I couldn’t help but chuckle. Kayla definitely came through on this one, and so did everyone else. This town could hold a grudge, but nudge them in the right direction, and they’ll make the right choice.
I turned back to the Locks, placed one more kiss on Adrianna’s cheek, gave Gary a handshake, and then directed Talie away.
Finding a place to the side, we stepped back and watched as person after person filed by the couple to express their condolences.
Kayla approached us, and I’m pretty sure we were both about two seconds away from giving her some praise.
And then she opened her big mouth. “I know. I’m fucking awesome.”
In response, Talie grumbled under her breath.
“Jesus. It’s amazing there’s even room for us to stand here with all of the room your ego is taking up.”
For the second time on this shitty day, on this shitty errand, I found myself openly chuckling.
********
Later that night, laying in our bed with Talie curled into my side, after an unbelievable round of lovemaking with Talie on top just like I had pictured, Talie started to open up about how she was feeling without my having to ask her.
“Standing there looking into her eyes, I just realized how my parents must have felt, Tuck. Not to mention, I still haven’t told them anything. They don’t know Kayla’s here, they don’t know I’m alive, they don’t know about you, or what we just went though. Any of it.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, “I feel like a shitty daughter. So I think Kayla needs to stop sending them on new European adventures, bring them home, and then we can break every last bit of news in person. I feel like if we do it over the phone, we could really upset them.”
I definitely agreed. I couldn’t believe Kayla had been able to get them to stay over there so long in the first place. And if I was going to marry their daughter, I’d much rather it be with their blessing. In order to give their blessing, they would need to know their daughter was alive to bless. Or whatever.
“Agreed, Babe. When your sister gets done blowin’ smoke up her own ass, she can call them.”
She squeaked out a little giggle and then nuzzled deeper into my chest.
“Sleep, Talie. It’s gonna be a big day for both of us tomorrow, and we’re gonna need the rest.”
“Okay. Night, Tuck.”
I gave the top of her head a kiss settled deeper into my pillow, squeezing her and pulling her tighter to my body in the process.
It wasn’t but a few minutes before her breathing slowed and evened, and I knew she was asleep.
Chapter 16
The sound of the door buzzing to let us in made my heart and Talie’s body jump in unison.
We were both nervous and excited to see Jenny, not really knowing what we could expect from her, but Talie’s nerves had made much more of an outward appearance than mine.
Talie turned wide eyes toward me, and tried to talk her way out of this.
“We should have let you go in first, felt her out, and seen if she even wants to see me.” Her words were rushed, panicked, and based on her worst fears.
Based on the way things went last time we were all in a room together, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right. If I should have gone alone to test the waters before I broke Talie’s heart again. All I had been thinking about when I planned this trip was having both of the important women in my life together, reunited. I wanted everyone to find a way past this and find it together. What I hadn’t been willing to consider was the possibility that Jenny would still have a strong aversion to Talie.
It was too late now, so all I could do was hope for the best. God willing, her fears wouldn’t be realized, and Jenny would be back to recognizing her as a friend instead of the enemy.
The sound of our footsteps echoed through the hall as we followed Jenny’s doctor to the visitors area. From what I understood, the room was down this long plain hallway, a quick turn to the right and then on the left side of that hall. It was a long way, but it felt like a fucking mile with the way you could hear every step we took.
As we turned the corner, the glass windowing of the room came into view, and I could see the back of my sister’s head. Her dark brown hair was flowing down her back, and it at least looked sleek and tidy- a vast improvement from our last encounter.
Her head was hanging forward, like she was looking down, and at the sight of her, it felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest.
When we got to the door I lost my visual of her, and her doctor gave a us a briefing of the situation to prepare us before we went in.
“Just be prepared. Her mental state is in a much more normal, cognitive place, but now that she has some of that mental function back, the weight of her actions is heavy on her shoulders.”
Talie reached out and grabbed my hand, her fingers curling around mine, her fingernails digging in my skin.
Even though my attention should have been on the doctor, I took a minute to try to save the integrity of my hand.
“Baby, I know you’re nervous, but I still have the marks from your fingernails in my arm yesterday. Think you can ease up just a little?”
She shot me a glare, and then added the appropriately biting words to go with it. “You’re just going to have to man up, Tuck.”
Fair enough. She was too funny. As I lifted my eyes, I saw that the doctor thought she was comical too, as he was just barely suppressing a smile.
And, the real point, it had done what I wanted- lightened the mood and eased some of her tension so that she didn’t carry that attitude into the room with her. Jenny would likely be on edge enough, and we didn’t need to add to it.
In an effort to move things along, Dr. Hunden pushed the door open and stepped to the side. “I’ll let you all visit for a little while.”
