Surprise Delivery(97)

She smiles as we both take a moment to indulge in a sip. There’s a silence between us, but I can feel the energy of excitement radiating off of her like heat off the sun. Her excited energy is palpable and crackling. She really is over the moon about being a grandmother – but, she also knows that she has to help me get my head on straight about this before she can really let the excitement out.

“You sure you can give me an unbiased perspective?” I ask, chuckling low. “I mean, you are pretty damn excited about this.”

“Of course I am. I’ve wanted to be a grandmother for years,” she laughs. “That doesn’t mean that I can’t still give you good advice.”

“No, probably not,” I say.

“What I meant about this not being the black and white situation you think, is that you have to look at it from Alexis’ perspective,” she says. “When you have nothing, you fear everything.”

I smile. “That woman fears nothing,” I say. “She’s as fearless as you are.”

“Outwardly, perhaps,” she says. “Inside is a whole different story though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were too young to remember anything about how we started off, Duncan,” she says. “You grew up with privilege and a wealthy family.”

“I know that, Mom.”

“But, when we first started out, your father and I had nothing,” she says. “There were months we had to go without just to get by. Most days, we had to scrounge up every penny just to get food on the table. It was a constant juggling act. The stress was unbelievable.”

I know most of this already, but I’m not seeing how she’s connecting it to Alexis, other than the obvious parallel – they had little financial security, much in the same way Alexis does.

“When we were broke, we were constantly terrified, your father and I,” she goes on. “And our biggest fear was that somebody with a pile of money and unlimited resources would be able to swoop in and devastate us. We feared that some rich person would take everything we held dear. Until we actually struck gold, we lived in constant terror all day, every day.”

“But she has to know I’m not like that,” I protest. “Why couldn’t she trust me enough to know that?”

She shrugs. “When you have nothing, and your baby is your whole world, you live in a constant state of fear – rational or not, Duncan. Believe me, I was there. I think I know exactly what she is going through,” she says. “And it has nothing to do with you. It isn’t a reflection of her trust in you or her love for you. It’s a simple reflection of the fears she’s dealing with.”

I sit back and finish off my glass. Intellectually, I understand what she’s saying. I get it. And because I grew up, like I did, I can’t ever really understand what Alexis is going through. I can’t relate to her fears. Growing up, I knew that there was nothing for me to fear. I knew that we’d always be able to hire the best lawyers, and we’d always be able to come out of any situation just fine. At least, that was the belief I had as a child.

That’s not a belief Alexis grew up with. She didn’t grow up with the same security or assurances I did. For her, any setback could be devastating, and she doesn’t have the resources to fight a high-powered legal team. Hell, she doesn’t have the resources to fight a low-rent team of ambulance chasers.

Still, it hurts me deeply to think that she didn’t believe she could talk to me, free of judgment and that she just automatically assumed the worst of me.

That is the part I’m going to have the hardest time reconciling in both my mind and heart.

“Do you love her?” she asks.

I pause for a moment but then nod. “I do,” I confide. “She’s – everything I’ve wanted in another person. She’s amazing to me.”

“Then don’t let her go,” she says. “And don’t reject her for something like this. We so rarely find that person who really connects with us – who becomes part of our soul. What you have is a rare gift. One, not everybody gets. Don’t throw it away.”

I purse my lips and nod, not knowing what else to say. I mean, I know in most respects, she’s right. I’m just having a hard time dealing with the fact that Alexis has been lying to me this whole time. It stings like nothing else I’ve ever felt before.

“Don’t judge her too harshly, Duncan,” she tells me, as if reading my mind. “Try to see things from her perspective. Try to understand what it’s like to walk in her shoes and live in that constant state of fear.”

“I’ll try, Mom,” I sigh. “I really will.”





Thirty-One





Alexis





“I’m glad to see you’re still among the living,” I say. “I’ve only tried to reach you about a thousand times the last few days.”

Duncan closes the door behind him and follows me into the living room. I’ve got Aurora in my arms and when I turn to face him, he’s got a strange expression on his face – and his eyes are fixed on Aurora. Oh, God. He knows. I’m positive he knows I’m holding his daughter. I can see it on his face. My stomach churns, and I have to fight back a wave of nausea.