Page 48 of Second Start: Family
“But before the crash,” Molly interrupted, drawing her sister away from those other events, “Mommy said she wanted another baby.”
“Because she liked babies best before they could talk and Bobby was talking up a storm,” Lizzie added with her usual attention to detail.
Kenzie’s heart squeezed tight inside her chest. Had Bobby heard and understood what no doubt were offhand, even teasing comments from his mother about his talking, about her wanting a baby who didn’t talk? And when she died, his talking regressed to … what? Be what she wanted?
Oh, that poor baby. That poor, poor baby. Thank heavens Bexley and the others helped get Bobby past that at Christmas, but what other issues or—?
“So, we always knew there’d be another baby—” Molly continued.
Lizzie fact-checked her with, “Well, not always. Just since that day and—”
Ruthlessly, Molly stuck to her throughline. “We’d be happy to have another baby in our family. Zara—” A girl a grade ahead of them, their friend, and an authority on the mysteries of adults. “—says she heard her mommy telling her friend that sometimes kids don’t want another baby in the family, even when it’s the first mommy, but especially not when it’s a second mommy who gets married to the daddy later. But that’s not the way it is for us. So we wanted to be sure you know another baby would be okay with us.”
“More than okay,” Lizzie emphasized.
They looked at her expectantly.
With her thoughts pinned on the possible — likely? — scenario of their little brother constructing his mother’s words into a reason for him not to talk as well as he could, it took a breath to realize they awaited a response, which first required running back in her head exactly what they’d said and what they could be thinking—
“No,” burst out of her. “You can’t think— That’s not—”
“C’mon, girls, time to get on the bus. It’s finally here.” Vicky swooped in from nowhere and herded the girls away.
“No, wait.”
Kenzie started forward, but Vicky’s outstretched arm stopped her.
“Vicky,” she said in an urgent undertone. “I need to talk to them. I can’t let them go on thinking— I have to tell them there’s nothing between Hall and me.”
“They wouldn’t believe you,” Vicky said serenely, except for the smirky grin lingering around her lips. “And that’s without seeing the two of you in a closet.”
“We never—”
“You would have. Besides, you can talk to them again Sunday, since this time both of us are invited to dinner at the Q-T Ranch and I accepted — for both of us.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nobody else was around the second time Dan researched Kenzie Smith’s background. He made sure of that.
When he finished, he cleared the search. Did ten more searches on the topic of his paper and some other schoolwork, though his mind wasn’t on it.
Only then did he shut down the computer.
After, he sat staring at the screen, his arms crossed over his chest.
If asked, he’d have said he sat that way because he was cold. But the room wasn’t really cold after the work the volunteers had done.
He wished his mom was here to talk to about this.
Although they hadn’t talked a whole lot for the last year or so before she … died. He always used that word, because it was the truth. All the stupid euphemisms made him want to puke. As if they made her anything other than dead. No longer here to talk to the way they used to.
Something pinched at the back of his neck.
The waysheused to.
His mom used to talk to him a lot. About things big and small. And he’d known that was special, because she told him it was, because she told him not to tell anyone else.
But he hadn’t talked that much to her. Not about big things.
