Finding Purgatory (23 page)

He traced the shape of her lips with the tip of his finger. There was mischief in the way he smiled. “And for the record, most people would kill for what you have right in front of you right now.”

“What’s that?”

When he leaned his head forward, his face was so close she could smell his breath, sweet from the gum he was chewing. “A smart, charming, hardworking man who loves you despite the fact you’re the biggest pain in the ass.”

Tori flushed. She looked down, but she was smiling.

He chuckled and let his hand fall down the line of her body, tracing her arm before he rested his palm over the bulge of her belly. Her breath caught. “And if you think about it, you have what a lot of people can only wish and dream about. You have a healthy, gorgeous baby.”

“Maybe she’s an uggo. Have you thought of that?” She tried to joke but her voice shook on the way out.

“Not a chance.” He lifted one hand to her cheek. “With a mother as beautiful as you, there’s no way she’ll be ugly.”

Tori’s heart pounded, sending blood through her veins at a frenzied pace. Some part of her screamed, wanting nothing more than to bolt because he was right. Love scared the hell out of her. But longing kept her frozen. Her hand was splayed over his chest, but she couldn’t make herself push him away.

His eyes searched hers. He bent to her, she pressed up toward him, and their lips met as if the move had been choreographed. It was a small kiss, delicate and unbearably sweet. They stilled for a moment, foreheads touching and breath mingling between them.

Tori had to shift her weight, but she didn’t let him go. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face at his shoulder.

He did paint a nice picture of a good life. Heaven, he’d said. But she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea. Other people could have those things, but not her.

For now, if only for the moment, she was happy enough in his arms.

Chapter 22: Home

A
ni was having a staring contest with her phone. It was winning.

The sight of the damn thing was giving her an anxiety attack.

It wasn’t as though she’d stopped loving her second family. She missed them. But it was like coming near the stove again after being burned. All the planning that had gone into the funeral had necessitated prolonged exposure to them, and it hurt too much.

They had each other. They knew how to stick together. They were supposed to be fine without her.

Just like her baby sister should have been fine.

And just like Tori, they weren’t so fine. At least Indigo wasn’t.

Blowing out a sharp breath, Ani dialed. Listening to the phone ring reminded her of a foolish game, the one where you held your hand over an open candle flame as long as you could. It was excruciating, and she wanted to yank her hand back. Her finger hovered over the end key.

“Hello?”

Ian. At the sound of his voice, every line Ani had rehearsed went out of her head. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. She tried to speak but only managed to sound like she was choking.

“Hanging up now.”

“Ian.”

There was a pause. “Ani.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence.

This was the hardest thing she’d . . .

No.

Putting her husband and baby daughter in the ground was the hardest thing she would ever do. This should be a cakewalk. “How’s Indy?”

“You suddenly care again?”

Ani closed her eyes.

“No. I’m sorry.” Ian’s voice was gruff—Jett’s tone when he was frustrated. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean that.”

Her eyes watered. She didn’t know where to start.

Ian sighed. “I want to be angry at you. I am angry, but Mom isn’t.”

“I don’t blame you for being angry, and I wouldn’t blame her.”

“Well, she’s not angry.” Ani could picture him rubbing the back of his neck. “Mom told me there’s nothing that can describe how it feels to lose a baby. She said it’s exactly like watching your brain break down, except with true insanity, you don’t know you’re going out of your mind. But this . . .”

“You feel it every second of every day. You feel your mind being eaten away,” Ani whispered. “It is. It’s maddening. Trying to accept your child is gone is like trying to accept the sun rises in the west.”

“That’s about what she said.” Ian’s voice was soft now, more the kind-hearted man she knew. “And you lost Jett, too.”

“So did you.”

“No one understands. Jett is, was half of me. I’m missing something.” He cleared his throat. “But I see what you lost. All my relationships, Mom’s two failed marriages—neither of us have ever come close to what you and Jett had.”

Ani clapped a hand over her mouth. Hearing the words out loud made her light-headed. It made her body quake with the depth of her loss. Jett had been not only a true love but a true partner. For over a year now, she’d been trying to convince herself she should be able to stand up straight, get through life on her own. She wasn’t the kind of woman who had defined herself by her relationship with her husband, and yet she felt incomplete without him.

