Vander took it from me with a smile. A happy smile. I loved him so much already, and my heart hurt because he didn’t have his mommy.

I put Vander to bed that night, spending a little more time with him than I did the girls. We talked about his mommy. I may not have remembered who she was, but at least I had Vander to tell me how special she was. He knew a lot about me, and that made me sad. I never told my girls about her. I kept her hidden away in a past I didn’t remember.

~~

We intended on watching the last of our videos, but I had another breakdown instead. I cried. A lot. Paxton held me, and kissed away my tears, but did little with words. I couldn’t tell him what was wrong. I didn’t know. Just a flood of emotions that I couldn’t control.

He was there for me the best way he knew how to be, and then it turned on a dime. I don’t think either of us saw it coming. It showed up out of the blue, and I’m not even sure which one of us started it. One minute I was ugly crying and the next we were making out. I think I was the one that slid my tongue between his lips, but it was both of us who responded. This was very interesting, to say the least. I don’t think I quit crying at all. Not even when I felt Paxton’s fingers slide through the elastic in my panties. I opened my legs for him.

Paxton brought me to orgasm with two fingers while tears streamed down my face, and then he moved on top of me and made love to me. This wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. This was over the top emotional. Not only for me, but him, too. No doubt I was the first person Paxton ever made love to while I cried like a lunatic.

By the time I felt him still inside me, I was all out of tears. Paxton smiled down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “All better?”

I kissed his nose, and assured him that I was fine. “Yes, I’m good.”

“I hate seeing you cry.”

“I couldn’t help it. I feel so bad for him,” I confessed.

“Yeah, I know. He told me he saved all the red M & M’s out of his pack for his mommy today.”

“Where could she be, Pax?”

“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”

~~

I put off the last session again the next day, knowing not only was Vander’s things coming, but so was the box from Izzy’s adoptive mom. I didn’t want to ruin that day either.

Vander was on cloud nine when he got his things. The girls helped him decorate his room with everything he had. That wasn’t a lot, but what it was, meant something to him. Vander was extremely attached to his things, knowing the story behind everything he owned.

My box was heavy as hell, like she packed it full of rocks, but it wasn’t really for me. Or was it? I had a box full of snow globes, twenty-one to be exact. I don’t think I have ever seen so much excitement on a little boy’s face. Those snow globes were special, and he was ecstatic that he had them. I sat on the floor between Paxton’s legs with Vander and the girls, our stones recharging in the center. Vander excitedly told the story of every globe he had with great detail. He remembered them all, and all the stories from his mom. Most of them including me. It made me sad that I couldn’t add to it. A sense of guilt fell over me as I listened to him exaggerate the time Izzy and I went out on a shrimp boat and got caught in a tropical storm. He believed it, and the girls believed it with wide eyes, but I wasn’t so sure that I did. If it did happen, my girls never heard it from me, because I didn’t tell them. I hid her. I didn’t remember her at all, but I knew I loved her.

I thumbed through a yearbook from John’s Town High, listening to my new favorite guy. My sister was quite a basketball star. Varsity point guard four straight years in a row.

“What’s this one about, Van?” Phi asked, finger on a globe with the twin towers.

“How about we save that one for another night? It’s bed time. Let’s go brush.”

“That was when my mommy played basketball. My daddy did, too. I’m going to play basketball, too,” Vander assured us when I flipped open a photo album of Izzy growing up in Michigan. She pretty much started playing basketball right away. I was sure the first couple pages we were still eleven. She looked happy, like she had a good life. She was busy with extracurricular activities, and there was a whole album full of rewards and recognitions. Izzy was smart.

Rowan and Ophelia were fascinated by the resemblance. They knew about her by now, but I don’t think it really sunk in until that moment. The baby book from Vander up until he was about three was filled with a happy family. A man, a beautiful young girl who looked just like me, and a little boy who looked a lot like my Ophelia stood in front of a flatbed truck. Izzy did the modeling, using her hands to showcase a logo on the side of the truck. Jonnie and Clyde Lawn Care in purple letters.

“That’s my daddy,” Vander said with a pointed finger right to the very tall black man. I didn’t know what Vander had been told, but I was sure this man wasn’t Vander’s daddy. With every page that I turned, I changed my mind. This guy may not have been Vander’s real dad, but he was definitely his daddy, and my sister loved him.

“Where is your daddy, baby?”

“He got hurt with a tractor and my mommy couldn’t get the bucket off his neck,” he explained with both hands around his throat.

Ophelia placed her hand on his back and apologized. “I’m sorry, Van. I can share my dad with you. It doesn’t matter what daddy loves you, right Mom?”

I smiled at her, feeling proud, like my five-year-old daughter had just given me the permission I needed to let it go. Those videos didn’t mean anything to me. This did. This family did.

I liked learning my past through Vander, and hearing all the stories his momma told him about our adventures. I was pretty sure only about half of them were true. Like the one where Izzy and I rode over Los Angeles in a hot air balloon when I put him to bed. I guess it could be true. Vander seemed to think so. He had a snow globe to prove it.

I kissed his little head and told him that I loved him, and then I told him that his mommy loved him. Vander hugged me tight, handed me his little stone, and rolled to his side. I smiled and placed his little pebble on his stand, feeling like we were going to be okay, like we might actually make it out alive.

~~

“I can’t do this, Lane. I changed my mind.”

“No you don’t, Gabby. No you don’t. You’re doing this. It’s set. You’re going to park that car like you do every Tuesday. You’re going to get out and get into the silver SUV waiting on you there.”

“I can’t, there’s a tropical storm heading our way.”

“You’ll be long gone before it hits. You’re getting on that plane.”

“What the fuck, Paxton? Are you serious right now?”

“What’s he talking about, Gabby. What SUV?”

“Turn it off. What are you doing? You can’t do that. Where’s Nick?”

“I told him you were coming. Sit down.”

I slammed the laptop shut to get his attention.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now, Paxton? You’re doing this?”

The look in Paxton’s eyes reminded me of something I didn’t remember. Something dark, that I didn’t like.

He was on his feet faster than I could step away, and I was planted against the cold glass, his hand tightly around my throat. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Let go of me.”

“Were you going to leave me, Gabriella? Were you planning on taking my kids? Answer me, goddamnit,” he screamed, a fraction from my face.

“I don’t know, I have amnesia,” I smartly said.

Paxton shoved my face and let me go, but I didn’t let him go. I followed a few steps behind while he glided down the stairs twice as fast as me.

“Paxton, stop. Why are you doing this? We were fine.”

That turned him in his tracks and I backed down. “We weren’t fine, Gabriella. We’re the fucking lie in this whole fucked up circle. You and me, bitch. We’ve been living on lies since the day we ran into each other on that beach. Let’s get them out. Let’s lay it all out.”