CHAPTER THREE
LIZ
“You know you didn’t have to come with me,” I say for what must be the tenth time. And the last, since we’re standing on Tammy and Abe’s stoop, moments from ringing their doorbell.
“I do know,” Jovi says. Again. “Why do we keep having this conversation, Liz? Is your short-term memory shot or something?”
I shake out my hand. My fingers are numb and tingly from clenching a fist for so long.
I didn’t realize I was doing it until I went to ring the bell and couldn't feel the tips of my fingers.
“I prefer doing things on my own,” I mumble, giving my wrist one last flick before I press my finger to the button.
“Well, you’re going to have to get over that,” he grumbles back. “Trust me, you’re not my first choice for teammate either, but this is it for the next year. We might as well get used to it.”
I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want to get used to any of this. I want to fight it. Every step of the way, with every fiber of my being.
I want the powers that be to know, that this is not okay. That I am not okay. That I’ll never accept it. Never stop wishing I could go back. Back to the life that made sense. The life I was already used to.
This twisted, hideous new version? I don’t want to get used to it.
Whether I intend to convey any of this to Jovi is irrelevant. The door opens, revealing Tammy and Abe waiting on the other side to greet us.
Maybe greet is the wrong word. They look more like a couple of armored knights with a blood oath to protect the prince and princess within than a welcoming committee.
“Jovi.” Abe smiles. Sort of. And then that's it. Silence.
I guess we’ve established I'm the enemy among us.
“Abe. Tammy.” I do my best to show some sort of kindness on my face, but everything feels stiff and heavy. It’s possible my attempt expresses only bitterness.
“Can we come in?” Jovi asks when neither Tammy nor Abe respond to my minimalistic greeting, let alone make any effort to step aside and invite us in.
There’s an awkward moment where we all know they’d prefer to say no, but then, Tammy concedes to her manners and gestures for us to enter.
“Of course, please.” She points down the hall off the foyer.
“Let’s go sit in the den. The children are watching a movie in the family room. No need to disturb them.”
Jovi’s face turns from pleasant to put off while I fight the urge to insist on seeing the kids, who surely would find a visit from their aunt worthy of having their movie interrupted. Even Jovi, who certainly elicits no such feelings from me, would be a welcome distraction to them.
“The den would be fine,” I force out with a fake smile.
One insurmountable task at a time.
Jovi says nothing but falls into step behind me as we all make our way down the hall and further away from the family room.
We’re two steps into the small room when Tammy starts in on us. Well, me, but Jovi is still behind me, so it feels like it’s directed at both of us.
“You can’t take them. We’ll fight you. And we’ll win.
Any judge in their right mind would see that we’re more qualified to raise those children than you are.
” She shakes her finger at me, and I can’t help but wonder how many times Trent stood here in my shoes, at the receiving end of her wrath for some shenanigan or another.
I imagine she’d like to be yelling at him right now too. Dying before her is no doubt the least forgivable shenanigan he ever committed. Choosing me to parent his children coming in at a close second.
“Who told you?” Jovi asks before I can formulate a response.
Tammy yanks an envelope from her back pocket and waves it angrily. “Trent. His lawyer brought it by this afternoon,” she bites the words out, each one ragged with pain and fury. I can’t fault her for her reaction one bit. Still, I can’t side with her on this either.
“I know this doesn’t make any sense to you,” I start slowly.
“Hell, it makes no sense to me either. But it doesn’t have to make sense to us.
This isn’t about us. Or what we think is best. What we would choose.
We aren’t Remmi and Gavin’s parents.” I stop, biting my lip to keep from crying.
“Trent and Lena made a decision. Probably the hardest decision they ever had to make.” A lung-shuddering breath escapes before I can say my last piece.
“We have to honor it. We have to honor them.”
Lips parted and brow furrowed, Tammy is on the verge of arguing when Abe places his hand on her shoulder, giving it a tender squeeze to calm her. “We do.”
Aghast, his wife spins around to glare at him, but he goes on undeterred, “Tam, they’re right. We don’t have to understand Trent’s choices. We don’t have to agree with them. But we do have to respect them. Now more than ever.”
