I need space between myself and this problem before I make the problem worse. And I need time to cool off so I don't hurt anyone.
Because part of me really wants to hurt someone. Like Victor Langford. Why couldn’t he just show up right now so I could unleash some of this anger?
16
EMILY
Ican't believe Jaxon would be so damn infuriating in public. I'm shaking as I drag Mercy away from that fruit stand through the crowd, though I manage to pull out my phone and text Leah our code. She knows what I need and that I need it fast.
Emily: 9:14 AM: 911
Then I grip Mercy's hand tighter and walk her out of the farmer's market as fast as I can without making it look like we're running. Mercy is clutching her bag of blueberries and looking up at me with wide, searching eyes.
"Mama, are you crying?" She has no clue what's going on between Jaxon and me, and as much as I'd like to keep it that way, I'm not sure I can. I just dropped a heavy bomb and he's going to have a reaction to it. I'm just not sure what that reaction will look like.
"No, baby. My allergies are acting up. Let's get to the car." I'm hurrying her, I know, but any second, I'm going to have a mental breakdown and I'd rather do that in privacy and not surroundedby a million people. Besides, there are people like Charity here, whose only goal in life is to talk shit about people like me. They don't know how to mind their own business or be respectful. They'll have seen that interaction and will spin gossip so nasty, it'll take months to undo.
"But we didn't get the bread yet." I wince at Mercy's protest, knowing that was the entire reason we came today, but I can't stay here. Even with Jaxon running off the way he did, I feel exposed and trapped. I need air—and privacy.
"We'll get bread another day."
She holds my hand and walks beside me down the street a few blocks, where I unlock the car and get her buckled in, wiping my eyes before I get behind the wheel. She's awfully quiet the whole drive and I feel bad. The farmer's market is one of her favorite things to do with me, and I just dragged her out of there so fast. She's probably confused and scared and my attitude probably didn't help that. But if I even raise my eyes to look at her in the rearview, I'm going to cry.
When I pull into my parents' driveway, I see Leah's car parked along the curb. She must've been in the neighborhood for her to be here this quickly, though it isn't like she lives that far away, anyway. Beaufort is a small town, and I had to fight the traffic downtown.
I shuffle Mercy out of the car and up to my parents' front door, where Mom sits on the front porch sipping her morning coffee. She looks up as we approach and she looks worried.
"Emily, what happened?"
"Nothing, Mom. Can you keep Mercy for a little bit? I just need a few minutes." My body is shaking so badly from the adrenalinethat I must look awful. Her eyes rake over me nervously as she pulls Mercy in for a hug and kisses her forehead.
"A few minutes for what? You look like you've been?—"
"Mom. Please." I squeeze Mercy's hand and kneel down in front of her. "Hey, sweetheart. Can you go hang out with Nana for a little while? I have to go take care of something real quick and then I'll come get you." I'm blinking back tears as my little girl pouts her bottom lip out. It's painful to see her sad over this when I know how much worse things could actually get.
Mercy nods and holds up her bag of blueberries. "Can Nana make pancakes?"
"I'm sure she can." I kiss her forehead and hand her off to Mom, who takes the bag and puts her arm around Mercy's shoulders, guiding her inside. Mom gives me one last look over her shoulder, but then the door closes as I turn away.
Leah is sitting on the top step outside the garage apartment waiting for me. I stomp up the steps now, letting tears begin to stream down my cheeks and finally getting some relief. She stands up when she sees my face and opens the door for me. I walk past her into the living room and lose it.
As Leah closes the door behind us, I sit down on the couch and put my face in my hands. She doesn't ask what's wrong. She goes to the kitchen where I hear her fill the kettle, set it on the burner, and open the cabinet above the stove where I keep the mugs. She knows this apartment as well as I do. She helped me move in when Mercy was three months old, carried boxes up those stairs while I nursed in the armchair that's still sitting in the same spot by the window.
I cry until my ribs hurt, and the tears just never stop coming. That wasn't at all how I hoped to tell Jaxon about his little girl. At one point, I hoped to never tell him, but after letting my secret out of the bag to my dad, I knew it would happen. I just hoped to have it come out in a controlled environment safely, not in public.
The kettle clicks off. Leah comes back with two mugs of tea and hands me one. I wrap both hands around it as she drops onto the floor with her back against the armchair and crosses her legs, balancing her mug on her knee. This is how we've sat through every crisis since college. Her on the floor, me on the couch, both of us with some sour tea we barely drink.
"Talk to me."
The heat of the mug stings my palms but it's grounding, helping me stop shaking. I don't know where to start, which is the problem. There's no clean entry point for this. Every version of it makes me sound terrible because I am terrible. I've been terrible for seven years, keeping secrets from everyone.
"Mercy is Jaxon's."
Leah's mug stops halfway to her mouth. She holds it there for a second, then lowers it slowly back to her knee.
"What?"
"Jaxon Cole is Mercy's father. I got pregnant before he deployed but I never told him. I never told anyone except my dad, and that was literally a few days ago."
