I finish putting them all back in the box and push it aside, waiting for one of the girls to answer.
“Because he’s not my daddy,” she says quietly, peeking up at me.
I start to understand that the Hello Kittys represent something more than just her outgrowing the stuffed animal.
“Oh.” Delaney glances at me. “So…”
“I still love him. Miss him, but I…” Leia seeks me out again, and my heart squeezes. “Love you too.”
My nose stings, and my eyes well as I try to push back tears.
“I love you, Daddy,” she says in a whisper.
I bend down and hold out my arms, needing her to say it again while I’m holding her.
She walks over, and I hug her so tightly that I fear she’ll struggle to breathe. “I love you, Leia. So, so much.” I pull back and run my hand over the side of her face like I do with Wren. “Can I ask you to say it one more time?”
She laughs. “I love you, Daddy.”
“The best ever.” I hug her tightly again.
Delaney sniffles, and I close my eyes, so damn happy to have gotten to this point. I believed it would come, but at the same time, I feared it never would.
Delaney comes over to me, and I bring her into the hug, holding my other arm out for Wren, but when I look over Leia’s shoulder, Wren isn’t there.
“Wren?” I call, searching the room.
Leia and Delaney step back and all of our eyes scan the area.
“Maybe upstairs?” Delaney jogs up the stairs but returns shaking her head.
“Where did she go?” Leia asks.
Delaney and I rush around the house, but I can’t find Wren anywhere, so I burst through the screen door to search the grounds.
Why would she run off? That’s not like her. Where would she even go? This isn’t Plain Daisy Ranch where she has specific hiding places she knows.
Delaney follows me, both of us searching. Our eyes catch one another’s as my stomach sinks. While trying to get one daughter to find her love for me, did I not tell the other one that she’s just as loved?
Chapter Forty-Nine
Delaney
Where would she go?
I see the frantic expression on Bennett’s face, and my own heart practically beats out of my chest. He goes one way with Leia, and I go the other. Wren couldn’t have gotten that far.
Rounding the back of my parents’ house, I continue down to Levi’s small coach house, and the sound of sobs calms the beating of my heart. I peek around the corner of his house to find Wren huddled on the back stoop, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them with her head buried, crying.
Bennett comes along the other side, obviously hearing what I did, and I put my hand on my heart, silently asking if I can be the one to talk to her. He nods and disappears around the side of the building.
“Wren,” I say gently so she doesn’t run again. I sit down next to her without touching her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” She shakes her head.
This is so unlike her. She usually owns her feelings so well. She always speaks what she feels, so this must be worse than we thought.
“Okay, you don’t have to.”
