Aced

Just like I feel.

I came in here with the intent to do so many things and now for the life of me, I can’t remember what they were. I swear that pregnancy brain has turned into postpartum brain with how groggy and forgetful I feel when I’m wide awake.

Check on Zander. Take a shower. Reassure Shane I’m all right after the other night. Pump breast milk. Ask Colton if the police have gotten any closer to finding Eddie. Eat. Must remember to eat something. Email Teddy about status of Zander’s caseworker. Respond to the texts on my phone.

It all makes my head hurt. Every single item. And as important as each item is, I don’t want to do any of them. All I want to do is pull the blankets over my head and sleep. The only place I can escape my thoughts and feelings that don’t feel like mine.

I go to close Outlook on the computer when an email closer to the bottom of the screen catches my eye that I didn’t notice before. It’s from CJ and has the subject: LADCFS process started.

What the hell? What process was started with the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services? Colton’s comments flicker back into my mind from a few weeks ago but I refuse to listen to them. Refuse to believe he did what I think he did.

I open the email and read:

Colton,

As per your instruction, I have started the initial legwork to qualify you and Rylee as suitable candidates to adopt Zander Sullivan. I’d like to reiterate that this can be a tedious and often cumbersome process and might not end in your favor. Attached you will find the completed forms submitted on Rylee’s and your behalf to get the ball rolling.

I reread the email, emotions on a merry-go-round in my mind: shock, disbelief, pride, and anger on a constant circle.

How could he do this without telling me? How could he force my hand and make me choose one boy over the others?

For some reason I can’t grasp onto the positive side of it. I can see it, realize it, but I can’t hold on to the thought long enough that one of my boys means enough to Colton to want to do this. All I can see is that he acted without me.

This is not even an option.

Can’t be.

It may help save one but it would alienate the others.

I lose my grip on the edges of the rabbit hole I felt I was slowly clawing my way out of and slide back down into its darkness. It’s sudden and all-consuming. The feelings are so intense, so inescapable, that the next time I come up for air, the shadows in the room have shifted. Time has passed.

I’m freaked. Ace is screaming. Blood curdling screams that call to my maternal instincts and aching breasts overfull with milk. And yet all I want to do is escape to the beach down below where the wind will whip in my ears and take the sound away. Give me an excuse not to hear him.

“Goddammit, Ry! Where the fuck are you?” Colton’s voice bellows through the house, disapproval and anger tingeing the echo when it hits me.

Is that what snapped me out of my trance? Colton calling me?

Déjà vu hits. Same place, same situation as yesterday, and yet this time the tone in Colton’s voice speaks way louder than the words he says. And before I even set foot into the family room, I’m primed and ready for a fight.

I walk into the room just as Colton’s lifting an absolutely livid Ace out of his swing and pulling him to his chest to try and soothe him. He lifts his eyes when he hears my footsteps and the look he gives me paralyzes me.

“That’s twice I’ve walked in the front door in two days to find Ace screaming and you nowhere to be found. What the fuck is going on, Rylee?” His voice is quiet steel and ice when he speaks, spite and confusion front and center.

I stare at him dumbfounded. I know I deserve the reprimand, that he has every right to ask the question, and yet I don’t have the words to explain to him the why behind it.

“Answer me,” he demands, causing Ace’s cries to start again, his pacifier falling from his mouth.

“I . . . I . . . I can’t . . .” I fumble for the words to express what’s going on when I don’t even know myself. So I change gears. Use my emotions to throw the whole kitchen sink into the argument I can see brewing and do so knowing this is going to be nasty. He’s on edge from the emotional overload of seeing his dad yesterday and I’m overwhelmed with the constant free fall of my emotions. “How dare you submit adoption paperwork on our behalf for Zander and keep it from me! I told you I couldn’t pick one boy and not the others!” I yell at the top of my lungs, combining two completely unrelated topics—and it feels so damn good. So damn cleansing when I’ve been holding so much in for so long. And yes, I’m fighting a battle to distract him from the truth, but I can’t stop myself once I start. “You went behind my back, Colton. How dare you? How dare you think for one goddamn second you know what I want or what Zander needs?”

Colton stands there, slightly stunned, eyes wide and jaw clenched—our baby on his shoulder—and just stares at me with absolute insolence. “I don’t know what Zander needs?” he asks, voice escalating with each word. “You want to fight, sweetheart, you better come at me with something stronger than that because you and I both know the truth on that one.” Hurt flashes in his eyes and as much as I hate myself for it, it does nothing to stop the tsunami of anger taking over me.

“You. Hid. It. From. Me,” I grit out in a barely audible voice.

“I did?” he says incredulously, taking a few steps in my direction as Ace continues to cry, feeding off the room’s atmosphere. “I told you I was going to look into it. The email is sitting on the fucking computer clear as goddamn day. If I was hiding it from you, don’t you think I would have deleted it? Or better yet, tell CJ to send it to my work email so you wouldn’t see it? I was just getting our names in the system, trying to show interest in Z to maybe fuck with the social worker and have him stop the process. Get a grip, Ry—”