“I understand all of that, but why am I the one who needs to give you a ride?” I ask.
“Because I’m standing in front of a bar here in Centralia. Donovan won’t serve me in Harriston anymore. I’m afraid if I get in my car, I won’t make it to anywhere good.”
I grab my keys off the entry table. This isn’t what I had planned for the day, but I’ve learned to stop making those when I ended up pregnant with my ex-father-in-law’s baby. Life, at least mine, refuses to follow a set path.
The driveto Sunset Lakes Treatment Center is an hour round trip from the bar where I pick up Liam. We don’t really talk on the ride there. I’m sure there are still things that we could say to each other, but what is the point?
Me telling him the myriad of ways he’s hurt me won’t make that hurt disappear, and it certainly won’t help him right now.There aren’t other people around, so we don’t need to pretend to be friendlier than we are.
I pull my generic-looking sedan in front of the registration building. We stopped briefly at a store on the way for him to pick up the essentials he needed, some clothing, and toiletries. He also called ahead and secured a place there. I stepped in again there and loaned him the money he needed for the program. Once again, I’m spending my parents’ insurance money on him, but hopefully, he will get more use out of this than he did the Mustang I had bought him when we were married.
He stops and looks down at the plastic bag in his hand. “Thanks for this, Wren. I know I don’t deserve it. I will pay you back for this.”
I nod. I’m not sure what to say back, so I settle on, “Just get better for yourself and for Natalie. Money is just a tool.”
He gets out of the car and walks into the building. This isn’t some sad goodbye. I don’t even wait for him to go through the doorway before I slip the car into drive and leave.
Halfway home, I start to feel weird. I have to pull off on the first exit and stop at a gas station.
“Hooo,” I blow out a breath and rub the side of my suddenly rock-hard stomach. I take a few slow, deep breaths and exhale.
“Fuck, this hurts worse than my birthing instructor said it would. ‘Pregnancy is beautiful,’ my ass.” I look down at my stomach as the pain backs off a bit. I continue to try the breathing because it’s at least keeping me calm. “I think I’d better call your daddy, little girl.”
I pull up his number from contacts and call him. It rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. Eventually, his voicemail kicks on, but I end the call. I’m not going to waste my time leaving a message he isn’t going to listen to. As soon as he sees he missed my call, he’s going to immediately call me without stopping to see if I left him a message.
When the pain backs off, I set out again for home. I keep telling myself over and over that it’s only another fifteen minutes. That quarter of an hour is the longest of my life.
Chapter Seven
Griffin - Past
The first thingI notice when I pull into our driveway is that Wren’s car is gone. The doctor hasn’t expressly forbidden her to drive, but she knows that I don’t want her risking herself and the baby when she has a hard time even getting behind the wheel.
My hope that she loaned her car out to someone evaporates when I’m met with silence as I call her name throughout our house.
“Fucking technology,” I grumble as I pull my phone out of my back pocket. Used to be that you could leave your house, and no one freaked out that they couldn’t get in touch with you. Now, I feel anxious if I misplace the damn thing.
The screen is black and doesn’t come back on when I push it. I admittedly tried that too many times before going ahead and turning it back on. Except, it doesn’t come on. It briefly shows me a big red icon of a battery.
“Why can’t anything be where I leave it?” I bitch out loud to an empty room.
I look around the obvious places. At least obvious to me. I tend to leave my things on the coffee table, kitchen table, or my nightstand. My charger isn’t in any of those places, and I end up wasting precious minutes searching for it. Every minute I can’t check to see if she has called is another minute that my brain runs unchecked into all of the dark corners hiding all my fears.
Finally, I remember that I meant to charge my phone while I took a shower this morning. I brought the charger, and must have forgotten to actually charge my phone. Sure enough, there it is, plugged in and forgotten.
The seconds it takes for my phone to power up enough to turn back on feel like an eternity. The relief of my phone turning back on immediately dissolves when all my missed calls pop onto my screen.
Wren tried to call me at least six times. The last time she even left a voicemail. I usually don’t check those, and she knows that, so she must have been pretty desperate. Liam also called me several times, but he’s not my most immediate concern
The first thing I hear is her heavy breathing. “Griff, I’m at a gas station in Prairie Hill, just off exit three. Aah, I think I’m having contractions and I can’t keep driving.”
I grab my keys again off the coffee table where I tossed them, and I dial her number as I’m walking back out to my truck.
She answers on the first ring. “Hey,” she answers, panting into the phone.
“Baby Bird, I’m coming to get you. Hang tight,” I beg.
It’s a fifteen-minute drive to where she is, but I make it in just over ten. My truck might be a goner after pushing the needle into the red, but the only thing that matters is that I make it to my Baby Bird.
