Verity(37)

Or maybe Verity just didn’t deserve to be a mother. I think about having children sometimes. I’ll be thirty-two soon and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t worry the opportunity might never present itself. But if I ever do find myself in a relationship with a man I’d want to father my child, it would be someone like Jeremy. Rather than appreciate the wonderful father he seemed to be, Verity resented him.

Jeremy’s love for his girls seemed genuine from the very beginning. It still seems genuine. And it hasn’t been that long since he lost them. I keep losing sight of that. He’s still probably moving through the stages of grief, while dealing with Verity and being there for Crew and ensuring the income they’ve gotten used to as a family doesn’t come to a complete halt. Just a fraction of what he’s been through would be too much for some people. But he’s dealing with all of it at once.

I found boxes of pictures in Verity’s office closet this week as I was rummaging through her things. I pulled a box down, but haven’t gone through the pictures yet. It seems like another invasion of privacy on my part. This family, at least Jeremy, has entrusted me to finish this series, and I keep getting sidetracked by my obsession with Verity.

But if Verity is putting so much of herself into her series, I really do need to get to know her as well as possible. This really isn’t snooping. It’s research. There you go. Justification complete.

I take the box of pictures to the kitchen table, pry open the lid, and then pull a handful of the pictures out, wondering who had them developed. People don’t really have a lot of physical pictures on hand nowadays, thanks to the invention of smartphones. But there are so many pictures of the kids in here. Someone went through the trouble of making sure every picture they took was in physical form. My bet is on Jeremy.

I pick up a picture of Chastin. A close-up. I stare at her scar for a moment. I couldn’t stop thinking about it yesterday, so I Googled to find out if attempted abortions could actually cause damage in utero.

That’s something I’ll never Google again. Sadly, a lot of babies survive the attempts and are born disfigured in much worse ways than just a small scar. Chastin was really lucky. She and Harper both were.

Well...until they weren’t.

Jeremy’s footsteps approach the stairs. I don’t try to hide the pictures, because I’m not sure he would mind that I’m down here looking at them.

When he walks into the kitchen, I smile at him and continue sorting through them. He hesitates on his way to the refrigerator, his eyes falling to the box on the table.

“I feel like getting to know her helps put me in her headspace,” I explain. “Helps with the writing.” I look away from him, down at a picture of Harper, the one who rarely smiles in pictures.

Jeremy takes a seat next to me and picks up one of the pictures of Chastin.

“Why did Harper never smile?”

Jeremy leans over, taking the picture of Harper from my hand. “She was diagnosed with Asperger’s when she was three. She wasn’t very expressive.”

He runs a finger over her picture and then puts it aside, pulling another from the box. This one is of Verity and the girls. He hands it to me. The three of them are dressed alike, in matching pajamas. If Verity didn’t love the girls in this photo, she was certainly good at faking it.

“Our last Christmas before Crew was born,” he says, explaining the photo. He pulls a handful out and begins flipping through them. He pauses every now and then on pictures of the girls, but flips past pictures of Verity.

“Here,” he says, pulling one out of the stack. “This is my favorite picture of them. A rare smile from Harper. She was obsessed with animals, so we had a zoo come in and set up in the backyard for their fifth birthday.”

I smile down at the picture. But mostly because Jeremy is in the photo with a rare look of joy spread across his face. “What were they like?”

“Chastin was a protector. A little spitfire. Even when they were young, she could sense Harper was different from her. She mothered her. She’d try to tell me and Verity how to parent. And God, when Crew came along, we thought we were going to have to hand him over to her. She was obsessed.” He puts a picture of Chastin in the pile of pictures he’s already looked at. “She would have made a great mother someday.”

He picks up a picture of Harper. “Harper was special to me. Sometimes I’m not sure Verity understood her like I did, but it’s almost as if I could sense her needs, you know? She had trouble expressing her emotions, but I knew what made her tick, what made her happy, what made her sad, even when she didn’t quite know how to reveal that to the world. She was mostly happy. She didn’t have an immediate interest in Crew, though. Not until he turned three or four and could actually play with her. Before that, he might as well have been another piece of furniture.” He picks up a picture of the three of them. “He hasn’t asked about them. Not even once. Hasn’t even mentioned their names.”

“Does that worry you?”

He looks at me. “I don’t know if I should be relieved or worried.”

“Probably both,” I admit.

He picks up a picture of Verity and Crew, right after Crew’s birth. “He went to therapy for a few months. But I was scared it was just a weekly reminder of the tragedies, so I pulled him out. If he shows signs that he needs it when he’s older, I’ll take him back. Make sure he’s okay.”