Page 20 of Right the Wrongs (Broken Vows #5)

Chapter Fourteen

Wren - Past

When I was pregnant with Parker, I felt my parents’ absence almost as sharply as I did the first year they were gone. Of course, Griffin knew I would, and when she was born, he surprised me with the name he wanted to give her, my maiden name.

To this day, I still find it hard to find the words to express to him what that has meant to me.

I’ve heard the jokes around Harriston. People say that I married Griffin so I didn’t have to change my driver’s license after my divorce from Liam.

That shows how little attention they paid to me during those years, because I had never changed my name to Hale while I was married to Liam.

In a way, it’s like our marriage never really happened.

He spent less and less time at home, and for at least the last year of our marriage, it felt more like we were living separate lives alongside each other.

We never should have gotten married in the first place, but grief will make you do some dumb shit.

It isn’t that I miss them any less now, but it’s easier to live with it now. The wound scabbed and scarred. I’ll never be healed “good as new,” whatever that means, but I don’t have a freshly bleeding wound anymore. I have Griffin to thank for that. He knows what I need, sometimes before I even do.

After our baby girl was born, and I missed them, I thought to myself, “This is it. This is as much as it is ever going to hurt. I can live with this now.”

For a while, that seemed to be true. There were dozens of times that I wanted to call my mom and ask her for help when Parker had a fever or to brag when she said her first word a couple of months ago, but I just imagined them looking down on us and seeing it all anyway.

Then the doctor said babies, as in more than one, and that arrow speared through my battle-hardened flesh, and once again, here I am bleeding. I guess there is no limit to how many times I’m going to turn around and wish they were here.

The only thing I can do is sit with the enormity of it until the weight feels less crushing.

I know that Griff wouldn’t judge me for crying.

Shit, I cried after a commercial for tissues the other day, so he wouldn’t think anything of it.

For some reason, I can’t seem to extend myself the same grace.

I’m so fed up with feeling like a depresso-espresso chick. I don’t want to be the “poor orphan girl” for the rest of my life. I’d rather be defined by the love my parents had for me than by the loss of them.

“Wren, did you have any questions?” Dr. Carter asks me.

I blink several times, forcing my mind back into my body. I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. I smile awkwardly, although it probably looks more like a grimace.

She reciprocates the gesture. “I’m sorry. You’re probably overwhelmed right now. How could you even know what to ask? There are books, of course, but nothing can prepare you for twins.”

Griffin grunts, which pretty eloquently sums up all the jumbled thoughts fighting each other in my head right now.

“Well, I am going to start needing to see you every two weeks until you get to twenty-eight weeks, then I’ll see you every week until they’re born. How about you write down any questions, concerns, any random thoughts, and I’ll go over everything with you at our next appointment?”

She writes down a date and time on an appointment card, something her receptionist usually does, but I think she knows that in our shell-shocked state, we’re not going to be capable of the level of thought needed to set an appointment.

I take the card and nod my head. That’s when I remember what I was originally so excited about today. “Were you able to see the sex of the baby…er…babies?”

She smiles a big smile this time. “Not that either of you cares either way, but you’re having boys. We will have to keep a close eye on all three of you, because they are sharing a placenta, but they look healthy.”

“They’re identical?” Griffin manages to ask.

Dr. Carter nods. “I know.” She slides her eyes over to me and winks. “God help all of us. Two identical charmers. If they are anything like their grandpa, the world is going to need it.”

Griff’s dark eyes turn thunderous, and I can see the effort he’s making not to bite the doctor’s head off. “I’m their dad, not their grandpa.”

“I’m fully aware, Mr. Hale, I’m talking about Martin Parker.

” She smiles at me again, and it’s a sad one.

“I never told you that I used to work with your dad. He would come up here for a week every month when I first started at the hospital because we didn’t have enough radiology techs.

He used to brag about you. That man could charm the scales off a snake.

” She laughs to herself, some memory that belongs to a whole other life I didn’t get time to learn about.

Griffin reaches out and laces his fingers with mine. “I was a couple of years behind him in school. Man, we all wanted to be him. He was the coolest guy I’ve ever known.”

A tear breaks free without permission. Damn hormones.

“He used to fly me around with some cape we made out of an old pillow case. My mom said that she was so glad I was a girl, because otherwise, he would have named me after his favorite superhero. She said it like it was a fact, because the way he was, if he’d wanted something, she was powerless to deny him.

She wouldn’t even have been upset about it. ”

On the drive home, I try and let the totality of the day settle in.

I’m not sure how long it takes to come to terms with the fact that there are two babies inside of me when I was expecting one, but I guess I have about sixteen weeks, considering twins are usually born early.

Then there’s the fact that my doctor used to work with my dad, talk about unexpected.

Here I was wishing I could know they were watching over me, and I feel like the universe gave me as definitive an answer as it could.

The drive is short to our house since Centralia, from one side to the other, is only about fifteen minutes, but I’m still surprised when Griffin turns off the engine in our driveway.

He’s started not pulling into the garage while I’m in the car, because, embarrassingly enough, I’m having a hard time getting in the truck when it is inside the garage. It’s only going to get worse, too.

