Page 64 of The Wrong Track

“I’m not trying to force him into anything. No, I guess I did but I had to, for Ella. It’s the best thing for her because he’s absolutely the best person for her. If I’m not here, then she’ll need Tobin. He said it was ok.”

Charlene was silent for another moment and I had already opened my mouth to start going again, trying to explain myself, when she spoke. “My husband made a will. Shortly after that, he took his own life. He was tying up loose ends.”

Now I couldn’t talk. I just stood there, staring at her in horror.

“It made me worried to hear that you were doing the same thing,” she continued.

“No, I’m not. Not the same thing,” I said. “I was trying to be responsible, that was all.” I shook my head. “I thought your husband had cancer.”

“He did.” She let out a breath. “But at the end, when he was very sick, he left a note and went into our closed garage, and he turned on the car.”

“Christ.” My eyes immediately combed the crowd for Tobin. “I have to tell him that I’m not planning that.” He’d gotten so upset when I’d fallen asleep in the car that time—I hadn’t understood why, but now I had to talk to him.

“He found his father. Tobin’s baseball practice got cancelled due to a thunderstorm so he came home early. I’m sure that it wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but it did.” She looked like she was trying not to cry. “This is also not appropriate for a kid’s birthday party, but I wanted you to know.”

“I’m glad you told me. Charlene, I have to go. Please don’t worry, because I’m not going to do anything to hurt your son. I would rather—there are a lot of bad things that I would rather have happen to me, everything bad, before I would ever do anything to Tobin.” Then I left her and ran off through the crowd of Whitakers.

“Am I glad to see you,” Tobin said when I pushed open yet another bedroom door and finally found him. He had the cooing baby on the floor on a mat to change her. She was mostly naked and kicking up a storm, and there was a towering pile of wipes next to them. “I need some help with this one. It’s so ugly, she’s going to need new clothes.”

“She has other outfits in the bag.” I’d learned the hard way to carry extras.

“Good. Hell, this was…what?”

Because I’d gone down on my knees to hug him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “Unless you put something into her bottle, and I don’t think—”

“I’m sorry if I scared you by talking about a will. Nothing’s going to happen to me, ok? I won’t do anything to hurt myself. I swear it. I wanted to make everything set and legal, that was all.”

He his arms went around me, too. “Oh. Yeah, I was worried about that.”

“You don’t have to worry. I promise.” I hesitated and then said, “Charlene told me about your dad.”

“She did?” He pulled away to stare at me. “What did she tell you?”

“That he didn’t die of cancer. That he made a will because he was preparing.”

“I’m surprised she said that. Not many people know what happened, the truth. If they do, they don’t talk about it.”

“We don’t have to talk about it either.” I thought of Tobin finding his dad, of the shock and the horror of that moment, of the smile wiped from his face for weeks or months or years afterwards. I was so glad that he’d gotten it back. “I’m sorry,” I told him and I hugged him again, resting my head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” I patted his back, making gentle circles like he did for Ella and he rubbed his cheek against my hair. “If I’d known, I would have tried to explain it better,” I said, and I also never would have stayed in the car in the garage that day when he’d found us out there. I never wanted to do anything to make him upset or worried, nothing to lose his smile.

“I understand that a will is important when you have a baby and it’s something I’ve been thinking about, too,” he said.

“You were thinking about if I died?”

“No, I was thinking about the rest of our lives,” Tobin answered. “Remy, I don’t want you two to go anywhere. I know you’re looking at New Mexico but I don’t want you to go around the corner if I’m not there with you.”

I couldn’t blame him for not trusting me; I hadn’t given him much reason to. First he’d met me when I was trying to pretend that I wasn’t even pregnant, and then I hadn’t known anything about how to take care of a baby, and lately I’d almost let myself die and left her an orphan. I understood it but it hurt to hear because I was so sorry that I was that woman. I didn’t want to be.

“I had another idea of how I could be a part of Ella’s life. More than just a will,” he said and I picked up my head off his shoulder.

“What?” I asked. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking that we should get married.”

If he had said that he was thinking we should jump off the roof to fly to Mars, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. “What did you just say?” I managed to ask.

“I’ve been considering the idea for a while. It makes sense.”

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