A sudden vision filled my mind of Lia curled up in the upholstered rocker in Hudson’s room with her hair in just the same way, the baby at her breast and how I’d stood and stared at them, a desperate pride filling my heart so full that it had hurt. She’d opened her eyes and the look in them had been . . . desolate. I felt a dull throbbing in my chest now, the phantom pain from a memory I’d purposely put away, because looking at it out in the open made me feel guilty and raw.
I’d turned away, walked out of the room, and gone into mine. When I’d closed the door, I had stood with my back pressed to it as if I’d needed to bar it against something. Only . . . the thing I was running from was inside of me—a deep, aching torment I couldn’t escape. Not with hours and hours of backbreaking work, not with the silence I’d built around myself, not by pretending I didn’t see how much Lia was hurting, too.
Is that why you left, Lia? God, it must be. How did you stay as long as you did?
My heart clenched. She held a gift in her hands, and judging by the look on her face, felt incredibly unsure as if she wasn’t certain she was wanted . . . at her own son’s first birthday. I’d been an asshole. What mother should fear that? I smiled at her and put my hand on her arm and she glanced at it, understandably surprised by my touch. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Her eyes met mine and the relief that passed over her face was like a stab to my heart. God, she’d always been so incredibly tender. She’d never lost that—through all the heartache she’d lived through, she’d somehow managed to hang on to that. It suddenly seemed like a small miracle that life hadn’t hardened her. In some ways she was still that little girl with the wide eyes and the strawberry-stained lips. The one I knew I’d always love.
“Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself when you fell last night after—”
“No, I’m fine,” she said softly. I nodded, wishing I had a few more minutes alone with her.
I guided them into the kitchen and out through the back door where several other people who’d come straight around the house into the backyard were mingling. Mostly my mother’s friends. Lia looked around at the decorations and smiled. “The farm looks wonderful. All your hard work paid off.”
I wasn’t sure about that. The farm, yes, but then the truth smacked me. All that time I’d been trying so desperately to keep it alive, had Annalia been dying right in front of me?
Christ.
“It’s getting there. We only planted half of what we normally do. But . . . it’s more than I’d hoped for. Do you want to sit down?” She looked around, obviously searching for Hudson. “Tracie’s getting him dressed right now,” I explained.
She nodded and gave me a slight smile but it looked forced. Turning to her mother, she said something quickly in Spanish that I didn’t catch, and her mother nodded and sat down. “Do you need me to do anything? I’d be happy to help . . .”
“I don’t think so. I’ll check on the baby if Tracie isn’t down with him in a minute.”
“I guess he’s technically not a baby after tomorrow,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. We were having the party today but his actual birthday was the next day, which was a Sunday.
“I guess he’ll always be a baby to us.”
Her eyes met mine and she let out a soft breath. “Yes.”
I saw my mom heading toward us and my muscles tensed. “Hello, Annalia,” she said coldly. “Mrs. Del Valle.”
Lia’s mother looked up and nodded politely, her hands in her lap.
“Preston, Tracie needs some help with Hudson. Why don’t you give her a hand?”
I highly doubted Tracie needed a hand with Hudson. My mother had just said that to rub salt in Lia’s wound. A few days ago I might have even thought she deserved it. But now . . . I was confused and shaken up and couldn’t seem to get my footing. A very small part of me still wanted to punish Lia, to castigate her, but I knew I was far from faultless and was beginning to think I might even hold the majority of the blame. And regardless of who was responsible for what, looking in her eyes told me she held deep, deep pain. And now that I was seeing her clearly, seeing the situation more clearly, I didn’t want that. I never had. I’d just been blind with my own grief and self-hatred.
“I don’t think—” I started to say, but Tracie appeared at the back door, holding Hudson and the “ahh’s” directed toward him, startled him slightly and he began crying. Lia tensed and moved forward so slightly I didn’t think anyone had noticed it except me. Her reaction had been to go to him, and she’d held herself back. It caused my chest to tighten. He was her baby.
“Oh, doesn’t he look adorable?” my mother asked, leaving us to go to Hudson. He was wearing a shorts outfit with a tiny vest and bow tie and he looked sweet if just a little bit ridiculous. His dark hair was parted on one side and combed back, curling up at his collar. A tiny pair of glasses would have completed the little professor look.
I went toward Hudson, too, and stepped in front of my mother, taking him from Tracie’s arms with a soft thank you and heading back toward Lia. When I reached her, I held Hudson toward her, and for a second I worried that he wouldn’t go to her, but he reached out his little arms and Lia took him with a small laugh and a quick joy-filled glance at me. My heart swelled.
He’d stopped crying when I took him and now he snuggled into Lia’s arms, taking the end of her braid in his hand. She used it to tickle him and he giggled, his tears completely forgotten. “Gan!”
“Again?” Lia laughed. “You like being tickled, silly boy?” She did it again to his delight and elicited more giggles. My heart felt achy and far too full as I watched them together. My son and the woman who’d given him to me.
I had a sudden flash to the night he was born. I’d been so proud that night. I had a boy. A son. We named him Hudson Cole though I could barely stand to say the name. I’d held him in my arms that first night while Lia slept and had promised him I’d work even harder to bring back the farm so it would be his legacy as well as mine if he had farming in his blood the way I did.
God, maybe I had missed the whole point though. Instead of vowing to work harder to save his legacy, I should have vowed to save his family by working to mend the relationship with his mother. Annalia. Mine. She’d always been mine. My God, I’d spent my whole life trying to deny it, and it’d brought nothing but pain. What if . . . what if I just stopped? What if I’d never attempted to deny it? What if I’d put all the reasons aside—my brother, a sense of honor that deep inside had always felt misguided, the guilt, the grief, and the pride. I couldn’t change the past, but what if I put all the reasons aside now? What if?