Twisted Fate by Summer Cooper
14
Keily
Keily woke up the next morning feeling as if she’d slept for a change. Avery, Logan, Rosa, and Violet were always around at different times to help out, but she’d worried about Zoe so much she’d been restless most nights. She’d watch over the two girls that were home with her on the worst nights, nights when Zoe was showing signs of distress or hadn’t had a good day, but she was healthy now and home.
And she could get out of bed without pain now, which was a minor miracle in itself. Keily threw her covers off and went to the bathroom to shower. Once she’d managed that and put on a slouchy dress, she went in to check on the girls. It was a habit she’d forced herself into when she got home from the hospital. The lactation consultant reinforced cleanliness, even when her first instincts were to pick up whichever baby was crying and feed them.
She settled into a chair once she’d checked on each girl and saw they were still asleep. As the sun began to rise in the sky, she pumped milk for Zoe and then went to pick up Zinnia. The happy baby waved her arms as her mommy picked her up. Keily couldn’t help but smile back at her daughter as she settled down with her in a rocking chair. Zinnia was still hungry by the time Keily heard Zara wake up.
Avery was there by then, ready to help, and picked up Zara to soothe her while she prepared a bottle for the baby. Logan came in and pulled Zoe up to bathe her and put fresh clothes and a diaper on her. He then sat down to feed her one of the bottles Avery handed to him. Keily watched him, as she’d done so many times since the babies were born.
Her hormones were still fluctuating but when he walked in a room they seemed to go into a rage, ready to tackle him and pull his clothes off. Every time he kissed one of their babies or picked them up or simply smiled at them, her body went into some kind of meltdown that melted into love mixed with desire. She’d thought she loved him before the babies came. Now? She couldn’t imagine loving him more than she did now.
What she’d felt before was nothing compared to how she felt about him now. He turned, catching her gaze as she stood up with Zinnia in her arms. His face was a mask of awe as he looked at her and she wondered, not for the first time, if Logan had changed as much as she had.
Two years ago, she wouldn’t have thought it possible to be caring for three babies at once, while dealing with the aftermath of a hysterectomy. Her uterus had suffered catastrophic bleeding that would have only been worse once the placenta was removed. She’d read since that day that the problem should have been picked up by ultrasound, but it hadn’t been. She was a little angry about that, but what she’d said to Logan was true, she had too much to worry about, too much to do, to think about the fact that she’d lost the ability to have more children.
Besides, her girls were enough. She’d never felt so maternal, didn’t think she could, until the day she had them. When the first baby was placed in her arms hormones flooded through her, taking away any twinges of pain, taking away thoughts of future pregnancies. She didn’t want to have more children anyway, if they weren’t Logan’s.
He’d been a rock throughout the whole ordeal, even though he’d never repeated those three little words she wasn’t even sure he’d actually said. Every now and then, she’d catch him looking at her as he’d just done, with something like awe and adoration on his face.
He kept saying he was proud of her, but she was prouder of him. He’d been there every step of the way, even staying with Zoe at the hospital when Keily was nearly on the verge of collapse. She’d tried to spread herself out, to spend as much time with the baby in the hospital and the babies at home and he’d finally insisted she stop overextending herself and let him help.
“They’re my children too, Keily, Zoe’s mine as much as she is yours. I want to be there with her, for her. Let me do this. I can do it, you know?” He’d brushed hair out of her face as she’d wept with exhaustion, wanting to sleep but not wanting to leave Zoe.
Until then she’d stayed, whether Logan was there or not, but after that, she let him take some of the load off of her shoulders. She’d relaxed a little and now, they were all home, safe and sound.
Maybe it was time to move on to other subjects, address other matters in their lives?
She smiled down at Zinnia as the baby splashed in her tiny infant tub and blew spit bubbles at her mommy. “You’re such a bad girl, Zinnia, just like your mommy.”
Keily stroked a hand down her daughter’s face, admiration and love alive in her eyes. Zinnia was her troublemaker, she could tell that already, the one that would talk the other two into doing naughty things they shouldn’t. The most like her, really, Keily thought with a silent laugh.
Rosa and Violet showed up a few hours later and Keily watched little Alice check each girl before she settled down to watch television on the couch in the nursery.
“How’s everything going?” Rosa asked as Logan left to get some work done in his home office.
“Fine, really. Zoe’s doing well and the other two are as well.” Keily had all three babies on a quilt on the floor, playing with them all as they wobbled back and forth looking at each other. They couldn’t roll over very much yet, and still spent most of their time asleep, but they could move enough to see each other.
“Are they happy to have their sister home?” Violet asked and joined Keily and Rosa on the floor.
“They seem excited about it, yes,” Keily replied with a glance at her sister. “I wasn’t sure they’d notice, but since I’ve had them on the floor here all they seem to want to do is look at each other and hold hands.”
Zinnia had Zoe’s right hand in her left, while Zara’s left hand was in her right. They were all wobbling and cooing at each other, sticking their tongues out and generally happy to be together, from the looks of it.
“It’s like they knew something was missing,” Keily observed out loud. “But now that missing puzzle piece is back and they’re complete.”
“I guess that is what happened, isn’t it?” Rosa asked and wiped a little dribble of spit from Zoe’s mouth. “She’s still so little.”
“I know, but they’ll catch up eventually, I guess.” Keily frowned. “I don’t know, maybe they won’t. But I think they will.”
“Probably, as they get older.” Violet picked up Zara when she started to frown and kick. “Somebody’s about to need a new diaper.”
