Page 67 of The Life We Left Behind

I turned and jogged the few steps to the driver’s door of the car, calling back over my shoulder, “I’ll call you soon.”

“Make sure you do. I want to spend some time with my nephew.”

The smile on his face was one of the biggest I’d ever seen Booker produce. People and family meant a lot to him. He’d just had the misfortune of being born into a terrible one.

But this was a new beginning for both of us.

A family we could build ourselves.

One that mattered.

With people who actually loved each other.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DELANEY

Irushed through the house like something was chasing me, and from the look on Blake’s face as I ran into the kitchen, she knew something was wrong. Her eyes darted over me and then a smirk hit her lips as she took in my no doubt disheveled appearance. Damn, I didn’t think about that.

But then her face creased in concerned.

“What happened?” she asked, looking across the table to Cade, who was playing on his Switch.

His eyes darted in my direction at the concern in her voice, and then his game was abandoned as he started to get up from his seat. “Mom?”

“I don’t…I don’t know where to start.”

It had only been last night that I’d had one of the hardest conversations with my son that we’d ever had, and now I had to try to tell him this. There were certain things that kids just should never have to know, and this firmly fell into that category. But I had to tell him something. Trace would be coming to the house, and Cade needed to understand that all the years they’d been separated wasn’t Trace’s fault.

Cade looked between me and Blake as I was stunned into silence. I should have prepared what I was going to say on the way here in the car, but all I could think about was getting back to them.

“I’m going to go and tidy my room,” Cade mumbled, getting up and grabbing his Switch. As he went to walk past me, he suddenly darted in and wrapped his arms around me. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, monkey.” My voice cracked with emotion. “I’ll be up in a few minutes for a chat, okay?”

This kid. He knew I needed to talk to Blake first, and he wasn’t going to make a fuss about it. Sometimes I worried about how much pressure Cade had on him to grow up far too early, but I genuinely thought he was just a kid with a huge amount of empathy for his age.

I waited for him to leave the room, and then for the telltale squeak of the floorboard at the top of the stairs before I turned back to Blake, only to find her filling up the kettle and placing it on the stove.

“I swear to God if you make me a cup of tea right now.”

“It’s what you dooooo!” she stressed anxiously before turning back to me. “I can’t take the anticipation, Dels. Just blurt it out before I pee myself in anxiety.”

I blinked slowly, her words registering but taking a moment to filter through to my brain. “We’re coming back to that.”

She waved her hands in a hurry-up motion, and I sighed.

“He never knew about Cade.”

Hearing it aloud now was nearly as bad as the first time. The shock and the anger might have faded to a simmer in the background, but that just meant there was so much room for my sadness to seep in.

Blake’s mouth hung open before she seemed to reboot. She quickly swept her pink hair behind her ears and then sat backdown at the kitchen table, staring at me intently. “Never?” she asked in shock.

I shook my head. “Not the pregnancy. Not me being forced out of town. None of it. It was all his mother.”

“What a bitch!” Blake yelled and then slapped her hand over her mouth as she cautiously looked out into the hallway. “What an absolute bitch,” she whispered this time.

I started to pace. I needed to move. There was a problem, I needed to fix it, and I needed to do it quickly. But this was nine years of Cade’s life that Trace had missed. This was a son he’d never gotten to know. I couldn’t even bring myself and our relationship into this equation yet.

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