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CHAPTER TWENTY

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

EMMA

O nce I’m in my room, I grab one of the many blankets available to me and step through the sliding door onto the balcony, allowing the chilly November air to wash over me. It’s jarring, but it feels so good against my skin. I sink into one side of the outdoor loveseat and curl my legs under my body as I dial up my mom.

“Hi kiddo!” I hear the smile in Mom’s voice when she answers the phone. “What’s up?”

“Not much, just…missing you extra, today, with it being Thanksgiving and all. Even more than that, I was thinking about how thankful I am for you.”

“Oh sweet girl, you know I’m thankful for you too, and always love when I get to talk to you…but I get the feeling there’s more to it than that.”

Mom and Molly are the two people in the world that I’ve never been able to hide anything from. They see right through every front that I try to put up, every wall I use to defend myself. It’s a blessing and a curse, but it also helps me face the things that I need to face, it means I can’t hide or shy away. Mom gives me the push I need to address the real reason I called.

“What was it like for you, with Molly and me?”

“I was scared,” she answers honestly, “I was really scared. You had a mom and you knew that she’d left, and I was afraid that you’d worry I would do the same to you. Molly was so young, that I don’t know if she understood what was going on, but you? You’d grown up a lot more than a six year old ever should. You knew, even if you didn’t necessarily understand, that I wasn’t your mom but that I loved you like a mom should.”

“You’re the only mom who ever loved me,” I whisper, my voice thick with tears. “You’re the one who stuck around.”

“You weren’t hard to love, Emma.” Mom’s voice is soft, yet forceful. “You were dealing with unprocessed trauma from her leaving. You didn’t understand – and honestly we didn’t know – that you had ADHD and anxiety. You were a kid who was feeling big feelings and didn’t know what to do with them. But it was not your fault.”

The number of times over the last twenty-seven years that Mom has had to remind me that I did not drive my biological mother away is a number I’ve lost track of. The rational part of my brain knows that she’s right, but the small dark corner of my brain, where six year old Emma sits with her coloring book and crayons, sometimes needs to be reminded.

“I know, Mom. Thank you.” My words are barely a whisper as I choke back the tears that threaten. Still after all these years, many of them spent in therapy working through the childhood trauma, I’m afraid to display emotion with the fear of driving away the people I love always, always lingering at the back of my mind. “Am I making a mistake?”

“Of what? Getting involved with a man who has kids?” Mom is incredulous. “I know you know how ridiculous that is.”

“I meant…getting involved, and then possibly going back on the road.”

“You don’t remember when I left?”

“You did?” There’s a good chance I blocked out the memory of her leaving.

“It was pretty early on in my relationship with your dad. I had an opportunity to do one semester of my master’s degree abroad and your dad encouraged me to take it. I was terrified that I’d leave and come back and he’d have moved on from me, but even more than that I was afraid to leave you and Molly.”

“I know that feeling. I love Alice and Mackenzie and I don’t want them getting hurt if I leave.”

“And what about Jax?” Mom asks.

“What about him?” I deflect her question like heading a soccer ball away from my own goal. Too bad Mom rebounds.

“You know what I’m asking, Emma.”

I do know what she’s asking.

“I love him, too. Mom, there’s no question. He sees me. In a way no one else ever has. I don’t want to lose him.”

“You need to talk to him, Kid. I know you’re scared, but talk to him. Do it scared.”

“What did you just say?” Jax’s repeated wisdom in Mom’s voice throws me for a loop. All but confirming that she’s right. I need to tell him.

“Do it scared. Talk to him. Don’t put it off for a better time, because a better time may never come. Do it scared. I know you can.”

“Thanks mom. Travel safely tomorrow. I love you.”

“I love you, Emma. Never forget it.”

Clicking off my phone, I take a deep, filling breath, letting the cold air sting my lungs. A hand lands on my shoulder sending a jolt of awareness through my body. Jax steps around in front of me, regarding me with a small smile.

“Sorry,” his smile goes lopsided, “I thought you heard me come outside.”

“I didn’t.” My breathing is still a little ragged after being startled. Jax sits down on the loveseat with me and I offer him a portion of the blanket spread across my lap and rather than cover his own lap, Jax takes my hand and pulls me toward him, holding the blanket while I turn to sit against his chest, and then spreading the blanket over us both.

“You disappeared,” he whispers, the stubble on his cheeks and chin scrapes against my skin as he presses a soft kiss behind my ear. “I missed you.”

“I was feeling a little homesick,” I tell him, my eyes trained on the lake, shimmering in the late afternoon sun. It’s true, I was homesick, but more than that, I needed my Mom. I needed the comfort of her voice, and the wisdom that comes with her life experiences.

“Is that all?” He asks, not unkindly but in a way that suggests he sees me, just like I said to Mom. Like Mom and Molly, he sees past my defenses to the woman underneath. Do it scared, Emma. Just like mom said.

“I don’t want to take her place Jax,” it’s somehow easier to say when I can’t see his face. “I know that there’s a void there that I can’t fill.”

“You can’t take something she never wanted.” His voice is gruff, his body rigid behind me.

