Today's Promises (4 page)

And that is far too soon for me.

Flynn is trying so hard to comfort me as I pour out all these thoughts. Still, I can’t stop a fresh new round of tears from starting up.

“Whatever happens, we’ll get through it,” he tells me, while he strokes my back and holds me gently. Kind of like I’m a fragile doll and may break at any time.

“I can be strong in so many ways,” I say, as if to reassure not only him, but myself.

“I know, babe.”

“It’s just…” I lean back and wipe my nose as I try to pull it together. “The hatred Allison has for me is so real and so heavy sometimes that when I let it truly sink in, like how I’m doing now, it just pulls at me. It ends up weighing me down, Flynn, and that cuts into my strength.”

“I know, Jaynie,” he says. “I completely understand.”

Thank God someone does
.

I peer into his steady eyes—gray, like the sky today. “Hey, I’m sorry I lost it.”

“Don’t apologize, babe. We’ve talked about this thing with Allison maybe getting out a hundred times. Just know that when…and if…it happens, we’ll manage.”

I sigh. “I know. But seriously, Flynn, what the hell are we going to do if she really is released early?”

Settling back on his side, he signals to merge back onto the highway. “Let’s just hope her parole is denied. Every…fucking…time.”

“And if it’s not?” I throw out.

Releasing a heavy breath, he says, “I don’t know what we’ll do then, Jaynie. I just don’t know.”

I can’t respond, because sometimes there are just no adequate words.

Flynn

I
drop to my knees on the floor of Mandy’s modest but tidy living room, and Cody—
my
Cody—flies into my arms.

In that moment, everything is right in the world. Jaynie was right; this kid loves me. I had nothing to worry about.

I sigh, content as I hold on to a little boy who means the world to me.

And that is when I have a revelation:
This
is my life.

It will never be perfect, and I’ll never be able to completely erase the pain. But I have this—these little snippets of joy I can grab on to…and hold close to my heart. These are the moments that will get me through the pretty much daily grind of bullshit life always seems to dole out.

“Flynnie, Flynnie.” Cody’s arms tighten around me, and this is so fucking right. “I love you
sooo
much,” I am informed.

I’m holding on to that heartwarming snippet.

“I love you, too, bud,” I reply, a little misty-eyed.

“I missed you,” Cody says. “Lots and lots and lots.”

I’m snatching up that one as well.

I then tell the kid, “I missed you too, little man. More than you could ever imagine.”

Cody loosens his arms from around my neck and leans back just enough to show me his displeased expression.

“Uh-oh,” I say. “What’s that look all about?”

“Why you no come visit me sooner?” His tone is at once accusatory and disappointed.

Shit, time to think fast.
“I would have visited you, Cody, but I was sort of tied up.”

“With work stuff?” he asks.

His big brown eyes are so innocent, so accepting of any explanation I’m about to offer, anything whatsoever. Kids, they kill me with their resilience to bounce back. If only Jaynie and I could’ve stayed innocent long enough to have been rescued, before all the bad stuff.

Softly, I murmur, “Yeah, it was something like that.”

I can’t say much more. I’m sure as hell not about to share with Cody that our wicked foster mother kept me away from him, and everyone else. That would scare him to death. I’m hoping Mrs. Lowry and her hellhole of a home are becoming nothing but distant memories for him…and for his sister, Callie, too.

Speaking of Callie, she’s hanging back, standing behind Cody, giving him time to reconnect. Jaynie and Mandy have retired to the kitchen, to give me time alone with the twins, I’m sure.

Holding out my hand, I say to Callie, “Hey, I missed you too, you know.”

“You did?” she hesitantly asks.

“Yes.” I nod emphatically. “Like every single day, Miss Callie.”

Smiling brightly, she takes my hand. And ten seconds later she’s laughing, nestling in next to her brother, all of us hugging. “I missed you so much, Flynn,” she says.

My heart is touched. And, just like that, I have another snippet of joy to stow away.

