A Broken Us (London Lover Series Book 1) (22 page)

As I follow my mom and dad through the hospital
to the postpartum wing, my mind is numb. They explained to me in the car that
the placenta had detached inside of her and they couldn’t get the baby out in
time to save him. She was nearly thirty-seven-weeks along and had no signs of
bleeding or complications. The doctor informed her and George that in rare
cases, there can be something called silent placental abruption where there are
no symptoms and things like this just happen sometimes. They had to do an
emergency
c-section
.
 

The torture of the situation is that at
thirty-seven weeks, she was considered full term. Definitely far enough along
for him to have survived if they would have delivered early. But I guess
everything happened so quickly, they didn’t realize anything was wrong until it
was too late and baby George had already passed away inside of her. That part
was impossible to think about.

My mom and dad stop outside of a patient’s
room. Pinned prominently on the door is a golden, laminated circle. My heart
compresses as I glance at other patient’s doors with nothing on them. Did that
indicate a halo? Like an angel halo?

The door opens before we get a chance to knock
and George comes out. He looks so defeated. I want to reach out and hug him
instantly, but my emotions are definitely not in check and I’m afraid if I hug
him, I’ll start sobbing on him. He doesn’t need to be comforting me right now.
His eyes look up from the floor and he glances at my parents and then to me.

“You made it,” he sighs, looking slightly
relieved.

“I did,” I squeak, my chin trembling.

“She’s getting in the shower right now but she
told me that she wants you to come in right away, no matter what,” he says,
feebly.

“George,” I look at him pleadingly, taking in
his appearance. He looks crushed but still the same, big, cuddly George I
remember.

“Come here,” he replies, opening his arms to
me.

I rush into his arms and my head hits his soft
chest as he hugs me tightly, sniffing occasionally. George is like a brother to
me. He has the familiar smell of their house on his shirt and I relish in the
comfort of his embrace and that particular scent.

For years I had been stopping by their house to
play with the girls. Cadence was ten years older than me and started having
babies when I was still in school. Their oldest is 14 now, so there were many
years when it was just me and their family hanging out. George never seemed to
mind me tagging along and we’ve grown very close over the years. We would gang
up on Cadence whenever she would go into a tailspin about Lord knows what.
George and I made it our personal mission to break her down when she got going
on one of her famous fits. She hated it; we loved it. It was our thing. But
while we were very close and comfortable with each other, we never had to go
through any situation like this.

“She’s been worrying about your flight, so you
better get in there and let her know you’re here,” he murmurs into the top of
my head.

“Okay,” I look up at him and back at mom and
dad for encouragement.

They look at me with sad expectant eyes and I
will myself to be strong as I place my hand on the doorknob.

“She won’t let me touch her, Fin,” he
announces, before I open the door.

I look back at him, squeezing my brows together
in silent question.

“Since the surgery,” he starts, “she won’t let
me touch her.”

He looks at me with desperation in his eyes and
I nod in response, placing a reassuring hand on his chest. He grabs my hand and
holds it tightly against his fluttering heart, “I need her back, Finley,” he
whispers, with a pain in his eyes that makes my knees buckle, “
I need to hold her
.”

I nod again, and with a large sigh, I enter the
room. It’s dark, except for one small lamp above the bed that casts a warm glow
onto the head of the bed. The bed is a standard hospital bed and there’s a
pullout couch along the far wall with rumpled blankets and pillows strewn
everywhere.

I hear the lull of the shower in the bathroom
and make my way toward the door. I knock loudly, “Cade? It’s me.”

“Finley?” she croaks.

“Yeah, can I come in?”

“Yes!” I hear her gushing air out in between
quiet sobs, trying to compose herself.

She pokes her head out from the shower curtain.
Her dirty-blonde hair is stuck down to the sides of her face and her eyes are
red and blotchy.

“Were you crying in there?” I ask, with a
trembling chin.

“Yes!” she sobs hard, her meager resolve
shedding before my eyes. “The shower is the worst, Finley! I was doing okay
until I stood under this water. I can’t stop thinking about him!” she wails,
loudly, as her shoulders hunch over, violently shaking with her cries.

