Reminders of Him

“I didn’t know you before I showed up at your bar last night,” she says with a trembling voice. “I swear.” Her head falls back against the headrest, and she stares straight ahead. Her chest rises with a deep inhale. She exhales at the exact moment my finger meets the unlock button. My cue for her to exit.

“I don’t care about last night. I care about Diem. That’s it.”

I watch a tear as it skates down her jaw. I hate that I know what those tears taste like. I hate that part of me wants to reach over and wipe it away.

I wonder if she cried as she was walking away from Scotty that night?

She moves with a graceful sadness, leaning forward, pressing her face into her hands. Her movement fills my truck with the scent of her shampoo. It smells like fruit. Apples. I rest my elbow on my doorframe and lean away from her, covering my mouth and my nose with my hand. I look out my window, not wanting to know anything else about her. I don’t want to know what she smells like, what she sounds like, what her tears look like, what her pain makes me feel like.

“They don’t want you in her life, Kenna.”

A cry mixes with a gasp that sounds like it’s filled with years of heartache when she says, “She’s my daughter.” Her voice decides to reconnect with her spirit in this moment. It’s no longer a wisp of air escaping her mouth. It’s full of panic and desperation.

I grip my steering wheel, tapping it with my thumb while I think of how to say what I need for her to understand.

“Diem is their daughter. Your rights were terminated. Get out of my truck, and then do us all a favor and go back to Denver.”

I don’t know if the sob that escapes her is even real. She wipes her cheeks and then opens the door and steps out of my truck. She faces me before closing the door, and she looks so much like Diem; even her eyes have grown a shade lighter like Diem’s do when she cries.

I feel that look deep within me, but I know it’s only because of how closely she resembles Diem. I’m hurting for Diem. Not for this woman.

Kenna looks torn between walking away, responding to me, or screaming. She hugs herself and looks at me with two huge, devastated eyes. She tilts her face up toward the sky for a second, inhaling a shaky breath. “Fuck you, Ledger.” The sting of agony in her voice makes me flinch internally, but I remain as stoic as possible on the outside.

Her words weren’t even a yell. They were just a quiet and piercing statement.

She slams my truck door, and then slaps my window with both of her palms. “Fuck you!”

I don’t wait for her to say it a third time. I throw the truck in reverse and pull back onto the street. My stomach is in a knot that feels tethered to her fist. The farther I get from her, the more I feel it unravel.

I don’t know what I expected. I’ve had this vision of her in my head all these years. A girl with no remorse for what she’s done. A mother with no attachment to the child she brought into the world.

Five years of preconceived yet solid notions aren’t easy to let go of. Kenna has been one way and one way only in my mind. Unremorseful. Uninvolved. Uncaring. Unworthy.

I can’t reconcile the emotional turmoil she seems to suffer from not being part of Diem’s life with the lack of regard she held for Scotty’s life.

I drive away while thinking of a million things I should have said. A million questions I still don’t have answers to.

“Why didn’t you call for help?”

“Why did you leave him there?”

“Why do you think you deserve to cause another upheaval in the lives you’ve already destroyed?”

“Why do I still want to hug you?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KENNA

I feel like I’m living my worst-case scenario. Not only did I not get to meet my daughter today, but the only person who might have been able to lead me to her is now enemy number one.

I hate him. I hate that I let him touch me last night. I hate that in the brief time I spent with him yesterday, I gave him all the ammunition to label me a liar, a whore, an alcoholic. As if murderer wasn’t enough.

He’s going to go straight to Grace and Patrick and reinforce their hatred for me. He’s going to help them build an even sturdier, taller, thicker wall between me and my daughter.

I have no one on my side. Not a single person.

“Hi.”

I pause halfway up the stairwell. There’s a teenage girl sitting at the top of the stairs. She has Down syndrome, and she’s smiling at me adorably, like this isn’t the worst day of my life. She’s wearing the same type of work shirt that Amy had on at the grocery store. She must work there. Amy said they give grocery bagger positions to people with special needs.