“Thanks Dr. Hunden.”
He gave me a nod as we entered the room, and I watched as Jenny’s eyes moved from the table in front of her to us.
She didn’t say anything and she looked extremely upset. That was to be expected, but it was disconcerting not to know the cause.
I didn’t know if she was just upset in general or if she was upset to see me, Talie, or both of us.
Without knowing the cause, it’s hard to know the solution, so I just pressed on like nothing was awry.
Talie’s feet moved like there was super glue all over the floor, but I dragged her along with me anyway. The only thing to do here was try. It wouldn’t do us any good to put off the inevitable either way, though the fact that Talie was trying to procrastinate was not a surprise.
When we reached the table, I helpfully pushed Talie down into a seat opposite Jenny, but kept my feet. Moving around the end of the table, I headed for Jenny, her eyes following me closely the whole way.
Knowing she didn’t know what to make of the situation and not wanting to scare her, I didn’t touch her, but I did get close. Close enough that she had no trouble hearing me whisper, “Winniekins.”
I only said one word, but the emotion behind it made my meaning clear. I held no ill will toward her for what had played out in that house. The complicated circumstances that led to that situation made it impossible to feel like I blamed her for what had happened.
Tears filled her eyes, and she slowly pushed back from the table, stood up, took the step toward me to close the space between us, and gently wrapped her arms around my waist.
“
Tuck
.”
Her face was pressed into my chest, but I had no trouble understanding the sentiment attached to my name.
Thank God, she was just as happy for the reunion as I was. Her actions mimicked the exact way she used to greet me or show me love, and it felt unbelievable to have it back after all of these years.
I squeezed her tighter, closed my eyes, bit my lip, and succumbed to the feeling of a couple of big fat tears running down my cheeks. They left wet trails down my face and hung from my jaw before dripping into my sister’s beautiful hair.
I never thought I would get this again- the chance to see her, hold her, love her.
My whole family wasn’t gone. I still had my Winnie. After all of those years of searching for her with no leads, I had my Winnie back.
After taking a few deep breaths, I glanced over at Talie to see that she was in full blown hysterics, but she was doing it silently. I guess she didn’t want to ruin the moment by pulling our attention off of each other and onto her.
She looked pretty ridiculous, actually, her body shaking, her hand clasped over her mouth, violent sobs making her throat bob, and tears streaming down her face. All of the signs of a hysterical woman. But without making any noise whatsoever.
Pulling my attention off of the remarkable basket case across the table, I put it back on the woman in my arms.
“Jen-”
“I’m so sorry, Tuck. God, I’m so sorry.”
“Jen, you weren’t in your right mind. We’re gonna get you help. In fact, you’ve already been gettin’ it, and we can see the difference.”
“No, Tuck. I mean, God, of course I’m sorry for that day, but I mean I’m sorry for Andrew. I’m sorry for not listening to you. I’m sorry for
everything
.”
I didn’t need her to apologize to me, but I had to admit that her saying that worked to absolve some of the guilt I had always felt about her leaving. I had always felt like I drove her away.
“We’re movin’ on from here, Jen. All of us.”
At the mention of it being more than just me and her here, she pulled her face out of my chest and turned her tear soaked face to Talie.
A panicked, “Shit, I can’t even look at her,” came out of Jenny’s mouth before she tucked her face back into my chest.
Fuck. There was nothing I could do but watch as Talie’s heart broke again.
Grasping at straws, trying to be there for both my woman and my sister, I endeavored to reason with her. “Jenny. Talie didn’t do anything to you-”
She snapped her head back quickly and her eyes hit mine, stopping my impending speech cold.
Her head started shaking back and forth rapidly, and she spoke quickly to correct me.
“No! God, I’m not making any sense today!”
It seemed like she was actually angry at herself for not getting her point across, and it was hard to watch.
“I mean I can’t look at her because I am so ashamed of all the things I did to her!”
She turned back to Talie, doing exactly what she claimed she couldn’t (I guess figuring it was something she had to do) and directed her words toward her. “You did nothing but love me and try to help, and I practically spat in your face with all the things I did to you in return!”
The asshole inside of me wanted to argue that the things she did to her were much worse than spitting in her face would have been, but I didn’t. Yeah, that would probably make this plane nosedive in a hurry.
Talie’s face had straightened, and there was actually a little smirk playing on her lips as she spoke to Jenny. “Did you push yourself down the stairs?”
Jenny was confused and started to shake her head. “No, but-”
“Would you have saved me from going through the things Andrew put you through if you could?
God, now that I was paying close attention again, I noticed she was having a slightly different version of the conversation I had with her in the hospital. And she knew it. That’s why she was fucking smirking.
Christ, she was always a smartass.
