day, and snacks in between. She’d bought clothing, toys, diapers, formula. She’d put Colie and Violet in school, taken the kids to church.
And she’d loved them. More than any of the rest of it, she’d loved them.
Maybe it didn’t make sense to feel so engulfed by her role as their guardian. Maybe she’d had no right to become so attached so quickly. Maybe she never should’ve allowed herself to look in the mirror and whisper a new name for herself, one filled with promise and surprising potential: Mom.
Because, yes, this was a maternal love. It wasn’t pity for their situation. It wasn’t the natural compassion anyone would feel for three kids who’d lost their mother and hardly knew their father.
It was a deep, abiding, nurturing love.
And it’d swept her away before she’d ever known what hit her.
“Unless what?”
When had Colie sat up?
Colie went on. “You said he has the legal right unless . . . what? He’s never taken care of us before. So he shouldn’t really get to take care of us now, should he?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Well, it should be. We like it here. I know he’s our dad, but living with him would be like living with a stranger. How is that fair to us?”
“It’s not.” Oh, she shouldn’t have said that. Carmen had made a good point earlier—Jenessa’s reaction to this situation would set the tone for the kids’ reaction. But she was worried Carmen was expecting a level of stoic maturity from her she didn’t possess.
The truth was, everything in her longed to strain toward the same life raft Colie was clearly clinging to now.
You can’t. You have to be the strong one.
“You know, even if—when—your dad comes back to Maple Valley, it doesn’t mean I won’t see you anymore. Who knows, maybe he’ll rent the same house you were living in before and that’s only a five-minute drive to the other side of town.”
“But what if he doesn’t stay in town? What if he takes us somewhere else? What if he makes us go to Alaska?” Colie’s voice turned frantic. “Please don’t let him do that. Please, Jen.” She threw herself against Jenessa’s torso—not an embrace like last night, but a desperate clutch. “We need you.”
Tears that’d been threatening all day pooled behind her eyelids now. She couldn’t let herself fall apart. Not in front of Colie. But with every tear she blinked back, another took its place.
“I need you, too.” She couldn’t hold back the whisper any more than she could her tears.
“So you won’t let them take us? You promise?” Colie looked up at her, eyes and nose red.
Don’t make a promise you can’t keep. Don’t do it. “I’ll do my best.”
Even that was too much. She knew it the moment she saw Colie swipe her arm over her eyes and attempt a smile. She knew it as her own dread mingled with a foolish, stubborn hope.
Logic told her to temper both their expectations. Carmen’s voice berated her from afar. But she couldn’t bring herself to douse the heightened yearning her almost-promise had fanned into a flame.
So instead, she moved her palm up and down Colie’s arm, let herself hold the girl like a mother would until Colie fell asleep. As gently as she could, she shifted Colie into a laying position and stood. Surely the poor thing was still exhausted after last night’s illness.
She found a blanket in the closet and covered her, stepped into the hallway. Cade was down for his nap and even Violet had succumbed to sleep after Saturday’s late night.
Maybe Jenessa should take a nap, too. Accept the temporary solace of sleep.
But noise from outside drew her to the hallway window. And there, on his knees in the dirt, was the true comfort she needed. She stopped in her bedroom to grab a sweatshirt and started downstairs.
He heard Jenessa coming before he saw her. The shuffle of her shoes over grass still damp with dew, even midafternoon. The swish of her movement.
He didn’t know what he expected to see when he looked up, but it wasn’t the tear tracks on her cheeks or last night’s makeup still smudged under her eyes.
He was on his feet in seconds. “What happened?”
And then she was in his arms, her quiet crying shaking against him. God, please don’t let the kids be gone already. But that had to be it. Never once had he seen Jenessa cry like this. Or cry at all.
She hates crying in front of people.
So