The Current Between Us (2 page)

“
Grandma always gave you and Momma gifts on each other’s birthday, right, Daddy?” Em asked.

“
Yep. Always,” Trent replied.

“
Is that why you do it for us?” Hunter asked.

“
Yep and you two need to go to sleep.”

“
Wait! Where are we going for Em’s birthday?” Hunter asked.

“
Daddy, are we going this weekend to pick out my decorations? I want a princess birthday, I think.” Em lifted her head to look at Hunter.

“
No, Em. You said last night we could have the Ninja Turtles, and you would be Raphael, I would be Leonardo, remember?” Hunter lifted his head, looking back at Em.

“
Daddy, I want a princess birthday.” Em shot a panicked look at Trent.

“
Em, you change your mind too much.” The argument between the two started so fast, it made it hard to keep up.

“
Hey, now, Hunter, it’s her birthday. She decides without our help. We can get you something to have as a decoration, too. Lay down. I’m serious, you guys, we need to sleep,” Trent lowered their heads with his hands back down to his chest. He ran his fingertips gently over both their backs, trying to lull them back asleep.

“
Yeah, it’s my birthday, Hunter,” Em added, but another soft yawn tore from her lips before she could finish the sentence.

“
Daddy, Em’s teacher said we can bring treats to school to send home with her pre-K class. Can we do it? Do we have enough money for treats and me a decoration and the princess decorations and the gifts?” Hunter asked.

“
Of course we have enough money for treats and decorations, Hunter. Son, we have to talk about why you’re so worried about how much money we have all of a sudden. You don’t need to worry about things like that.” Trent smiled at the sounds of soft snores coming from both sides of the bed. He completely agreed, financial affairs were snooze-worthy as hell, and enough to make anyone crash while talking about them.

Trent looked
back up at the ceiling and made a mental note to send an email to Hunter’s teacher asking about his sudden concern over their financial state. Did six-year-olds think about things like that?

“
Close it off and go to sleep,” Trent whispered to himself, trying to stop his brain, but one thought led to another and his mind finally went there.
Dang it!

On a normal day, it took a
herculean effort to force his mind off his sister. Now with Em’s birthday approaching, of course he’d think about her more. The slap of a tiny hand hit Trent in the face. An offending leg came next, racking him good. The kids were sound asleep, tossing and turning. They hit anything in their way. He sighed. Between their flying limbs and his overactive mind, there would be no more sleep for him tonight. Carefully, he untangled himself from the kids’ hold and quietly made his way to the bathroom.

Trent flipped on the shower and dropped his pajama pants where he stood. He barely waited a minute before he stepped under the spray, letting the warm stream coat his skin. Even as he dunked his face under the pulsating
showerhead, he still couldn’t seem to let go of the thoughts. No matter how many times he played it over in his head, or how it gnawed at him, the facts never changed.

Trent finally slumped back against the wet wall and scrubbed his hands
up and down his face in defeat. He wasn’t going to escape the memories this year either. With a thump, his head dropped back on the tile, his eyes closed, and he gave in, centering back into that time almost four years ago.

Emalynn and Hunter
’s father died during his last tour of duty in Iraq, six months before Emalynn was born. Lynn took his death hard and grieved badly for her husband. Trent always worried about the toll all that stress may have taken on Emalynn before her birth. He’d stayed by Lynn’s side throughout the entire pregnancy, eventually moving her and Hunter in with him. He tried to give Lynn comfort in her loss, and the stability she needed to get through her pregnancy.

Trent dedicated himself
to getting Lynn strong and healthy. He took his job as big brother and designated birthing coach seriously. He studied the role for months, attending all the birthing classes, picking out the best focusing tools for Lynn’s use during her labor…The photos and music were all there on standby ready to go for when she needed them. Everything seemed to be going well. Lynn pushed gently with her contractions, and each stage progressed as it should, per all the books Trent read.

Lynn had allowed an epidural this time around, instead of the natural, home childbirth she
’d endured with Hunter. It had surprised him, but he hadn’t questioned it. His sister, the absolute health nut, believed in the natural way of things. He hadn’t questioned her decision. Instead, he was thankful she hadn’t had to go through all the pain. In hindsight, he’d missed that big red flag waving at him, letting him know something wasn’t quite right with the whole situation.

Sophia, Lynn
’s lifelong best friend, stayed in the delivery room with them. Lynn’s labor was in full swing. The doctor and nurses were in place, all set to guide their new baby girl out. The room bustled with medical equipment, most hooked up to Lynn, but Trent hadn’t known that wasn’t normal either. He appreciated how well they were monitoring Lynn and Em. There was talk of a caesarean early on in the day, but Lynn refused it, and Trent had agreed. Why would she need a C-section? They had studied for a natural birth, planned, prepared, and ready to do this thing!

He kept hearing from all the professionals that her numbers were good. Apparently, another huge indicator
the process wasn’t as positive as it should have been.

Trent only
had one defense for missing so many warning signs: the entire experience had fundamentally changed him. The emotion of bringing a new life into the world, being so up close and personal with it all transformed him forever. Trent connected to Em before she’d ever shown her little face to the world. When it came down to the final minutes, the doctor instructed Lynn to push carefully one last time. It was all it would take to get Em there with them. Emalynn’s head popped out, Trent concentrated on her swollen face seconds before his sister gave an agonizing scream and fell back on the hospital gurney.

He and Sophia were shoved from the birthing room as the crash carts slammed past them in an attempt to save his sister, Em
’s mother. Later, the doctor told him, Lynn had found out about the abdominal aortic aneurysm a few weeks after learning she was pregnant. She’d kept it from her family, opting to have Emalynn before going under the knife to repair the damaged artery, but she hadn’t made it. Instead, she died instantly when it burst, sending the birth into a frenzy.

