I opened my mouth but the sound of the doorbell stopped me. I frowned, glancing at the clock on his wall beside the television. It was nearly midnight, so who the hell could be at his door? Jealousy shot painfully through my chest. Was I about to come face to face with one of Zander’s many lovers? I didn’t know if I could handle that after just ripping my heart open by telling him about our daughters and then having to face the near tragedy of losing Mieke five years later.
“That’s my food,” Mieke surprised me by saying as she got to her feet. “They had your card on file so I charged it to that. Is that okay, Dad?”
“Yeah, that’s fine, sweetheart.”
She rushed to answer the door. Zander and I stayed where we were, our gazes lovingly watching our daughter. She said something to the delivery boy and then set the two bags of food on the table by the door. After the boy left, she stepped halfway out the door and pressed the doorbell thirteen more times.
Zander chuckled. “I guess you really did tell her all about me.”
“I never lied to her when she asked about you, Z. She deserved to know.”
His jaw clenched and he nodded, but didn’t say anything more.
Returning to us, she grinned at her father. Setting the two bags on the coffee table beside Zander, she started taking out cartons of delicious-smelling Chinese food. Finding the egg rolls, she stuffed half of one in her mouth before continuing her task.
“Are you going to eat all of this by yourself?” Zander didn’t look like he believed it could happen, and I threw my head back, laughing for what felt like the first time in forever. He frowned at me. “You mean she can?”
“And more,” I assured him.
C HAPTER E IGHTEEN
Zander
My kid could put away some food.
My kid.
I never thought I would say those words, but watching Mieke stuff the last egg roll into her mouth, I realized it felt right. She was so beautiful, so full of life, and completely perfect. When she’d told me about Michelle always living as long as her heart still beat, I’d lost my shit. It had taken everything in me to stay where I was and not run back to the bathroom. But I knew I couldn’t do that. She needed me. Annabelle needed me.
While she ate her noodles, fried rice, and honey chicken, she told me a little more about herself. Annabelle remained mostly quiet while Mieke spoke of her childhood. I now knew she had to wear braces when she was twelve, but only for a year. I now knew she liked raspberry sherbet, and hated pickles. I even now knew that she was a year ahead in school and would be graduating this year from high school. My kid was some kind of freaking math genius and she had her pick of colleges.
I liked hearing Mieke talk, but what I really needed right then was to know what had happened when she was five. What had put that haunted look on Annabelle’s face? What was worse than losing one of our babies?
I waited until Mieke was leaning back against the couch beside her mother. Her stomach was finally full and she had a content smile on her face. The second I asked about it, the small smile that was on Annabelle’s lips disappeared and Mieke sat up a little straighter, but she looked more concerned for Annabelle than anything.
“I’d just turned five,” Mieke said, her tone soft as if she were afraid to speak too loudly. “Mom was out of town with Uncle Noah for a charity concert and I had a field trip to the Parthenon in downtown Nashville. Aunt Chelsea was supposed to go with my class, but Ben was sick and she had to take him to the doctor.”
“Ben?”
Mieke smiled a little easier this time. “My cousin. He’s a year younger than me, and my best friend. He has a sister, Audrey. She’s three years younger than me.”
“Do they look like Noah?” I asked Annabelle, curious about my old friend’s kids. Did they look like him, like Mieke looked like me? Or did they look like Chelsea?
She nodded. “Ben is his double, but Audrey looks more like Chelsea.”
I turned back to Mieke. “Okay, so you were on a field trip?”
“After we walked through the Parthenon we had lunch out on the lawn. I ate my lunch and then some of the other kids started playing. I didn’t want to, so I stayed on my blanket and fell asleep. The teachers were more concerned with watching the ones running around than me.” She shrugged. “So they didn’t notice when someone grabbed me.”
Annabelle let out a whimper and I instinctively grasped her hand as my heart started racing. “What?” I didn’t mean to shout, but I didn’t have control over the volume of my voice right then.
Mieke nodded as I felt Annabelle tremble with the memories. “There had been a lot of visitors at the Parthenon that day. One of them was a woman who’d just lost her daughter to cancer. When she saw me just lying on the blanket, she took me.”
Annabelle stood up so quickly I didn’t know how to react. She combed her fingers through her long, pale-blond hair, scattering the streaks of hot pink. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I just can’t do this.”
“Anna?” I’d never seen her like this. It gutted me to see it now. The look on her face told me she was reliving a nightmare. She was shaking and looked so pale it was as if what Mieke was telling me had happened only the day before and not nearly twelve years before.
She turned to face me with eyes that were wild. “Some psycho took our baby, Z. She just took her in the middle of a crowded place and no one even saw her. She had her for two days. Two. Days. Do you know how that feels? Do you? To have the reason you get up in the morning missing and not knowing if she’s okay? If she were cold or scared? If someone was hurting her?”
My throat tightened and I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak, so I shook my head. I had no clue what she had felt then, but if it was half as bad as what I was feeling right then, just hearing about what had happened, then I could imagine.
“This girl?” She pointed at Mieke with a finger that shook. “She is my reason for breathing and I couldn’t wrap my arms around her. I couldn’t hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. She was scared and alone with a woman who could have done anything to her. At the time we didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, a pedophile or what. The local cops brought in the Feds, but they had no leads and after the first day they told me that statistically I wasn’t ever going to get her back.”
“Mom, I’m okay. It’s over. That was years ago. She didn’t hurt me.” Mieke tried to soothe her mother, but Annabelle shook her head and let out a sob that cut me to the quick.
She turned accusing eyes on me. “I didn’t want to believe them. I refused. I tried calling you. I tried so many times to just get you to speak to me for a minute. Two seconds. Anything. Our baby was missing and I n-needed you.”
I reached for her, unable to not touch her a second longer. I grabbed her trembling hand and pulled her down onto my lap. A broken sob seemed to tear from her chest as she clung to me. “I needed you,” she whispered.
I buried my face in her hair, letting my tears fall. “I know. I know.”
“You b-broke your promise.” If she had hit me, I couldn’t have hurt more. I almost wished she would hit me. Beat the shit out of me. I needed it, fucking deserved it. Maybe the physical pain would relieve some of the emotions choking the air out of me right then. “I needed you—we needed you and you just left us. You didn’t want us.”
“I did want you,” I groaned into her hair. “I wanted you so bad I hurt.”