Page 16 of Second Chance Baby

FOUR

I was not makinggood decisions today. Far from it.

When I left the Sherman Inn in a hurry, I drove right to the closest drugstore. It would’ve been one thing if we’d had insaneprotectedsex. But we had not. And obviously I was fertile—at least I had been a decade ago. Maybe not anymore.

Even so, the smart thing would be not to take any chances.

Yet when I ended up in the aisle with the Plan B pills, I couldn’t do it. Could not physically pick up a box of them and take them to the checkout counter to purchase them.

What do you think? That now you two can have some romantic second chance? Brand new baby and your beloved daughter and yay, happy ending in idyllic Crescent Cove, practically Baby Town, USA.

Then reality descended.

No one really gets happy endings anymore, remember?

Certainly not me.

All I could do was get back in my car and stomp on the gas in a hasty retreat from the parking lot. I gripped my steering wheel because I needed to hold onto something—someone—desperately.

I needed my little girl. Right now.

Before I could second-guess myself any further, I grabbed my phone and texted Travis. Then I tossed aside my phone and aimed my car toward St. Agnes Academy. Not only was that the Catholic school where Carrington was enrolled, I’d taught there for all of one year after getting my education in teaching. I’d planned to do that for my entire life.

Funny how much my life had changed in such a small space of time.

Besides Travis, teaching had been my most cherished goal. I’d craved the security from a steady job, something I’d never known as my mother’s daughter. I’d even gotten my degree earlier than planned, thanks to doubling up on my coursework and taking summer classes every year.

Then I’d gotten pregnant.

Horrible morning sickness and a slew of other unpleasant symptoms had derailed so many things. That year, summer vacation just hadn’t come quickly enough. Then I’d simply never gone back.

For a while, I’d stayed with Travis and the baby. We’d gone from our little apartment to the big house right near the lake. Travis had made a lot of money very fast and he’d made the executive decision to buy a house. I’d just gone along with it since by then, taking care of Carrington had become my entire life.

It was right before Crescent Cove had become the booming town it was now. Travis had ended up getting an excellent deal on the asking price. They still lived there to this very day, and there was barely a trace of me there.

I’d been so wrapped up in my own spiral that I hadn’t been able to make the house a home. It just felt like a bigger place to be alone in while caring for a baby who seemed to hate me most of the time.

At least that was what it had felt like at the time.

I had no support when Travis was away. Just me freaking out abouteverythingand being an utter failure. I could’ve turned to his family, but I hadn’t wanted to be a bother. Or to seem incompetent.

And I’d had virtually no part in the lives of my very own family at the time.

Luckily, I was now close with my older sister, and seeing her little girl was a balm to my heart. Six-year-old Amerie was just old enough to be curious about literally every subject. One day, she wanted to be a beekeeper when she grew up of all things, because she’d gone to a special program at the library for career day.

The next week, she’d been all into trucks, like big rigs. How she’d fallen into that particular pit, I had no clue.

The topics that caught her interest were as varied as the colors of the rainbow—and she veered from one to the next with no rhyme or reason.

Early on, she’d had communication issues, which was actually what had led to her eventual autism diagnosis. At first, they’d thought maybe she couldn’t hear, but after months of tests, they’d finally realized her hearing was just fine.

Her processing was what was different. Not better or worse, just different. And being differently-abled was actually a gift, not a hinderance.

The same thing applied to our mother, despite her much different diagnosis. She had found her way back to us in the past year through occasional calls and letters. She was in treatment now for her bipolar depression and trying new meds, so me and my sister were both hopeful.

Hope was an important thing to have. And for too long, I hadn’t really had any. I’d just been going through the motions, living life by rote. As if I was a ghost in my own life. My modeling career allowed me to send nice checks home to my big sister, soshe could take care of her little girl without the help of Amerie’s father. He wasn’t in their lives at all.

What a pair we were.

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