Page 56 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Chapter Fourteen

Tahli

“Daddy’s here!”

“Mom! Dad’s here!”

The excitement blared through her living room, giving Tahli a taste of nostalgia.

Almost comparable to when he’d return from one of his business trips—trips Tahli now mentally morphed into “Sophie trips”—although doubting he was that generous with her.

She was moving past overthinking it so sickeningly, almost to the point of repulsion. But every once in a while…

“Okay, go get your things!” Tahli dried her hands with a towel and heard a stampede up the staircase.

“Hey.” Tahli skidded to a halt on top of the porch steps, anxious to reveal the news.

“She’s okay,” Tahli couldn’t wait to beam. “Abby’s gonna be okay.” Abby was important to Vin, too. He would want to know.

“They have to put a stint in and start some heart medication, but…” Tahli sighed her countless one of relief. “She’s going to be okay, Vin.”

His lips twitched into a smile that his eyes tried to mimic. But Tahli spotted the dismay. She didn’t just know Vin like the tests she would ace throughout her schoolyears. It was way more innate. She knew this man like the name she was born with.

“That’s good, Tahli.”

She took a step. And another.

“Lola’s not,” he blew her mind. Tahli’s smile melted away. She assessed his body language. Vin was a man of composure. But today, he tugged on his fingers, shifting his feet.

“I gotta um…I gotta get back to the hospital, you know? I gotta sign papers and shit…” His stare sat on the end of the street, glaze on the brown of his eyes. Those eyes that made a killer appear innocent.

“They asking me if she’s an organ donor and I’m like…who the fuck wants her organs?” Vin chuckled. He squared his jaw after, and Tahli watched it tremble, witnessing the battle of caring about someone that you shouldn’t care so much about.

Tahli staggered down the steps, still very much dazed.

“Dalvin,” she uttered. “What do you need?”

God, please no…don’t take this man’s mother. Not now. Not when he’s lost so much.

Yes, Lola was pieces of a mother, in and out of rehab, irresponsible, unstable, unpredictable. But she was his mother and, in her way—the only way she knew how…she loved Vin.

“What do you need from me?” Because once upon a time, he was her baby. And Tahli still fought the urge to pull him into her bosom.

His eyes fastened with hers and Tahli knew he recalled. His exact words to her at one point in their lives. She watched his Adam’s apple bulge.

“I can’t take the kids right now.”

“Of course.”

“I won’t take them to see her. She’s not even awake. It’s no point in them seeing her like this.”

Or seeing him like this , Tahli quietly tacked on.

“I only stopped because DJ’s in the car. I gotta get him to his grandmother then make it back to the hospital, and your place was on the way.”

Tahli was already shaking her head. “Dalvin, you’ll never make it in time.” He had missed his father’s last breath. A regret Tahli witnessed take a toll on him. “Send DJ in here and get to the hospital.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking me shit. Go get that baby and get to your mother, Dalvin Isaiah Hayes.

That woman gave you that name, Isaiah. God saves.

She believed in your salvation, but I think you have been hers.

She may not have lived her life perfectly but I damn sure think she lived it for you.

You kept her alive. You were her salvation. Her Isaiah.”

He met her stare. A second later, Vin sniffed in composure, then whistled with two fingers between his lips, and DJ exited the car.

On opposite sides of her kitchen island, there was a showdown.

On one side: 37-year-old Tahli standing at five feet plus inches, 162 pounds of confusion and compassion.

On the other, 11-year-old Little Dalvin Hayes.

Had to be turning twelve soon, but exact birthdate unknown.

Tahli only knew it was August. Height unknown.

Weight unknown. Thoughts…unknown. Poker faced… just like his damn daddy.

The standoff and stare-down carried on wordlessly. They both seemed to examine details about the other.

“…Hi.” Tahli broke the quiet.

His chin lifted in defense.

“You hungry? You want a snack or something?”

He had perfect lips like his father. Like someone had taken Vin’s sculpted, fleshy, well-proportioned mouth and made it bite-sized. DJ frowned those perfect lips before answering.

“No. Do you? Because if you want one, eat it.”

Shock delayed her snort. His father bite-sized indeed.

More staring ensued. More examining. More pocketed thoughts.

“Do you know where your dad went?” Tahli didn’t want to say too much. But he was a baby. Had to be a ball of confusion, too.

“To go watch my grandmother die.”

A faint gasp escaped.

“The other one,” DJ tossed in. Tahli gnawed her lip.

“How do you feel about that? Did you know her?”

His little, smooth forehead wrinkled.

“I guess. She bought me things for Christmas. But my mom said it was from the dollar store.”

Wow. Vin’s secrets had legs. So many. Centipede secrets.