I expect him to get out and start helping me out of the truck.

It’s also getting harder for me to jump down on my own.

Instead, he turns the engine off and just sits there.

I know that I’ve been lost inside my head today, and it seems like Griffin has been too.

I can’t even begin to guess what might be on his mind.

It could be any number of things. Our relationship is strong, but that is because we have been tested frequently.

Liam coming home was a test I could have lived without.

Things are still difficult between him and me, but we do our best to contain our discomfort for Griffin’s sake.

Not that we’ve talked about it. Communication isn’t exactly one of our strengths.

Griff could be thinking about how much tension there still is, or he could be thinking about the fact that he’s going to be having another son. Two sons, I mean. That is going to take a lot of getting used to.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. It isn’t like I’m an expert at the inner thoughts of Griffin Hale. I probably know more than most others, but the man is an onion.

He looks over at me, and I can see him debating whether to ask me whatever is on his mind or not.

It makes me nervous whenever he hesitates to be his usual blunt self.

Yes, he’s more careful with me since we’ve gotten married.

It’s like my wedding ring has dulled his sharp edges, at least when it comes to me.

He’s not a total softie, though, just less acerbic than when his life goal was to convince me that he hated me.

“Does it bother you that people are going to think that I’m the grandpa, and not the dad? I do have a granddaughter older than our oldest child,” he says. There’s a hesitancy to his voice that isn’t normal for him.

I want to reassure him. Tell him, of course not.

I open my mouth to do just that, but I realize he’s hesitating because it’s a genuine question that requires an equal amount of bravery from me.

The problem is, I’m not sure how to phrase what I want to say.

Not because I’m trying to protect him, but because there’s not one single answer.

I exhale. “Mostly no,” I finally say.

“That means a little bit, yes,” he translates.

I nod, because that’s exactly what that means.

“I only care that people say dumb shit, and I know you’re sensitive about it.

I also know that if we stayed in Harriston, our kids would have to hear the whole drama about how we got together, and I’d rather we were the ones to tell them when we’re ready. ”

He breathes in slowly through his nose and holds his breath. “People are going to find out. They always do, and when they do, they’re going to say dumb shit to our kids. That’s inevitable. For fuck’s sake Parker’s older brother is your ex-husband.”

I know that the correct response to this statement isn’t laughter, but I can’t fight how this hits me. I double over with uncontrollable giggles.

Griff rolls his eyes, but can’t hide his smirk. “You’re ridiculous.”

I point my index finger against my chest. “Me? Griff, we’re all ridiculous.

I started calling you Daddy because you were my father-in-law as a joke.

You went to school with my parents. Your best friend is married to my aunt.

That means I’m my ex-husband’s stepmom, and you are your best friend’s nephew.

I can’t say that we can blame people for talking about us when or if they do.

It is pretty fucking hilarious when we stop taking ourselves so seriously. ”

“So if that isn’t what was bothering you, what was?” There’s a deep groove between his eyes now that he’s questioning what made me so quiet earlier.

“My first thought after hearing that we’re having twins was that I wanted to talk to my mom.

I thought there weren’t any more big things that would happen to me that I’d want to turn to my parents for.

Then Dr. Carter said she worked with my dad, and I felt a little like they were telling me that they’re still here, in a way, at least. I feel silly, but I want my mom to run her hands through my hair and tell me that everything will be okay.

I guess, though, that ever since the night that I lost them, I have a hard time believing that things will work out. ”

“Did you get therapy when you lost them?” he asks me.

I give him a look that questions his intelligence. “Did Liam tell you nothing, or did you choose to ignore everything about me from back then?”

He gives me a puzzled look. “My son isn’t a very deep well, Baby Bird, and I didn’t have those thoughts about you when you were in high school. I didn’t see you that way until after your twentieth birthday, actually. Liam never really told me much about you other than you existed.”

That deflates my hormonally fueled anger pretty quickly.

We’d talked about when he started to see me differently, of course, not in depth, but enough so that I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong to make him act like he hated me.

Despite where we’ve ended up, I think there’s still a part of him that feels guilty for loving me.

That, however, is a whole other can of worms to discuss with a therapist.

“I spoke to the school counselor for a little while. There was so much to take care of that I didn’t really focus on myself then.

I was more about going through the motions of taking care of their funerals, figuring out that I couldn’t keep the house, and trying to function alone.

There was no one around to make sure I did the things I needed to do to make sure I was a functioning human being after everything was done. ”

“There’s no time limit on grief. I think it would be a good idea for you to talk to someone,” he says.

“I think you’re probably right. It certainly would have saved me from being a divorcée at twenty-three,” I say mostly to myself.

“Say that again,” he says in a very serious sounding tone.

I squirm in my seat. “I’m not sure if this is something we should talk about.”

He nods and turns to look out the window.

This is one of those things that makes our relationship a challenge.

There are these huge potholes that we constantly have to steer around unless we want to risk the wheels coming off.

I don’t know why he’d be upset that I view my marriage to Liam as a mistake; clearly it was.

I have to remember that no matter what Griffin feels for me, he will always love his son.