“Listen, Babe. If you try to push me away, I’ll pull you back. If you try to tell me not to come see you, I’ll come anyway. I’m not letting you go as my friend. Not ever.”
Talie looked at me again, the corner of her mouth creeping up even further. I knew she left off the second ‘Not ever’ on purpose.
Jenny raised both of her hands in a defensive gesture. “Okay, I get it. But...Babe?”
Talie didn’t miss a beat and answered her immediately. “Oh, yeah. No worries. That was actually one of Tuck’s speeches that I borrowed and edited a little. I forgot to take out the ‘Babe’.”
Unbelievably quickly, a smile lit up my beautiful sister’s angelic face. Probably the first one in years.
God, I loved Talie. She could mock me all she wanted if this was the result.
I wasn’t going to come right out and tell her that though. That would give her way to much power. Power I knew she would abuse.
“Alright, ha ha ladies. Let’s sit down and talk.”
They smiled at each other, clearly communicating to one another about me if the looks out of the corners of their eyes were anything to go by, but they moved to sit down like I said.
I walked around the table so that I could sit next to Talie, maybe give her hand a squeeze of thanks. I felt like if she hadn’t done what she just did, today could have gone so differently. She had diffused the situation, and now I had my sister and fiance sitting at one table with smiles on their faces.
“Ok, Jen. I don’t want to upset you too much, but I want to talk about a few things.”
She gave me a single nod, much like I often did, so I just dove right in.
“Can you remember anything that happened after you went down the stairs?”
Jenny looked down and muttered, “Unfortunately, I remember everything. It’s just like I’m watching someone else when I see myself do something terrible in my memories.”
This was going to be hard for her. Hard for all of us, really. But I felt like we needed it in order to move on.
“Ok. Let’s just do that. Let’s pretend it was someone else because, if you ask me, it was. No way my Winnie would do any of that shit. So let’s start at the beginning. What happened? How are you alive?”
Jenny took a deep breath, expelled it, and then began to speak quietly, her eyes still pointed at the table. “I don’t remember some of the parts in between. All I remember is Andrew pushing me and then it’s blank until I woke up and looked into Hank Spencer’s eyes.”
I wanted to butt in and take control of the conversation like usual, but I fought the instinct. I wanted her to tell this in her own time and her own way.
“Hank is the one who killed mom and dad. Andrew was there, but Hank pulled the trigger.”
Fuck
. That hurt.
Talie reached over and squeezed my thigh, likely to comfort me
and
tell me to let my sister keep talking without interruption even though I felt like someone had just slammed a sledgehammer into my chest.
“As you can imagine, I knew in that moment that things weren’t going to go well for me. My brain raced as fast as it could to find a way out, and I could only come up with one thing.”
Her eyes moved up from the table and landed on both of our faces. “Hank’s a rotten bastard. Pretty much zero conscience. And as much dirty work as he did for Andrew, he still hated him. So I made a deal. Keep me alive and I would help him figure out a way to get Andrew at his knees, bring him low, and take over all of his wealth and power. He pretty much accepted the deal, but added one condition. Me. My survival instinct was fully kicked in, and I’d already been doing it unwillingly for years, so I agreed.”
God, I felt like I might be sick listening to this shit. I clenched my fists under the table and directed all of my anger and other negative feelings into those fists so that I could keep my face neutral.
Jenny was the one who had been through it, and she was doing a great job keeping it together to share this with us, so I wasn’t going to ruin it just because it made me uncomfortable.
She looked directly at Talie and continued, “The year you spent with Andrew, I spent with Hank. I told him everything I could think of that would undermine Andrew. The more I saw you with him, the more the foreign part of my brain got angry. I definitely didn’t plan to hurt you, but I didn’t try to talk Hank out of it either. He started planning the cafe bombing, figuring he could find some way to pass it off as terrorism since that’s what everyone always thinks first these days.”
Licking her lips, and then sucking them into her mouth for a few seconds, she dug for more memories in her mind before continuing her account of the events of that day. “The whole point was to kill you. And I honestly made no effort to stop him. But that day, for some reason, I couldn’t stop myself from going there to see you one more time. And then, like you had a fucking homing device, your eyes came up and locked right on mine. I took off that instant but you ran out of the coffee shop to follow me.”
Talie reached out and grabbed her hand. “You saved my life.”
Jenny’s head dropped so that her chin was tucked to her chest, and I watch as one of her tears splashed off of the table’s surface. “Not on purpose.”
Talie squeezed the hand she was holding and then spoke with so much ferocity that it would be impossible to not agree with her. “You were battling a brain injury and post traumatic stress both whispering in your ear to do wrong to me, and you still found somewhere in the recesses of your mind that wanted to help me. And you fucking did. So don’t belittle that.”