Page 9 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“No,” Milo whined. The pass, Vin called it.

Because both he and Tahli knew how uncomfortable Milo was with using the term “disability pass,” which would keep them from having to wait in lines.

Although Vin assured Milo no one would know what or who it was for, Milo remained self-conscious.

And Vin said it was important for a man to keep his pride.

“Alright.” Vin’s big hand rubbed Milo’s short locs endearingly, pulling him close enough to send a loving peck to his hair.

“Dad! Don’t kiss me in public,” Milo grumbled, and Tahli giggled. Vin shook his head.

“Me, Daddy!” Terran puckered out her lips, and Vin leaned down, pecking her.

“At least one of my babies wants to kiss me.”

“You can kiss me, Dad,” Dali chirped, and Vin kissed her cheek lovingly. Milo had come too soon. Dali wanted Vin to herself a bit longer.

“Oh, but when I try to kiss you…?” Tahli joked to Dali.

“That’s because you do it at like the most awkward times, Mom!” Dali laughed. “Like in front of the school at drop-off or like at violin recitals. She’s like oh, my baby,” Dali made fun of Tahli.

“What level are you on?” Dali turned to Milo, pulling on his game, but he snatched it back.

“Get off!”

Tahli was ready to put them in a ring and blow a whistle; she was so fed up with the bickering. Nuzzling up to Vin, she pulled him close by his t-shirt, standing on her tip-toes to reach his ear.

“I mean… You can kiss me, too, Daddy,” she murmured. The look he gave was all fire.

“Where you want Daddy’s kisses?” His hollowed-out question ignited giggles. Belligerent yelling brought their flirting to a halt.

“Tyler, stop climbing on the goddamn bars!” The flabby, red man berated the boy Terran had been mimicking. “And you’re not fucking watching him, Susan! You see I’m on my phone. I’m trying to work.”

“Bob, we’re on vacation–”

“This isn’t a vacation!”

“Aye–”

Her hand to his chest stopped Vin’s sentence and steps. Tahli beckoned with her eyes.

“Nooo, Mr. Hayes. We’re at Disney.”

“I know. I think he needs a reminder. My kids are right here. Other kids are here. Shit is outrageous.”

“I understand,” Tahli used her coaxing feminine power to tame her beast. “But if Dalvin and Bob exchange words and Bob says the wrong thing and Dalvin reacts... One of you is leaving in handcuffs…and it won’t be Bob.

And that would really ruin it for them.” Tahli’s eyes darted to her unusually quiet children, as it seemed the whole waiting line had gone mute at Bob’s blowup.

It was supposed to be the happiest place on earth, after all.

“Somebody needs to tell his ass something, though, baby love. He shouldn’t treat his family like that. My kids ain’t used to that.” Vin didn’t play about family. Tahli figured he’d gone long enough without a traditional one that when they built theirs so young, Vin guarded it.

“You don’t have to tell him anything. Just keep showing the world how you treat yours. Lead by example,” Tahli murmured on his lips.

“Lead by example, huh? Sounding like a smart-ass professor.”

“I am a smart-ass professor,” Tahli chuckled.

“What’s a divorce?”

Their personal bubble broke again, and both of their heads snapped to Terran. For a moment, Tahli couldn’t find words and Vin seemed to struggle the same.

“Why, baby?” Vin questioned.

“He just said to that lady that he wants a divorce.” Terran pointed at angry Bob, now boarding the ride with his family. Tahli chewed her lip.

“Um…it’s when…” Tahli eyes dashed to Vin for assistance. He was still visually fishing. “When a mom…and a dad.”

“Or just two parents-” Vin, politically correct, reworded.

“Right…two parents…or people,” Tahli explained. “They may not even have children. But…they were married, and they…” Tahli couldn’t even form the thought. Give up? Stop trying? Fall out of love?

“They um…” Vin wet his lips. Tahli knew his choosing-words-wisely look. “They decide to…”

“They think they’ll be happier by themselves,” Tahli picked. “So, they don’t stay married.”

“Moms and Dads can stop being married?” Terran’s little eyes stretched. “And God don’t get mad?” Terran knew her bible better than most, credits to Vanessa.

“Um…”

“You don’t ever have to worry about it, T,” Dali saved them all, squatting down to Terran. “Because these two are disgustingly obsessed with each other. In love and lust.”

