to me in my dreams.
This was goodbye, and it was overdue.
“Thank you, Candy. I love you. I always will, but it’s time for me to move on now.”
Half solid, half see-through, she stopped in the middle of her disappearing act. “The hard road is behind you, Bax. Take care of them and yourself and follow a new one now.”
And then she was gone.
Bea woke me gently with her warm hand on my shoulder.
“The doctor was here,” she said as I opened my eyes.
The baby cooed behind me, and when I flipped on my lamp and rolled over, he lay between us, sleeping soundly in the middle of my bed as Bea sat on the opposite edge.
Shit. I slept through that? “What’d Dr. Whitley say?”
“Stu’s okay. Everything’s fine, but he wants Stu to see a special pediatrician in Jackson just to be safe.”
The relief was overwhelming.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking hard into Bea’s bright eyes. God, did she have any idea how beautiful she was or how hard I’d fallen for her in less time than it took for my heart to beat?
“Bax, stop apologizin’. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know,” I said, “but I’m about to.”
“Huh?”
“I love you.”
Her sharp intake of breath told me she’d heard me loud and clear, even though my voice wasn’t any stronger than a breeze.
“I love you, and I know it’s fast. I know this is all so fucked up, but you and Athena are the only good things for me in this world right now. I’m just gonna say what we’ve both been thinkin’ about: don’t go. Don’t leave when the cabins are done.
“I’m part of a package deal. I know that. You didn’t ask for that, and maybe right now, it doesn’t look all that attractive to you, but there’s a beautiful life here for you if you want it.”
She stilled and watched as I smoothed my hand over Stu’s foot and held it between my fingers, feeling its plump warmth beneath the thin blanket tucked around him.
I hadn’t made a conscious decision to touch him; it was some kind of automatic compulsion to connect with him, to make sure he was breathing and content.
But once I had, it wasn’t enough. I sat up and scooped him into my arms, holding him to my chest below my heart so he could feel it beating, so he would feel that there was love in the world for him despite the fact that his parents had abandoned him.
Bea watched as tears rolled down my cheeks, splashing onto Stu’s blanket.
“I love you too,” she said. “I tried not to?—”
Her words stuck in her throat as I lifted the baby and kissed his warm cheek, and I curled him even closer, trying not to break him or crush him between my arms. He smelled so good, clean and sweet and milky.
His hair, a light brown color, was as soft as down, and I wondered what color it would be when he was ten.
Dixon had brown hair like mine, but I had no clue what Stu’s mama looked like.
Holding him eased something inside me. I knew it shouldn’t, but it did.
Suddenly, Bea’s arms were wrapped around me and the baby both. She cried with me.
“I love you too, Bax,” she whispered. “I tried not to, but the way you love Athena, the way I can already tell you love this baby, that you’d do anything for them? I really never had a choice in the matter.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She kissed my cheek. “I love you. I don’t care if it’s too soon. I don’t know what it means.” She held me tighter. “I have no idea what to do now, but Athena’s right. It’s pretty simple.”
When she pulled away, I smiled. Feeling her love, hearing her say she loved me too allowed possibilities to bloom inside my head, possibilities of things I never thought I’d feel or have again.
“You’ll stay? You’ll figure this out with me?”
She straightened and nodded, wiping her tears away with soft brushes of her fingertips. “There’s nowhere else on this earth I’d rather be. We’ll figure it out.”
“Come to me.” I reached for her with one hand. She leaned in again and kissed me softly. “Things have definitely taken a turn. It wasn’t even four weeks ago when you showed up in the dark, and I concocted plans to fuck the daylights out of you.”
Embarrassment and shock showed on her face, and she swatted my arm. “Bax!”
I chuckled, drying the tears under my eyes with the neck of my T-shirt. “And now there’s a baby, and my impossible mother downstairs, and a whole lot of complicated history. You sure you’re up for this?”
“I-I think so?” She sighed. “I always wanted to be a mom, but at my age and with my own history, I never thought I’d get the chance. I mean, not that I’m saying I’m anybody’s m?—”
“That’s what I’m askin’,” I said, interrupting her and the doubt I heard in her voice.
“I know we have a long way to go with all of this.” I lifted the baby gently, and he startled, but his arms were tucked tightly to his chest inside the blanket, so he snuggled back in and settled.
“But wherever the road leads us, I want you with me.”
“And you’re sure?” she asked. “You’ve lost so much. I can’t replace that. I can’t replace your w?—”
Smoothing the hair away from her mouth, wet from her tears, I tucked it behind her ear.
“I don’t want you to replace Candy. I’m not tryin’ to get back what I lost.” Holding her chin in my hand, I brought her lips to mine and kissed her.
“There’s so much life left to live, and I’m finally excited to live it.
With you. You , Beatrice Baker, my sweetheart. My friend. My love.
“I’ll always love Candy. How could I not? She gave me Athena. But she gave me more than our beautiful daughter. She gave me the permission I thought I needed to move on.”
Bea’s eyebrows lifted, and her green eyes twinkled beneath. “More woo-woo?”
“Yeah,” I said and laughed. “But it turns out, her permission wasn’t what I needed.”
“No? What did you need?”
“I just needed you.”
A smile broke across her face, like the sun shining through heavy rain clouds, but then someone knocked on my bedroom door.
It opened a few inches and Rye’s head popped into my room.
I had no idea when he’d arrived or how much he knew, but it made sense for him to be with my family.
He’d been a better brother to me than Dixon had in a long time.