She looks so broken that without thought, I
push the curtain back and hug her hard. Her naked, wet body soaks me along with
the spray of the water. I don’t care that my sister’s naked right now. I don’t
care that I’m fully dressed. She is shattering apart in front of me and I need
to hold her as much as she needs me to hold her.

“Finley!” she cries, putting her hands up in
refusal at my entry into her shower.

I press her arms down to her sides and clamp my
arms around the tops of hers in a tight embrace.

I feel her chest heaving against my forced
clinch. After a moment, when her breathing slows, she cries out loudly, “I
can’t stop seeing his perfect face in my head! He is so beautiful, Finley!”

I release one of my hands from the tight grip I
had forced behind her back and rub it down the back of her wet head, blinking
against the spraying shower stream bolting onto my face. I don’t want to move
her, so I just breathe through the stream as best I can.

“He has brown hair Fin, like yours, and
George’s!” she continues, shuddering in my embrace, “I don’t understand, Fin. I
don’t understand! I just want to close my eyes and go to sleep and have him
still be alive and wiggling inside of me again. I’m so close to when things
were okay. It was just a few days ago, Fin. A few days ago, things were fine!
It’s right there! I can almost touch it!” she cries into my shoulder.

She slinks out of my embrace and slowly lowers
herself to the ground, hugging her legs and rocking back and forth. “My body,
Finley. My body! It’s like it’s still pregnant. I swear I can still feel him
moving in me,” she looks up at me, disbelievingly.

I turn and slide down the wall beside her,
wiping the water out of my eyes and pushing my wet hair from my face.

“I have this big belly still, and these painful
breasts with milk coming in, and this painful incision, Fin. But I have nothing
to show for it. Nothing!” She shrieks, crying into her kneecaps and tipping
herself back, sitting on the shower floor, leaning on the concrete wall next to
me. “My body is mangled to nothing and I don’t even have a baby to kiss it all
better.”

 
Finally, I feel compelled to respond,
“You do have something to show for it, Cadence. You had a baby, a beautiful
baby boy. He didn’t live,” my voice cracks. “But you birthed him. He is yours.
Forever and always, he is yours.”

“Finley!” she looks at me, still sobbing. “I
didn’t know I could ever hurt this much.”
 

“Me neither, Cadence. Me neither,” I reply,
shaking my head and staring forward at the water circling the drain. “I wish I
could just fix this, Cade. I wish I could turn back time for you and make this
not happen. I wish I could have been there when you needed me. I wish there was
something, anything, I could do now,” I say, squinting up into the shower spray
coming down near us, willing myself to shut up because I know I’m rambling.

She looks at me with wide, puppy-dog eyes,
“You’re here. That’s enough, Fin. You’re what I needed,” she says, and then
nods encouragingly at me.

My heart breaks, looking at her tearstained
face, her wet hair and her tiny frame grasping onto her legs like her life
depends on it. She looks so young and destroyed. So different from the sister I
grew up with. Cadence is so much older than me and has been helping me through
all my melodramatic crap for the majority of my life. It’s rare that I’m ever a
shoulder for her to cry on. She always had her life together. George and Cade
were high school sweethearts and married young. She had her oldest daughter,
Megan, at only 21 years old. It was that easy for Cadence. She wanted to be a
mother and she became one. It seemed like that’s how the majority of Cadence’s
life played out. I was always the screwed up little sister who didn’t do things
the normal and traditional way.

She was a huge buffer between me, Mom, and Dad
when they were upset with Brody and me for not wanting to get married. She was
the fixer in our family and was always able to help Mom and Dad understand me.
They knew Cadence and I were close, so if Cadence told them I was okay, they
took her word for it and tried not to meddle as much.

The girl chewing on her knuckle right now as
water rolls off her skin, is not the sister I grew up with. Cadence has just
endured one of the most tragic things a person can imagine, and here she is,
telling me that
I
was all she needed
right now. Despite her meager appearance, she is still managing to make me feel
stronger than I ever believed I could be.

“I love you, Cadence. I madly and truly love
you.” I wrap my long arms around her bawled up form, and continue crying with
her for a while until George’s voice breaks our bubble.

“
Uhhh
, hello?” George
says, tentatively, from the cracked door.

