Downstairs a desk phone rings. Her body stiffens against mine, her abs tightening like she is about to rise and run to answer it.
I squeeze her against me. “We’re having an important meeting. Ignore it.”
“Is that what this is?” She side-eyes me, but settles, her head on my shoulder and her arm draped over my middle. Idly, she strokes my chest. I ignore the flare of heat there, my normal reaction to her touching my body.
“Your brothers consider you a queen, Cris. They know you didn’t have to do what you did. And if they haven’t figured that out yet, you can rest knowing you loved them harder than anyone else in their lives. They know that, even if it’s deep down.”
It’s what the Owens did for me. I didn’t know what to make of my childhood. The grief overtook me at times. But when I was lost in the storm, I had Archer and William and Lainey and Nate. My ports. I struggled with grief for a while, but then it had no choice but to leave. There was too much in my life to be grateful for—so I hung on to that instead.
“I could have done more,” she says. “I should have called Mom more and updated her on her sons, on their lives. Maybe if I would have tried harder, I could have pressured Timothy’s and Manuel’s fathers into taking them on the weekends or something.”
“You were eighteen. And in no way responsible for the actions of divorced adults. That was on them.”
“I was an adult.”
“You were an adult in the eyes of the state, but you weren’t prepared to raise three tweens.”
She sighs. I’m right and she knows it.
“I don’t wish Mom and I were closer,” she whispers like she’s ashamed to admit it. Her voice drops almost too low to hear when she further admits, “I… I don’t like her.”
I kiss her forehead. “Understandable.”
“After losing your parents, who you loved more than anything, how are you this understanding when I say I don’t like my mom?”
I pull in a deep breath. I don’t talk about my birth parents often. Ever, really. Cris knows what happened to them as she and I have known each other for years. Every so often, she asks about Mom’s paintings or lingers in the garage where I keep my woodworking tools to watch me build another frame. She’s noticed the photos sitting around the house, most notably the one where I’m wearing Dad’s white coat and oversize glasses. It’s my favorite, even though I had no interest in becoming a doctor like him.
“She hurt you,” I say. “She left you behind to raise your brothers, of which you did a spectacular job.”
Cris told me Manuel checked off a few items on her honey-do list and mowed the lawn while he was there. If I knew she had more repairs or tasks other than the wobbly chair in the kitchen, I’d have done them for her. I suppose it turned out for the best. Manuel, a stubborn kid who has grown into a completely awesome guy, stepped in. I’m glad he has her back.
“She left you in charge of bus schedules and cooking dinner and helping with homework. You were both Mom and Dad to those boys and they won’t forget it, honey.” I hug her close when I share, “We don’t forget the people who loved us when we felt unloved.”
I feel her gaze on me, questioning, heavy, so I shift back to talking about her brothers. “Lina let you shoulder the worry of keeping those kids safe, of making sure they weren’t pulled out of your care and rehomed. She gifted you with nothing but cares and worries while she lived any damn way she pleased, not giving a rat’s ass about the family she should have been there for.”
Cris sniffs. I’m not sure if she’s crying. I hope not.
“You did a great job is what I’m trying to say.” I hug her shoulders again.
“It’s unfair your parents were taken away when mine walked away.” Her voice is thick. Every instinct in me screams to lighten the conversation, but I don’t want to brush it off since she started it. If she needs me to listen, I’m here for her.
“Did you ever meet your dad?” I bristle as I ask, realizing I’ve never asked before. Talking about family is a sensitive, intimate topic. And discussing it after a particularly sensitive, intimate act tempts me to flee the room in search of solace far, far away. But this is Cris, and like everything else she and I talk about, somehow this hallowed ground isn’t so sacred.
“He left when my mom was pregnant with me. He never came back. He rode a motorcycle and had blond hair. That’s all I really know.”
“Explains your wild streak,” I tease, unable to help myself. I’d do anything to erase the melancholy from her voice.
“Was it hard acclimating to the Owen household?” I’m not sure she’s asked me that before. It seems we’re both drifting out to sea and ignoring the buoys warning us we’ve gone too far.
“Yeah. I mean, I was ten. I wasn’t sure where I fit in with the world, let alone with a family I didn’t know. When I was adopted, there was just Archer and William and Lainey. I was an interloper. Then came Nate a year later, and I remember feeling this massive sense of relief. I was no longer the only kid who didn’t fit. And he really didn’t fit.”
She laughs softly as her fingers dance over my skin.
“He was a big, rough kid. He scared the shit out of me at first. I stuck close to Archer for a few years and then Nate ended up being my best friend. My other best friend,” I correct, placing a kiss on the top of her head. “We fought and played the way brothers do and eventually, an unbreakable bond formed.”
“You three are inseparable. It’s sort of awesome.” Her voice is as soft as her touch. Her fingertips trail over my chest hair and tiptoe down my torso, tickling a path to my belly button before repeating the pattern. It feels good to be touched this way—to be touched by her.
“Sometimes I find myself wishing my parents were alive,” I admit. “Then I feel like a traitor, because if they were I’d never know Nate, Arch, William, or Lainey. Or you. That is some fucked-up thinking. Knowing if I could turn back time and prevent the accident, I’d lose all of you. I think that might be worse than losing them. Now there’s something to feel bad admitting.”