Hot shame overrode her surprise. What Izzy wanted to call him didn’t matter. The fact that she’d exposed Izzy to her ugly emotions did.
“I guess,” she started tentatively, “that I was scared when I couldn’t find you.” She kissed the tip of Izzy’s nose. “And sometimes when I get scared, I act like I’m angry.”
Izzy nodded, as though this made sense, and reached for Bex’s hand. “I’ll be brave enough for both of us, Mummy.”
Bex’s heart melted. Oh, God. This beautiful, sweet girl. Where would she be without her? “Thank you.”
“S’okay.”
“Sweetie…” Bex licked her lips, wondering how to ask what she needed to. “Did you like Mr. and Mrs. Briggston?”
Izzy edged closer and closed her eyes. “They didn’t wanna play, and they smelled funny, but I guess they were okay.”
Relief washed over her. “They weren’t mean to you?”
“No.” Izzy yawned. “They didn’t talk much.”
Good. She relaxed. For once in her life, Imogen had managed not to voice her disapproval. Bex thanked the universe for small mercies, cuddled her little girl, and together they drifted to sleep.
In the lightof a new day, Bex’s anger toward the Briggston clan waned. She didn’t want to waste energy being furious. Instead, she dragged herself and Izzy out of bed, checked her temperature in case she had a fever, then, satisfied her daughter was recovering from whatever had ailed her, she went through the motions of getting ready for yoga at Sanctuary.
At the end of class, Kat sent Izzy to the kitchen with Megan to get hot chocolate, and helped Bex put away the mats.
“What’s up?” she asked as they worked around each other. “Something is wrong with you.”
Bex sank to the ground, cross-legged. “Sometimes everything just goes wrong, and yesterday was one of those days.”
“Uh-oh.” Kat sat beside her. “What happened?”
Bex gave her the rundown, starting with not being able to find Izzy at school and ending with her argument with Michael, and the secret he’d revealed.
“Oh, man.” Kat made a sympathetic sound in the back of her throat. “Sorry, babe. That’s a lot to go through in one afternoon.”
“Yeah.” She extended her legs and prayed that Megan would keep Izzy busy for a while. “The worst part is that while I’m shocked Michael felt so deeply for me back then, and that his parents turned up out of the blue, the thing I can’t get out of my head is what Mum said. She’s right; I can’t be all things to Izzy forever. Maybe I’ve been holding onto control too tightly, but she’s my baby girl, and I don’t know how to be any other way.”
“No one should blame you for that.” Kat leaned forward. “You’ve done an amazing job of raising her and letting go of control will take some serious adjustment. Especially when the people who want to help you are the same ones you tried so hard to keep out. Thinking of them as anything other than the enemy is a big ask. You need to be patient with yourself.”
“Thanks, Kat.” She smiled, feeling bone-tired. “I needed to hear that.” For the seventy-second time, she replayed yesterday’s events in her mind. “I probably did go a little more mama bear than the situation warranted. If Michael’s text had come through, I might not have minded him taking Izzy home for Wes to babysit.”
Kat nodded, her expression nonjudgmental. “So, what was it that really bothered you?”
“I suppose it was the fact that his parents had access to her without me even having a clue.” She sighed. “But that was beyond his control.” Fidgeting with the laces of her shoes as she prepared to put them back on, she murmured, “I owe him an apology, but I’m still not sure what to make of the other thing he said.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Bex nodded.
“If you’d known how he felt six years ago, would it have changed the decisions you made?”
The words jolted through her. Until this point, she’d been viewing the past through a certain lens, and she hadn’t stopped to consider what might have changed.
“Give me a moment. I need to think about this.”
“No hurry.”
She listened out for Izzy, but couldn’t hear her returning, so she turned her thoughts inward. “It would have been nice to know. Honestly, there were times when I liked him better than Wes. But considering I was pregnant, I can’t see that I’d have changed things. It just wouldn’t have been feasible to keep Izzy a secret from them if we’d gotten together, and I couldn’t stand the idea of raising Izzy in such a hostile environment, so I probably would have done the same thing.”
“Then does it really matter?” Kat asked gently. “The most important thing is whether you love Michael now.”