Page 22 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Chapter Five

Since she could remember, Tahli had been tasked with one duty at her mother’s doing. To know herself.

It may have seemed simple enough compared to the endless briefs her father had lined up for her: keep her room clean, get good grades, be respectful, kind, considerate, and a decent human being.

But Cree Autumn’s singular mission complicated Tahli’s young mind, because it often coiled her brain into the knots of a thin necklace, impossible to undo. The more she pulled, the tighter the knots became. Too many instances to count. Like one Christmas break.

“Okay, so…good news.” Her mother re-entered she and Tahli’s bedroom of the small hotel suite with contagious excitement.

The other room was occupied by a tattooed back-up singer who drank liquor for breakfast, with a small living room conjoining them.

The singer was a woman at least. Nine-year-old Tahli had assured her father of it on her daily call home.

But she wasn’t entirely sure. The woman was tall.

Sort of looked like Tahli’s father in a dress, especially coming from the bathroom last night without a wig on.

She was as flat-chested as Tahli was. Maybe not a woman at all.

“I made some calls, and we can get you on a flight back to Robert the day after tomorrow.” Cree clapped her hands, beaming. “That gives us another two whole days together,” she squealed, “and you get to see the show!”

Contradictions.

Her mother’s joy was palpable. Tahli practiced indifference.

“So…after Christmas?”

A one-shoulder shrug accompanied her mother’s nonchalance.

“Yeah. You get to spend it with me.”

Tahli smiled, a blend of genuineness and disappointment.

“What’s wrong?” Cree picked up on it.

“Nothing. Just…” Tahli chewed her cheek. “I promised Leah and Vanessa I’d be back to help with the party.”

“Oh, please, they can manage their silly Christmas Eve party. Look, Tahli. That party is there every year. It never changes. It’s like Vanessa, just the way your father likes it – predictable, reliable, good old faithful, always-there, never going anywhere, Christmas Eve party.

” She laughed. Her bandmates laughed, too.

“Now…spending Christmas at a hoe down, on the road, surrounded by the freedom of art and music, scarfing burgers like we love to do, and getting culture…baby, moments like this don’t come all the time.

You want to look back on your life with no regrets, knowing you lived loud and full.

Not tied down to traditions and other people’s expectations.

I lost Leah. You’re my last hope,” Cree teased jokingly, and not so jokingly.

At the moment, Tahli’s twin desires were in a head-on collision.

Pleasing Cree. Pleasing herself. She chose Cree.

Because the more Tahli remained in her mother’s image, the more she would desire Tahli’s presence…

right? If Tahli didn’t become the woman Cree wished, those shoe-string ties would unravel.

But maybe…maybe if Tahli could please Cree more… she’d get more of Cree.

“Preoperational stage and concrete operational stage. Who can tell me the difference in relation to Piaget versus Vygotsky?” Tahli posed the question to a lecture hall of lethargic college students.

With 48 hours until spring break, they had Miami and Cancun on their half-checked out minds.

Tahli couldn’t blame them. She’d been there.

Before Vin. Before babies. Back when becoming an immigration consultant was the plan.

Thank goodness she had known to tuck that education degree in her back pocket.

After having Dali, she added Psychology classes as a minor.

Now, Tahli swapped roles as a Psychology or Political Science professor, given the semester.

A pretty girl with round glasses and a rounder face raised her arm, and Tahli aimed a finger her way.

“Piaget believed cognitive development occurred naturally in children, or from within, through trial and error so to speak. While Vygotsky felt external factors like parents and peers shaped children’s development into who they became.

Both believed the preoperational stage was important because it laid the baseline for the concrete operational stage, which was where children started to consider logic…

cause and effect…actions and consequences… ” A tornado of considerations.

“Professor Hayes…is that right?”

A lissome smile brought her out of the memory for good. Had Cree Autumn imprinted on Tahli’s cognitive development? Because last month in that steakhouse, Vin had proposed it. That Tahli’s inability to forgive him tied in with some deep-rooted, running-from-scary-shit, issues with her mother.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And what do you believe, Professor Hayes?” Malcolm Warren spoke out of turn, waiting for her answer.

That schoolboy crush he housed for Tahli all in his roaming eyes.