“What do you mean?” I curse my impulsive brain, starting to pull away from him to turn and apologize but he holds me closer. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“We got married just before my first deployment. I came home to a pregnant wife. And soon we had an infant daughter. A tiny, perfect little girl. A head full of dark hair like mine, and her mom’s eyes. Angela never bonded with Mackenzie. But I did. I did the diaper changes and the feedings. My mom gave me some advice and even helped me find a counselor for Angela, but Angela was convinced that it was Mackenzie , that she’d bonded with me and that was that. So we decided to try again. By then, I was separated from the Marine Corps and in my residency. I didn’t think my heart had the capacity to love another human as much as I loved Mackenzie, but then Alice came along. The spitting image of her mother.”

I turn ever so slightly within his arms, laying my head against his chest. I remember so well the day that Elizabeth left us, and the pain in Jax’s voice, the hurt he feels for his daughters, brings me back to that night. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to ground myself in the moment, but I hear the slam of the front screen door, the crunch of her tires on the driveway, and the sting of her words in my ears. Words I’ve worked for years to heal from. Why couldn’t I just behave? Why couldn’t I just stop crying? Why couldn’t I have been a good girl for my mom? Dad slept in my bed that night, his arms wrapped tightly around me as I curled into his strong chest.

The shudder in Jax’s breath brings me back to the moment and I sit up, turning to face him and seeing for the first time the tears that glimmer in his eyes.

Before I can think it through and stop myself, I reach out and gently wipe away his tears with my thumb, my hand coming down to cup his cheek. He wraps his fingers around my wrist and leans into my touch. His breath evening out as he does.

“I’m sorry. I’m not meant for this life.” He turns his gaze away from the lake, and meets mine. The sadness in his eyes overwhelms me and threatens to shatter my heart. “That’s what the note said. With the note, I found papers terminating her parental rights and initiating divorce proceedings. I suppose the one saving grace is that we didn’t have to go through a lengthy custody battle. At least she gave them that.”

“Jax, I…”

“She planned it, Emma.” There’s a deep, dark sadness in his voice. “She knew she was leaving. She hired a lawyer and had the papers drawn up. She abandoned her daughters.”

“I know that pain, Jax. I know what it’s like to watch your mother walk out of your life and I won’t make excuses for what Angela did to you, or those darling girls, but Jax, they have you. You talk about a saving grace. Those girls, they have a dad who loves them more than life itself. A dad who picks their clothes out for them and does their hair and packs their lunches. A dad who provides for them. Who reads to them at night and tucks them into bed. A dad who loves them exactly as they are. For exactly who they are.” Tears threaten and I do my best to blink them back, but this time they spill over. “They are the luckiest girls in the world to have you as their dad.”

“Emma,” Jax thumbs away my tears, eyes searching mine for answers to a question that he hasn’t yet asked. A question that I don’t know if I can answer. “What happened?”

“She left.” My therapist would be very proud of me for answering his question and not deflecting. “I was six, Molly was three. Mom was verbally abusive and emotionally neglectful, mostly to me. When she’d set her sights on Molly, I’d distract her, take one for the team, in a way, which meant that I’d act out. I understand now what I was doing, I was protecting my sister, but that meant I became the only target. And then Dad would come home from work, and she became a different person with him. There came a day that she couldn’t hide it anymore. She snapped. Dad put us both in our room, told me to play with Molly, and I could hear them yelling. I heard her tell him that I was the reason, she just couldn’t handle me anymore and she couldn’t believe that…” this is the part where I always choke up. Always. But I never cry. “She couldn’t believe he’d choose me over her.”

At Jax’s sharp intake of breath, the dam bursts. He wraps his arms around me and cradles me against his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the top of my head. It’s been a very long time since I’ve allowed myself to cry around another person, to let another person in. To let them see the big emotions. Because for so long, big emotions only brought me big trouble.

Jax holds me in his arms, and just lets me cry. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t try to fix anything, just holds me. There is safety and security in his arms. I start to worry about how much he heard of my conversation with Mom, but the steadiness of his heartbeat, the warmth of his body, keeps me grounded in the moment. Grounded in the here and now and not in the anxiety that threatens to tear me away from him.

“I love you, too Emma.” He whispers. “You’re not going to lose me.”

“You heard that, did you?” My anxiety, for once, doesn’t rear its ugly head. Instead of wanting to pull away, I want to stay here with him. I want to disappear into a world for just the two of us.

“I did. And I want you to know that I will support you in whatever you choose. If that means you play your match in December and come home, great. If you play and decide you want to go back to the game, that’s great too. I support you. I wasn’t going to let another day go by without telling you that.”

I turn around, shucking the blanket that covers us and frame Jax’s face with my hand, his stubble scraping my palms as I crush my lips to his. Jax brings a hand to the back of my neck as he deepens the kiss, and wraps his other arm around my waist. Breathless, he breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to mine.

“You know what I want for Christmas?” He asks, breath ghosting against my lips.

“What?”

“A babysitter,” he laughs. “And a door that locks.”

I bury my head against his neck, both of us shaking with laughter. Though, I wouldn’t mind some more time alone with him.

“Seriously though,” He softly kisses my forehead, “I say we make the most of our time before you head to LA. What do you say?”

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

“What do you say we start with dinner? Just us. I can sneak us out of here and no one will know.”

“As good as that sounds, I really want to have dinner with your family tonight. Sneak me out of here some other time.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he grins.

“I expect you to.”