“Aw, sweetheart,” I whisper. “I missed you and your brother like you wouldn’t believe. I’m back to stay though now. And that means we can see each other a lot more often from here on out.”

“Are you
really
back for good?” Callie sounds unsure and takes a step back, exiting from our hug. Cody, however, stays glued to me.

“Yes,” I reply, with what I hope is a tone of certainty she will hear and believe. “I’m back for good. I promise.”

A few more minutes pass, and then Jaynie and Mandy rejoin us in the living room.

“You okay?” Jaynie asks when she sees me swiping at my eyes.

Mandy is off to the side, chatting with the kids about what they’d like for lunch.

Amid excited requests for grilled cheese and tomato soup, I tell Jaynie, “Yeah, I’m great. It all went way better than I expected.”

“I tried to tell you not to be so consumed with worry, you silly man.”

I laugh. “Yeah, yeah, you did. And you were right, babe.”

“Always,” she says, bumping my hip.

“Lesson learned. I should always trust Jaynie.”

“You bet your ass.”

The next several hours fly by, and the next thing I know our entire day has been spent with Mandy and the twins. It’s a little like old times, but way better.

For one thing, there’s plenty of food.

Mandy cooks up a huge fried chicken dinner that everyone digs into. Accompaniments that are quickly devoured include creamy mashed potatoes, peas, and biscuits with lots of butter.

“I love butter,” Cody exclaims at the dinner table. He then proceeds to lick all the butter off his biscuit.

“Gross,” Callie says as she makes a sour face.

But not two seconds later, it’s her who is slathering extra butter on her own biscuit and handing it over to Cody.

She says to him, “Here, I dare you to eat this one. It has even more butter than yours did.”

Mandy, Jaynie, and I share a bittersweet smile, as we know what’s really going on. Callie daring her brother to eat another buttery biscuit may sound like a typical kid dare, but really it’s so much more.

Cody isn’t starving anymore, but Callie remembers all too clearly when he was.

Cody eats the biscuit, plus three more—mine, Jaynie’s, and Mandy’s.

Yeah, we all remember.

After dinner, Mandy and Jaynie start clearing dishes. I offer to help, but both girls insist I spend more time catching up with the twins.

That’s fine with me, as I soon discover I have a lot of catching up to do.

Cody unwittingly reminds me of this fact when he says to me, “Hey, Flynnie. Did you know we go to school now? Like, to a
real
school, with compooters and everything.”

“No way, little dude,” I exclaim, trying to sound shocked.

“Yes, way,” he reiterates, nodding.

“Do you like your real school?” I ask.

“Uh-huh.”

Callie rolls her eyes. “Of course he likes his school, Flynn. He gets to stay in a special class all day, where they draw and play on computers and have fun.
I’m
in real third grade, where we do
real
school stuff.”

I close my eyes, and my heart feels like it’s being squeezed in my chest.

See, Jaynie, Mandy, and I homeschooled the twins as best as we could while we were in foster care. Still, I don’t think it was ever really enough. Callie was fine, excelling in all the subjects we taught. Cody, however… Well, he was a different story. He just needed much more help than what we were able to give him.

Shit
.

It pisses me off that we just didn’t have the resources. But now I’m so fucking happy to hear he’s in a class that suits his learning style. Though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it still kills me that we couldn’t provide more for him.

There was just so much we weren’t equipped to handle.

Nonetheless, I can’t let old regrets bring me down. Not today.

And they won’t.

Despite a few bittersweet moments, our reunion runs smoothly. The only glitch is that Mandy’s boyfriend, Josh, ends up stuck at the plant he works at.

That kind of sucks, seeing as Josh is now the twins’ foster dad. To say I was hoping to meet him would be an understatement.

“He’ll be home after eleven,” Mandy informs me, a few hours after dinner, when I again bring up the subject. “You’re welcome to hang around till then.”

All five of us are chilling in the living room, our stomachs full from Mandy’s tasty meal.