“Look, Ani, Indy could use a big sister. If you can’t do it, I’ll try to understand.”

“No. I can. I’d like to see her, if she’ll let me.”

“She’ll let you.” He paused. “Just tell me when, and I’ll make sure not to be there.”

“Ian—”

“You don’t have to say it.” He sounded tired. “You think it doesn’t affect me? It’s like a sucker punch to the gut every time I look in the mirror. Sometimes, when Mom looks at me, I can see how much she wishes she was looking at Jett.”

“That . . . that . . . sucks.” Ani wiped away the tears that had gathered under her lashes. “This is all so hard.”

“Yeah.”

For a few moments, neither of them spoke.

“Are you coming back to us?” he finally asked.

Ani flexed her fingers into a fist, trying to stop the tremble. “I want to try,” she whispered.

“Then it’s worth it. Just let me know, and I’ll stay home that evening.” She heard him huff. “And if you want to bring your boyfriend, I think Mom would be okay with that.”

Ani started. “Oh God. Ian, West isn’t my boyfriend.” Her thoughts spun. “A lot has happened this year.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“We’ll talk about it. I’ll tell you the whole story.”

“Tell Mom and Indy. They’ll fill me in.”

“Ian.”

“It really is okay.” His tone was tight but sincere. “We’ll figure it out.”

Ani allowed herself to feel a kernel of hope. “Thank you.”

How Ani managed to drive across town with her hands shaking and her heart beating loud enough to drown out the noise of traffic, she didn’t know. When she pulled into the driveway, she had to rest her head on the steering wheel. Chills went down her spine to accompany a cold sweat. Her breath was ragged.

Clenching her hands in fists, she dug her fingernails into her skin as hard as she could, trying to ground herself. It was the middle of summer, and she was freezing. She didn’t know if she was terrified. It felt like it, but it also didn’t. This was more like torture, like she expected to be tied spread-eagle and naked, helpless as she was flayed alive.

There were too many memories here.

Ani jumped when she heard Jett’s voice as though he were right beside her in the car as he had been so many times.

“Don’t worry, beautiful. They’re going to love you.”

She gulped in a breath with a gasp.

It was strange. In the home she’d shared with Jett and Mara, she could shut out her memories for days or weeks at a time. It was as though their ghosts were here. In a way, they were. Mara had shared more features with Jett’s family.

They would want to talk. They’d want to remember.

Her fingers twitched on the steering wheel. She almost put the car in reverse. The house in front of her, once a peaceful refuge, looked menacing.

Finger by finger, she unwound her hands from around the steering wheel. After another second, she opened the car door.

Ani touched the engagement ring Jett had given her on their first visit to his mother’s house through the fabric of her shirt where it hung on a chain. She breathed in through her nose and forced her feet to shuffle forward. Her eyes were stinging with tears when she finally got to the door.

Before she could work up the will to knock, the door creaked open. Ani blinked, and her mother-in-law peered back, eyes shining. At first, they could only look at each other. Ani was caught by a flurry of memories, each of which stung like the bite of cold wind. The first time she saw Brenda, she’d squeezed Jett’s hand so hard he yelped. She’d just wanted to make a good impression on the woman. Now here they were, so many years later, and Ani felt shame heat her cheeks. She knew she’d hurt this woman who’d loved her so well.

Brenda smiled. “Hi, sweetheart,” she whispered.

Ani stepped forward into the other woman’s embrace, surprised to find she was still shaking. Her mother-in-law shook, too, and she clung just as tightly. “Brenda, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hush. You’re here now.”

Brenda stroked Ani’s hair with a mother’s touch. Ani was completely unaware of how much she missed it, needed it, until she had it back again.

When they untangled themselves, Brenda kept her hand gripped around Ani’s like a parent ensuring a child couldn’t run off. Ani let herself be led, but it meant she couldn’t freeze when visions hit her.

Family dinners, holidays. Ani winced when she heard Mara’s high-pitched giggle and Jett’s answering, lighthearted admonishment echo in her head.
She
slid her fingers along the wall, trying hard to keep herself in the present.