“Excuse you? What you know about obsessed?” Tahli joked to her oldest.

“What you know about lust?” Vin stuck to the other part. Even Milo chuckled as they boarded the ride.

“I know that Terran is obsessed with this ride, and if I hear this song one more time after this, I’m jumping off the boat. It’s a small world after all,” Dali annoyingly chanted.

“Cool out. It’s her birthday,” Vin snickered, although he had expressed to Tahli the same. He was over the ride. Terran loved it. This was time number three.

As Vin and Milo took the second row of the boat, Dali, Terran, and Tahli slid into the first one. Before she could sit, Vin pinched her thigh. Tahli spun to him.

“Excuse you. Maybe you are disgustingly obsessed with me,” she teased, and he grinned, nodding in agreement.

“I’m disgustingly assessed with you, Mommy,” Terran mispronounced, but Tahli still went warm, kissing her forehead.

“I’m disgustingly obsessed with you, baby.”

“No, you’re disgustingly obsessed with this ride,” Dali cracked to Terran.

“Aight, put that away, Lo. We’re on the ride,” Vin stole the game from Milo.

“He’s disgustingly obsessed with it,” Dali joked again.

“And you’re disgustingly obsessed with Xavier,” Milo snapped.

“Who the fu-?” Vin cut himself short as Tahli shot him a cautionary glance. “Who’s Xavier?”

“Oh boy.” Tahli split a look with Dali over Dali’s crush that Vin wasn’t privy to.

The boat set sail as Tahli prepared for the fake outdated children from around the world, to chant the maddening song for the third time that day. Never knowing the memory would keep her anchored to the peace of her past in the height of her present storm.

The remedy for a heartache wasn’t in further devastation. So why was it that when Tahli felt most broken, she decided to completely annihilate herself?

For some, it was drugs, liquor, or even sex as the vehicle. Tahli imagined Vin would get through this with lots of weed and liquor. Hopefully not sex.

But, in this painfully quiet house that she had just entered with her bagful of emotions, Tahli reached for her vice.

Music. She knew the song to play. She’d been playing it on repeat for days.

When the piano keys on Alicia Keys’ Goodbye broke the silence, Tahli plunged another knife right between her double-Ds and grabbed a photo album.

It was a Vanessa thing . Vanessa insisted that when they all would somehow lose their cell phones in unison, the photo albums would still be there.

When you’re gone, what else are your children going to pass down to their children? Your Instagram account? No. You need good old photo albums.

So, Tahli had been building them for years. Birthdays, vacations, and her favorite...

She settled on her living room floor, flipping through the Christmas-filled pages as Alicia sang her tortured soul’s poetry. With every turn, the laughter grew louder. The smell of Christmas cookies replaced her spring-themed air freshener. Love briefly revisited her heart.

On some Christmas day, with some football game on the screen in the background, Vin held baby Terran in the air like the winning game ball with one big hand.

The look on Tahli’s face as she stood beside him reflected the anxiety she recalled feeling.

Even as she warned, Vin, don’t you drop my baby, Tahli knew it would never happen.

Those moments had reshaped her ideals of perfection.

She swiped the tears tickling her nose. Turned another page and lost her breath.

Loosely tucked into the spine without a place in the book because not long ago, Tahli had taken it out to show Dali.

..someone had captured one of her cherished moments.

Vin had scooped Tahli up like a baby, post surprise proposal at her family’s Christmas Eve party. Someone had snapped the picture.

Tahli recalled snuggling into the nook of his decorated neck, melting from his manly scent and sightless protection.

She felt lucky, awaiting a lifetime of laughter.

In that slice of time, all of Tahli’s reservations were extinguished: the indiscretion with Sharonda as the first blow to their young love, the trepidation of way too early impending parenthood, her disrupted timeline.

..even his sketchy past and still lingering street life he hadn’t yet left behind.

All the doubts had fallen to their feet in puddles they stomped through when he’d scooped her up after she’d said yes to forever.

Despite the battles Tahli faced since, she could replay that memory as a lullaby to her spirit. That feeling of security had only strengthened with every touch, kiss, glance, and I love you from her husband. A nothing yet everything moment. Who had taken the photo?

Tahli studied everyone admiring the promising couple. Her father, with a melancholy-tinged smile, stood arms crossed. Vanessa with praying hands to her mouth. Leah wore a smile, and Abby wore a bigger one. Munch, Wynter, Paige...

