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“Are you sure?” Wade sits across from me, his ankle crossed over his other thigh.
The sun shines behind him, and the breeze ruffles his dark brown hair. I place my elbows on the table between us and twist the paper coffee cup between my hands.
“That’s the thing, I’m not,” I tell him while reaching into my pocket and sliding the picture towards him.
Wade picks up the picture taken nearly twenty years ago of Peter and Mia. “He has no idea?”
“Apparently not. At least not from what I remember,” I explain to Wade.
Mia started working with Peter shortly after her and I had gotten back together. Peter’s band wasn’t going anywhere; they needed help with a fresh sound and enlisted Mia’s help to write songs for their new album.
I wasn’t involved a lot because the publishing company was her baby, and I was trying to getUnderground Recordsup and running. I knew Peter and his bandmates, but I wasn’t close to any of them. Wade had gone back to college in San Francisco, but he and Mia were close. They talked on the phone all the time. If anyone would have information, it would be Wade.
“Sasha has this necklace with her mother’s name engraved on the back,” I explain to Wade. “Maggie Leone.”
Wade’s eyes go wide, and recognition sparks behind the hues of brown.
“That was a really long time ago.” I see hints of sadness and nostalgia in his eyes, the same we all feel when we think of that time.
“Peter’s album,” I tell him, “was dedicated to Maggie Leone.” I knit my brows together in concern.
“Look, all I know is that Peter wrote some dark stuff with Mia on that album. He lost the love his life to an overdose. If that was Sasha’s mother, she deserves to know.” Wade is always the voice of reason, and sometimes I hate him for it.
“The problem is whether he knew about Sasha or not.” I shake my head. “The Peter I knew was a shithead, but he was a decent guy, and I just don’t see him being a deadbeat dad.”
“You think Peter is Sasha’s father?” Wade asks, leaning forward, concern lining his face.
“Everything lines up, but who the fuck knows?” I let out a frustrated breath.
“Have you said anything to Sasha?” Wade asks.
I lean back in my chair, shaking my head. “I can’t tell her until I’m sure.”
“You can’t keep something like that from her.”
“Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair. “You don’t think I know that?” I meet his gaze.
I need time to figure this out, and I’ve been busier than ever outside of the shop. Sasha has been impatiently waiting forAlt Pressto get back to her about the internship, and I don’t want to add to her stress. Not until I’ve had a chance to figure this all out.
“Why Sasha?” I say more to myself then to Wade.
Why did she have to be the one woman who has a connection to my past, one I’ve tried so hard to move on from?
“I know this isn’t easy for you, Cash.” Wade says sympathetically, pursing his lips.
I meet his gaze, wearily stroking my chin. “It’s just a reminder of one of the most painful times in my life.”
Mia’s death wasn’t easy on any of us. Wade was her friend. Romantic or not, we all grew up together, and shared experiences with each other that no one else would understand. We had a bond, like the links in a chain. When she died the chain fell apart, and together we tried picking up whatever pieces were left. Wade deals with his grief differently than both Jack and me. No one was left unscathed by the loss of her.
It's not just Mia’s ghost I have to contend with. The demise of our marriage wasn’t only about Jack. It was everything in between. Any notion of having a family together was violently ripped from us, and those thoughts just take me to a dark place.
When I first bought the record store, Mia told me she was pregnant. The thought of having a baby filled the void in my chest. It was the potential of something extraordinary; to know that she was carrying a life inside of her that we had created, and I looked forward to seeing if our baby would have Mia’s hair or my eyes. When she got into a car accident at only three months, all of that was taken away. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Something no one else knew or would ever know about, because she made me promise not to tell anyone.
The accident was caused by a seizure. After many tests, her doctor gave us the news that she had Huntington’s disease. It was degenerative and progressive… there was no cure. If we were to try for another baby, there was a fifty percent chance she could pass that gene to our child. She didn’t want to take that chance. Her diagnosis and losing the baby drove a wedge between us that we couldn’t come back from. I would have loved her forever but her heart always belonged to Jack, and knowing she didn’t have a lot of time left, I let her go.
“Mia’s death was hard on all of us,” Wade confirms, even though he doesn’t know the half of it. He only knows that we lost a baby. “I’ve seen you with Sasha; you’re a different man because of her. Don’t let this possible revelation derail you.”
My expression softens thinking of Sasha. She breathed life back into not only the record store, but me. She showed me what I had been missing all this time, even if I resisted it from the beginning. If I can focus on the positive of the situation, maybe this is my chance to give her something back.
