“How do you balance it?” I asked her. “Wife and mother? I feel guilty as hell for wanting to tend to Colt when Silas is clearly the more fragile one.”
“Practice. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but you get better at the juggling act.” She peered at me. “Just don’t forget to take time for yourself.” She embraced me quickly and then went downstairs.
I could hear the rowdiness of the kids who’d been awakened in the middle of the night—and now Darcy was going to give them sugar. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but these weren’t normal circumstances.
I thought about Shelly, my heart heavy. She would’ve loved all this. The crazy, the fighting, the laughing children, these people who loved hard and fast.
I didn’t know how I was going to get through any of it without her. We were supposed to be there for each other, through marriage and kids. Now, she’d never be able to offer me advice with a margarita, tell me I was doing a bang up job or tell me when I was failing and help me pick up the pieces like a true friend would.
The world was a darker place without Shelly in it—myworld was darker without Shelly in it.
Mark and I had barely spoken at the funeral, a quick greeting, and an even quicker goodbye. But he’d given me something that had belonged to Shelly, her favorite piece of jewelry. It was a gold plated necklace with a heart shaped charm. It was worthless, and it had turned her skin green, but she’d won it at the county fair when we were in high school and kept it all these years. She’d worn it every day until the chain had broken, but she’d kept it anyway because she was sentimental.
“It’s good luck. It’s going to bring me my true love,” she had said with a twinkle in her eyes.
We’d giggled and fantasized about what our true loves would look like. We were teenage girls who were bound together by loss and grief, who found solace in friendship because we were soul sisters.
“Love you, girl,” I whispered.
Colt was sitting on the closed toilet, grimacing as he tried to bandage his side.
“Need some help there, tiger?” I asked leaning against the doorframe.
“Would you think less of me if I said yes?”
I pushed away from the doorjamb and came to his side. “Let me see what you did to yourself.”
He reluctantly pulled the bandage away from his wound. It was angry and red, and reminded me that he’d been in a hospital bed not that long ago.
“Oh, that looks like shit,” I told him. “Let me wash it and bandage it.”
“Did you know?” he asked.
His question stopped me in my tracks. “Yeah. I knew.”
“You knew and didn’t tell me. Why?”
“Because Joni is my friend and I kept her confidence.” I looked him in the eyes. “Are you mad at me for that?”
“For loyalty?” He shook his head. “No.”
“You really didn’t know anything was going on between them?”
He rubbed a thumb across his stubble. “I knew something was going on between them. I didn’t know it was serious, but I knew.”
“You pretended like you didn’t.” I bent down to his side with a warm, wet washcloth and gently cleaned his wound.
He gritted in pain but didn’t make a peep. “I thought they were just fucking around.”
“You sound disappointed to find out that it’s more than that between them.” I set the cloth aside and blew on his skin before slathering on antibacterial cream and concealing it with a sticky bandage and tape.
“I wasn’t happy with either scenario. Fucking around meant that one of them would lose interest and then they’d go about their business. But making her an Old Lady? That’s serious shit. And that fucker went behind my back and defiled my little sister.”
I was pretty sure Joni had defiled Zip first, but I wisely didn’t voice that thought.
“What was he supposed to do?” I asked instead. “Come to you and tell you he wanted to screw your sister? And Joni didn’t want to tell you until she knew there was something to tell.”
“I’ve got no beef with my sister. But Zip and I—”