Page 57 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

The nurse entering broke the intensity. The conversation was a heavy blur.

Questions were asked and answered, and then it was time.

One by one, they disconnected Lola from machines that kept her breathing.

When the final one went quiet, the nurse let them know it would probably be minutes.

Vin watched the rise and fall of her chest, and Tahli watched him.

Until it was nothing to watch anymore. Vin’s neck loosened, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Oh, baby,” Tahli couldn’t help but whisper. Stretching her finger out, she rubbed his. The one with the “T” to her name. After a few seconds, he drew his hand away to rub on his lips, staring off.

“I’m good,” he insisted through his fingers.

Tahli adjusted to a squat. Her thirty-something knees were bleeding on that stone floor. But gripping his iron arm, she pressed her nose into his shoulder, inhaling him. Lingering sweat, and man. Just man. Vin still used her fabric softener. She could tell.

“Except you’re not,” she breathed out and watched his eyes swell from the sideview. “Why do you insist on getting through shit alone?”

“Because I don’t have a fucking choice. I am alone,” he reminded her. Tahli broke the eye contact, before braving to join it again.

“But–”

“Dalvin.” A plumy voice called, and they both turned to the door. Tahli’s cheeks ballooned with whatever words she was going to confess before swallowing them down, wondering who had dropped Bianca into this intimate moment.

“I’m sorry.” Her heels clicked closer to them. “I know you told me not to come, but…I had to come here as soon as I spoke to you.”

Except…you didn’t. Tahli wanted to say. You changed shoes, put on lipstick, and sprayed perfume. To pop up on a man with his dying mother. Bianca. Middle name: Pick. Last name: Me.

Bianca wasn’t as diplomatic as she appeared.

Tahli saw a recent Instagram post in her background check of the woman potentially being in her children’s lives.

Bianca dizzily mouthed the lyrics to Nicki Minaj’s High School— too avidly to lyrics about “left arm baby mother tatted”, “5-year bids”, and the one that balled Tahli’s mouth—the insinuation this “box” was better than the “box” he was held in .

“I knew I ain’t like that bitch,” Abby had seethed.

“The thought of you doing this alone,” Bianca took a step toward them. “Except…” as if she had just noticed Tahli, “you’re not. And…I’m glad. I’m glad you were here, Tahli.”

Oh, clever little bimbo, you don’t know me. And you don’t know Vin if you think those regular-ass tactics are going to bewitch a man like him. Vin saw through people like glass.

“I’ll…I’ll go,” Bianca aimed a thumb behind her, but those ugly shoes didn’t move. Because she didn’t want to go and was smart enough to know what came next.

“No.” Tahli stood straight up. “I will. I’ll get back to the kids. You want me to wait for you to tell them together?”

Vin seemed to think on it, eyes on Lola’s dead body. He nodded without looking away.

Leaning down, Tahli hugged him, her cheek to his scratchy one. She whispered in his ear, “I’m so sorry, Vin.” Her mouth hung open with more to say, but she pulled back, keeping it with her.

Watery gaze meeting Bianca, waiting patiently for her turn, Tahli told her, “Take care of him.”

Then she headed out, pausing at the door to watch Bianca take her place at his side.

“But why does God let people die?” Terran wailed. Tahli folded her hands at her lips, choking back emotion. She smelled Bianca not far from her. She wore floral perfume. Tahli hated floral perfume. Found it nauseating. She preferred warm scents. “Why would he do that? I don’t like him.”

“Nah. Don’t say that.” Vin squatted down to their youngest baby. They had just broken the news to the kids. Dali wanted to go call her best friend and Milo and DJ wanted to go play video games. So, Vin was here answering all of Terran’s questions.

“I look at it like this, baby. Like maybe…maybe Heaven is the real destination, right? Maybe we think it’s all about earth, but really, it’s all about Heaven.

I think God created this beautiful, outrageous place like Heaven.

But he knows everyone can’t go. Everyone might not deserve to go.

But we’re all his children, he loves us all, so he can’t say who should go and who shouldn’t.

He’s blinded by the love. So, he’s like…

what can I do to decide who gets to go to this beautiful place?

I got it. I’m a like…put all of my children in a room, and I’m a see who acts right. ”

Tahli was as tuned in as Terran.

“I’m a give them some rules and see who can listen. See how they treat each other. Except Earth is the room.”

“And the Bible is the rules?”

“Yeah,” Vin’s voice piqued. “It’s all a test, Terran. This part of life is just a test to see how we live it. How well we follow the rules. How good of a person we are. If we pass the test, we get to go on. Which is the real place we want to go. Then we get to see everyone we lost.”

She sniveled. “I’m gonna pass the test, Daddy.”

