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The little girl’s face was swelling before her eyes, and it was the scariest thing Lucy had ever seen. Both teenagers came back into the room with something in their hands that Leo grabbed from them, then stabbed it into his youngest daughter’s leg.
“What the hell was in the milkshake, Lucy?” Leo demanded of her, his eyes flashed angry at her.
“Nothing! I don’t know!” She could normally list all the ingredients but couldn’t with his anger focused on her.
“Nuts? Did you give my kid nuts? She only has this reaction to nuts.” Aubrey went into the kitchen as he questioned Lucy.
“No, never. I made sure no milk and no nuts. In anything.” She couldn’t move from her spot at the table.
“Something has nuts in it.” He looked at everything on the table, like there should be a pile of them somewhere.
“I didn’t bring any. I swear,” she defended herself, but her knees were getting weak.
Aubrey walked out of the room carrying a carton of milk, it was almost empty. Lucy had used almost three of them in the milkshakes.
Leo took one look at his oldest daughter and his eyes went right back to Lucy, “I told you that Amelia was allergic to nuts and you used almond milk to make milkshakes? Almonds are nuts, Lucy.”
Lucy jumped up and grabbed the carton from Aubrey. She could see the A now, but the rest wasn’t anything she could decipher under pressure. But she knew she was to blame for all of this. Her stupidity had caused the little girl harm. She could be dying because of Lucy.
“I’m taking her to the emergency room. Aubrey, come with me,” Leo said calmly, not acknowledging Lucy at all.
“Dad, it wasn’t Lucy’s fault,” Alexis said, but everyone in the room knew it was. There was no way it wasn’t.
Leo just carried the girl from the room with Aubrey following behind.
“Is Amelia going to be okay?” Addison asked. She was the only one still in her chair.
“Yes, she will. Dad will make sure of it.” Alexis went and gave the girl a hug.
Lucy was frozen with shock. She almost killed someone. If Lucy had been alone with her, she would have died. She didn’t know about the medication and had been the one to give her the food that would kill her.
As the front door slammed shut, Alexis led Addison, who was now crying, out of the room, leaving Lucy alone with the evidence that she was unfit to parent anyone. Not Leo’s kids, and not her own. She couldn’t read a carton of milk.
Before she’d thrown out every speck of the meal, she had made a phone call. By the time she had her bags packed, Kelly walked into the house. No knocking for her this time either.
Lucy was waiting by the door for the older woman to come. Kelly slipped off her coat and asked, “What’s going on?”
“I knew Leo would trust you to watch the kids. I didn’t want to leave them alone,” Lucy said, trying to keep it together for just a few minutes longer.
“What happened?” Kelly looked concerned.
“I accidentally used almond milk by mistake, and it almost killed Amelia. Leo won’t want to see me when he gets back.”
“If it was an accident, it was an accident,” Kelly argued.
“He won’t understand. Can you give him this?” Lucy slid the ring she had gotten used to wearing off her finger and handed it to her. “And tell him I won’t be going back to work.”
“Lucy, I think you have to talk to him,” Kelly said, shaking her head.
“No, he hates me. I hate me.” She wiped a tear and left. There was nothing left to say.
Now it was after midnight, and the house was completely quiet. In the seven hours since Leo had rushed out the door with Amelia, Lucy had heard nothing from him. Had Amelia gone home? Was she still in the hospital? Had Lucy killed her?
No text or calls of reassurance had been sent, but no knock on the door from the police had come either. Lucy had no idea if the police would come or not. They might as well take her away; her life was over anyway.
One thing was certain: she would never cook again. Never would she trust herself and her inability to read even labels anymore. For years she had known items by their shapes and smells, but not anymore. No way was she ever cooking for her family again. It was right for Harper to have not wanted her in the kitchen anymore, she should never have been there in the first place.
As of now, she had no job, no prospect of a job, and was so pregnant that she had no idea what she could do at a job. Maybe her mom could find her something again. Just no office job. She couldn’t do that if Leo wasn’t there, and her job with Leo was over.
Her life with Leo was over, but her love for him would last forever. But now it was hers and hers alone. At least she hadn’t told him he was in her heart, not that it mattered since she was never in his. Maybe in his bed, but never his heart.
Leo, she thought with a groan. He hated her, and with good reason. At least they hadn’t been married yet, so they could stop this train wreck before he was saddled with her forever. He would find someone else to marry to keep his kids from moving, someone who would be a better mother to the girls. She may not be able to love them more than Lucy, but at least she would be smart enough not to have to read books on raising them. Hell, Lucy hadn’t even read book on raising the older girls, she had just done what she had learned from Sera over the years.
In the morning, she knew what she had to do: she would start the process of finding a family for the twins. Tonight had proven that there was no way Lucy should raise them. Lucy and her stupidity had almost killed a child; she needed the babies she loved as far away from her as possible when they were born.
A text came from Emma just after 8:00 a.m., saying that Amelia was getting out of the hospital that day. The news let Lucy breathe again. Amelia was going to be okay, but it didn’t make anything in Lucy’s life better. It wasn’t safe for her to be around anyone.
