As soon as I sent Ava the newest music, she responded.
AVA: You’re going to have a long list of songs to choose from by the time you get back in the studio. What’s going on with you?
ME: Babies and love and heartache.
AVA: Someday, Brady O’Neil, you’re going to get your heart broken back.
Her words brought me back to Tristan, the woman who’d moved my heart just by standing next to me.
ME: Who says it hasn’t been already?
AVA: Har har.
I didn’t know what was harder: that my friend thought I broke too many hearts or the thought that I couldn’t have mine broken.
I headed for the house to check in with Cassidy and make sure Mom wasn’t sending her over the edge. My parents had arrived in Grand Orchard frazzled and worried hours after Cass had given birth to Chevelle, and Mom had been hovering ever since. Cassidy had taken it with more patience than I would have been able to do. Mom was constantly correcting things Cass was supposedly doing wrong and warning her to get her balance as she stood before moving with the baby.
As if Cass had suddenly forgotten she didn’t have the balance of the average person. As if having a baby had somehow addled her brain and made her forget the things she’d struggled with her entire life.
Dad seemed adrift with the amount of baby stuff, as well as the emotions filling the house. He’d spent the week sneaking off to thecollege.
When I let myself into the house, Cassidy was sitting in the rocker-recliner in the family room with her eyes closed. I stared at her. She was stronger in so many ways than I was. Stronger in her silence. Stronger in her patience. Stronger in what she’d overcome. Things I’d never understand.
I knew she wasn’t sleeping, because the chair was in slow motion. Back and forth. Her taupe hair was tumbling about her face, her long body not quite returned to its former leanness but closer to the sister I’d known over the last few years. The baby was wrapped up in a blanket so tight that the only piece of skin you could see was his face. Wrinkled and red and gorgeous.
I dropped a hand on Cass’s hair and then went to touch the baby, but she swatted my hand away. “He’s just drifted off. Leave him be.”
“How can you even stand to hold him and not touch him?” I said with a smile as I sank onto the couch next to her.
“Because Iamtouching him by holding him, you big goof. And because I’m so tired I feel like I’m going to stumble into a wall if I don’t sleep while he does.”
“Shall I let you rest, then?” I asked, going to get up.
She shook her head, swallowed, and then said, “I need to talk to you.”
I settled back.
“I have to tell you something, but you can’t tell Mom and Dad,” she said.
I nodded, my light mood slowly meandering away.
“The clinic had to let me go. The real reason I was working up until the baby came was because it was my last month,” she said quietly.
“What? Why?”
“The city had to cut its funding. Grand Orchard has been struggling economically, and the council had to make hard choices, which meant the clinic had to make even harder ones. What were they going to do? Let go of a doctor or a nurse? No, the nutritionist is usually the first job on the chopping block.”
“That sucks, Cass. But you know I’ve got you, right?”
“I have money saved. Living here, I should be okay, but I don’t want Mom to find out and use it as another excuse not to go back to Ireland.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Cass. I’ll make sure Mom knows it. We’ll get her back on the plane if I have to have Marco hog-tie her to the seat.”
Cass laughed. “That’s an image I’ll never be able to get out of my head now.”
Cassidy struggled her way out of the chair and swayed. I was up, catching her arm before she could fall over. She didn’t acknowledge it, but I could tell it aggravated her. Not my hands but the imbalance.
“I’m going to go sleep while Chevelle does,” she said.