“George?” Cadence replies.

“What happened to Finley?” he questions, coming
into the bathroom.

“She’s in the shower with me.”

“Oh, God! Crap! I’m sorry, I’ll leave!” he
says, rushing quickly out the door.

“She’s not naked, George. It’s fine!” Cadence
calls back to him. “But she might need some dry clothes.” She half smiles at
me, wiping my hair back from the side of my face the way only an older sister
could.

I help Cadence out of the shower and dry her
off. I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror and cringe at the horror of how we
both look. I’m fully clothed and completely soaked, with makeup running down my
face; Cadence looks pale and wobbly as I use a towel to dry her hair for her.

George knocks again, “I have Finley’s suitcase,
am I okay to come in?”

“Yes,” we reply, in unison.

George opens the door and takes in the sight of
his wife wrapped in a towel and me in my soaking wet clothes.

“Are you guys okay?” he asks, looking sadly
between the two of us.

Cadence looks at me with a small affectionate
smile and then walks over to George and lays her head on his chest, prompting
him to wrap his big arms around her. He closes his eyes and I swear I can see
the pain and grief in him float off his body and into the steamy shower air.

I smile at the beauty of them, with tears in my
eyes. George looks up to me with wide eyes and mouths a silent, “Thank you.”

I plan to stay at Cadence and George’s house
for the next couple weeks. Mom and Dad understand completely and are grateful
I’m there to help her and be with the girls.

The grief comes in waves for Cadence. One
minute she looks good and strong, staying busy and moving a lot to help speed
up the healing from her surgery. Then the next minute, she gets a far off look
in her eyes and tells us she needs some air. Every time she puts her shoes on
to go for a walk, I ask if I can come, and she always says no. It breaks my
heart because I just know she’s out there crying by herself, and yet, I can’t
force myself on her.

George is home with all of us, too. He’s
working a lot on his laptop, so I offer to take the girls to school and pick
them up every day. Whenever I look at him, though, he almost always has his
eyes on Cadence. From what I can tell, he’s doing a lot more Cadence-watching
than actual work.
  

My M&Ms each deal with the loss in their
own way. Maya is five and seems to understand it but isn’t overly emotional
about it. However, she keeps going up to Cadence’s tummy and rubbing it.
Watching Cadence’s reaction to that is like a cruel and unusual punishment, but
I can’t help but smile at the beauty of Maya’s innocence around the whole
situation.

McKinley is nine and seems to be pondering
where baby George ended up, which sparks lots of interesting explanations of
heaven, like who goes to heaven, and how you get there. I end up answering a
lot of those questions because McKinley has attached herself to my hip the
whole time during my stay. I can tell that of all the girls, she’s missed me
the most and is making up for lost time.

Megan took Baby George’s passing the hardest.
At fourteen years old, she’s emotional, so having hormones raging in her body
with puberty striking, is of no help. I think she feels some guilt, too,
because prior to losing Baby George, she complained about her sisters a lot.
Since Baby George has passed, I notice her actively seeking out her sisters to
play with them. She even tolerates more of the kid toys and games the younger
ones enjoy. A big change from her typical iPod and iPhone solitary confinement
she always lived in before. I’m thankful because I know Cadence is noticing.
When I see her watching them, I see that old, memorable light in her eyes I
thought was gone forever.

There’s extra work around the house, too,
because we’re all helping prepare for the memorial service that Cadence and
George are having for Baby George. They opted to have him cremated, which I
know couldn’t have been an easy decision. Cadence opened up to me about it one
night and said she just couldn’t imagine his tiny, perfect body buried in the
ground, an arm’s reach away from holding him.

We’ve been home for three days now and I’m
helping Cadence look online for special music to play at the ceremony in a
couple days. We all hear a knock on their front door. Cadence and George live
on a small acreage, so they don’t get many knocking visitors. Most people that
come here know them well enough to just walk in.

A moment later, George walks back into the
living room followed by Brody. My heart drops at the sight of him. I’d be lying
if I didn’t think about driving into the city to see him half a dozen times or
more. But I always stopped myself because now wasn’t the time for my
relationship bullshit. Cadence, the M&Ms, and George need me here and that
is a rarity. They’ve been helping me for years, so it is all I can do to return
the favor.