Ani was glad Brenda didn’t try to speak. She wouldn’t have been able to answer. The hallway to the bedrooms was a gauntlet of family photos. It was just as well her eyes were watering. Each time she caught Jett’s smile out of the corner of her eye or saw her silly, pretty baby, Ani felt as though she’d shoved her heart into a drugstore blood pressure machine. With each step, it squeezed tighter and tighter, until she was sure she couldn’t take it.

At the sight of the last picture at the end of the hallway, Ani stopped short, oblivious to Brenda’s guiding hand.

The trio in the picture had no idea their happiness would soon be shattered. Ani sat next to Jett. Their faces were turned away from the camera, looking at each other as if there were no one else in the world. Held securely on Jett’s lap was their then eighteen-month-old daughter, her face scrunched up in the kind of joy only babies could perfect.

Every person in that picture was gone. Her adoring husband, her happy daughter, and the woman Ani had been with them. All three of them were dead and buried. Erased in the split second it took to squeeze a trigger.

“Sweetheart . . .” Brenda trailed off when the unmistakable noise of a baby’s fussing distracted her. Ani wondered if this was another phantom memory, but the sound was off somehow.

Not her baby. Indigo’s baby. She shuffled forward one step, then another, then another, until she was standing at the door to Indigo’s room.

Jett’s little sister had all the marks of a new mother. Her eyes were hooded with dark smudges beneath them. Her hair was a mess. Her shirt was stained. But even with all that, there was a glow about her. Indigo hummed as she picked up the infant from the carrier perched beside her on the bed. Content to be held, the baby quieted quickly.

She looked like a mother.

She looked like a little girl playing house.

With the baby settled, Indigo looked at Ani with self-conscious uncertainty in her eyes. “Hi, Anti.”

When she was six, not really understanding the difference between her aunts and Jett’s girlfriend, Indigo had taken to calling her Aunty. Even after she figured it all out, she’d kept it up, saying Anti was short for Antigone anyway.

Ani squeezed Brenda’s hand before she walked into the room. “Hello, Indiana Jones.” It was Jett’s nickname for her, and Ani was used to using it.

Indigo brightened. She lifted her free arm. Ani sat beside her on the bed, hugging her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell Tori who I was when I saw you,” Indigo said.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

The baby fussed again, and Ani stiffened. It took her another few seconds to pull back so she could look at the boy. “Who is this handsome young man?”

Indigo’s smile was shy but proud. “I named him after Jett.”

“Jethro?” Ani’s eyebrows arched.

“No. Just Jett. Jett Anthony Jones.”

Ani ran the pads of her fingers over the baby’s soft cheek. “Named after a rocker woman like your mommy, huh, kid?”

“What do you mean?”

“Jett Jones? Joan Jett?” Ani shook her head. “Look her up. Believe me, he could do worse.”

Indigo shrugged. “Do you want to hold him?”

Ani’s first instinct was to say no. Grief was a hellish thing, and she didn’t want to think about holding newborn Mara in her arms. But instead of declining, she reached for the baby, if a little robotically.

Looking down at baby Jett, Ani didn’t see her daughter. He looked nothing at all like Mara. This was not her baby, and while everything in her cried out with the strength of how much she wanted Mara back in her arms, the pain was enough to break the hold of her memories.

No, this was not her baby, but he was her little sister’s son. Jett’s nephew. He was helpless and precious. He too was deserving of all the unconditional love and support Mara had.

“He’s beautiful,” Ani said, and Indigo beamed.

Ani rocked the boy, watching as he worked his lips and blinked his unfocused eyes. Baby Jett. Some people would say he was a blessing sent by his uncle, and while Ani in no way believed that, she understood why it was a comforting thought.

She thought of Shane and West and their theory of reincarnation. That too was a comforting thought. Jett and Mara’s lives were over, but here, and with Tori’s baby, life was beginning anew. If she were to believe the McCarty brothers, there was some solace in the idea that the story of her and Jett might not be done. Maybe it was just paused, waiting to start up again in some other life, in some other body. Maybe her baby’s story wasn’t limited to two years, but it stretched behind her and in front of her on a timeline Ani couldn’t comprehend.