Page 32 of Everlasting

Christmas was right around the corner and I didn’t know what I was going to tell my children. Archer wouldn’t care. He was too young to even know what Christmas was. The girls though, how could I keep the girls from experiencing something their father and I had made special for them every single year of their life, including the last, just before Deck was taken from us?

Just thinking on the fact that we were coming up on the year anniversary of Deck’s disappearance made my stomach tumble. My father had asked me to give him until the end of the year. Actually, he had asked for ‘as long as it takes’ while I had insisted on revisiting his stay away at the end of the year. I had a decision to make soon. One that I wasn’t looking forward to because truth be told, I was running out of hope. I was also running out of excuses to tell my girls and I had finally sat them down and told them that their daddy was taken by bad men and that we had been trying to get him back this whole time.

They already knew. I hadn’t broken any news to them. My girls were smart. Much like Toby, Jay, and myself when we were just a bit older than them, they had been routinely listening in on conversations they were not supposed to overhear. I felt like the world’s biggest failure as a parent that I hadn’t been able to shelter them from what was really happening. Then I remembered my Momma Luce and doing the same thing to her all the time, so I just smiled up to the heavens and asked for her help and guidance in getting through everything with some sort of sanity intact. My kids needed me. They didn’t need a basket-case who couldn’t pull her shit together.

I was trying to figure out what to do about Christmas when I pulled a manilla envelope from my mailbox. My hands started to tremble immediately because I recognized the writing on it. “No, please God, not today,” I hummed to myself as I took it, along with all my other mail, into the house with me. Then I sat down on the couch and opened the damned thing. Yeah, I really wished I hadn’t done that.

Inside were pictures of Deck and the woman. He was obviously asleep, though he appeared much healthier than he had in previous photos we received all those months ago. His hand was on her belly and she was smiling at the camera. Once again, it was obvious that someone else was there taking the picture, which took away from their intimate little love-fest set. Still, He looked healthy, no visible bruising, and his hand rested gently on her very pregnant belly. I dropped the photos and ran to the guest bathroom where I lost everything that I had been able to eat that day.

“Ever?” I heard my sister calling out to me, but I couldn’t respond as I was mid-heave. “Oh my gosh, Sis, are you okay?”

I waved her off, and only moments later, I heard her gasp. I knew, without a doubt, that she had just discovered the pictures that had sent me running in here to be sick. She was immediately on the phone with someone, though I couldn’t make out the words she was saying. It didn’t matter. Pretending he was coming home to us became so much harder now that he didn’t look like he was wasting away and being beaten regularly. My brain and my heart were on the same page before. They knew he wasn’t there of his own free will, but these latest images? They were heartbreaking because he looked healthy. They were devastating because of the implications that he’d moved on, that he was expecting a child with another woman. What would happen if my father did find him? Would he bring her home too? Would he choose to stay? Would I have to introduce my children to their newest sibling? One he had with another woman? My thoughts spun out of control, making me feel sick again, though there was nothing left to bring up. For one fleeting moment, I finally understood Momma Luce’s original reaction to me being introduced to her family. The horror of knowing the person you love most on the planet made another child with someone else, the devastation over the loss of that distinction. I used to be the only mother to his children. The rage I felt towards the woman, Deck, and even their child. I got it. Not only did I get it, but I understood my dad’s point of view finally too. He had to know what Lucy was feeling. They didn’t hide things from one another.

He had to be devastated, considering how I was conceived, and then to think he might lose the love of his life as a result, I finally understood the animosity that he must have started with when it came to me.

“Stop!” Anna finally got through to me with a light smack to my face. “Stop it, right now! I know what that looked like, but you know the crazy bitch enjoys playing games. We don’t know anything for sure. So stop whatever you’re thinking.”

“Anna, he looks healthy. No bruises.”

“You don’t know what kind of internal damage he’s taking though, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if they threatened you and the kids? What if they took pictures of you and showed them to him to gain his cooperation? You saw the pictures from before. He was in bad shape. If she is pregnant, if it is…” even my sister couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud. “It would have happened back then, when he was looking for all the world like a junkie in a back-alley drug deal gone wrong.”

“What if it is his and they bring him home? Does that mean we have to raise that child together? A child that may have been made in a rape? A child that another woman stole from him, basically?”

“Isn’t that what you were?”

Well, she had me there. What my mother had done might as well have been considered rape. She took my father’s choices away, that night, and every night after that she kept me a secret. Anna put her arms around me and gave me a hug before she led me back to the living room and helped me get seated on the couch.

“I’m not saying that woman is even pregnant with his baby, but if she is, and if they end up bringing Deck home with another little person in tow, I know that you will figure things out quickly, just like Mom did. Whatever happened out there, it wasn’t that child’s fault.”

That was when I broke. “Anna!” I rasped my sister’s name out and leaned into her shoulder and just let loose. “How can I? I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t have anything left inside.”

“Yes, you do. I know you’re exhausted. The constant worry, stress, caring for a new baby along with the twins, and still having to work some too… Sis, we all see it. We’ve all begged you to let us help. You can’t keep doing everything on your own. Those kids of yours need you, but you’re not going to be any good to them if you’re completely broken.”

“Anna, I already am,” I admitted the defeat I had already been feeling before the picture arrived.

“No, you are most definitely not, my beautiful sister. You’re just run down and losing faith, and no one can blame you. It’s been so long. Until today, none of us were even sure he was alive still, honey. This, while coming hand-in-hand with possible crappy news, is a good thing. You know he’s alive. He’s still out there. There’s still hope.”

“Ever!” I heard a woman call out from the front door.

“You called Erin?”

“She’s your best friend, I figured I needed backup.”

“Ev?” That time it was a man’s voice.

“And Zeke?” I asked.

Anna shrugged. “I guess they were together,” she explained as the two people in question rounded the corner and took in the state of things.

“What the hell happened?” Zeke asked. Anna stood and took him the photos that had been delivered. “Fuck!” He hissed out when he saw what had upset me. “Little Sis, I’m taking these to the clubhouse.” He turned to his wife then, “Erin, stay by her side until I get in touch again, oaky?”

“Like you had to ask me to do that,” she huffed. “Go on, big guy, get out of here. I’ve got this.” I stared at my best friend for a minute. She had been through some shit over the years too, and I felt horrible for not being a larger part of her life when she went off to college and got into all sorts of things she regretted. One of those things was getting pregnant by the wrong man. Knowing that Zeke stepped up and has given my bestie and her son the best life after everything she went through still warms my heart to this day.

“Where’s Josh?” I asked.

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