Seeing Brody standing there in his faded blue
jeans and loose flannel shirt sends familiar flutters in my lower belly. He
looks as good as always. My heart silently breaks at the idea that he isn’t as
affected by our break up as I am.

“Hey, Cade,” Brody says, striding into the
living room to Cadence who’s sitting on the couch next to me.

Cadence stands up slowly, cautious of her
c-section
incision and gives him a long hug. I can smell
the familiar scent of Brody.
Clean,
fresh, perfect.

“I wish I knew what to say,” he says, pulling
away and sweeping his hand through his now shorter curly brown hair.

“Yeah,” Cadence replies, with a sad look. “Nice
of you to stop by,” she says, looking a bit emotional again.

“I, uh…I brought gifts for the girls, but they
don’t have to open them now if they’re in bed,” he says, awkwardly, holding
three pink gift bags in his hand. “I meant to get here earlier, before they
went to sleep.”

“Of course they can open them now, I’m sure
they aren’t asleep yet. They’d love to see you,” she says, looking to George.

George leaves the living room to go bring the
girls downstairs. We had just put them to bed a few minutes before Brody’s
arrival. Nighttime procedure was a mess every night. The girls were always
getting into trouble for playing in each other’s rooms and not sleeping.

“Hey, Brody,” I say, pulling at the strings of
my hoodie, awkwardly.

“Hi, Finley,” he replies, barely looking at me.
Damn him.

The girls come sprinting into the room and
light up at the sight of him.

“Brody!” the two younger girls bound into him
with huge hugs and smiles.

Megan stays back by the wall, tucking her long
blonde hair behind her ear.

“Hey, Megan,” Brody says, looking at her while
ruffling the hair of the two younger girls.

“Hey,” she replies, looking a bit shy. Gosh,
she’s so beautiful. When she figures that out, she’ll never be shy again.

“I have presents!” he says, tweaking his
eyebrows up and down at Megan. Megan stifles a small smile.

McKinley and Maya grab a bag each and Brody
hands one off to Megan, who finally comes further into the room and sits down
on the floor. They all dig into their gift bags and pull out individual bags of
M&Ms and start giggling.

“Can we eat some, Mom?” Maya asks, looking over
to Cadence.

“You can have one small handful each, and
that’s it. Small!” she adds, while they rip open their bags.

Brody always brings M&Ms to the girls, ever
since he discovered my nickname for them. My heart aches at the familiarly of
his gesture.

“There’s more in there,” Brody says, sitting
down on the floor next to Megan.

They all reach into their bags and pull out
several cellophane-wrapped packages of baseball cards. I stifle a laugh as they
all look at him with confused expressions.

“My brother gave me my first set of baseball
cards and now I have hundreds and hundreds of them,” he says, raising his
eyebrows dramatically to Maya.

“What does that have to do with us?” McKinley
asks. God I love her, she is just so brutally honest with her questions. I wish
it came that easily for adults.

“I think,” Brody begins, looking up at Cadence,
cautiously, “Your baby brother, George, would have liked it if he had big
sisters cool enough to have their very own baseball cards. So these are
something you guys can keep to help you always remember you have a brother,
even if he’s not here with you every day.”

The room falls quiet. I’m surprised to feel
tears running down my cheeks. Cadence’s soft sob breaks the silence.

Brody looks up with a worried expression and
Cadence nearly falls on top of him, hugging his shoulders, tightly.

“Damn it, Brody,” she cries into his shoulder.

He looks up to George, clearly concerned.
George smirks and nods his head.

Cadence sniffs loudly and stands upright again.
“That is so, just so…perfect.”

The girls murmur quick thank
yous
and open their baseball card packs and begin bickering
over whose are better. Brody stands up and George shakes his hand and pulls him
into a half hug, slapping his back the way guys do when they don’t want to
appear too emotional.

Megan stands up with her head lowered and
crashes into Brody, squeezing him around his waist, tightly burying her face
into his stomach. George half smiles watching her, and she releases Brody and
rushes over to hug her dad.

I sniff once and wipe my face, standing
awkwardly.