She turns back around to stare at me, eyes pleading, tearing at my already shattered heart. “You can’t take them, please. They’re all we have left of him.”
“She’s staying here,” Jovi answers, relieving me of the responsibility and giving me a moment’s time to regain my composure. “We both are. We’re moving to the ranch, taking care of the business. The kids will be right where they’ve always been.”
“How soon?” Tammy asks, her hand still clutching her chest as though gripping her heart is the only thing keeping it still beating.
Jovi looks to me to answer this one. “I’ll need a few days.
A week maybe. So I can pack up my stuff and square away some business things.
I doubt I’ll have much trouble getting someone to sublet my apartment, but if I have to, I can always wrap those details up long distance.
” I swallow down the feelings that come with the words.
Too much is becoming too real, too permanent, too fast. “Would you be able to keep watching the kids until I get back?”
“Of course.” Tammy sounds almost indignant.
As if it was insulting to even ask. Before she can express as much, her husband cuts in, directing his inquiries to Jovi.
“What about you? I know your mama wasn’t planning to give you up permanently.
How do you intend to manage your work and Trent’s business? ”
Jovi shrugs as if it’s a non-issue but last I heard he was overseeing all seven of his family's bars, all located across three states. Casual demeanor aside, it can’t be entirely unproblematic for him to suddenly step away from it all for the next year.
“I was planning on sticking closer to home after the summer anyway. Only reason I’ve been gone so much was because we needed to establish the concert venue at the Wild Moonshine in Nashville.
It’s pretty much up and running now, so I can cut out a few months early.
They can go ahead and manage without me. ”
“So, that’s it.” Tammy looks around the room, a heartbreaking air of helplessness surrounding her like a heavy cloak.
“Everything is decided and taken care of. Two lives wrapped up. Neat and tidy. In three minutes.” Her lips press together in a firm, white line and she gives a curt shake of her head.
"I won't accept it. Just because they can no longer change their minds, don't think I won't do it for them if you prove yourself incapable. "
Her husband tries to comfort her again, but she excuses herself before he has a chance.
“She’s not thinking clearly,” he says to us after she’s gone, looking down at his hands, voice strained. “She doesn’t mean it.”
“No one in this room needs apologies or explanations,” I tell him quietly. “We’re all doing the best we can while carrying the weight of unbearable pain. I don’t think any of us will be thinking clearly for a long while to come.”
“She’s right,” Jovi agrees with me. More proof that we’re all out of our minds right now. “The last thing we want is to add to anyone’s grief. So whatever Tammy needs to get through this next transition, even if it’s someone to lash out at, I’m here for it. I’m here for all of it.”
Abe looks up, slowly nodding as he takes turns meeting us eye to eye. “That goes both ways. Those kids make all of us family now. And not the sort we were before. We’re the inner circle. This is what’s left. I want you to know you can count on us for whatever you need.”
An overwhelming need to hug him surges through me, but Abe and I have never been that sort of close.
Instead, I watch Jovi act out my needs as he steps past me to reach both arms around Trent’s dad.
It takes a second for Abe to return the gesture, but when he does, he grips a tight hold of Jovi, burying his face in Jovi’s shoulder as he does.
It takes everything I have not to sob at the sight. As it is, silent tears are on a rogue mission gliding down my cheeks and escaping past my chin. I let them. Only when Jovi releases Abe do I swipe them away.
“You should go see the kids now,” Abe says gruffly. His voice sounds as though it’s being strangled by emotions he’s fighting to keep at bay. “They’ve been asking about you all morning.”
I swallow down the lump threatening more tears and nod as Jovi’s hand moves to my lower back and starts to guide me from the room.
Over the last forty-eight hours, I must have mentally rehearsed at least ten different ways to greet them. Now that we’re face to face, words aren’t used. Both kids bolt toward me, arms outstretched until they’re close enough to grasp ahold of me.
Remmi wraps herself around my hips while Gavin hugs my legs tighter than he ever has.
I want to lower myself down to reach my arms around them both, but they’re holding me so tight, I can’t even bend to get there. So, I do what little I can, placing one hand on each child, and together, we stand here, holding on to all we have left, all of us crying.
