I nodded, looking down at the flames, the licks of blue and red swaying against the wind. “The doctor didn’t know what my problem was, guessed that I’d eaten something bad since nothing showed up on my blood tests and he couldn’t make out anything with the dinky ER ultrasound machine.” I shook my head, smiling at the memory of Ransom glaring at that doctor, who couldn’t have been any older than twenty-four, a Doogie Howser-looking kid with big green eyes and a sunburnt nose looking up at Ransom with no real answers. “He gave me pain meds and told me to see my regular doctor when we came back to the mainland.” I shrugged, sitting back again. “Ransom had two away games in a row that month and I was stuck in Miami getting ready for a dance camp, but the pain, it just wouldn’t go away. So I go to my doctor, explain my symptoms—the excruciating cramps and back pain, how abnormal my cycles were, things that so many of my friends had. So many women I knew or heard of had the same thing so I didn’t even think about it. When he mentioned the endometriosis and more tests, more concerns, even then, I didn’t worry.”
The doctor hadn’t seemed concerned. I was young, he’d said. I had plenty of time to worry about fertility and children and there were lots of women that had the same condition and went on the have children. I took a breath, drifting a little away from myself, not really thinking of how closely Keira watched me or how still she’d gone as I spoke. “A week later I was in his office and he had this expression on his face…” a glance at Keira and I’d sworn she stopped breathing altogether. “One look at him and I knew it was bad. The scar tissue was just too much. Medicine, laser surgery, nothing would get it all. I’d…he wanted me to have a hysterectomy as soon as possible.”
“Aly…” but Keira kept still, dropping her hand as she reached for me when I looked away, feeling ridiculous for how badly my eyes burned.
“The Dolphins had played so poorly that month. Ransom was exhausted, irritated. He kept talking about the bye week and us coming back here for your birthday party. He went on and on about how being home was all he could think about for weeks so…I didn’t say anything.” I looked back at Keira pushing a grin on my lips, hoping she’d forgive me. The point was close and it had an edge. “We…we got here and it so nice. We’d needed that time away from Miami, just to be with you guys and reconnect and relax and I kept thinking, that whole night of the party, how it didn’t matter. Ransom loved me. He loved me so much and you did and Kona…”
Telling her everything would hurt. Maybe it would sharpen Keira’s anger at Kona, something I didn’t want to see, but the truth was already out. The bandage was loosened. I had to rip it off completely. “Kona…he was drunk. He probably doesn’t even remember talking to me.” Keira’s face went pale and I could see that quickening pulse as it beat against her neck. I squeezed my eyes closed, too much of a coward to watch her reaction. “He told me how happy he was. He told me…he told me the only thing that would make him happier was to see me and Ransom married and for us to give him grandchildren. He wanted lots of grandchildren.”
“Oh, Aly...”
The tears had loosened from my eyes without me realizing it. One minute I was talking, unaware that the familiar ache nesting in my chest had broken free. But there I was, face fevered, hot and my eyes leaking, mourning something that was never meant to be.
Keira knelt in front of me, tilting my face up so I’d look at her. I did long enough to catch the tears making her eyes shine before she pulled me against her chest like I was her child—like I hadn’t broken her son’s heart more than once. She held me because she was a mother. Because, in many ways, she was the only mother I’d ever know.
That was the point.
“You see?” I lifted my face, watching the shudder working across her features, shaking her lips and moving her chin. “Keira, you and Ransom and even Kona, you’ve all given me so much. You made me part of your family. I didn’t ask for it, but God how I wanted to pay you back for it. I wanted to make Ransom happy.” That hurt, remembering how desperate I’d been to see him smile. To keep him smiling and as I said it, a fresh wave of tears collected and moved down my face. “I wanted you and Kona to call me your daughter. I wanted…God…I wanted those babies, Keira. Ransom’s sons and daughters. I wanted to give back to you all the wonderful things you gave me. But I couldn’t. I can’t.” I waved my hand across my stomach, balling my hands into fists to keep from slapping myself. “I’m defective. Too broken then and now…now it’s impossible. Now there’s…nothing…nothing there.”
Keira’s gasp was faint, came before her hurried tug against my arms as she held me. “When?”