The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(117)
Mama. I love you. Come with us now.
The sheet slipped from my neck as Ginette and Jayne gripped my hands to keep me standing. The entire room crackled with static, my hair lifting and hovering around my head like a halo. A glow formed in the corner where the snow globes had been, a small pinprick of blue-white light growing and expanding until it encompassed the entire room. Before it disappeared completely, I saw three people, a man and a woman with a little girl between them, holding hands. They were facing away from us, but they glanced back once before they disappeared completely.
The lights flickered on and I felt a surge of power as if the entire house had suddenly become alit. My mother and Jayne tried to guide me to a chair to sit down, but I was focused on the doorway to the hidden staircase, only allowing myself to truly breathe when Jack appeared at the top, holding a notebook upon which rested an assortment of small bottles and syringes.
He set it down carefully on a low chest and ran to me. It was only then that I allowed myself to let go, to relax into his arms, and believe that everything was going to be all right.
“Hello? Is anybody up here?”
We all looked in surprise as Detective Riley appeared at the top of the stairs, his head nearly brushing the top of the doorframe as he stepped into the attic. “I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but someone using the landline from this house kept calling my cell and hanging up. I figured I’d better come over and check.”
Maybe it was the fear and exhaustion, but I started to laugh hysterically, soon joined by Ginette and Jayne. Thomas looked at us in confusion until Jayne raced over to him and threw her arms around his neck. “You’re a sore for sight eyes,” she said, burying her face under his chin. She pulled back and shook her head. “I mean, it’s good you’re not there. You’re . . .” She clenched her eyes, her forehead creased in concentration. “Here,” she finished.
And before she could say another word, Thomas bent his head and kissed her, and I knew I hadn’t imagined the soft sigh of relief from everyone else in the room.
CHAPTER 34
Istood next to Nola, frosting the two small birthday cakes, both with dark chocolate icing. Despite the fact that the twins had inherited just about every characteristic from Jack, their love of chocolate was all mine.
“That’s not vegan,” I said to Nola, catching her licking a finger.
“Pretend you didn’t see that,” she said. “Or this.” She stuck the knife in the remnants of the frosting still clinging to the glass bowl and licked it.
The doorbell rang. I looked at the kitchen clock, relieved to see it was back to telling the actual time. “It’s a little early for guests, isn’t it?”
“I’ll get it,” Nola said, giving her hands a quick wash in the sink. I wondered at her enthusiasm at the early arrivals until I saw her smooth her hair behind her ears. Alston and Cooper were expected to attend the twins’ first birthday party, what Nola had dubbed “the social event of the season.” I told her to hold that thought until we threw her sixteenth birthday blowout, not to mention Jayne’s first birthday party, since she now knew the actual date of her birth. Thomas was already helping me to plan it.
Jack passed her on his way into the kitchen. He smiled and moved in front of me. “You have chocolate icing on your mouth,” he said.
He held back the hand I’d started to lift and instead gently licked my lip. “Not as good as vanilla, but it will do.”
I locked my hands behind his neck. “Are we good, Jack?”
His eyes darkened as he studied me. “If you mean have we passed our first marital hurdle, I’d say yes. If anything, I think we’ve learned that we each need to work on trusting the other to share the bad stuff. It’s a heck of a lot easier dealing with it up front than being run over by the consequences.”
“You’re not getting any argument here.”
He followed my gaze out the window to where my father was putting the final touches on the back garden, where we were having the party despite the hole and caution tape. Nola had strung helium balloons—donated by a contrite Rich Kobylt for speaking out about the hole instead of simply filling it in—along the length of the tape in an attempt to disguise it as being part of the decorations, and my father had moved all pots and containers along the periphery to keep guests from tumbling inside. The only child guest was Blue Skye and I was sure either Sophie or Chad would be wearing her in a pouch and therefore not likely to be toddling past the barriers.
Jayne, in sensible flats and khakis, worked next to my father, laughing at something he said as he stood and reached for her hand to pull her up. He had not taken the news about Jayne easily, just as Ginette had predicted. My mother had always insisted, and still did, that he was the only man she’d ever loved, although the fact that Jayne even existed seemed proof enough that this wasn’t true. I placed my head on Jack’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. That was the thing with marriage, I thought. There would always be leaps of faith we’d be expected to make, whether we liked where we were supposed to land or not.
We watched as my mother approached, and I saw the way my father’s face brightened, the way his body turned toward hers. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, a second too long to be called perfunctory, and Jayne smiled. She had finally found the family she’d always longed for, and in a way she’d probably never expected. But she had a mother and sister, and even a father, two nieces, and a nephew. My dad had asked her to call him Dad if she was comfortable with it, and she’d taken to it surprisingly easily.