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Brent whistled beside her. “I should have known.”
Cara smirked. “Please, Dad, I’m in middle school. I’m not a moron. It was pretty obvious stuff was going on.”
“Are you mad?” Jessica asked. Her heart was in her throat. Cara had become her friend over the last four months, but she’d hidden so much from the younger girl. What if she held it against Jessica? What if she were simmering and furious over all of it? “I can explain… Well, I can’t completely explain, but I can try and get you to understand. I just… I bet you’re mad.”
Cara set the otter to her side and frowned. “Maybe. I’m mad you didn’t tell me. You both treated me like a little kid, and I’m not. I’m also not dumb. I could so tell.” She looked up at Jessica, and those blue eyes of hers were so limpid and sincere. It broke Jess’ heart, made it crack into nothing to know that she’d put that pain there. “I thought you liked me, Jess.”
She reached out and stroked Cara’s cheek. “I do. I thought you’d be mad about your dad and me. I know I was supposed to be around and take care of you, not do other things.”
Cara nodded. “But you and Dad will trust me from now on?”
“Peanut,” Brent started, “we promise to tell you everything from now on. We want you to know everything about your new siblings.”
Cara’s eyes went wide. “Wait, huh? What do you mean more than one?”
Jessica blushed, feeling the intensity of everyone’s gazes on her. “I’m having twins.”
“Is it two boys? I’d love some little brothers to play soccer with,” Cara asked.
“We don’t know yet, actually,” Brent said. “We called the doctor today, and we have an appointment in a few days to get an ultrasound and find out the sexes. Would you like to come?”
“What about school?”
“I think that with your perfect attendance record over the years, you can afford one special occasion,” Brent said. “We want you to be able to enjoy everything. That’s okay, right? You don’t mind having Jessica in our lives like this or having new siblings?”
Cara sighed. “I’d be a total jerk if I didn’t like the babies already. Also, I don’t care about that. I just… Promise me that you two will never lie to me again? It hurt feeling like you were keeping stuff from me, and it hurts now to know for sure that you were.”
Jessica reached up her hand and let her charge… No, now her stepdaughter. Just wow. She let her stepdaughter-to-be look at the ring. “No more secrets. You’ll know everything we know as soon as we do, and we won’t treat you like a little kid.”
“Good,” Cara said, a smile breaking out over her lips.
“Besides,” Jessica said, “it was also about protecting myself.” She sighed, realizing how selfish it all sounded out loud. “I mean, I was supposed to be there to just take care of you. It wasn’t supposed to be about your dad. I was scared you’d think I was only ever babysitting you for him, and I wasn’t.”
Cara petted the otter. “I know you wouldn’t, Jess. We’re friends, and I totally believe that.”
Jessica leaned over and hugged her, gathering the little girl and the fluffy otter both in her grip. She loved the feel of this – loved knowing that Cara and Brent weren’t going anywhere and that Donald Sanderson wouldn’t be a factor in their lives. Still, her father was in the wings, and she couldn’t imagine telling him. That disappointment in his eyes.
But that was later.
Now, she had a family – a growing one at that – and she would enjoy the soft silkiness of Cara’s blonde hair against her cheek and the gentle hiss as the girl breathed in and out in her arms. Brent soon joined them, and they were tied up there in a knot, the three of them. A home. A fuller family like she hadn’t had since her mom married Harold.
A start.
And that was the most exciting thing of all.
***
She paced in front of the sofa. She’d let herself into her dad’s home. Jessica had gone alone. Brent had offered to go with her, but this was personal, and it was something she had to handle with her father. She’d never think of her children as mistakes, but she’d been the one to be less than careful, and she’d been the one to make all the active choices that had led her here.
To this moment.
To her family.
She desperately wanted her father to be part of that. If only he could understand. However, they’d agreed to have dinner at home at 7:00 p.m. sharp. Her father was almost thirty minutes late, and it better have to do with the fact that the road by Bui’s Vietnamese had been filled with traffic and not because he was avoiding her. God, she couldn’t even stand the idea of him being disappointed in her. Of him thinking of her as nothing more than a… No.
