Page 71 of A Love So Hard

“I’m so sorry, momma. I thought he would choose you over the club. I really did.”

I shook my head. “I never asked him to do that,” I reminded her.

“You shouldn’t have had to though.”

“Anna, it’s not that simple. We’re talking about people who he has known his entire life. They are family. Some of those men have known him since he was in diapers, and others he held when they were born. I would never ask him to walk away from them because they are a part of him he could never untie himself from. I needed to walk away for a while, and that was different. I may have known some of those people my whole life too, but…”

“You also held them responsible for Toby,” she finished for me.

“Not just Toby, but yes, the worst things that have ever happened in my life have been because of the club. I’ve had a hard time moving past that.”

“But you’ve been ready to do it though. Why don’t you just tell him?”

“Because I think he wasn’t ready to be let go of me all that time, but now he is. For the first time since we separated, he didn’t ask if he could come home.” I didn’t mean to drop that on my daughter, of all people. Frankly, I didn’t really have anyone else to talk to about it. The women I knew were either from the club or from work. I wouldn’t tell the women from work a single thing. Half of them had been panting after my man for years. I fully believe if I mentioned our separation there they would be knocking on the clubhouse door the next day. The women from the club, well, they’d kept their distance. Even Tiger Lily had stayed away, and that hurt. I knew she had been there during my crazy club-blaming breakdown at the cemetery, but surely, she had to know she would have done the same, felt the same had it been one of her boys? Right?

“Momma!” She sighed and squeezed me tighter. I swiped hard at the traitorous tear that slipped free and then I dropped the sausage into the skillet so I could cook us up some breakfast, and shake off the hurt that threatened to swamp me again. Since the funeral, Ever and Deck had been the only people to come by and check on me. Aside from CJ when he would come back to see if I was okay and if he could come home yet.

For the past few weeks I’d made it a point that Anna and I sit down to at least two meals a day together. We both had to eat them. Personally, because I had been compared to the walking dead, and Anna had to do so because I didn’t want her heartache to do to her what mine had done to me. The bonus was that we had grown closer in doing so. At least, once she got over being so dang angry with me. The first week was hell. The subsequent four had been gradually better.

“Ugh,” Anna hissed in my ear and then let me go as if I were on fire and she didn’t want to go up in flames too. Then I noticed the color drain from her face, and finally her quick flight to the sink where she emptied her stomach. I glanced from my daughter who had been fine moments ago to the pan of cooking meat and immediately pulled it from the burner and dropped a lid down on the pan. Then I opened a window and took a deep breath of fresh air because I knew what that reaction meant. I’d had it when I was pregnant with her.

“I think maybe you need to try to hold anything else in until you get upstairs, far away from the kitchen. I’ll bring you something to settle your stomach in just a bit,” I told her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered with wide panicked eyes on me.

“It’ll be okay,” I told her. “Go on, get upstairs. The further from the smell, the better you’ll feel.”

She looked at me strangely then but did as I asked. I cleaned up the mess I’d made in the kitchen and then left the house and jumped in my car. It took me twenty minutes to go to the store, get what was needed, and come back. When I re-entered the house it was to find my baby girl lying in her bed curled into the fetal position. “Feeling any better?” I asked her as I placed my bags down at the end of her bed.

“Not really, but I don’t have anything left in my stomach to throw up.”

I nodded sagely and then turned away from her to dig in the bag. I grabbed her a Ginger Ale and a small pack of saltine crackers and handed them to her. “This will help with that.”

She was shaking her head violently. “I don’t want to put anything in my mouth, it will just come back up.”

“Trust me,” I told her. “It will help settle your stomach.” She gave me a wary look, but sat up and popped the top on the bubbly drink and took a sip. Then she set it aside on her nightstand and wrestled with the crackers to get them opened. I laughed at her when she tugged too hard and a few went flying all over her bed.

“Really? You’re laughing at me?”

“Honey, right now, it’s the only thing I can do because things are about to change so much all over again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She managed to get the question out around a mouthful of cracker. I turned back to the bag and then hesitated.

“Have you gone pee yet this morning?”

“Momma, why are you being so weird?”

“Just answer the question,” I told her.

“No, I crawled in bed after I threw up.” I turned and reached back in the bag and then handed her the box I pulled out of it. “What’s this?” She asked the question just before she glanced down at it.

“I think you need to go pee on that,” I told her. Tears pooled in eyes so wide I’d never seen them like that before. I watched as she was trying to figure something out. No doubt, she was trying to remember when her last period was. I was thinking back on it too and I couldn’t remember buying her any supplies for the past two months. We were usually pretty well stocked considering there was me, Anna, sometimes Ever, and Tiger Lily here too. We were always prepared in case someone had their monthly visitor.

“Momma?” My name came out as a tiny little question. “He hasn’t even come to see me, to see if I was okay,” she mumbled.

That was true, and I had a feeling that once Double-D went back to the club and laid everything out for the man that he wouldn’t have done so. He probably felt beyond betrayed by her, and anything he thought he might have been feeling for my daughter – at least I hoped he had feelings for – was probably lost with that betrayal coming to light. I felt for my baby girl then. I didn’t know how this was going to go over. First, we needed confirmation though. Then, I would be by her side no matter what happened.

“Will you stay with me?” Anna asked suddenly.

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