JOVI
We stay with the kids until they’re both tucked in bed, sleeping soundly. For the first time since the accident, Gavin doesn’t cry himself to sleep and it must be hard for Tammy to realize Liz could offer him comfort she couldn’t.
“I’ll take you back to the house,” I say to Liz when we find ourselves right back where we started, standing awkwardly in the foyer with Trent’s parents.
“It’s fine, I can call someone for a ride.” She pulls out her phone then freezes, staring at it blankly. I think she’s only now realizing she has no one left here to call. I’m it.
I don’t say anything. Just reach out to hug Tammy and shake Abe’s hand. “We'll be in touch to sort out the details of moving forward.”
Abe nods while Tammy turns her head away. It's obvious she's still struggling with the newest twist in our collective, shit fate.
Liz waves an uncomfortable goodbye but remains silent all the way to my truck. It's only when we’ve been driving for several minutes that she gradually begins to come back to herself.
“This place doesn’t feel like home anymore,” she mutters, eyes staring straight ahead. “No one’s left to make it home. To make it a place to come back to.”
“You do.”
She shakes her head. “I was never the anchor. Lena was. Same as our father. She knew how to grow roots, build a life and a home. I was never good at that. I was…more like our mother.”
I don’t have to ask what she means by that. Their mother left when Lena was a toddler. Only ever heard the story from Lena who was too little to remember, but she knew enough to know her mother walked out one night and never came back.
Their father made excuses for her, tried to tell them it wasn’t all what it seemed, that she wanted to stay but couldn’t. Far as I know, neither of the girls ever believed him.
Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe they needed to believe their mother wanted out to keep from hoping she’d ever come back.
“You’re not your mom,” I say quietly.
“What would you know about it?” she snarls. Her eyes widen a second after, cheeks tinting red with embarrassment over her outburst. Not that she'd never admit it.
“I know that you’re here. That you show up without fail. And that those who love you know they can trust you and depend on you. And that you’ve never let them down. Not once. Not even when things seemed impossible…when anyone else would have.”
She shrugs listlessly. “I still left. And after our dad died and Lena was here alone, I stayed gone.”
I shake my head. “You were never gone. I would know, I’ve been annoyed to see you show up to every family function for years,” I tease, trying to snap her out of the downward spiral she’s caught in. “Besides, Lena wasn’t alone. She had Trent.”
Liz turns her head to look at me. “And you.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “I’m not sure she saw it that way. Pretty sure I just kept her busy trying to keep me in line. And she only bothered with that, so I wouldn’t come around and get Trent in trouble.”
“Now who’s skewing reality?” she says, her voice timid and unexpectedly warm with compassion. This is uncharted territory for us. Both of us on the same side, treating the other like a friend instead of the enemy.
A month ago, Liz would have jumped on the opportunity to pile on with proof I was a reckless, selfish jackass of a friend. Today…
“I know you loaned them the money they needed to make a down payment when they bought the ranch," she says, turning back to face the window. "And that you camped out on their couch for three months when Gavin was born because he was so colicky he would only settle if he was being rocked. You went right in and jumped into the rocking rotation so Lena and Trent could sleep. I also know it was you who walked out of work, drove straight here, and took Lena to the hospital when she went into early labor with Remmi because Trent was still on some interstate two states over, picking up a horse.” She sighs loudly when she’s done, like she’s exhausted from having to admit I have my decent points.
I’d tease her about it, but I just pulled into Trent and Lena’s driveway.
Sitting in front of their empty home, nothing seems funny anymore.
“Maybe this is why they chose us both,” Liz says under her breath. The words lack volume but are drenched in misery.
“Why?”
Slowly, she turns away from the house to face me. “We love each other’s flaws, Jovi. Love to point them out, love to act superior to each other. Love to insist the other is the bane of our existence.”
I can feel my brow climb higher as her list goes on. “Where the fuck are you going with this?”
“If anyone else said a kind word to me right now, I’d dismiss it, certain they were blowing smoke up my ass trying to boost me up in my moment of weakness.” She takes a deep breath and gradually lets it out, turning back to stare at the house. “But you…I believe.”