Fallen Woman(48)

“Pizza it is. I’ll go find out what Megan and Trace want. You want cheese and pineapple, right?” My little blonde baby nodded and her curls bounced around on top of the water.

“Gross. No way! Pineapple on cheese is nasty,” Jase objected playfully.

“What would you like? The kids will all eat the pineapple,” I asked him with my hand on my hip.

I watched the light dance on his face as the sun began to set. The way the sun illuminated his eyes almost made them glow like it was coming from within him. I didn’t know what it was about this man, but something in him called to me. I wanted to be near him; I loved having him in my children's lives.

“Ham, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom,” he said definitively. “From Piscanos. Their number is next to the phone in the kitchen. And they deliver.” He took his wallet out of his pocket and handed me his credit card. I tried to shove it back at him, but he refused.

“Meat much?” I laughed as we exchanged the credit card back and forth. “I can cover pizza, Jase.”

“My house. My guest. Take the card.” I relented, knowing I wouldn’t win anyway and didn’t want to have the discussion in front of Emmy.

“You good with her?”

He nodded. I glanced at them both one last time, watching him lean in over the tub to brush her hair out of her face with bubbles up to her neck. Anyone else watching the two of them together would believe he was her daddy. I wished that were the case, but circumstances left me with a different reality. I chose to embrace the good and take pride in the fact this man loved my children.

After dinner, it didn’t take long to get the kids settled in bed. They were used to sleeping together, so we put them all in one room with a TV and let them drift off on their own. Jase and I retreated to his man cave where I knew the discussion I’d been dreading for so long would finally take place. I’d avoided it as long as possible, but today was the day and I was out of excuses to hide.

Sure enough, he didn’t turn the television on and sat in the stadium seating next to me. If I had to guess, I’d say he chose this room because it didn’t offer the type of comfort his bedroom did. We were forced to sit up in the recliners to have a discussion.

“You know you’re going to have to tell me what she’s up against, right?”

I took a deep breath and held it for just a moment before expelling all the dread I could manage to push from my body in one exhale. “What do you want to know?”

“How she got it, how they treat it, can she be cured?” He raked his hand through his hair, and his eyes went to that stormy gray I loved but hated to see because I knew it illustrated just how upset he truly was. “Everything, Gia. I want to know everything.”

“About two years ago, she got this horrible rash. I didn’t know what it was, but it started on her bottom and kids get diaper rash all the time. It’s just a fact of life, and she’d had bad diaper rash before. Foolishly, I assumed it was the same thing.” I fidgeted with my hair, twirling a lock of the long, dark strands around my fingers. “After about six weeks, when I couldn’t get it to go away after trying everything I could think of, I managed to scrape up enough money to go to a doctor. I was broke, she was a year old, and Ryan had just died…it was just a bad time. I wasn’t thinking straight, or I would have taken her sooner. I would have insisted something more be done.”

He reached over and wiped the first of many tears I knew would come from my eyes. I hadn’t told this story to anyone other than a doctor—ever. I was ashamed and embarrassed.

“The doctor blew it off as a bad diaper rash just like I had. He gave me ointments to put on it and sent me on my way. I used them, and the rash looked like it had started to clear up. I didn’t think much about it and went on with life…or what remained of it. I was depressed and struggling more than I’d ever imagined. I had three kids in diapers and was suddenly a single mother in a new town. And destitute.”

I hated the way he stared at me. He hung onto my every word, but I knew his opinion would change when he realized just how crummy a mother I’d been to my children after Ryan’s death.

“She started acting weird. A one-year-old is typically very active; they play non-stop, and she was no different. Emmy chased after Trace and Megan like it was her sole mission in life to catch them. But suddenly, one day, she wasn’t following them around. She wasn’t moving much at all. She would lie on the floor and do nothing but stare off into the distance. I had nothing, Jase. What the stock market didn’t take, the lawyers did, and anything left was either seized by the government for Ryan’s laundering or was used for basic necessities. Within a couple of months of Ryan’s death, I was out of money and there were no jobs. Trying to get medical care was a monumental task, and honestly, I wasn’t in the mental state to manage it.”

“Where was your family? Ryan’s?”

“Jase, I don’t have any family. Miss Pearl is the closest thing to family I’ve ever had, and she’s my elderly neighbor. Ryan’s family hadn’t been in the picture since the first year of our marriage. I know that isn’t something you understand, but you have to remember, the families he was working for moved me here to get me away from them, to protect me from the backlash of Ryan’s decisions inside. That was gracious—they could have made me go away. I don’t know why they didn’t, and I’ll never know, but they spared my kids and me. My only guess is they knew we had no idea any of it was going on—including the money laundering. If I hadn’t been friends with the other wives, things probably would’ve gone very differently.”