Page 84 of Roads Behind Us
“Son—”
“Goddammit, Mama, I said no. I can’t fuckin’ do it! He’s not my kid. He can’t replace what we’ve lost. I’ve already let Athena down. Don’t make me let him down too.”
“Daddy,” Athena said softly, “you didn’t let me down. You’ve been grievin’. You were sad.”
“So were you, and I left you alone with this.” I sat next to her on the couch and set my crutches to the side. “I never talk about your mama. I never let you talk about her. I don’t deserve you either.”
“Yes you do! And you’re talkin’ about Mama now. Just the other day, you told me I looked like her. But it’s not Mama’s memory I’m worried about. I know it makes you sad that we lost the baby, but Daddy, he never got to be born. If we don’t talk about him, who will remember him?”
“What is there to remember, Athena? We didn’t know him. I never got to hold him. I don’t even know what his voice sounded like.”
Sobs worked themselves up behind my heart. I’d never said these words to Athena, and it hurt more than I expected. I curled my shoulders to keep the anguish trapped inside me, still trying to protect my little girl from all the shit in my head.
I was trying to hold onto my sadness so it couldn’t leave the same way the people I loved had.
“You’re right,” Athena said, and she slid off the couch and knelt in front of me. She reached out and held my face between her hands, making me look up. “But I remember how he made you smile and laugh when he’d kick Mama’s tummy. I remember the look on your face the day you guys told me I was gonna be a big sister. You were so proud. You had so much love inside you, Daddy. Where’d it go?”
I held her face between my hands too. “Baby, it’s not gone. It didn’t go anywhere, it’s just that it hurts. I’ve only got room in here for you.” Pulling her hand from my face, I placed it over my heart. “I can’t love that baby. If somethin’ happened to any of you, I don’t think I could handle that. And what if someone comes to take him away? We don’t even know if he’s really our family.”
“Daddy,” Athena said quietly, “he is. Just look at him. He looks just like Uncle Dixon. He looks just like you. He’s ours.”
“She’s right,” Mama said.
“There’s love all around you,” Athena said softly, pleading with me now. “Bea loves you too. All you have to do is open your eyes and take it, and we can be a family again.”
When I pictured it, when I saw all that love she talked about, I thought I might die on the spot. My heart beat so fast. Bile rose up the back of my throat, and all those happy imaginings faded quickly because all I could see was the broken man left in the aftermath when it all got ripped away.
I dropped my hands. “No!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bea
“Will you drive me somewhere?” Athena asked when I pulled up in front of Bax’s house and found her sitting on the porch stairs in the sunshine, with red, swollen eyes.
“Sure.”
“Now?”
“Should we let your dad know?—”
She sighed. “He doesn’t care right now.”
Merv poked her head out the kitchen door, her shrewd eyes locking on mine. “Can you come in here, please?”
Standing in front of her in Bax’s kitchen, I felt like an imposter, like I didn’t belong anywhere near this house. Bax was nowhere to be found, but Merv was front and center, holding the Lee family together by a flimsy thread.
Did she have any clue how deeply I’d fallen for her son and granddaughter?
I couldn’t have cared less what she thought about my job or my ability to do it well, but the thought of disappointing her if I walked away from Bax and Athena now bit at my confidence like hungry piranhas in some jungle river.
“It’s okay,” she said, still holding the baby and rocking him gently in her arms while she bottle fed him. “Please get Athena out of here for a while. She needs a break.”
The tables had turned, though, because now Merv was asking something of me, begging really. She was just as confused and worried as Bax, but now she wanted my help.
“Bax is asleep upstairs. He needed some time, too, and they’re just buttin’ heads anyway. She’ll probably want to visit her mama’s grave. Do you know where the cemetery is?”
“No.”