“Can you stay for a drink, Brody?” Cadence
asks.

He looks over at me for a brief second, and
replies, “Uh, sure. I can have one, probably.”

Cadence heads into the kitchen and starts
opening a bottle of wine.

“That was…” I shake my head, unable to finish
the sentence.

He shrugs back at me and looks down at Maya and
McKinley playing on the floor. George tells them it’s time for bed again and
that they can take their cards with them. That seems to appease them and they
head off after saying thanks again and giving Brody another hug.
 

“How are you?” I ask, with a small frog in my
throat from all the tears I’d just shed.

“I’m okay,” he replies, looking at Cadence in
the kitchen. “Need help opening that?”

And just like that, he’s gone. My heart aches
at the coldness in his demeanor. I don’t know how to break through this huge
shield Brody has built up with me, but I know I need to try.

George joins Cadence and Brody in the kitchen
as they pour red wine into four glasses.

“Come here, Fin,” Cadence says, obviously
trying to convey a message to me.

I go into the kitchen and we all settle
ourselves on the barstools that wrap around the kitchen area. Brody, George,
and Cadence speak about the memorial service coming up, and everything they
need to do to prepare for it.

“Actually, Brody, I was wondering if you’d be
willing to help Finley with the girls tomorrow. She’s bringing them into the
city to buy them all new dresses for the service and she promised to take them
to see
Frozen
…again,” she laughs,
nervously. “I’m worried she’s going to be in over her head with all three of
them alone all day tomorrow. George’s and my parents are coming with us to the
funeral home, so they can’t go with her.”

Smooth,
Cadence. Real smooth.

Brody smiles kindly at her and clears his
throat, “I,
uhhh
.”

“You’re the only one in the city I can think to
ask that the girls actually like!” she smiles, brightly.

While I’m horribly uncomfortable with my
sister’s shameless matchmaking skills, I’m happy to see her speaking animatedly
about anything again. She looks like the old Cadence.

Brody purses his lips into a smile, “I could
probably handle that.”

“Great!” Cadence exclaims.

“You’ll probably like
Frozen
,
Brod
,” George chimes in.
“Seriously, I love it. The girls make me listen to the soundtrack in the car
all the time. It’s good. I’m not ashamed.”

Brody smiles and stands up from his seat. “No
problem, I probably should be going though.”

“Can I walk you out?” I ask, nervously.

He nods without expression, hugs Cadence goodbye,
and shakes George’s hand.

We walk down the hall to the front door and
Brody holds the door open for me to pass through. I tuck my hands into the
front pouch of my hoodie and shiver at the cool, nearly-winter air.

He comes to a stop beside me and I take in his
face, illuminated only by the soft yellow porch light.

“You look good,” I say, unsure where to start.

He sighs, heavily, “Finley, let’s just…”

“Don’t, Brody. Don’t just act like we can be
friends and pretend nothing happened.”

“I’m not trying to, Finley. I’m just trying
to,” he pauses, looking down and scuffing his boots on the porch, “Survive, I
guess.”

“Me too,
Brody
.
This isn’t easy for me, you know. You ripped my heart out when you left that
night,” I say, stepping closer to him to force him to look me in the eyes.

Instead, he takes a step back and turns away,
laughing slightly.

“Oh, believe me, I know. Leslie called me the
next day and gave me all the details. She raged my ear off for a good ten
minutes. Then Frank got on the phone and I had to hear it all over again. He
has a real colorful way of talking, let me tell you,” he finishes, turning to
look at me again.

I shake my head, not sure how to respond to
that. I love my friends, but I’m not sure I needed Brody to know what a mess I
was the day after he left.

“And what pisses me off,” he says, turning to
face me again, “Is that you weren’t the only one whose heart was ripped out
that night, Fin.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain!”
I start.

“Explain what? Explain that I’ve done nothing
but love,” he breathes heavily, composing himself, “Love you like
crazy
for the past five years, and yet
you thought so little of me, that the minute things got rough...”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, Brody!” I
exclaim, grabbing his face, forcing him to look me in the eyes.

He shoots daggers down on me. “You could have
given me a chance first, Finley. I deserved a chance to prove you wrong.”