“Come in,” I said, holding Bea tight to my side, both of us careful not to wake the baby.
“So,” Rye hedged, pushing the door open wider and tucking his hands into his front pockets awkwardly, which wasn’t like him at all.
Where was my brash, can’t-keep-his-mouth-shut loud-mouth best friend?
“Uh, Merv wants me to ask you where the key to the extra bedroom is. She says we need to fix up a place for little Stuey to sleep.” He winced ’cause he knew in the past the unoccupied third bedroom had been a tough subject for me.
“I can pop the hinges if you don’t know where it is. ”
As soon as I saw Stu, I’d known this was coming. And even before that, everything in my life had been building toward me and Bea finding and loving each other.
Taking a deep breath, I let the acceptance I now felt about my past settle inside my chest. It still hurt. I couldn’t lie about that, but it had come time for me to live again.
Kissing Bea one more time quickly, I handed the baby to her, and she eased back against my headboard as I hobbled to my dresser with one crutch and slid open the top drawer. I pulled the single key from underneath a rolled-together pair of socks. “Here.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Rye said, opening the door wider and walking forward, and he took the key from my hand.
“Just, all I ask is that y’all let me take my time with it?”
“’Course.” Rye nodded and gripped my shoulder “I got you, man,” he said, and he left my room.
I looked back at Bea and smiled, testing the tentative feeling of happiness starting to finally take root inside me. Handing over the key hadn’t been as hard as I’d thought.
“Do you mind if I go see?” she asked. “Show Stuey his room?”
“Oh God, not you too.” I groaned. “We really need to figure out a different name for this kid. Stuey makes me think of that cartoon, Family Guy .”
Bea grinned. “I know, right?”
I tried to think back. Was that where my brother had gotten the name? I couldn’t remember if Dixon had ever watched the show, but it would’ve made sense. Brand had been named after a character from The Goonies . Although, I was pretty sure Dixon had spelled Stu’s name wrong if that was the case.
But when I tried to think of a different name for the baby, it occurred to me that I’d be stealing from Stuart the only thing his father had given him.
But that wasn’t true at all, was it? Dixon had given his son a chance. A better one than he would’ve had if he’d been raised by his parents.
I sighed, finally seeing Dixon’s gift for what he was—Stuey was a chance.
A chance for my whole family. I could already feel Stu stitching the sorry lot of us back together, patching us up and offering a little more hope for the future.
And hope was the only thing making me desperate for Dixon to sort his shit out and get back here, clean and healthy so he could accept some love for himself.
“No, sweetheart,” I said, refocusing on Bea. “I don’t mind. Go ahead.”
“You sure? If you’re not ready?—”
“I’m ready, Bea. Athena was right. If I don’t remember Duo, who will? Maybe Stu can help us carry Duo’s memory into the future. It’s not right for me to forget him just ’cause the loss hurts. I don’t want to forget him, and I want him to be proud of me.”
Bea rose easily from the bed, walked to me, and tucked herself and the baby in the crook of my open arm. I pressed my lips to the tops of their heads, and Bea reached up on her tiptoes to place a soft kiss beneath my jaw. “I love you,” she said, and then they left me alone in my room.
I heard Stu’s new bedroom door squeak open in the hall when Rye unlocked it, and then Athena’s voice in there with Rye and Bea. “Ooo! Look at that. I remember when my mama bought that. Hey! That used to be my stuffed tiger. I wondered where she went.”
The creaky floorboard at the top of the stairs squeaked, and Merv joined everybody. “I made that blanket,” she said. “Crocheted it myself when Athena was born.”
I found myself moving closer to my bedroom door. It wasn’t lost on me that I’d locked Athena’s childhood away when I locked the memory of Duo in the bedroom he never got the chance to fall asleep in. Damn . I was sorry about that. What had she missed because of my refusal to face the pain?
That realization cemented the decision for me, and when I finally made my way to the third bedroom and stood on the threshold, holding myself up with the crutches beneath my arms, everyone turned to look at me.
Soft light from a standing lamp in the corner flooded the ceiling, painting the nursery with warmth and illuminating my past and a path to my future.
I nodded to the Wyoming wildlife mobile hanging over the plain birch crib I still remembered building.
The little stuffed bear, moose, bison, and wolf dangled motionlessly from a hook in the ceiling.
“Your mama made that herself,” I told Athena.
“Stuffed the animals with the filling from an old couch pillow.”
“She did?” Athena asked, wonder in her eyes.
“Yeah.” I moved into the room slowly and stood next to the crib. “She worked on it at night, after you’d gone to bed while we watched—” I laughed as a realization hit me. No shit? Really?
“What did you watch with Mama, Daddy?”
Dumbfounded and believing in woo-woo more every second, I replied, “ Sons of Anarchy .”
“Good fuckin’ show,” Rye said, nodding.
“Watch your mouth,” Merv scolded. “There’s babies here.”
Athena rolled her eyes. “Granny, I am not a baby.”
Bea tried to hide her laugh, and Rye mumbled, “Yes, ma’am.” But then he chuckled and wrapped his arm around Merv’s shoulders.
I set a crutch against the side of the crib and reached for Athena, and she tucked herself beneath my arm. Bea moved closer, still holding the baby, so I leaned on Athena and held my other arm out for Bea. Stuey squeaked and opened his eyes while Bea hugged my side.
The women in my life held me up, and Merv smiled a true, genuine smile for the first time in a long time.
“Life goes on,” she said. “How it should.”