Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (42 page)

I didn’t want to go within ten feet of her, but I
had
to. Angel went back to work, and that first day, I let Bailey cry for two hours or more and then I couldn’t stand it. I picked her up.

She was warm and sweaty from wailing and she was…
beautiful
. Just as Angel promised. I fell in love with her. I crushed her to my chest and showered her with kisses. I forgot she needed to be fed and changed. She fell asleep in my arms and it was then that I realized, I did love her—
because how could someone not?
But I hated what she stood for.

When I met Saint at Indigo, I took him home without an ounce of hesitation. We made love as soon as we got in the door. There wasn’t anything particularly special about him, he smelled bad and kind of reminded me of a muskrat…but
it was my choice.

“Look,” Angel says, touching my arm.

Bailey is spinning on one foot, her other sweeping the surface of the water as it comes down. She knows Angel is watching. She’s putting on a show for him. Maybe she fears he will stop loving her the same way he did me, and I did her.

“She could have been a ballerina. She auditioned for the Joffrey school of Ballet in New York when she was fourteen,” I say.

“And what happened?”

“They wanted her…”

“So, why didn’t she go?”

“I tore up the acceptance letter. She stopped ballet after that. She thought she wasn’t good enough.”

“You did
what
?” Angel says.

I look at Bailey with scorn; she’s the reason Angel stopped loving me. “I wanted her to stay with me, it’s not like I had anyone else.”

“You cruel, vindictive…”

“Bitch?”

“How could you dash a little girl’s hopes and dreams? Did you not feel even the slightest bit remorseful?”

“You didn’t feel remorse… you only wanted to escape, even if forcing a young girl to drop high school and any hope of a career was the way to do it. Don’t talk to me about dashing little girl’s dreams. You’re no saint,” I say.

“You’re right
,
I’m
not
Saint, and I’m not going to pretend to love you just so we can fuck, or whatever else you did with that guy. How can I love you when you can’t even love yourself? Or your child, an extension of yourself? There isn’t any love left for her, or me, so where do you keep it all, Sydney? Or have your forgotten how to?”

“It’s a foreign language, love. You really screwed me over, Angel. You screwed us both over. Not all the kisses in the world are going to take back what you did. You took love and changed the words; made it something I couldn’t understand, anymore. It will take time to learn how to speak it again.”

“I did what I had to; you knew what you were getting yourself into. I wanted us to be together and have a family… at any cost.”

I take a piece of saran wrapped watermelon out of the cooler and a bottle of water for Bailey. She is walking toward us now.

“Most expensive decision I ever made in my life,” Angel mutters under his breath.

“Have some water,” I say holding out the water to Bailey. She chugs it, keeping her eyes on Angel and I. She must suspect something.
Could she have heard our conversation?

“I got you something,” she says, putting the cap back on the water. She places a smooth pink shell in my hand; it matches her fingernails in shade and delicateness. “It’s your favorite color and look it even has a hole in it. You could make it into a necklace or bracelet.”

“Thank you, it’s pretty,” I say, closing my hand around it.

Since I can remember, Bailey would bring me trinkets, little treasures, always looking for a way to please me. The shell is a gift, to make up for her harsh words with me yesterday. She doesn’t realize there is nothing to be sorry for and good moms don’t beat their children and belittle them on a daily basis. Indy will never know of my abrasive side.

“Do you want to go swimming with me? The baby would like it, I bet.” Bailey smiles at me kindly, more kindly then I deserve. Her face is round and childish, pleading.

“I’m already feeling a little seasick,” I say. “Next time.”

“Okay,” she says forlornly. “Dad, how about you? The water is warm as a jacuzzi.”

Angel shakes his head. “I want to finish my watermelon…can you find me a shell, too? There are some really nice ones over there.” He points at no particular spot in the sand, away from the pier and far from where we are sitting. He’s trying to get rid of her. I feel like we’re tag teaming against her.

“Okay,” she says turning to go. “Wait, I forgot, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” Angel says.

“Oh,” she says. “I’ll have to find one with algae on it.”

A smirk appears on Angel’s face and for a second I love him. I love her, then the love vanishes and I forget how it appeared inside of me. I can’t get the feeling back and hate comes so easily—
it’s my native tongue
.

“Darling,”
Angel says. “Even after all we did to her.”

We—it’s about time he starts sharing the blame. “Well, she didn’t learn it from me,” I say

“Yes, she did.”

The ocean beats against the coast; we are some of the only people left on the beach. The shadow of the umbrella disappears as the sun drops lower in the sky. It meets the ocean and sends a cone of its brilliant light over the tumultuous surf.

Bailey is still searching for that algae covered shell. Angel is wiping watermelon juice off his hands with the corner of his towel and watching the sunset too.

“You used to be very sweet. That’s what made me fall in love with you,” he says.

“I can be sweet again when Indy is born…I’ll be a good mother, maybe you’ll even feel attraction for me.”

“Attraction? I’m already attracted to you, you little minx. But I’ll admit if you could treat our daughter better, I’d be a lot more magnetized. Abuse is a major turn off and so is malice.”

“I’m bitter,” I say.

“So is cocoa before it’s made into sweet, sweet chocolate,” he says.

