Page 125 of Perfect Chemistry

Two years later… Katie’s Point of view

“We’re here,” Kai whispered as we pulled up to the house I had only seen once previously. “You ready?” he asked me, watching the swirl of emotions cross my face.

“Yes. No,” I replied, a small smile picking up at the corner of my lips.

“Come on. This has been put off long enough,” Kai held my hand to his lips before turning off the car and getting out.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I could do this.

I stepped out of the car as Kai handed my bag to me from the trunk. “You take that and I’ll get this,” he said, opening the rear passenger door. “Come on, baby girl. Time to wake up,” Kai cooed at our daughter who was sound asleep in her car seat.

She rubbed her eyes as he unbuckled her harness and lifted her out of the car. “Watch your head, baby girl. Come to Daddy. I got you. Did you have a good nap, hmmm?” he continued to prattle and coo at our little girl. I loved watching them together. Her face lit up in a huge smile as she grabbed onto his shirt.

I never had any doubt that Kai loved us. He had done so much for me over the years and my chest just felt stuffed with sweetness watching him with our daughter. I closed the door as he stepped away from the car. Holding our girl on one arm, he reached out and took my hand with the other.

I didn’t know what to expect coming back here. The front door opened, and an older couple stepped out. “Hello. I’m so glad you made it all this way,” the woman spoke quietly to us. Her eyes stayed on me a moment longer before looking over to Kai who was holding our daughter. “You must be Kai, you can just call me Annie. This is my husband, Tom,” Annie gestured making the introductions.

Kai handed our daughter over to me and shook hands with Tom and Annie, “It’s nice to meet you both in person.”

“Alright, Annie, let them in the house. They’ve been on the road long enough for this,” Tom shooed his wife back into the house and held the door for Kai and me. “Please,” he gestured for us to follow behind Annie.

I walked in first, feeling the comfort and warmth of Kai’s hand on my lower back. He knew that I was nervous. Ty’s parents hadn’t spoken to me in years, then suddenly wanted to reach out two years ago. I refused to speak with either of them because of my own guilt, so Kai had done the majority of the communication via my phone.

I wasn’t angry with them. But I didn’t want to see the guilt and blame when we began picking at wounds that had healed. I moved on without them because they didn’t want anything to do with me. I needed to honor Ty’s last wishes, and I couldn’t do that over the phone. It was time to face the past.

“We can sit here in the living room. It has the most space for the baby to play. I’m sorry, what is her name? She’s just beautiful,” Annie cooed, looking at our daughter.

“Tysan. We named her Tysan with an A, but we just call her Ty for short,” Kai spoke up, taking Ty from my arms and setting her on the floor to play.

Tom and Annie froze, sharing a look between them. Their eyes watered up, but they smiled. “That’s a beautiful name, Katie. Kai, you have a beautiful family-” Tom choked up for a second, wrapping an arm over Annie’s shoulder and pulling her to his side. “Thank you,” he said to me after a moment.

Kai smiled back, and pulled me into his arms. “I am sorry for your loss. But I can’t be sorry for Katie coming back into my life. Your son was a huge part of her life, and I don’t ever want to take that away from her or from you. Katie said that Tyson always talked about chasing rainbows to find your happiness. This little girl is our rainbow,” he explained, smiling at Tysan playing with a bear she found in the corner by the sofa.

“You lost another child?” Annie’s voice shook.

I felt my eyes burning and I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.

Kai seemed to understand everything when I looked up at him and he caressed my back. “I don’t know if Tyson ever told you about Katie being severely injured during a deployment, but it did a lot more damage than she knew. I’m sure he just wanted to protect her, so she didn’t know the extent of it. She had no idea until after we had reunited a few years ago,” he explained.

“Katie, I don’t blame you. We don’t blame you for anything that happened. I just,” Annie looked at Tom, who nodded for her to continue. “Let’s sit down and talk. I need to clear the past between us. It should not have taken this long,” she added.

We sat a few minutes later around the living room with coffee and a few snacks for little Ty to nibble on. She loved bananas and puffs. So she sat on Kai’s lap and ate small bites of soft banana, before climbing down to play with the bear again.

“We knew about you. We were thrilled when you had finally accepted Ty’s proposal,” Tom started the conversation. “Annie and I were supposed to surprise you and be the witnesses when you eloped, but things didn’t work out that way.”

He nodded encouragingly at Annie. It was her turn to talk.

“I had not been feeling well, and had had some doctor’s appointments and blood work done the week before we were supposed to leave to - for the wedding. I got a call the day we should have left and was told that I needed to come to the hospital. They found cancer, and it was a really aggressive breast cancer. I didn’t want to worry you or Ty just before a deployment, so we just canceled our trip,” Annie spoke softly, her fingers running around the lip of her cup as she spoke.

She explained that she had already started aggressive chemo and radiation treatments when they notified her and Tom of Ty’s death overseas. She had had double mastectomies three days after Ty and I married. Ty never knew how sick she was because they had kept it from him. When the funeral occurred, it was all they could do to stand upright. Annie’s body was being ravaged by the treatments, and Tom was exhausted as the only caregiver in the house.

“We didn’t mean for you to feel pushed aside, Katie. Lord knows, we were looking forward to meeting you finally. I just didn’t have anything left when we finally met. I was given six months to live two days before Ty died. They told Tom to make arrangements, because my chances of survival were 5%,” Annie continued, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

My eyes were overflowing as I struggled to process so much information. “Oh, Annie. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have been here to help you and Tom,” I offered, reaching out to hold her hand.

Annie smiled at her husband, and held my hand. “Ty was such a great judge of character. He told us that you were the one two weeks after you met,” she told me as she squeezed my hand. “Three years after Ty died, I was told that my cancer was in remission. I don’t know how many times I came close to reuniting with our son, but it was enough to turn Tom gray.”

“When she finally got the clean bill of health, we couldn’t find you anywhere, Katie. We wanted to tell you everything and let you know that we have always considered you our daughter-in-law. I know we sucked at showing it, but I hope that you can forgive us,” Tom pleaded with tear brimmed eyes.

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