“Will you come back?” he asked anxiously.
I hugged him. “I’ll always come back.”
Chapter 35
I was never so happy to be home. I hugged Drew with intensity.
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s going to be different.” I searched for words. I couldn’t say the thing I knew he needed to hear, that nothing would change. We both knew everything would change.
Drew and I sat on the couch, and I leaned into his arms, relaying every detail I could remember. I had battled guilt the entire ride home, and that war continued. How can I lie here, so comfortable with Drew, while Greg is five hundred miles away? I pushed the thoughts away. Being with Drew was as natural as breathing. The need to share my life, my past few days, overwhelmed me.
“Do you want me to go with you next weekend?” he asked.
“Would you want to?”
He shrugged. “I would if you wanted me to. But do you think it would be confusing? To Hannah and Leah?”
“I don’t know if it could possibly get more confusing. But no, they don’t think of you as my boyfriend. You are an integral part of their lives now. If you came, I would want you to stay at the hotel while we visited Greg. Could you do that?”
“I don’t think it could be any other way. Do you?”
I had no idea. There were no rules for our situation. “No, I doubt it.”
He hugged me. “I will do whatever you think is best. For you and the girls. How and when are you going to tell them?”
I had been thinking about little else. “I think maybe Friday after school. We’ll leave Saturday morning. That way there’s very little time between when I tell them and when they see him. And they won’t have to go to school with that in their minds. They’ll have a few days.”
The next four days were going to be interminably long. But I wasn’t doing it alone. Guilt notwithstanding, I was very grateful to have Drew in my life.
The week passed quicker than I anticipated. I went through the motions of each day, playacting as though things were normal. We were a typical family on a typical day. Except Daddy is five hundred miles away, recovering from a coma. Incongruity ruled my life again, and the sensation was eerily familiar. However, at least I felt more in control of the ride.
I was mostly calm and collected. I had moments where I would be making dinner, laughing with Leah, or helping Hannah with her homework, and then I would remember. Greg. His name would fill the empty pit in my stomach, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. As soon as I could tell them, I knew I’d feel better. Or would I? Telling the girls would make it real. During that first week, it was almost as though our life had not been upended. Again.
Friday afternoon, I waited at the bus stop with clammy hands and a racing heart. When Hannah got off the bus, Leah ran to her, and we began our daily walk home. Once inside the front door, Hannah threw her backpack down and ran for the couch, wanting her half-hour of television to wind down from the day.
I sat next to her and pulled Leah to my lap. “Girls, I need to talk to you. No TV today, okay, Hannah?”
She sat up straighter and eyed me warily.
“Remember how the policemen were looking for Daddy?”
They both nodded solemnly. Hannah’s face changed, and I knew at that moment that she knew what I was going to say. She looked at once terrified and excited.
“They found him, honey.” I spoke to Hannah directly, as I knew it would have the greater impact on her.
She shook her head, her mouth open in a silent O.
“Hannah, sweetheart, Daddy is alive, and we’re going to see him tomorrow.”
Leah bounded up from my lap and shrieked with joy. Being only two when he had disappeared, she had few memories of Greg and none of the heartache that followed his disappearance. To Leah, getting to see her daddy was simply joyful news. She had a daddy again! Someone to take her to the kindergarten Daddy-Daughter dance next year!
Hannah’s eyes were mistrustful, sullen, and cautious. Hannah guarded her joy, always, as though someone could easily snatch it away. “Where is he?” she asked.
“He’s in Canada. Do you know where that is?”
She shook her head. “But why hasn’t he come home?”
I had been weighing a response for that question that would be both truthful and age appropriate. “Daddy was sick, honey. He was in a hospital, and they didn’t know who he was, so they couldn’t call us. He was sleeping for a year, and that’s why he didn’t come home.” I pulled her against me. She resisted, but eventually fell against my side. We sat like that for a few minutes, and I let her digest the news.
When she sat up and looked at me, tears were streaming down her cheeks.