You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) (21 page)

Oh, for crying out loud! It’s just a bottle.
Charleigh picked it up and read the label.

“That’s… those are prenatal vitamins,” Lenore muttered.

“That’s right,” Charleigh confirmed.

“But why would you need prenatal vitamins if you had an abortion?” Madie asked.

“I just figured I’d need these to keep the three of us going strong for the next seven months or so.”

“Oh, I am so…” Madie cried as she came around the counter like a shot to put her arms
around Charleigh. “I am so happy, Charleigh. I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“Wait. Did you say ‘the three of us?
’” Lenore asked, confused.

“Yes, ma’am. I sure did.”

“That means you’re pregnant with… two?”

Charleigh nodded with a smile. “Twins.”

“Oh, my Lord. That’s even better news.” Madie laughed, tightening her hold around the young woman.

“Madie!
Madie Lou
,” Lenore fussed, coming to peel her sister off of Charleigh. “You’re going to hurt the poor girl. Now, let her go.”

“Twins. Wow! It’s so incredible. I mean you and me, Lenore. Denise has Connor and Kyle. And now Charleigh is going to have two.”

“My mother was a twin, too. Did you know that?” Charleigh asked. Both women shook their heads. “Neither did I— until today. I’m going to have to ask my Nana about the details, but…”

“I bet you’re hungry,” Lenore offered. “How about a piece of pie?”

Charleigh put a hand to her growling belly. “Gosh, I thought you’d never ask.”

It was one of the most dreadful days for Charleigh since the terror attacks. Last night, like every night ever since, her dreams were filled with Jamie and the things they’d done together. Last night, in particular, was of their first date. It was like an out of body experience as she watched Jamie and herself. The way he had looked at her. The way she had looked at him. The way he made her laugh. She could still remember the way her heart had pounded with anticipation throughout that whole night.

Oh, how much she missed him. It was surreal, seemed so bizarre; to wake up when she’d spent the entire night with him and find that he wasn’t lying beside her in bed.

Although the only thing Charleigh felt like doing was staying in bed, she dragged herself out from underneath the covers and out the door. She needed to go to the grocery store, because there wasn’t a single crumb in the entire house. It was to her dismay when she looked through every cupboard— twice, just to be sure— in the kitchen, and found only an old, stale bag of salt and vinegar potato chips, which had belonged to Jamie—
Yuck!
— and a bag of molded cinnamon and raisin bagels.

When she pulled up in front of Healy’s, Charleigh had a flashback of the past July fourth weekend. Of Jamie pushing a cart around the grocery store, with her hanging off the end like a child. The night they spent camped out in the back yard. Jamie had made love to her under a blanket of stars that night. Good memories.
Sad
memories.

She tried to remember that she wasn’t alone in the great tragedy also known as her life. There were Madie and Lenore. Her Uncle Josh and Aunt Caroline. Her Aunt Denise, but Charleigh could only imagine how the woman would rub it in her face. ‘Got yourself into trouble, didn’t you, Little Miss Perfect?’ Her cousins. Her Granddad, which reminded Charleigh that she needed to call him. Although he knew that she was pregnant, Charleigh wasn’t sure if he knew she was pregnant with
twins
. It was still a shock to her, too.

There were also the two little lives growing inside her. They were depending on their mother to pull it together and to pull through for them. They were the only things that mattered anymore.

She was still sitting in the parked car when somebody tapped on her driver-side window.

“Charleigh, hi!” The little voice exclaimed.

She looked out to find Austin and Toby Matthews, Jamie’s uncle and eight-year-old cousin.

“You just going to sit in there?” Austin asked when Charleigh rolled down the window.

“I was thinking about something,” she said to Austin before looking down at the little blond-headed boy. “Why aren’t you in school, Mister?”

“I fell off the monkey bars and broke my arm. See my cast?” The little boy held up his right arm to show the plain white cast that ran from his knuckles to his elbow.

“That’s pretty cool, but I bet it hurt.”

“Nah, I’m a big boy,” Toby replied. “I didn’t cry at all, did I, Daddy.”

“That’s right, Champ,” Austin smiled down at the younger of his two sons. “Sat there like a real pro while the doctor patched ya up.”

Charleigh opened the car door to get out. She ruffled Toby’s hair. “You can get all of your classmates’ autographs when you go back to school. Won’t that be cool?”