“Oh, you definitely in there, baby girl.” Vin wrapped her in his arms. Tahli swallowed her bleeding heart.

He stood after a moment, grazing Tahli’s elbow as he passed.

“She’ll be okay,” Vin swore, and every nerve on Tahli’s body lit up. She stepped out of the room, taking a moment with her back against the wall. Almost walked away—was sure they’d thought she’d walked away—because she overheard Bianca.

“That was really good Daddy work, Mr. Hayes.”

“Oh, you like my Daddy work?”

“I love your Daddy work,” she snickered, and Tahli’s stomach soured. She walked away.

Nine hours later, Tahli was hot. She flung the covers off her, teary eyes on the ceiling. Miserable. So miserable, thoughts turned to actions in despair. Relief. She slid from bed and grabbed the phone to find it. His sleepy voice already remedied her.

“Everything okay?”

“No.” She felt his angst 2.2 miles away. “Yes.”

Silence, that Tahli broke after chomping her lip.

“Do you really believe what you said earlier about God and Heaven?”

“I see you’re still finding new ways to torture me. I thought the divorce was it, kid.”

She giggled in the dim solitude of her bedroom. “I know. I know you have a flight in a few hours. I just…”

Tahli borrowed a moment to ponder.

“If that’s true…you think that I passed the test? I’m far from perfect, Dalvin.”

“…With flying colors,” was his delayed assertion.

Tahli pushed her lips together, gating a cry. “What about you?”

A different type of silence; heavier. “I doubt we end up in the same place. Unless there’s an exception to the rules.”

“Don’t say that Vin.”

“Tahli, I cheated on my wife. I killed people. I turned people into addicts.”

So grim. If she and Vin couldn’t be together in life, Tahli was counting on reconnecting in death.

She wasn’t naive. She’d be dust waiting around to find another love like theirs.

Just because she gave it up, didn’t mean she didn’t recognize its rarity.

Love like her and Dalvin’s was a meteor strike.

Love like her and Drew’s was attainable.

People that had love had that version. The water.

“If the rules are the rules, then you believe in repentance. So maybe.” He was trying to make her feel better. “Maybe you’ll stop hating me in time to pray for me. Or sneak me in,” he snickered.

She sniffed in her cries.

“I’m sorry. I’ll let you go.”

“Nah, you woke me up now, weirdo. I might as well get ready. You by a window?”

“Yeah.”

“Go look out of it.”

Tahli tiptoed out of bed.

“Oh, I love this kind.” She rested her head on the windowsill.

“I know. Tangerine.”

“Tangerines lines in the sky,” she muttered before she and her ex-husband quietly watched the sunrise together…apart.

“Have a good flight, Vin,” she told him when the sun was high in the sky.

“Have a good sleep, baby love.”

Vin

New Year’s Eve 2018

Terran was five days past her first birthday and Vin was mission-bound.

“Come on, T. Let go of the couch, baby girl. Come on. Walk to Da-Da.” Motioning with his fingers, Vin beckoned her. Even tried bribery.

“Look, Terran. Ooh…what’s that? That’s an animal cracker. Daddy’s got the animal cracker. You like that animal cracker, right, baby?”

“Daddy, when did I start walking?” 10-year-old Dali inserted herself, stretching purple slime in her delicate hands. Vin would have to hide all evidence of that slime before 6 pm. If Tahli came home and found purple slime in the living room, Dali would be fine.

But Vin’s head would be on a platter for dinner. Luckily, she was helping Vanessa set up for a New Year’s Eve church event, then would stop to pick up the takeout and sparkling cider for the kids on the way home. Movies, food, backyard fireworks - typical New Year’s Eve for The Hayes family.

“Like ten and a half months, Doll. You were early.”

“And Milo was late because he’s slow.”

“Hey! Whoa. That’s unacceptable, Dali. Apologize to your brother.

That’s your little brother. You supposed to protect him.

” Anytime he reprimanded her, Dali looked like she’d just watched the dog she didn’t have get thrown into traffic.

8-year-old Milo sent a Hot Wheel flying across the room right after.

“Hey!” Vin boomed louder, aiming a threatening finger at Milo. He was all Tahli. Calm until he wasn’t.

“Don’t throw nothing at your sister, boy. She’s a girl. Girls hurt your feelings, you use your words or walk away.”

Speaking of walk.

“Come on, T. Walk to Da-Da.”

Keys in the door and the beep of the alarm froze Vin.

An unexpected Tahli brought a warning look to Dali, and she stuffed the slime into the container.

She was securing the lid when Tahli stepped into the room.

Immediately, Vin tensed. His instinctual desire to rectify any sign of her distress kicked in.

Tahli squared her feet, dropping her purse on the floor with a thud. Didn’t even blink at the slime.