To this day, it truly bothered Trent
that he hadn’t picked up on the clues. Now, he understood the intense grieving during her pregnancy wasn’t just about Lynn’s lost husband, but also the fear she faced of leaving her own children. Lynn had insisted on creating a will and went into detailed explanations on how her children should be raised if anything happened to her. She left the children and everything she owned to Trent. He had sat through hours of her coaching him on how to be a father, what her finances were and the military benefits left to the children.

Never once did Trent think he would ever use the information she forced on him. At the time, he was pacifying his grieving sister. He
’d even refused to listen to any more talk of death; telling her he was done with that nonsense and life was for the living! Lynn had just smiled at him and kissed his cheek. Boy, he’d gotten every bit of it completely wrong.

Trent
missed Lynn. She’d been his best friend. They were the only children of a single, older mom who’d spent her life devoted to them. Trent was the oldest, but not by much. Lynn came along eleven months after his birth. The only time they were apart were the years they spent in college when Lynn met Aaron, got pregnant, and married him within a few months after their meeting. Aaron focused solely on his military career. Trent saw it as Aaron putting as much space between him and Lynn as he could, but he never said anything about her marriage. He had just been glad she moved back closer to him.

Emotion chok
ed him as he turned and beat his forehead gently against the damp tile. Trent tried hard to hide all of this from the kids. Childhood should be filled with fun memories, snapshots to take into their adult lives. Frustration coursed through him as he grabbed the bottle of shampoo at the same moment the pungent aroma of coffee filled the steamy air of the shower. A smile spread across his lips, helping to pull him from the melancholy of his thoughts like nothing else could. Rhonny was already up and making coffee.

If there could be a silver lining to the dark cloud surrounding his life
at this time of year, it centered right in on his live-in nanny. Rhonny classified as his dream come true and he thanked the good Lord for her every single day. He wouldn’t have survived the last four years without her. She had come in as his first and, as it turned out, only interview for the nanny position.

Em had been barely a few weeks old, screaming in the middle of a major crying fit when Rhonny came through the front door. He remembered the moment as if it happened yesterday. Completely out of his element with the non-stop crying baby in his arms, he had opened the front door utterly flustered. There stood Rhonny, all Brazilianly beautiful and the breath of fresh air he needed in those dark, dark days. She took Em from him, calmed her down almost instantly, while explaining she was the oldest of eight children. She came with bottle, diaper, and play time experience down to a science. She could even cook a meal or two and turned out to be everything he needed. He hired her on the spot and she started that very afternoon.

All these years later, they had a solid working relationship, which he honestly considered to be more like a family than employee to employer. Their only complication: Rhonny was part of the study abroad program and graduated from college next year. They were already working on the visas needed to keep her in the country, but who knew how it all would turn out, and it worried him. The government didn’t seem overly interested in how Rhonny worked her way into a necessity of his life or how the kids needed her with them.

Trent dried himself quickly and swiped the towel over his bathroom mirror before tossing it over the shower door.
Daily grooming never took him too much time, and the coffee called out to his soul, speeding his process faster than normal. Not wanting to wake the kids in the other room, Trent kept the freshly grown stubble on his face, but brushed his teeth and ran a comb through his short light brown hair. He scanned his gaze over his hair, then his face, and took the moment to stare at the bright green eyes looking back at him in the mirror. They were one of the only traits he shared with his sister.

Tall, muscular
, and thick, Trent played football all the way through college and kept the build into his adult life. Lynn stayed short, petite, and blond. If she ever developed a true muscle on her body, he never saw it. These eyes and their smiles were the only things they shared as adults. Em and Hunter shared them too. Now, his stared back at him all red-eyed and exhausted.

Trent slapped himself hard on the face. The jolt surprised even him, but it did the trick and woke him completely. The goal was to keep this awake thing going for the next sixteen or so hours ahead of him.

Leaving both his image and all the mental self-reflection behind, he turned to his closet. The best renovation he’d made to this house involved relocating the door to his closet and placing it in his bathroom, instead of the bedroom. It afforded him more privacy. Trent pulled on his blue jeans and T-shirt before quietly making his way back into the bedroom to pick up his work boots by the bed. The kids slept as he tiptoed out the door and down the hall where all three of their rooms were located. He continued the silent tiptoe all the way to the kitchen at the other end of the house. Sizzling bacon filled the air, competing with the strong smell of coffee. Both made his taste buds water.

“
You’re up early. It’s barely five,” Trent said quietly, placing his shoes on the kitchen floor by the table. He made his way to the oversized sock basket in the laundry room directly off the kitchen. He and Rhonny hated matching socks so it never seemed to get done. Instead, they piled high in a laundry basket causing them to dig through it regularly trying to find matches.

“
I know. The thunder woke me. By the time I got up here, the kids were already out of bed. I supposed in your room,” she said quietly, standing at the stove, turning the bacon in the sizzling pan. Rhonny occupied the basement all by herself. The space was small, but held enough room for a shower, a bedroom, and a small office area. He gave it all to her when she’d accepted the job, moving his office into the garage to give her more room.

“
Yeah, I don’t think the first clap of thunder ended before they were already there, climbing up into bed. It pretty much ended sleeping for the night,” Trent said, sitting in a chair at the table, angling his socks and boots on.

“
I figured. It’s why I started breakfast early. I have an eight o’clock final this morning and I need to study. But I can take the kids to school before I go, if you need me to. I didn’t get your text until too late last night about my schedule for the next week. It’s why I didn’t text you back.”