Page 166 of For Wrath and Redemption
I force a swallow. “I love it.”
She presses another kiss to my throat before pulling back just enough to kiss my lips.
“I love you.”
I smile, finally letting the tears roll down my cheeks.
“I love you, Trouble. Endlessly.”
42
CLAIRE
“You know,you could start calling before you just come over.”
Sav smirks as she and Mabel push past Jonah into the house. Jonah sighs and follows them, but he can’t hide the small smile on his face. He likes to act as if he doesn’t like having his bandmates show up unannounced, but he’s not fooling anyone. He loves it, and so do I.
“How you feeling, mama?” Sav grins, dropping onto the couch beside me and putting a gift bag at her feet.
“I’m feeling large,” I say honestly.
I do feel very large. And as uncomfortable as I am, I smile. The statement doesn’t impact me the way it once would have. No shame. No self-loathing. No anxiety. Justlarge, and that means I’m healing.
Mabel laughs. “I hear that’s what happens when you’re over nine months pregnant.”
She grabs my almost empty glass of lemonade and takes it into the kitchen to refill it without my having to ask.
I arch a brow at the gift bag they brought.
“What’s that?”
Sav shrugs. “You wouldn’t let us throw you a baby shower.”
“Savannah. One of you has brought a gift every day for the last four months.”
She arches a brow back. “She’s our first niece. What else would you expect?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, laughing it off like it doesn’t make me want to cry.
It happens every time one of them calls this baby their niece or refers to themselves as her aunt or uncle. The first time it happened, I was so shocked that I didn’t process it until later. When it finally sunk in, I sobbed.
My daughter is going to have a family. She’s going to have aunts and uncles. A cousin. Even potential grandparents, since Sav has started referring to both Red and Hammond asGramps.Neither has objected. Even Sav’s mother has offered to babysit anytime she visits from North Carolina. I’ve met her twice now, and she’s wonderful.
My own mom has started calling me every week. She heard about my pregnancy in the media, and she and my stepfather have been supportive from afar. I’ve gotten a few texts from Macon and Lennon, and I try not to overthink them. I try not to spiral on the lack of them in this huge part of my life, nor obsess over the hope that I might have redeemed myself enough to earn a spot in theirs.
The important thing is that I’ve redeemed myself in my own eyes. I’ve earned a spot in my own happiness, and that’s more than I could have ever hoped for. There’s a chance that family will start feeling like my own again someday, but if it doesn’t, I know I have one here that I can rely on.
I replay Sav’s words from all those months ago often.
You have to forgive yourself, even if they can’t.
She was right. Even my therapist agrees. Regret was eating at me, destroying me from the inside out, to the point where I wasn’t living. I wasn’t growing. I wasn’t allowing myself to. I had to move on. I owed it to Jonah and to our baby. I owed it to myself.
Mabel hands me a fresh glass of lemonade, and then wiggles her fingers at me.
“May I?”
“Of course.”