Though I’d love nothing more than to meet who we were always told was the love of Mandy’s life—a guy who, by the way the twins’ eyes light up when his name is mentioned, treats the children extremely well—Jaynie and I have to decline the offer.

“I’d love to stick around,” I reply. “But we promised Bill we’d have his ride back no later than ten.”

Jaynie, seated next to me on the couch, adds, “Speaking of which, it’s already after eight. We should probably hit the road soon to give ourselves plenty of time to get back.”

The twins, who are lying on the floor, playing a board game, jump up when they hear we’re leaving.

“No leave yet, Flynnie,” Cody begs as he comes over and plops down on my lap.

“I have to, bud.”

Wide eyes fill with hope as he asks, “You come back tomorrow, then?”

This is where it blows that we don’t yet have our own car.

“I’m afraid we can’t, little man,” I try to explain. “We borrowed the car we drove up in.”

“So borrow it again,” Callie interjects.

She’s crawled into Jaynie’s lap, and is peering over at me like
what’s the problem with that?

As Jaynie curls the ends of Callie’s long charcoal-black hair around her finger, she tells her, “Once we have our own car, honey, we can visit more often. And we can stay as long as we like.”

“I guess I can wait for whenever that happens,” this precocious child concedes.

With a dim pallor of disappointment cast over the final minutes of our visit, we begin the long process of saying our good-byes.

Jaynie and I hug the twins for a solid ten minutes, and then Mandy walks us to the door. The twins stay behind in the living room to, upon Mandy’s suggestion, resume their board game.

“Hey, guys, hold up a sec.” Mandy grabs a jacket from a hook near the door and adds, “Let me walk out with you to your car.”

It’s kind of clear by now that she wants to tell us something out of earshot of the kids. Jaynie looks over at me, like I may have an idea as to what Mandy wants to talk about.

I have no clue, so I shrug and shake my head.

Once we’re out in the tiny, postage-stamp front yard, I turn to Mandy and ask, “So, what’s up?”

She glances back at the house. I guess to make sure the twins haven’t followed us out.

When she’s sure the coast is clear, she says, her voice still hushed, “I just want to give you guys a heads-up. You should hear this from me first, not someone else.”

“What’s going on?” Jaynie asks, her brow creasing with concern.

Mandy makes a face. “Uh, well, here’s the thing… Josh recently heard from an old friend who’s now a state trooper that the authorities are re-opening an investigation into what kind of environment Mrs. Lowry was providing for us foster kids the past several years.”

“A horrible one,” I scoff.

Jaynie’s face pales. “We aren’t going to have to testify or anything, right?”

That’s Jaynie’s big fear.

Every terrible thing we endured is still so fresh and raw for all of us, but especially for Jaynie. She suffered the worst at the hands of our captors, and that’s really what they were. We were all trapped up there at the Lowry house. I could talk if I needed to, about all the shit we went through, but I know for a fact Jaynie isn’t anywhere near that point yet.

Testifying isn’t a worry, though, at least not for today.

We realize this when Mandy explains: “There’s a detective on the case, but he’s not looking into what happened during
our
time at the Lowry house. Not that it wasn’t awful, what we went through, but it seems”—she lowers her voice another notch—“something much worse may have occurred before any of us ever lived there.”

“Shit, Mandy.” I take a step back. “Like what?”

“Yeah, what could be worse than what we went through?” Jaynie chimes in.

Mandy wraps her arms around herself, like she’s now chilled by more than the cool night air. I understand. I’m feeling kind of icy myself.

“A girl went missing,” Mandy says. “A girl Mrs. Lowry was fostering about seven years ago.”

“So back when she first started fostering, then,” I remark.

“Yeah, back then.” Mandy nods. “I guess state records had this girl listed as having been placed elsewhere, following the days she spent at the Lowry house. Apparently, though, that was some kind of mix-up.”

I muse, “I guess they’re going through everything now with a fine-toothed comb.”