Slut - Woodruff Jettie - Страница 32
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Paxton opened a hand on her chest, stopping her from coming to me. “Go get a towel. Mommy will be out in a minute.”
“I’m okay, Phi,” I said, trying to ease her mind.
“But you don’t hurt? You don’t have to go back to the doctor?”
“No, baby. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s get a bath. I feel like warm pudding will make me feel better. How about you?”
“And vanilla wafers? I told Daddy we needed them at the store, didn’t I, Dad.”
“Yes, go get a towel.”
Ophelia left wet feet across the floor, obeying her father reluctantly. I tried to step around him, too, but he didn’t let me pass. One arm around my waist stopped me.
The muscles in my jaw clenched as I bit down, looking past him. “When can we get him? How long is this going to take?”
Paxton spoke in a calm voice, for me I was sure. “I don’t know. There’s a process, but the social worker told me there shouldn’t be any problems. We’re his next of kin.”
My angry eyes shot to his as I tried to pull out of his arm. “Don’t say it like that. Don’t say it like you know she’s dead. She’s not. I would know that. I would feel that.”
“I’m not saying anything, Gabriella. I’m just trying to keep you from blaming yourself.”
“Why would someone do that? How could anyone hit him? Why?” I just didn’t get it. He was five. Four at the time.
“I don’t know. Let’s just focus on getting him back.”
“I don’t want what Mi has anymore.”
“Okay. What about the answers? I still want to know what happened with Lane. I need to know.”
My attempt to step around him again was stopped by his arm tightening around waist. “And what, Paxton? Then what? What if we find out it’s all true? That I did fuck your best friend? Then what?”
“He’s not my best friend.”
“Oh, my God. Just let me go.” That annoyed the piss out of me. My thought process consisted of what we stood to lose over what we might gain. His went right to his macho ego.
“I’m just wondering if I would be okay with it. You know if you’re really her, and not my wife.”
Rather than try to get around him again, I stepped backward one step. “You want me to be her, don’t you? You’re afraid you won’t be able to forgive me if I did cheat on you, aren’t you, Paxton? Is that it? You’re hoping that I turn out to be the real Gabriella, the one who moved all the way to Michigan to live with the Walkers. That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it?”
“I honestly don’t know what I hope, Gabriella. I swear to God, I don’t. I mean look what you’ve dumped in my lap over the last few months. Look at all the secrets being peeled back, layer by layer. One minute you belong to me, and the next, you’re in a wreck, you have a twin, she’s missing. Or are you missing? You might have cheated on me with our neighbor, or it might have been your twin. There’s an envelope that you obviously hid down in the cottage with more Goddamn lies and secrets, yet I don’t have it in me to go get it. And now this? I’m taking in some kid that I don’t know is a good idea or not. I don’t know what this kid has been around. I’m supposed to just invite him into my home, around my girls? I mean, come on, Gabriella. How much is enough?”
None of the words I had moving around my head for my rebuttal came out. I was so mad, so hurt, and so stupid. Paxton would never change. Paxton would always be a son of a bitch. “Yeah, right, Pax. We should just leave him there.”
“Damn it, Gabriella. Didn’t I just spend the entire day trying to arrange to get him? I didn’t do that for me.”
“You told me you could never love another man’s child.”
“I told you that I could never love you either.”
I crossed my arms as the fury eased up, and I pondered what hit me like a ton of bricks. “You’re not in love with me, Paxton.”
“Oh, but I am, pretty girl. I can’t go ten minutes without you showing up, uninvited in my mind. This wasn’t supposed to work out like this. You were supposed to spend one night in jail, a couple in a cheap hotel, and then here. Back here where I knew I could use the girls to stop all this crazy shit, use them to keep you in your place. You weren’t supposed to go looking for strangers to help you. I wasn’t supposed to hear about the hours you spent alone with your dead sister next to you.”
I lost it. I totally lost every bolt that had been loosened over the past few months. They all let loose at once and I crumbled. “Fuck you, Paxton. Fuck you! She’s not dead! I don’t need you. I don’t need anything you have. I hate you.” I hadn’t even realized that my fists were swinging until I caught his left eye. That wasn’t what stopped me. It was Rowan and Phi, crying from other side of the living room. Fuck.
My fist wasn’t what pissed Paxton off. It was that. He turned from the girls, tightening the grip he had around my flailing wrists. “Happy?”
I jerked away, shoving him to the side with the same look he gave me, and went to my kids. “You guys stop that. I’m sorry we scared you. Come on, let’s go take a bath.”
“I don’t want you and daddy to fight like that,” Ophelia cried.
“I said I was sorry. Now stop crying. You don’t see me crying when you fight with Row-row, do you? You two fight all the time. I’d be crying all day.”
“But you cried, too. I saw you have tears,” Rowan said, determined eyes staring up.
“You cried today when Ophelia ripped the tag off your cat.”
“I didn’t want it off.”
“But you got into a fight and you cried. Adults have feelings, too. We’re fine. The fights already over with. Okay?”
They both nodded in agreement, and I changed the subject, feeling bad for letting them see that, but good that they bounced right back. Rowan thought we needed to recharge our magic stones. Mi told her that after witnessing the whole fight over the stupid tag that Rowan would have never missed had she not watched Phi tear it off. She made them stand toe to toe with the stones touching. They had to only look at each other. No words. At first they glared at each other, then they laughed, and then the both said they were sorry with hugs. They were convinced it was the magic in the rocks.
I sat on the toilet, trying to smile and keep up with what Rowan and Phi said to me from the tub. Sometimes I had to ask what they said again, and sometimes I just laughed, pretending to hear. I couldn’t even comprehend the thoughts going on in my mind, let alone care about the first day of school. Crap, school clothes. I had to remember to take care of that.
“You guys okay here? No fighting?” I questioned after twenty minutes, one finger going from one to the other. I didn’t need to stay in the bathroom with them anymore, but it kept me away from Paxton long enough to calm down. Their giggles could calm a mad man.
Rowan pulled the plug and they both stood, deciding they were done, too. I wrapped them, one by one, in soft towels and told them to brush their teeth. Ophelia reminded me that I promised warm pudding, and I let the hygiene slide, telling them to get dressed.
Paxton’s office door was closed, but I opened it without a knock while the girls dressed. He wasn’t doing anything. His hands were behind his head and his eyes stayed on the ceiling, stress written all over his face.
“I don’t know how to fix this, Paxton. You’ve got me hoping I’m not the Gabriella who married you. Like you’re going to stop loving me if I don’t turn out to be who you think I am. That doesn’t even make sense, Paxton. You watched the video. I even said I didn’t know whether to call her Izzy or Gabriella. I referred to her as Izzy the entire session. You heard that.”
“When you woke from a coma you said your name was Delgardo. You were told who you were. How do you know that didn’t screw with your subconscious or something?”
“Paxton, I’m not her. I married you. This can easily be forgotten with a simple mouth swab. I’m sure I gave birth to Ophelia.”
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