Preston's Honor(59)

Twin tears slipped out of my eyes and I didn’t bother to brush them away. Rosa stood and came over to me, taking my glass and setting it on the table, and then pulling me to my feet. Inside, I heard a burst of noise come from the kitchen, raised voices as if the boys were arguing over something, and it jolted me slightly.

Rosa linked her arm through mine. “Let’s walk. The yard is so big, sometimes I like to stroll around like it’s my own personal park.”

We strolled for a minute, and my emotions settled as we walked. I soaked in the warmth of Rosa’s closeness, the motherly way she held me against her. “Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked gently. “Do you want to tell me why you left?”

Her question confused me slightly because no one had ever asked me to share my feelings with them. I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing so, or even how to go about it. And furthermore, I wasn’t sure there were even words to put to my emotions. Do you want to tell me why you left? As if reading my mind, she smiled over at me. “Sometimes it’s best to just spit it right out. Why did you leave, cari?o?”

“Because no one wanted me there, and I felt like I was dying slowly inside.” I let out another long, shaky breath, feeling both the shame in me rise at my admission and something else loosen slightly, allowing me to breathe more fully.

Rosa tightened her grip on my arm, and I leaned in to her as we neared the trees and then turned to walk along the border of the wooded area. It smelled earthy and damp back there and I filled my lungs with the rich smell of spring, of newness. And it wasn’t just the newness of the earth filling my senses. There was a sudden newness inside me, too—a curious unfurling—as if a seed of growth had pushed its head out of the shadows and into the open air, eager to flourish and bloom.

I spoke briefly of Cole and how he and Preston had been my friends growing up. All this time and I’d been so afraid to mention Cole’s name, had thought it would open the wound to speak of him at all, and yet I found it was the opposite. Talking about him to Rosa felt like a slow stitching inside as if something was being gently pulled back together—something that was still thin and delicately woven, but no longer torn wide open.

I told her hesitantly, and with some amount of shyness, that I hadn’t known I was pregnant until a few months after Cole had died. I’d gone to Preston, so terrified, so filled with grief not only for Cole’s death but for the fact that Preston hadn’t reached out to me at all since the night he’d dropped me off at my apartment. I confided in her how each day had stretched emptily into the next.

“Oh, Annalia, sweet girl.”

We’d sat on his front porch swing and I’d told him I was pregnant. I was already almost four months along by the time I’d gotten up the nerve to tell Preston.

I . . . I’m pregnant. I know you’re probably not very happy about that.

An unplanned pregnancy was never cause for celebration, I supposed, but I was well aware that the timing for mine was particularly terrible. Preston had stared at me in shock and some type of dawning horror that sliced at my heart and made me flinch and look away. That look had made me unconsciously put my hands to my belly as if to comfort the baby inside, to let him know that he was wanted, at least by me.

But then Preston had taken my hands in his, and though his were shaking, he’d told me I’d have to move in with him, that he wanted to look after me. And it’d given me a sad kind of hope because I’d thought it would be an opportunity not only to help him through his grief, but for us to get closer, to form a family, to reclaim what we’d had for one sweet moment in time. To rekindle the true and pure friendship we’d shared for years. And God, I wanted to be looked after. I needed it, was desperate for it. Surely his mother would warm to me. I’d convinced myself everything would be okay. Reality had proven to be far more complicated than my own wistful dreams.

“Oh, cari?o, that must have been so hard. Didn’t you have anyone to talk to? Anyone to help you navigate the rocky path of new motherhood? You’re so young, mi amor. You must have felt so alone. Alone and scared and heartbroken.”

Emotion welled up in my chest so fast, so suddenly, that I barely managed to choke back the sob that accompanied the deluge. All I could do was nod as more tears gathered and fell down my cheeks. Rosa smiled softly and hugged me to her side. “What about your own mother, Annalia? Where is she? Was she any help?”

I let out a groan that sounded like the mixture of a laugh and a sigh. “God, no. But . . . she’s lived a hard life, too.”

Rosa sighed softly. “I’m sorry.”

One of her boys leaned out the sliding glass doors and called his mom, telling her dinner was ready. It jerked me back to reality. I felt embarrassed and exposed. I’d shared far too much with someone who was a virtual stranger and . . . my boss. I’d been out of line. She’d asked me with such sincerity to tell her about myself, but I was certain she hadn’t expected that much detail. I hadn’t said too much, but I’d certainly shared more with one person than I ever had in my life.

I wiped the drying tears and felt the heat that had risen in my cheeks. “I—”

“Thank you for trusting me with your story, Annalia. We women need each other. For whatever His reasons, God deemed it appropriate to strap me with a wild band of male hooligans who I can barely understand half the time. It is so nice to experience the softness of a daughter and talk of the things I know.”