“But she isn’t
normal.
”

“Is anyone? Some girls are afraid of spiders…they squeal when they see one. So, she has a fear of the refrigerator. I get it. The fridge scares me, sometimes, too, especially when I open it up and find that it’s empty.”

“Maybe I’m over analyzing her,” I say flickeringly.

“You are. She’s just quirky. I like her quirks; she’s funny and naïve. I love that about her, it reminds me of how you used to be.”

“I can be quirky again,” I say. “After the baby is born…he’s going to change everything, I know it. I’ll be the person I was before we had Bailey.”

“You blame Bailey for what you’ve become?”

It’s dark now and I have lost track of her. Maybe she got pulled under by a riptide. “Yes,” I say, all the breath gone from my voice. Maybe
I
got pulled in by a riptide.

“Are you going to blame Indy for all your problems, too?”

He’s got me there. I shut my mouth, I’m not about to admit that Indy is different, that I’m going to love him. Bailey was Angel’s escape and Indy is mine.

Angel shakes out his towel and takes the cooler to the car. Bailey comes back to me, and I sigh.
She always comes back.

I tousle her hair, stiff from the ocean, and give her a hug.

“Love you,” she says. “Did you have fun today?”

“Love you too,” I say. “It wasn’t bad.”

It’s true, I love her; but only when it’s convenient for me. I had become something as evil and unspeakable as a stepmother from a Disney fairytale. And Bailey had become Snow White,
fairest of them all
.

Angel returns to gather up the umbrella and my towel. Bailey puts on her cover-up and tells us she’ll be waiting in the car.

“Did she find my shell?” Angel asks.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m kidding.” He chuckles.

The stars and moon are out now, silver light on the water’s skin and in Angel’s hair. His eyes light with it, like the rays are ignition. When we first started dating, he used to bring me here. He pushes his fingers between mine. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, seeing bits of starlight behind them. I’m exhausted, not having so much as a wink of sleep in the weeks since Alana went missing.
Even Bailey has slept better than me.

A nightmare, the same one every time, has been waking me in the middle of the night and keeping me from falling back to sleep. It’s more of an altered memory than anything, really. A memory slightly twisted.

The dream plays out the same way every time; it starts out as my own true memory and then gradually morphs into a nightmare.

Years back, when Bailey and Alana were small, I had taken them to the park by our apartment in Parkway Village. As soon as we got there, Alana scuttled up a tall oak tree. Bailey went to the swings and asked me to push her. From a distance, I could see the red dot of Alana’s hair as she sat on a branch, her legs dangling.

I was standing at the swings, when I saw Bailey ahead of me on the monkey bars. I had pushed the empty swing for a while, not realizing she hadn’t been in it. My mind had been a few steps behind that day because I had taken some tabs of LSD. I had yet to come fully down from my trip.

I followed Bailey around the playground until she was tired and bored. She asked me to take her home. We both went to the tree that Alana was perched in and tried to convince her to come down.

“Come up!” Alana said to Bailey. “You can see the whole park up here! I can see people playing tennis!”

“No, I’m too scared. I want to go home.
Come down
,” Bailey whined.

“Alana, please come down. You two can play Monopoly at home, isn’t that your favorite game?” I reasoned with her. But there was no reasoning with seven year old Alana, she was as strong willed as a monk who’d taken a vow of silence.

“Mommy,” Bailey said tugging on my hand. “Make her come down! Make her!”

I could see a tantrum coming on and I was not about to let that happen. “Alana, now. Come down!”

“No, I won’t! The ground is made of lava, it will burn me!”

“It’s just ground!”
Bailey screamed, bursting into tears. She had been sick all week with a terrible head cold, and I could tell she was overheated. She needed to be at home resting, not playing in the park.

I reached for Alana, waved my hands for her to jump into my arms. Maybe, I thought, if I can make it seem like a game, she will play along. “Jump ‘Lana! I’ll catch you!” I said, in my voice reserved for talking to toddlers.

“Nooo,” she wailed. “I’m safe here in the trees!”

At that moment, I reached for her but she leaned back and out of anger I pulled her arm. Realizing, I had grabbed another woman’s child, I immediately let go and she fell.

Bailey saw. She saw me pull Alana, but didn’t say anything about it. I drove Alana to the hospital where I met her mother Janni. I told her what happened, omitting the part where I grabbed Alana and made her fall.

I thought Alana would be too young to tell her mother the truth. But the very next day Janni called and said Alana couldn’t have play dates with Bailey anymore.

It took months, but eventually Janni’s anger broke and she allowed the two girls to play with each other again. But Alana always kept her distance from me after that; she stopped greeting me with hugs and kisses.

However, in my nightmare Alana does not cry with a broken arm. When she falls from the tree I don’t pick her up and rush her to my car. She is fifteen, as if she ages in her descent to the ground.

Bailey is there too, screaming that she is on fire from the ground made of lava; I stay where I’m at, in front of Alana’s feet, watching flames eat at her skin and hair. Then Alana, lying with her eyes wide open like the wind has been knocked out of her, moves her lips slowly parting them only a little to say, “
I am safe here, in the trees
.”