Tahli gasped. There was only one person who should have been in the photo, but wasn’t. Jay hadn’t come. Lexie had taken the picture.

Tahli’s eyes shut in despair.

The finality of the agonizing day. His letter. This fucking brutal Alicia Keys song. These photos. This photo.

“God. My life,” Tahli murmured, smearing liquid pain from her cheeks.

She hadn’t done it in a while, spoken to someone who wasn’t there. Not God. Tahli wasn’t foolish enough to doubt that He was always present. But, sometimes on rare occasions…

“Lex…I miss you.” Tahli sucked salty tears from her lips.

“I know…I know you’ve been watching this whole shit.

Girl, my life’s a fucking mess now. I know you…

you were counting on me to live the life you didn’t get to.

” Tahli confessed to her ceiling. “But I fucked it up. Am I doing the right thing? Because Abby’s jaded and Paige don’t give a fuck even if she tries to. ” Tahli snorted in crunchy snot.

“You would’ve kept it real with me. And I miss you so much.

How am I gonna do this without you? Abby’s in California,” Tahli sobbed.

“And Paige…Paige has her own life. My dad and Vanessa, I can’t burden them.

My kids…I have them right now. But I can’t stunt them and hold them too close.

They’re gonna grow up and I’m gonna be alone.

I don’t have my husband anymore,” Tahli’s body jerked with cries.

“I don’t have my husband anymore. I’m gonna die a-fucking-lone, girl. ” Repeating it made it real.

“I don’t have my husband,” Tahli depleted until her forehead hit the floor, still on her knees. The agony was almost enough to call Vin up. Declare take-backsies.

Her phone buzzed. She sat up, gawking at the name. Anyone else, she would’ve ignored. But this person had been such a pillar, and Tahli could use that strength right now.

“Hi, baby,” Vanessa greeted first, because Tahli couldn’t speak. She only sniffled, lips violently quivering. Hearing Vanessa’s sigh through the phone, Tahli shut her eyes in surrender.

“So, that’s it? I take it you’re back.”

Tahli swallowed tears. “Yeah,” she was able to muster.

“Mm. How do you feel?” A reasonable, yet ridiculous question.

“I don’t know,” her voice croaked as she swiped her running nose.

“I thought I’d feel different, you know?

I thought it’d finally be over,” she managed.

"The heartache... But it hurts more. I feel so lost,” she cried out.

“Like, what am I supposed to do? What’s wrong with me?

Why wasn’t I a good enough wife to keep my family?

I…I failed. Like her. Just like her. I fucking failed,” Tahli squealed.

“Oh, God.” Sudden acceptance brought her to ruins that Vanessa rushed to gather.

“Oh, baby, no. You didn’t do anything wrong.

This isn’t on you, Tahli. You know that.

Dalvin made a horrible mistake and then he made a selfish decision to keep that mistake from you.

But that was his to own. You did nothing wrong.

You are an amazing woman. A dedicated mother.

And you were a damn good wife to Dalvin. ”

Were. A wife no more.

“And with all due respect, nothing like her in that way,” Vanessa added, rarely speaking ill of Tahli’s dead mother.

“You have her talent. Her strong will and determination. And that beautiful voice,” Vanessa snickered.

“But everything else is all you. And personally, I am very proud of the woman you became.”

The bell sounded. For a moment—a fleeting moment—her mind glitched.

She’d answer the door, and it would be Vin, and they’d slip back into that moment in the photo.

She’d be the type of wife who would allow him to tell her such a secret.

She’d be the type of wife who wouldn’t provide room for Sophie’s pull to exist in the first place.

But she couldn’t own that blame. This was Vin’s big, sloppy mess.

“Vanessa…I have to go. Someone’s at the door.”

“Okay, my love. Call me later, okay?”

“Sure.”

As Tahli took the hall to the house that she loved but couldn’t remain in, she twisted the knob, and her hands shot to her mouth in shock.

Because it was him. Another him.

“Aw, man. I know you’re happy to see me, but cut the tears, Big Tah-Tah.”

Her hands caught her giggles. A second later, Tahli was releasing more unforeseen tears. Arms encased her and she relished the feel of a hug she needed most.

“Danny,” she exhaled his name in alleviation.