“I think there’s two that need changing.” Rosa picked up Zoe, as gentle as everybody else that picked the baby up and stood with her. “But Aunty Rosa is here to help, right, my darling?”
Keily smiled and took Zinnia’s hand when she continued to reach out for her sisters. “They’ll be back in a minute, my love.”
Zinnia cooed up at her mommy and Keily laughed. This had been a brutal experience, but one she wouldn’t have given up for anything. Especially at times like now, when she got the most delighted cackle of sound from Zinnia. They really were precious moments, little videos burned into her memory that would never fade away.
The doorbell rang and Keily looked up from her daughter’s face with confusion. They didn’t get many visitors at Logan’s, other than Rosa and Violet, so she was a little confused when the doorbell rang. “Logan will get it.”
But Logan was soon at the nursery door, a frown on his face. “Um, Keily, Violet, it seems your parents are here?”
It was a question because he knew Keily hadn’t invited them and never would. He looked at Violet, to see if she was responsible, but she was just as upset as Keily by the news.
“What the fuck are those two doing here?” Violet’s face, dark and cloudy with anger, told Logan and Keily that she had nothing to do with their parents’ sudden appearance. “Let me just go and tell them to fuck off back where they came from and I’ll be back in a minute.”
Violet stood up, handed Zara to Logan, but Keily stopped her.
“Let me come with you, Violet. We need to do this together, I think.” Keily put Zinnia in her crib and took her sister’s hand.
Violet looked over at Keily and saw just as much fierce determination on her sister’s face as she felt. “We can do this.”
“We can, together, Keily.” Violet agreed and they walked down the steps.
“Girls, you both look so good!” Heather, their mother cried from the living room couch.
Keily and Violet had walked towards the door but obviously Logan had shown their parents in or, most likely, their mother had let herself in and made herself comfortable. While Heather pretended to not look around, ticking up prices with everything her eyes fell on, Keily glared at her father, Steve. He sat meekly on the couch, not looking at anything, not even moving. If it wasn’t for the fact that she could see his chest move, Keily would have wondered if her father was dead.
Keily turned her eyes back to her mother, who was blathering on about their drive up from Florida, as if her hair wasn’t thin and dirty, as if her teeth hadn’t given up the fight long ago against the meth Heather loved so dearly, as if her skin and health weren’t in the gutter from the same culprit.
Heather had lost so much weight her eyes appeared to be two huge marbles in the head of a skeleton, her lips and skin dry and flaky. Keily’s upper lip pulled in a little as she looked her mother over, distaste, disgust, and pity mingling into one ball of whirling anger. How had her father allowed her mother to get this bad? Keily wondered as her mother all but bounced maniacally in place, like a clown on crack. Or maybe she was on crack, Keily wondered as her mother twirled in place, screeching about how proud she was of Keily.
“I always knew you’d make the big time, baby, and you have. Momma’s so proud.” Heather tried to hug Keily but Keily backed up, holding her mother off, and the smell of decay her mother gave off, with hands out to stop her.
“No. Just no. You left Violet on her own when she had Alice, you didn’t even come to see her. Not to mention all the money you’ve stolen from me over the years. Nope, you don’t get to do this. Dad.” Keily paused but her dad didn’t move a muscle. “Dad!”
Shouting the word at him seemed to break the stupor he was in. “Yes?”
“Get Mom and get the fuck out of here. Neither of you are wanted. Mom, you can destroy your own life if you want to, and Dad you can let her if you’re that damn lazy, but you will not destroy mine or my children’s.” Keily spoke calmly, but inside she was shaking with anger.
“I’m with Keily, just go. I don’t need your kind of pride, Mom, and a good thing, because you haven’t ever given me an ounce of love. As Keily said, get the fuck out and don’t come back. Don’t come near me or my child, and don’t ever, ever show up at my house. Ever.” Violet, unlike Keily, walked closer, one finger held out in their mother’s direction until the woman backed up against the front door. “Go and don’t ever come back.”
“But…” Heather looked around, her eyes full of greed and dollar signs. “But you have so much, Keily.”
“I don’t. This isn’t my home. I live in a trailer on the other side of town.” Keily paused as her mother’s eyes fell to the ground in disappointment. “Oh, does that bother you, Mommy dearest? To know your beauty pageant queen daughter is now the proud renter of a trailer on the wrong side of town? Too fucking bad. Out!”
“But, honey, Joe told us you were doing great, that this was your house.” Heather started but then looked over at Steve with eyes full of guilt.
“Ah, it’s Joe. Joe told you. Great.” Keily shook her head with annoyance. “Go on, get out before I call the police.”
“It’s not your house.” Heather countered. “And those are my grandchildren up there. I have a right to see them.”
“No, you don’t. Not a single right.” Keily pulled her phone from a pocket on her dress and started to dial the local police, still listed in her contacts from her run-ins with Joe in the past.
“Fine, fine, we’ll go,” Heather muttered something under her breath but Keily didn’t care what the other woman had to say. “Come on, Steve.”
“Y’all take care now, and have a nice drive back to Florida.” Violet drawled with thick sarcasm. “Don’t bother coming right on back. You aren’t welcome here anymore.”
Keily smiled over at her sister as she put her phone back in her pocket, proud of the young woman waving at their parents, now scurrying out of the door.
“I didn’t know that would feel that good,” Keily said to Violet whose eyes were shining with pleasure.
“Me either. But I’m glad I was here to do it with you, Keily.” Violet answered and took her sister in her arms.
It was a nice place to be, wrapped up in her sister’s arms, Keily decided. Even if the arms she wanted to be wrapped in were Logan’s. Maybe someday. Maybe.
