Page 13 of Someone to Remember
She nods and takes a deep breath before she gets out of the car.
Her kids must’ve been watching for her, because they come bursting out of the house in a flurry of arms, legs, light blond hair and freckled faces.
They both look just like their father.
Before disaster struck, Taylor had joked that she hoped there’d be a smidge of her in the new baby.
Her parents stand in the doorway, looking like survivors of the apocalypse, which is how this must feel to them.
“Mommy, is the baby okay?” Eliza asks.
“We’re both doing great,” Taylor replies with forced enthusiasm.
Miles holds up a blue balloon animal. “Look what Grandpa made for me. It’s an elephant. Can you tell?”
“I see it,” Taylor said.
“Grandpa issosilly.” Miles sees us there and smiles. “Are the kids here, too?”
“Not this time, buddy,” I tell him, trying to hold back tears.
“Where’s Daddy?” Eliza asks when she realizes Will isn’t with us.
Taylor puts a hand on each of them, directing them toward the door. “Let’s go inside to have a talk.”
Eliza glances up at her, taking a closer look at her mother and not liking what she sees. “What’s wrong?”
Her concern goes right over Miles’s sweet little head as he charges on ahead of them into the house.
“Mommy,” Eliza says.
“Did you say hi to Auntie Iris and Uncle Gage?” Taylor asks.
“Oh, sorry,” Eliza says with a small smile. “Hi.”
“Hi, honey.” I hug the child I’ve known since she was a baby. We’ve celebrated every one of her birthdays together and had more playdates than I can count over the years. They’ve been less frequent since Taylor and Will got married and lifemarched on for both of us, but Eliza knows I’m one of her mom’s special friends. Our kids adore one another and are always happy to get together.
Miles is friendly and sweet to Gage and me as he shows Gage his trucks and the race car Daddy got him for his birthday.
Knowing what’s ahead for these precious kids, I’m gutted. Devastated. Wrecked.
I’d give anything to spare them from the pain that’s coming.
Four
Taylor
This is the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had to do. My precious babies. They love Will so much, and he’s the only daddy they’ve ever really known.
From the first time Will met them, he gave them one hundred percent of his time and attention every chance he got. Nothing mattered to him more than we did, and he made us feel that every day of the three beautiful years we spent with him.
“Mommy,” Eliza says, “what’s wrong?”
Hearing that, Miles stops what he’s doing with his new race car to study me the way his father used to do when he sensed I was upset about something. Greg would stare me down until I spilled whatever was troubling me. Miles is similarly gifted in getting me to tell him things I’d rather keep to myself. I don’t mind, though, because I love seeing Greg in him.
Miles comes over to sit on my right side.
Eliza is on my left.