“Yeah! Will you sign it too, Charleigh?”

“Well, I’d be honored.” She smiled, rifling through her bag for a Sharpie marker. After finding a bright blue one, she scrawled her name across the middle. When Charleigh was
finished, she handed the marker to the boy.

“Awesome. You got an autograph like Michael Jordan,” Toby exclaimed, with admiration.

“I don’t know about Jordan, but it’s pretty nice, if I do say so myself.” Charleigh turned to go into the store. “I guess I’d better go. There’s not a single thing in the house to eat.”

Toby slipped a hand into one of hers. “Can we go with you? Dad said we could get some ice cream on our way home.”

“Sure, why not?”

They walked around the store, all the while Charleigh was throwing stuff in the cart. If it looked good… The only problem was that most of it was junk food. After the first few aisles, Toby ran ahead to the Frozen Foods section, leaving Austin and Charleigh alone in the canned vegetables.

“So, how are you doing?” Madie’s youngest child asked, rocking back on his heels. Thirty-three-year-old Austin had his hands stuck in his back pockets. Much like Jamie used to do.

Charleigh was looking at the spaghetti sauce but turned to glare at him. “That question.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“No, it’s okay.” She shrugged. “Some days are better than others.”

“And this is a good day?”

“Not really. I only came out of the house because I was hungry.” Charleigh grabbed several different cans and put them in the cart.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be shopping together, Austin took the handles and began to push the cart the rest of the way down the aisle.

“Does Amy know about Toby’s arm?”

Austin laughed, sarcastically. “Yeah, she knows. Just something else for her to blame on me.”

“That doesn’t seem right. Wasn’t he at school when it happened?” Charleigh grabbed some bread and bagels from the shelves of baked goods.

“Doesn’t matter to her way of thinking. Amy says I let the boys run helter-skelter when I got them, and this is just a prime example.”

“You don’t believe her, though, I hope,” Charleigh told him.
“‘Boys will be boys,’ you know. They’re supposed to run and play. Get dirty and scrape up their knees.”

“Yeah, I know that, but I dare you to try tellin’ that to Amy.”

“Hun-uh.” She shook her head. “That woman has always scared me.”

That made Austin laugh. Toby came running toward them with a half-gallon of ice cream balanced on the cast and his other little arm hugging it like a football. He had the same smile, the same bright eyes as his father. As all of the Matthews men.

“I got some, Dad,” Toby said, stopping in front of the shopping cart.

“What kind?” Austin leaned against the handle.

“Rocky road.”

“That’s a good choice.”

“Well, I guess y’all better go.” Charleigh said, putting a box of pasta salad in the cart.

“Yeah,” Austin said, studying her face. “Are you going to be okay?”

She put a hand to her belly. “I’m pretty sure we will.”

His eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. Mama mentioned that a few days ago. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”

“Did Madie mention that it was twins?”

“No, she didn’t. That’s great.” Austin eyed Charleigh carefully. “Or is it?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Take care of yourself. Alright, Charleigh? And if you need anything—
a shoulder to cry on or whatever— you know where to reach me. I’m home most of the time.” He shrugged. “Don’t have much to do with all that time on my hands.”

“Gotcha. Thanks, Aussie,” Charleigh nodded. She looked down at Toby. “Here’s a tip from someone who‘s been in your shoes: if ya ever get an itch while you’re wearing that thing, a wire hanger works wonders.”

“Please, don’t give him any ideas. He’ll have one stuck up in there by tonight, and Amy will call me to complain. I’ll make sure to send her your way,” Austin said with a gentle pat on Charleigh’s back as he walked past her to head for the check out.

She just shook her head. “I’ll be screening my calls in that case.”

The phone rang while Charleigh was putting away the groceries. After spending almost three hundred dollars on junk food, she came to the conclusion that she’d never go to back the grocery store when she’s hungry. Among all of it, there were three boxes of Twinkles, two cases of Pepsi, a half-dozen frozen pizzas, and a tin can of sardines
. However that got in the basket, she still didn’t know.

Stuffing one of the cream-filled pound cakes into her mouth, Charleigh reached for the cordless phone that sat on its cradle on the countertop.

“Hello,” she said. It sound more like,
‘Hay-ffo.’

