This Could Be Us (Skyland, #2)(130)
“And he sneezed?”
“He didn’t check in with his probation officer, and he hasn’t been seen or heard from in over a week. I had some surveillance on Amber. She and the baby are gone too. Probably with whatever money we never found to some place that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US.”
For a moment rage, the kind that only Edward has ever inspired, falls over my eyes like a red haze, and I want to feel the weight of my machete, find something he holds dear to destroy. My breath labors and my face is awash with heat because this is one more mess he’s left for me to explain and navigate for the girls. One more trauma he’s thoughtlessly inflicted and then run off after to pursue his own interests and pleasure. But then another emotion intrudes, overtakes.
Relief.
I’m rid of him. Like venom sucked from a bite and spat out. If he truly won’t come back for fear of arrest, then maybe I’ll never have to see his lying face again. Tears spring to my eyes. That son of a bitch has made me cry so many times, but these are cleansing tears, cathartic tears. I bury my face in the soft cotton of Judah’s robe and let them flow, curling into him, holding on to him while he rubs my back and kisses my hair.
“I’m sorry,” he says, once I’m spent and lying against his chest with tear-wet cheeks. “I know this is a lot to process.”
I pull back to look at him, searching his face. “You know I’m happy he’s gone, right?”
He lets his head fall back to the soft cushion of the lounge chair. “I hoped you would be, but I know this is complicated, especially for the girls.”
“Did you tell CalPot about the new accounts you found?”
He hesitates, scraping his teeth over his bottom lip before shaking his head. “No.”
“Did you… confront Edward?” I ask, confused because it’s strange for Judah not to follow a trail to its resolution.
“No.”
“Why not? You could have—”
“I wanted him out of your life more than I wanted to catch him,” Judah says, his voice going curt, steely. “I wanted him out of your daughters’ lives. He’s not a good man and he never will be. The longer he’s around, the more he’ll fail them and make things harder for you.”
Fresh tears sting my eyes because I’m so grateful, not just for this one act he has done but for him. Nothing in my mother’s diaries, nothing I read in bell hooks’s musings, could have prepared me for this man. For this astonishment of care and joy and grace.
Our lives are complicated. I have a few more years before I’m an empty nester, and in some ways, Judah may never be. Aaron may live in alternate housing, or maybe in an apartment over Judah’s garage, depending on how much independence he wants and can handle. Adam may go off to college but is more likely to attend one really close to home. They may marry. May find life partners. Who knows how the boys’ paths, their lives will change throughout the years.
Maybe one day I’ll want to marry again. Or Judah and I may live together once the girls strike out on their own. I don’t know the shape our relationship will take through every stage as the years go by, but I do know we’ll be together. That commitment is so solid I feel it every time Judah holds my hand, a promise pressed between our palms like an oath our souls make. A vow our hearts confess.
“I love you, Judah Cross,” I tell him, cupping his jaw and kissing that stern mouth until it gentles as it always does for me.
“I love you, Soledad Charles.” He squeezes me, his eyes brimming with respect and adoration. “I’m so damn proud of you, sweetheart.”
I know a goofy grin blooms on my face. This is what Hendrix calls my “resting joy face,” and she says it’s how I look when I talk about Judah. I can’t help it. As hard as I try, I’m not the cool mom. I’m not the cool anything. I’m the girl who has always loved too hard and offered too much, sometimes to those who didn’t deserve it. I always felt so distant from this feeling that burns between Judah and me. Like I watched it from afar in others. It was evident between Yasmen and Josiah even when they were divorced. Mami and Dad had their own version of it. It always crackled beneath the surface of Mami and Bray’s every interaction until they could no longer ignore it and had to run back for this feeling. The sense that after being on your own—sometimes lonely and sometimes contentedly alone—you look down to find a dangling thread in your hands. One end of infinity, and across years and circumstances, he stands there holding the other. The ends of forever reunited and tied together.
It has been a long road to finding this feeling because I had to find myself first. Had to know and honor myself first. I now realize you can risk loving completely when you completely love yourself. Even if your heart is broken, it doesn’t mean you will break. I’ve never been more sure of Judah and of me. This moment, this lifetime with him, no matter what shape it takes, is all I could have hoped for. It’s what I prayed for but wasn’t sure could be. I wasn’t sure we could be. I suffered a betrayal so devastating it could have hardened me, could have taught me to withhold my heart. Instead, I have learned to save my heart for one worthy of it.
We exchange kisses and breaths and heartbeats, completely content in each other’s arms and under a sun that belongs to only us.
Your skin is summer night and your kiss is all I want.