But Tahli could never, even with feeling like she had one selfish bullet of revenge in the chamber for Vin’s betrayal.

She didn’t do young. She damn sure didn’t lust after her bottle-breathed students.

“I believe who our parents were and what they did or didn’t teach us can only carry us but so far.

Eventually, we have to take responsibility for the decisions we make and recognize we are fully capable of breaking old cycles and implementing new ones.

We are not predisposed to anything,” she spoke more surely than she felt.

“I don’t believe, anyway,” Tahli added in a mutter.

Twenty minutes later, Tahli hovered over the button without action.

Her students were gone and her next class started in twenty more.

She had spent an excess of minutes hovering over that button.

The moment she recognized her weakness, she denounced it, channeling her birthright and tapping her thumb on the “Save” button.

A simple gesture of changing her marital status to single on Facebook, Tahli felt like she’d stood at the top of a mountaintop and shouted it to the world.

Some reactions came after. Mainly the care button, because what were people supposed to do with that notification?

Tahli Hayes is now Tahli Hall and single.

Sad face? Mad face? The care emoji seemed appropriate.

Of course, Paige hit her with the wow expression moments later.

Abby, even if Tahli knew her true feelings, loved it.

Because Abby deep down loved what Tahli loved for herself.

Tahli pushed her phone to the side to review papers, only to pick it back up again.

Vin never frequented Facebook. The one for his now nationwide landscaping business hadn’t posted anything all month.

Sabrina was slacking. He wouldn’t be privy to her declaration of independence.

Lola’s sad emoji ironically made Tahli smile.

Where the fuck was her ex-mother-in-law at that she had internet access?

She must be kicking, Tahli surmised. Whenever Lola was clean, she’d go on a Facebook binge, liking photos of the kids from the past year or two that she had missed.

Post bible verses about God’s forgiveness.

Sometimes, she would dig up an old photo of Vin and share that.

Like Lola’s profile picture: Vin with a fishing pole in his hand, standing high as his father’s knee; as chubby and adorable as Terran in it.

Tahli’s eyes swelled to the notification that came. Drew had delivered his own care emoji.

Chewing on her manicured nail, Tahli considered his judgment.

They kept in touch online. Liking each other’s pictures, shooting out birthday wishes.

Tahli had kept a faraway eye on his life, just as he’d done hers.

Drew had become a successful electrician, started his own company, and married a butter-skinned Alpha Kappa Alpha with green eyes named April—who he built their home from the ground up for.

They had a mailbox and doormats reading ‘April & Drew’ .

Those types of people. Tahli would skim their pictures, truly wishing them well from the heights of her own bliss.

Felt awful for him when he put up the GoFundMe for his wife’s breast cancer fight.

Felt worse when he posted the funeral arrangements and thanked everyone who stuck by her side until she couldn’t fight anymore.

Tahli had sent heartfelt condolences that led to some inbox messages where she delivered prayers and kind words—genuinely out of compassion.

Shutting off her phone, she focused on paperwork until her next lecture. Powered through her class only to open Facebook at the end of it and discover 100 more reactions. More of those damn care emojis.

Shit . Dali was so seldom of Facebook, Tahli forgot she had it. Her almost 15-year-old was always TikToking and Snapchatting. But today, Doll’s angry face on that status change washed Tahli with guilt.

As teenagers searching for adulthood shuffled out of the doors, anxious for the spring weather, Tahli smiled sadly at nostalgia.

The memories of jetting from a class to meet up with Paige and Abby, and…

damn. Sometimes Lexie was so far in her past, Tahli forgot she existed there.

Sometimes she wondered if it was too painful to remember her existing there. Jay, too.

As she pushed folders into her presidential briefcase, a new message alert flashed. Tahli expected another response to her subtle yet loud assertion. Perhaps Lola or Vanessa. Stunned, she reread the words three times.

“What do you think about me having coffee with Drew?”

Two and a half hours later, Tahli was in the kitchen making sure her sister—who was visiting for Akemi’s spring break—didn’t mess up the manicotti she was attempting.

Tahli was the cook. Leah, the baker. And they were both in their father’s kitchen while he and Vanessa took advantage of the mild weather in the backyard with the kids and Tahli’s dog.