“I don’t know how much you know from your, um, research.” She exhales. “So you can tell me to skip stuff.”
“I don’t really want to talk about the background check I ran on you,” I admit, knowing I need to give her something in exchange for what she’s about to give me. “I know you have a different mom from King and Aspen. And that you grew up in a different house. But I want to know how it’s possible that you’ve never had a birthday party.”
The blankets shift, and one of her hands starts to settle on top of mine on her stomach, but I lift my hand a little, and she slips hers underneath, trapping it between my palm and her body.
I close my fingers around hers.
She’s quiet for a long moment. And I give her the time.
“I really loved my dad.” She takes another deep breath. “He would bring me presents on my birthday. They were always great kid gifts. Toys, stuffed animals… And there were a few times when he’d bring cupcakes, too. But there was never a party. My mom… sucked. She only ever pretended to be kind when my dad was around. When he wasn’t…” I can feel her shrug. “She was mean.”
Her mom was mean to her?
Rage starts to creep in on the edge of my vision. My mom is my rock. She’s always been there for me. For everything. To imagine growing up in a world where she was cruel to me… I can’t.
“Did she hurt you?” I ask as calmly as I’m able.
Valentine shrugs again. “Nothing bad.”
I squeeze her fingers. That’s a terrible answer.
“She liked to pinch,” Val tells me. “But she wielded her words with much more precision.”
“Angel…” I don’t even know what to say.
“When I was like eight, I found a book about pregnancy and birth. It was really simple. A children’s book with illustrations. But it talked about how a baby needs nine months in their mother’s stomach before they can come out. I’d always been told that I was a Valentine’s Day baby, which is what I was named after, so I pulled the calendar off my wall and counted back from my birthday. And when it didn’t match up, I made the mistake of asking my mom about it.” She huffs out a derisive laugh. “She told me I was stupid and I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Val slides her other hand on top of mine, sandwiching my hand between hers.
“I was a stupid kid, though. Because I always believed her. I believed her when she told me I came out late, rather than her conceiving later in February, because she wasn’t with my dad on Valentine’s Day. Because he was probably with his actual wife. And I believed her when she told me my dad was too busy and too important to live at home with us. I didn’t know seeing your dad only six times a year wasn’t normal.”
“You weren’t stupid.”
She clutches her fingers around mine. “The first funeral I ever attended was my father’s. I was nine. And I couldn’t figure out why we had to sit in the back.” She swallows. “Dom, I was so confused.”
I move even closer.
“There were so many people there. It was like…” She sniffs. “It was like your cousin’s funeral. Really nice like that. Lots of people. But my mom… I cried so much when she told me he’d died, but she only ever seemed angry about it. I didn’t see her cry once over him, and the more I cried, the angrier she got. I remember her pinching me during the service. Mad that I was being so emotional.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, wanting to wrap child Valentine in my arms and protect her.
“That was before the priest mentioned my dad was survived by his wife and kids, which he referred to by name.”
“Fuck.” It comes out louder this time.
“Pretty much.” She sighs. “It broke my little heart. Because he was the only person that ever told me he loved me. And… it was a lie.”
“He might’ve been a cheating asshole, but there’s no way he couldn’t love you,” I say, meaning it, before I realize how true the words really are.
Who wouldn’t love this woman?
Her stomach trembles with a choppy breath. “When the service was over, and the family walked out first, King’s mom glared at me like I was the worst thing she’d ever seen. I can’t even really blame her now, but at the time… It was bad. Made me feel really bad. And Aspen had the same look on her face.”
“It wasn’t your fucking fault,” I grit out.