Intent(83)

“She’s fine. She’s in the kitchen with Mom. They’re cooking spaghetti for supper tonight.”

“Now that my heart is racing a hundred miles a minute, I can feel my body again.” I exhale a relieved breath. “I’ll go help them.”

“Hang on a minute.” Ace stops me. “Before you go out there, you need to know there’s someone here to see you.”

“Not Bobby,” I groan. “My message to him was so clear it was transparent.”

“No, not Bobby,” he replies cautiously. “It’s Zoe.”

At first, my emotions are so conflicted by those two little words I can’t tell which one is stronger. Anger. Happiness. Relief. Suspicion. They all swirl in my head, and I debate if I can even walk out there and face her. Then my heart takes over and I realize that’s not true at all. She’s a scared young girl, and I still love and care about her.

“Okay. I’ll go talk to her.” Ace looks like he wants to object, but he simply nods instead.

When I walk into the living room, Ace turns and goes into the kitchen with Marcia and River to give Zoe and me some privacy. I make a mental note of her general appearance. She looks even more pregnant now than she did just a few days ago, if that’s even possible. Even though she’s clean and well-kept, her hollow eyes show she hasn’t had enough rest.

“Hi, Zoe. I’m surprised to see you.” I purposely keep my tone low and nonthreatening. She hurt me with the way she handled things, but I can’t fault her for wanting to keep her baby.

“I know I’m probably not welcome here. But I still love you, Layne, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t warn you about Margot.”

“What about her?” Outwardly, I’m completely blasé about the topic. Inwardly, I cringe at the very mention of her name.

“I’ve been staying with her and she’s become obsessed with you. I found a drawer full of pictures today and you were in all of them. Some were of you and me, you and Ace, you and River. It was really creepy.

“When I asked her why she had them, she started rambling incoherently. Her babbling didn’t make any sense, but she became very agitated and angry. The family has always talked about this side of her, but I’ve never seen it before.”

“She’s not well, Zoe. You need to tell me where she is before she hurts herself or someone else. She needs help.” I calmly explain the situation in hopes she doesn’t feel like she’s betraying her cousin by telling me where she is.

“She’s been moving around, never staying in the same place too long. When I left her, she was at her parents’ house in town. They spend most of their time in Florida, so their house here has been closed up for a while. She’s careful to not stay there when she knows the biweekly cleaning crew will come by.”

“Where else might she be?”

“Her grandfather’s cabin or in Rose’s house, since she’s extended her stay in Texas with her daughter.”

“Thank you for telling me, Zoe. I hope you’ve found somewhere else to stay so you can get away from her before she gets you in trouble or hurt. It would kill me if something bad happened to you.”

Her bottom lip begins to quiver, and she draws it between her teeth to try to stop the onslaught of regret that hits her like a freight train.

“Layne, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you. It’s just that Margot talked to Jeremy, and he wants us to be a family. Him, me, and our baby. He said the only way it can work is if we’re all together. If I let you adopt the baby, he’ll never speak to me again. If I don’t let you adopt the baby, you’ll never speak to me again. If I keep the baby, I’ll have to stay here and I won’t be able to go off to college. If I don’t, no man will ever love me again. I don’t know what to do. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”

Zoe cries uncontrollably, sobs wrack her body, and she can barely catch her breath. Regardless of how my own heart is breaking, I can’t sit by and watch her suffer like this. My mind knows, legally, the mother can change her mind about putting her baby up for adoption for up to ten days after delivery. My mind knows it’s her right, it’s her body, it’s her choice.

But my heart isn’t connected to my mind.

“Zoe,” I say softly and move to wrap my arms around her. “I know it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and honestly the weight of your world is. But I can’t make this decision for you. It has to be all you, because you have to live with whatever you decide. Everything you’ve said concerns me, though. Have you talked to Jeremy yourself? Has he told you what he wants?”

“No,” she sniffles. “Margot talked to him. He said he wouldn’t talk to me until he heard back from her again.”

She’s so young and na?ve. So immature. And far too trusting.

“Zoe, if you, Jeremy, and the baby are going to be a family, you have to talk. He has to be a grown man and you have to be a grown woman because you’ll both be raising a newborn baby together. If you can’t talk about getting back together and what you both want, how do you expect to be a family? You need to talk to him directly, not with a third party relaying messages, and especially not Margot. You have to call him yourself, Zoe.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right.” She dries the tears running down her cheeks and stands. “I’ll call him now. If I wait any longer, it’ll drive me crazy.”