“Uh, Charleigh. Is that you?” A young girl’s voice was on the other end of the line.

“Yeah, yeah. Hi, Jenna,” Charleigh said after swallowing. “How are you?”

“Okay, I guess.” Her voice sounded hollow. “What about you?”

“About the same.” Charleigh wondered if the reason why Jamie’s little sister was calling because they finally had some news. “Have you heard… anything?”

“No, but I wish we did,” Jenna sighed. “Even bad news is better than no news right now. You know what I mean?”

“Completely. How’s Kevin?” Charleigh pulled a stool over and sat down.

“I don’t know. Probably the same as me and you. He’s been working nonstop down at Ground Zero.”

The line went silent for a moment as neither of them knew what to say. It wasn’t easy for them to think about Jamie and Greg’s bodies finally being found. Charleigh didn’t know about Jenna or Kevin, or anyone else who was mourning the loss of their loved one who had died that day, but there was still a niggling that she felt in her heart that wished Jamie was lounging on the white, sandy beach of some exotic island in the Caribbean. At least she would know he was alive and well.

But it was only a delusion, because Charleigh knew good and well that Jamie would never have willingly left her.

“It makes me sad, you know, that Jamie never knew he was going to be a father,” Jenna finally said, breaking through the silence.

“I miss him.” Charleigh closed her eyes, leaning her head against her free hand, as the first tear slid down her cheek. She was just glad that there was nobody around to see her.

“It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Jenna asked. “It takes him his whole life to meet you, and you were only together for a short time. It was true love, though, wasn’t it?”

“I do believe so, Jenn,” Charleigh managed to say. “I never felt about anyone else the way I do for your brother. I’d like to think Jamie felt the same way about me.”

“Charleigh, I know for a fact how much Jamie loved you. I’d never seen him as miserable as he was after you left New York on his birthday.” Jenna choked back a sob. “It was so much worse than any of those times I’d seen him coming down off a high.”

“Was he really that bad off before we met?” Charleigh asked.

Jamie had never told her about that time in his life. Besides that one time when he came clean about what had happened during his high school years, he never spoke a single word about the drug use. She had asked about it another time after that, but Jamie had told her that it was a stone that was best left unturned. Charleigh hadn’t cared about it then, since he was clean. And he didn’t have any kind of diseases. Charleigh knew that for sure because she’d made him go get tested after his confession.

Not that any of that mattered now, but it didn’t make her any less curious.

“He was scary, sometimes violent. There was one time when Jamie was probably eighteen… I was nine years old,” Jenna said, speaking of the first time she saw Jamie high. “It was late at night. I remember it was the night before my class Christmas pageant. I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited about getting to play the angel the next day. His room was right across the hall from mine, and I heard a noise, so I got up to see what was going on. He was ransacking his room— literally had his bed flipped over on one side— looking for some drugs that he thought he’d hid and Dad or Mother or one of the staff took. His stuff was everywhere.

She sighed. “He grabbed me by the collar of my nightgown, screaming at me— not making much sense, you know. I started to cry, and Dad came running into the room. They got into it, punching and pushing each other. Kevin was standing in the doorway, watching. He took me back to my bedroom and calmed me down. Put me back to bed and stayed until I finally fell asleep.”

“Must’ve been hard to see Jamie like that.”

“I’d never seen my big brother so out of control. Jamie and Kevin were always looking out for me. He was a teenager, you know, and he was out doing teenager-stuff. Jamie wasn’t around all the time, but when he was, he was always giving me piggy-back rides and doing stuff to make me laugh. I looked up to Jamie and Kevin, but I was jaded toward him for a long after that, until he finally got clean a few years ago.

“But he was still like this big kid until you came into his life. He changed his whole world for you, Charleigh, and that’s why I know he loved you. Besides the fact that I heard it about a hundred times a day during that month you guys were apart.”

That made Charleigh laugh and cry at the same time. “It’s tough for me to think about never seeing him again, but it makes it even tougher, hearing you say that, Jenna.”

“I’m saying it because it’s the truth. He loved you more than anyone else in his whole life.”

“So, do you think I’m making the right decision to keep the twins?” Charleigh asked. “Knowing that now, abortion is completely off the table, but do you think they’d be better off being raised by someone else?”

“Wait…
twins
?!” Jenna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.