“I’m just so glad she’s alive. And safe.”
“Me too,” I said. “She’s sleeping right now after taking a bath with Daniel.”
“Do they do that a lot?”
I clenched my jaw as I leaned against the wall.
“They did,” I said. “Haven’t done it in a while, though.”
“Are they close?” Sarah asked.
“They are. Very.”
There were more muffled sobs on her end of the line before a phrase fell from her mouth I never thought I’d hear.
“I’m so sorry, Kevin.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For everything. For leaving. For divorcing you. For never coming to see our kids.”
“We’ve been fine,” I said. “They’ve been fine.”
“When I found out that Sydney was taken, it made me sick. I fell to my knees, Kevin. I felt a part of me breaking.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I haven’t been able to sleep or eat. I know my boyfriend thought I was insane,” she said. “But I couldn't stop wondering if she was all right. If she was going to make it home.”
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath through my nose.
“Well, she’s home and she’s safe,” I said.
“I want to be back in my children’s lives.”
I snickered and shook my head.
“Now’s not the time to discuss this,” I said.
“Please, Kevin. When I found out what happened to Sydney, it broke me. Knowing I had grown so distant from my own family that the father of my children didn’t even think to call me—”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But you did that to yourself.”
“I’m not debating the past. What I did to you and the kids was wrong. And selfish. I get that now.”
“It just took your daughter being kidnapped to see it,” I said bitterly.
“I want to be a part of your lives, Kevin. Of your life.”
“Your boyfriend like that idea?”
“With all due respect to him, that isn’t his call. Those are my kids.”
“No, Sarah. They’re mine. And I’m not in the right frame of mind to have this conversation with you right now.”
“Please, Kevin. Let me try. Let me try to be the mother I should be for them,” she said.
I peeked around the corner of the room and saw Brooke sleeping next to Sydney, curled up around her and protecting her the only way she knew she could. That was what a mother was supposed to do with her children. And that was what Sarah had given up when I woke up and found her gone.