Losing Gabriel (26 page)

D
awson found Lani and Gabe in the basement putting puzzles together. Seeing his dad, Gabe's face lit up. “Daddy!”

“Hey, buddy.” He picked Gabe up, tossed him in the air, and caught him while Gabe squealed with delight. “Is there a TV show he can watch now?” This to Lani.

“I'll find one.” She located the remote.

“I'm going upstairs with Lani, Gabe. Yell if you need us.”

Gabe grabbed a baggie full of goldfish snack crackers and scampered to his beanbag in front of the television.

Lani followed Dawson upstairs and into the den. He took Franklin's old recliner and she took the sofa. She easily saw the strain of his meeting with Sloan on his face.

“Sloan's bottomed out and needs a place to stay until she can get back on her feet.”

Lani felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach.

Since he'd started at the finish line of the story, he now backtracked.
Just
the facts, none of my emotional baggage.
He saw Lani flinch when he recounted Jarred's death. Of course. They'd all been in the same senior class. Everyone knew everyone else in Windemere, or at least something
about
everyone else.

In her mind's eye, Lani pictured Jarred with his long hair and cocky attitude onstage with his band, Sloan at his side. “I'm sorry about Jarred. He and Sloan were a couple…for a time,” she amended.

“Did you ever hang with them in school?”

“No. We ran in different circles.”

“I only spent a year at WHS, so I didn't pay much attention to who was who, and what mattered or didn't matter. All I wanted was to graduate and get out of there.” He shook his head. “Then homecoming happened.”

Lani saw how the memories of those days still haunted him, so she jumped to the present. Her mouth felt dry as cotton as she asked, “Now that she's returned, do you know what you're going to do?”

“Much as I'd like to, Lani, I can't turn her out. Her mother's disappeared, left no forwarding address, and she has no place else to go.”

Lani's heart nosedived. He wasn't going to send Sloan away. Lani wanted to crawl into a shell and pull it around her for safety. Shells were hard and strong and protective. “What can I do to help?” A safe question, and the only one she thought she should ask.

“I want you to take care of Gabe, like always. If that's still okay with Sloan staying here.” He wanted to ask her to remain throughout Sloan's stay but quickly decided to not overload Lani, so he saved that part for another time.

“I won't leave Gabe.”
Or you.

He slid her a smile. “And you don't have to put up with any crap from her either. I'll make that clear. She can sleep in Gabe's playroom on the pull-out sofa. Maybe she can land a job quickly and leave quickly.”

“Gabe's not going to know what to think when she moves into his playroom.”

“I'll come up with a story for him. I'm supposed to call her to come back, and I'd like you here when she does. I want Gabe to meet her with you here. Do you mind?”

Dawson was establishing a hierarchy and Lani quickly understood her order in it—Dawson, Lani, Sloan—and felt giddy about it. “I don't mind. It's all about Gabe. He's number one.”

Dawson nodded. “For you and me, yes. But it's a message I want to make sure she gets loud and clear.”

Sloan returned to the house with Dawson's words on the phone rattling in her head. Two things, set in stone. One, she must not tell Gabe she was his mother. She didn't mind. Perhaps one day he would learn it, but she sure didn't want him to know it now. Too many things to explain, to confess, when he was too young to understand. Two, whenever Dawson wasn't home, Lani was in charge. Sloan didn't like that as much, the thought of maybe this Lani ordering her around, but she agreed to it.

Dawson was alone on the porch waiting when Sloan returned, where he restated his ground rules. Once she agreed to his face, he called to Lani, who stepped out the front door holding the hand of a small dark-haired boy, his head down, reluctant and shy about meeting this stranger. Sloan's heart banged in her chest.

“Gabe, this is a friend of mine and Lani's from when we were in school. Sloan is going to be staying in your playroom for a while. She'll be spending nights there.” Dawson took Gabe's other hand. “Can you say hi to Sloan?”

Sloan's eyes grew moist remembering the dark-haired baby with IV lines and an oxygen mask, a baby that at the time she didn't think would survive. The child said nothing, refused to look up. Sloan didn't know what to say, how to act. Her gaze flew to Dawson's. Lani dropped to her knees, lifted Gabe's chin, and looked him in the eyes. “Gabe, remember your manners. It's polite to say hello.”

The child shyly raised his head. Sloan felt her breath catch, and she blurted, “He…he has blue eyes like…I…I mean…I thought—”

“That his eyes would be dark,” Dawson finished for her, a cautionary note in his voice. “DNA's funny that way. Never know where it's going to show up.”

Gabe glanced at his dad, confused, but did say, “Hi, Daddy's friend.”

“Hi.” Sloan couldn't stop looking at him, a blend of her and Dawson, melded to create a most beautiful child. Words stuck in her throat.

The awkwardness of the moment spurred Lani to action. “We should go inside, get Gabe into the air-conditioning.”

“Your things in the car?” Dawson's question zapped Sloan into the moment.

“In the trunk. It's not locked.”

Sloan followed Lani and Gabe inside and Dawson went to retrieve her few belongings, while another day echoed in his memory of her coming into this house with the child, yet unseen.

“Are you crying, Lani?” Melody came through the front door of their apartment to the sight of Lani on the sofa and a pile of tissues on the coffee table.

Lani quickly wiped her eyes. Once she'd left Dawson's and come home, she'd crashed onto the sofa. “Just throwing myself a pity party.” No use trying to hide the reason for her crying jag from her sister. Mel could wring truth out of the most accomplished liar.

“Why? What's going on?”

“Maybe later.”

“Maybe now.” Melody was firm. “I'll fix us some tea.”

“Don't want tea,” Lani called to her sister's back. Resigned, Lani pulled another tissue from the box in her lap and blew her nose. The rays of the setting sun slanting through the windows gave the room a warm glow that couldn't reach inside her heart.

Melody returned, forced a glass of tea into Lani's hand, and settled in a cushy chair beside the couch. “Please tell me.” Her voice sounded gentler, less demanding. “You look so sad.”

“Sloan Quentin showed up at Dawson's house today. She's Gabe's mother.”

Melody's forehead furrowed. “Ouch. The mother who deserted him? What does she want?”

“Refuge.” Lani detailed what was going to happen, what was expected of Lani. “Seems her life's falling apart and she needs a place to live for a time. Dawson…he told her she could crash in the basement. That's Gabe's playroom.”

“I don't think running interference between these two adults is fair to you. Is that what Dawson expects of you?”

“He's asking me to do my job, to protect Gabe and keep watch over him.”

“Protect him? From his own mother? Why would he even let the woman into his home after what she did? Do you think she's expecting to waltz in and start fresh?”

The same questions had buzzed Lani's brain. She had no answers. “Please, Mel. I don't know! Dawson thinks he should help her, but only until she can get on her feet.”

Melody shook her head. “Bogus. Maybe he wants to get back together with her, have her take up the slack and step into her mommy role.” Lani flinched, and seeing it, Melody stopped her angry speculation. “I'm sorry, Sis. I didn't mean to fall into lawyer mode. It's just that you're hurting. I hate seeing you hurt.”