The boy shrugged. “Larry said everybody dies.”

“Who’s Larry?”

“The man I talk to on Tuesdays. My dad talks to him, too. But sometimes he skips.”

Tahli’s brows jumped. More silence.

“Lalalalala Bamba…”

DJ’s eyes grew to saucers. Tahli continued singing.

“Lalalalala Bamba…” She went into some of the only Spanish she knew from the Los Lobos track as DJ gawped at her. After his muddle mirrored fright, Tahli figured she should explain.

“When I was a little girl, my mother was really into music.

So, she told me to pick the happiest song I had ever heard.

And it was this song from this movie I liked.

It was called La Bamba. Well, the song was in Spanish, and they were really singing Para bailar la bamba .

But I always thought they were saying lalalalala bamba .

“It became my happy song and even after I found out the right words, I would sing it my way…whenever I was feeling not so happy. Even if for no reason…when you can’t quite put your finger on why you’re sad.”

After Vin learned that part of her, he would put the song on mid-fight, joking that he needed happy Tahli back. The memory hugged her.

“Well, I don’t need no song because I don’t care no more.” DJ shrugged, so much like Vin. Or trying to be. Impermeable.

“Only bad stuff happens to me. I wish I was never born.”

“Don’t say that,” Tahli frowned.

“Why? You wish I wasn’t born.”

Tahli’s heart tanked.

“That’s not true.”

“Maybe I’ll die next. Maybe my dad. Yeah, probably him. No song stopping it.”

Tears pricked her lenses at the thought. Only a silly little outrageous thought.

“Your father’s not gonna die. He’s like Superman,” Tahli smiled a little.

DJ did not.

“Superman ain’t real, lady.”

“First of all, it’s Miss Tahli. Not lady . Catch that. And second…” Tahli gulped. “I know that. But Dalvin Hayes is real. And your father is…”

Her words trailed off. Because Vin was many things and none of them right now. Right now, he was broken and vulnerable. Alone. Pretending none of those things affected him.

Tahli’s eyes roved her spotless kitchen.

“He’s um…” She tried to ignore the tug in between her breasts. “He’s not gonna die. Wait right here.”

Tahli flew to the steps to call Dali. Her baby came to the middle of the staircase, removing one earbud.

“Yeah?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes.”

Tahli peeked back to the kitchen. “How do you feel about DJ?”

Dali’s neck stretched, eyes toward the back of the house.

“He’s fine. We talk sometimes. Why…is he here? Where’s Dad?”

“Dad…had to run out. I’ll tell you later. Can you just…watch him? Watch them all?”

Terran and Milo would be a breeze. Dali nodded, worried expression in tow.

“Call me if you need me. I’ll be right back.”

After three failed attempts and a brief outburst at a lazy nurse, Tahli found Vin in Lola’s room.

Parked at the door, she quietly observed Vin in the bedside chair—head lowered, pen in one hand and clipboard in the other. He didn’t even know she was there.

Beside him, Lola lay hooked up to various machines, the steady beeping from as death’s stopwatch.

Tahli couldn’t help but think of being on the other side of where she stood now, back when she was the one in the hospital bed.

She couldn’t imagine what her family felt.

What Vin felt, sleeping on her legs as she had awakened to find him.

Now, she stood over Vin after some timid steps, and he still hadn’t acknowledged her. Tahli looked down to watch teardrops dollop onto the paperwork, smearing the ink. Only one line, one word, was written—Lola.

Taking the clipboard from him tenderly, Tahli knelt down on the floor. When she looked up at him his bloodshot eyes finally came to her. She confiscated the pen.

“Middle name?”

He sniffed, swiping his nose with inked fingers. “Lynn,” Vin muttered.

“Maiden name is Allen, right?”

He nodded as Tahli scribbled that in.

“Our— Your…address?”

“Yeah. You can use that.”

Tahli filled in more spaces with information she already knew.

“I’m gonna release the body to my dad’s friend Tony. He has that funeral home. He’ll take care of everything.” Delayed, Vin nodded.

“Piercings? Tattoos?”

“Why?” Vin snapped.

“Probably if…” Tahli sighed, deciding carefully. “If you want anything covered for services or…if you decide to donate skin.”

His chin touched his chest. Eyes shut.

“Ears pierced. That I know of. And…” He laughed short, scowling lips unbudging. “This…tattoo on her leg. It’s stupid. Milola. Like their names blended together. They both had that stupid shit. It’s dumb.”

“Not to them,” Tahli spoke to the paper. “It wasn’t dumb to them.”

Their eyes met in the most vulnerable space of trapped pain. In this cold room with these machines beeping, straddling life and death. Strangers around and only knowing each other. Only with each other to fall into.