Page 80 of Roads Behind Us
“I’m probably a better bet,” she said, nodding. “You’re right. Plus, I’ve run down a bison before on this road, so I know what to do if we encounter my old friend Wooly Wally.”
“Wooly who?”
She pointed to the northeast, past the trees, and there in the distance in a big open field guarded by the Tetons stood a grazing herd of bison. “He’s my best friend.”
I looked at her, at the glittering green sparkle in her eyes when she looked back at me and her face softened in sympathy. “Have you lost your marbles?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, and she laughed, and the sound filled up the emptiness I felt since all the pain I’d been carrying had released, like the sound of her voice had been made just for me. Just to ease the ache that had carved out holes inside my body these last three years.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bea
“Daddy?” Athena rushed to Bax when we walked in his kitchen door. “Are you okay?”
She wrapped her arms around him and tucked her head against his chest, and a memory so vivid punched me in the gut. I saw myself at Athena’s age, running into my own daddy’s arms after Mama died. He didn’t hug me back like Bax was hugging Athena. My dad pushed me away because, unlike Bax, he’d forgotten how to love me and that I’d lost the most important person in my life too.
“Yeah, baby. I’m okay.” Bax stroked his fingers through Athena’s hair and closed his eyes. It looked like the contact reinforced him so that he could face this thing, and I fell in love with him even more than I already had. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got home. Did you have a good day at school? Wait, why are you home early?”
“Granny came to school to pick me up. But I got an A on my English paper right before the principal called me to the office,” she said and smiled, and his responding smile hurt my heart. He was trying like hell to hold it together.
Bax’s mom called his name from the living room. “Son? Come in here, please.” He narrowed his eyes at the sound. He wasn’t happy Merv had interfered.
“I don’t understand,” Athena whispered. “Why’d Uncle Dixon leave his baby here? Where is he? I didn’t even know he had a baby. Did you?”
“No. I found out today, just like you. I don’t know where he is. Aunt Abey will look for him.”
“I will,” Abey said softly when she walked up behind Athena still looking up at Bax with wide, questioning eyes. Athena turned at the sound of her aunt’s voice, and gently, Abey swept Athena’s hair off her shoulder and let it fall down her back. “But I don’t know that I’ll find him.”
“C’mon,” Bax said, and he looked at Athena and then me. He flexed his fingers away from his crutch handle, like he wanted to hold my hand.
I nodded and followed him, and we all walked into the living room to see Merv holding the sleeping baby in Bax’s recliner. She’d already fallen in love with the kid. That was clear as she gazed down at him with wonder.
She smiled at Stu sleeping in her arms. “He has my eyes.”
Bax looked at his sister. “What do we do?”
“I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do, Bax. I’ve put a call into child services just to have somebody in the loop, but Dixon must’ve done some research because everything seems to be in order.” Abey walked to the coffee table and lifted an unfolded piece of paper, and I saw the raised notary seal from where I stood clear across the room.
“We’ll do a DNA test just to be sure,” Abey said, “but he’s ours. I know he is. Doctor Whitley will come to check Stu over, make sure he’s healthy, and he’ll take a swab so we can do the test. Given his history, we’ll need to take him to a pediatrician, to check for any lastin’ effects from the”—Abey glanced quickly at Athena and then her mom—“the drugs.”
“I think I need to lie down,” Bax said when he swayed on his feet, but he pushed into his crutches to steady himself.
“Go,” his mom said. “Get some rest. I’ll be here with Stuey.”
Abey nodded. She’d stay too.
Bax sighed heavily, but he asked, “Athena, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine, Daddy. I still don’t understand, but I’m okay.”
Holding his crutch under his arm, he reached his hand out to her. She took it and squeezed, and then she sat at the end of the couch closest to Merv, draped herself over the arm, and became transfixed with the baby still sleeping peacefully in her grandma’s arms.
Bax looked at me. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Merv didn’t bat an eye this time. She couldn’t see or hear anything besides her grandson.
