I will not stay silent anymore.”
The brief pause as she sucks in a breath shakes me to the core, because I don’t know if I’m strong enough to hear what she has to say. Not sure how many more simple truths I can stomach.
“Scott…you knew how she was living.”
I open my mouth to argue and she holds up her hand. “You knew. You may not have seen it yourself or had someone in your ear telling you, but you knew. That’s why you sent the money and it’s why you turned a blind eye for years. You knew if you faced how Beth was living, you would have had to alter your life to save her, and there was a good chance that in doing so, you would have been sucked right back down into that black hole you were living in before. So please stop trying to make yourself feel better and me feel bad about bringing Beth into our lives, as if you’re the hero who just discovered how bad her life was. We both know that’s a lie.”
I glance down to see if her truth has pierced my flesh, and while there’s pain in my chest, there’s no blood dripping out of the wound. “What was I supposed to do? When I got that phone call saying she was in jail because Beth went after some asshole who hurt her mother, what did you want me to do? Continue to her ignore her?”
Allison tilts her head in the most sympathetic way, and I can’t find the nerve to look at her anymore. Her bare feet pad against the wooden floor, and when she touches my arm, I shake my head from the agony.
“No, I never expected you to ignore her, but I didn’t expect you to ignore me, either.”
“I didn’t ignore you.”
“We lost a baby.”
Her words tear through me, shattering walls I had thrown up, and my throat becomes thick. “The miscarriage doesn’t have anything to do with Beth.”
“We saw a heartbeat and we were filled with joy,” she continues as if she doesn’t see the pain on my face. “But then there wasn’t a heartbeat and that hurt us. We didn’t dodge the bullet that time. We were hit and we bled and it hurt.”
Hurt. Such a simple word, but it doesn’t explain this feeling inside me. This feeling like a million knives are slicing all at once along my skin. Doesn’t describe the strangling of my heart. Doesn’t describe the withering of my soul.
I cross my arms over my chest as if that can hold me together. “None of that has anything to do with Elisabeth.”
Allison places her hand over mine. Warmth against my cold. “You couldn’t save our baby so you decided to save the baby you took care of before. And that’s fine, Scott. I admire you for this. I respect you for this. I love you for this, but you aren’t saving her. You’re trying to change her. You’re trying to force her into our world and force her to be this memory you hold on to of that small child who loved you. You two are strangers. Accept that, and then maybe you can get past it. And maybe while you try to figure her out, maybe you can stop shutting me out. Maybe you can try to love and get to know me once again, too.”
Tears burn my eyes, and because Allison is an angel bent on saving my soul, she leans into me, fitting once again perfectly against my body. Making the cold less cold, making the pain less painful, making me better than I should ever be.
“You’re my world,” I whisper into her hair. “And I love you.”
Outside Elisabeth’s door, I take a deep breath. It’s six in the morning and Elisabeth and Allison are asleep. Last night, after I talked with Allison, I left the house, but this time I wasn’t running away from my problems. At least I hope I wasn’t. Now, I’m listening. As much as it hurts, my niece and I are strangers, and that’s not good enough.
I’m still in the same clothes as yesterday—jeans and a T-shirt. Once I returned from my trip to Beth’s old home, I slipped right into bed to hold my wife and it felt right as she cuddled in close to me, but I didn’t sleep. Instead, I watched her sleep. She’s my gift, and so is Elisabeth. I don’t know how to make us all work, but