Page 22 of The Rest is History

“Asher said if he fucks up again, he’s gone. And I agree. Do you hear me?”

She nods. “Thank you for the groceries.”

I walk through the house checking that she really is okay. The fridge is halfway full. The pantry is still okay. I check that the electricity is still on. “You need anything done ’round the house?” I ask. Ezra fusses in my arms, so I hand him back to Pippin. She takes him to the couch to nurse.

“No. Everything’s fine. I don’t need anything. I think Carlson’s going to be good this time, Sawyer. I really do.”

“I don’t think that asshole has one true bone in his body, Pip. You tell me or Ash if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay.” Then, while Ezra nurses, Pippin looks at me nervously. “Sawyer?”

My phone buzzes with a text. Asher. Asking me to come home. It hasn’t even been thirty minutes since Reece Carter arrived. My chest tightens with concern for my husband.

“How’s Faye doing?” Pippin asks. My agitation over Carlson dissipates. Nothing hurts me more than seeing Pippin’s face when she asks after her twin.

“She’s doing okay, Pip. I talked to her last week.”

“Please let me bring Ezra when we visit again,” she begs for the tenth time this week.

“It’s not a good idea,” I say gently.

When good people are destroyed at a young age, it’s hard not to forgive them over and over again when they’re adults, no matter what terrible thing they’ve done. It’s hard to accept that Faye, as beautiful of a person she was growing up, isn't good anymore. But still, we forgave her. We couldn’t help it.

Faye was the one who saved her school lunches in middle school to bring home so we would have dinner. Faye was the one who stood up against the girls at school when they laughed after Pippin soiled her dress when her first period showed up in the middle of class. It was Faye who gave up all the pretty things for Pippin because they would look better on her twin. They looked exactly alike but they were night and day. Faye was a fighter. Pippin, the soft butterfly who needed to be protected.

When did it all go wrong? How?

Faye fucked up. She chose wrong. It doesn’t matter now the childhoods we all had. The only thing that matters is that what she did was bad enough to keep her in prison for more than ten years, and all we can do is try to love her without wounding ourselves.

Faye is the one who doesn’t want us to take Ezra with us when we visit. The person who can’t forgive Faye for everything that happened is Faye. And she doesn’t want her only nephew to grow up seeing her in prison. Even now, when he’s just two months old.

Pippin shakes her head and drops the subject. My answer has been the same since the first time she asked. I don’t know what to do. Faye insisted. I don’t have the heart to tell Pippin the real reason we can’t take Ezra.

I leave Pippin’s place after making sure the lock on the back door is still secure after I fixed it a few weeks ago.

On my way back home, my thoughts wander, thinking about the way my life turned out.

I guess I could have been angry about the whole thing. About my mother’s death. About child services never coming back. About my father leaving us in the middle of the night. I hated him for making my mother cry so many nights and wished he would leave and never come back. And then I hated him when he left.

But I had the girls, and I wanted my story – our story – to turn out differently. And for that, I needed to find some peace in this world.

I couldn't be angry and at peace at the same time. I couldn't walk both roads. I had to choose. I had only this life, and Faye and Pippin needed me. And I chose peace. I chose peace over the neglect and our father’s abandonment. I chose peace over the rage I carried for my mother’s unnecessary death. The crushing poverty that never ended while we were growing up. The way people – rich folk, mostly – treated us because we had nothing.

And I promised myself that I would always follow my heart. I would always choose peace over anything I may face in this life. And I’ll always look on the bright side.

I couldn’t leave Monagan. I had the girls and I had no education. So I did what I could with what I had and if there’s any proof that it had all turned out okay, it would be the man waiting for me right now inside the cottage we both call home.

I put the truck in park and reach over to the passenger seat for the cake I picked up from Dotty’s Bakeshop earlier. It’s a chocolate cake with a caramel filling – Asher’s favorite. Dotty added extra caramel for him, as usual. She’s been doing it for years.

Chocolate cake with caramel filling is also Reece’s favorite. I know because I asked what Reece’s favorite dessert is when we talked about dinner preparations two nights ago. At first, Asher told me not to worry about dessert, the apple pie would be fine. But I know how much Reece Carter meant to my husband. I wanted to get the cake. For him and, I guess, for Reece too.

Cake in hand, I exit the car. I hesitate for a moment, then set the cake on the hood of the truck to dust myself off and bring some order to my hair. I tidied myself up at the woodlot because I didn’t want Asher to have to introduce his former friend and lover to a dirty wood logger, but there’s only so much dirt and sawdust you can remove at the portable wash basin on site. Also, I believe Reece Carter is rich folk, and for Asher’s sake at least, I should try to look decent.

Asher is already at the door, opening it for me.

“Hey,” he says, leaning in for a kiss.

I kiss him at the door, soft and tender. “Hey.” Asher’s smile is fake.

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