85 - Forgiven

Penelope’s features streaked with pain and then went eerily blank as she pushed back her chair to stand.  “Then I guess I should go.”

“No.”  Jon defied with authority, gesturing for her to sit while himself rising.  It was too early to make this decision, and if she left now, God only knew when the stubborn duo would again be in the same room.  They needed to ride this out to the end.  “Nobody’s going anywhere.  Just give me a minute to talk to your mom out back.  C’mon, Mou.”

“Jon-“

He halted the argument in a low voice meant for her ears only.  “You need a deep breath and some perspective.  Come outside with me.”

Delaney’s agreement was tainted by obstinance, and he couldn’t clearly declare the winner at a glance.   She could either order her daughter out or come along peacefully, and he didn’t know which it would be until she stalked to the door without speaking.

Fine.  He’d take it, but before following, Jon pointed a commanding finger at each of the young pair. “Do not leave.  She’s spent years thinking you hate her.  Stay and prove her wrong.”

A puckered mouth and stony jawline made it apparent that Delaney’s daughter was the one who was feeling hated, but Oliver – God bless mouthy Oliver – settled a heavy arm around her shoulders and pledged, “We’ll wait.”

“Thank you.” 

Pivoting on his heel, he trailed after Delaney and wondered what the hell to say to her.  He’d known she needed a break to avoid blurting out something she couldn’t take back, but Jon didn’t know how to make this all better.  All he could do was encourage her to yell at him while she thought it through. 

He found her leaning against the dandelion logoed delivery van with folded arms and a jawline as stony as the one on the young woman inside. 

“Give it to me,” he coaxed, slipping his arms inside her folded ones to draw her close.  “Let it all out.  Beat the hell out of me if you have to, so we can go back in there and put this to bed once and for all.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.  Maybe I just want to be freeping angry and childless.”

“No, you don’t,” he murmured into her hair.  “You want her respect and love, and you don’t feel like you’ve gotten either.  But you can’t hold her accountable for Violet, baby.  It just validates her reasons for staying gone all these years.”

“I’ve already said I don’t hold her accountable for Violet.  I made peace with that when I was throwing clothes on the closet floor this morning, but this other stuff is harder to swallow.  And it freeping hurts.  She had to do this her way.  Couldn’t even accept my forgiveness because she wanted to run the show, thinking she knows best.  Well, she doesn’t.  She’s just a dumb kid.”

Delaney’s muscles practically vibrated with the frustration.  It had her stiff and unyielding within the circle of his arms, but Jon didn’t loosen his hold.  If anything, he cinched her tighter.

“Then teach her, Mou.  Tell her the bad decisions hurt more than what she was hiding, but for God’s sake don’t push her away.  It’ll only slice a new wound that’ll fill with bitterness, and bitterness doesn’t belong in you.  She’s already hurt you like hell.  Give her a chance to make amends for it.  Isn’t that what Violet would want?”

Her rigid stance dissolved into something more natural, and she gently pushed against his embrace to turn up a face overtaken by big, damp eyes. 

“I love you.  Someday, I’ll have had enough chances to prove it that the words won’t matter so much, but right this minute that’s all I’ve got.  I hope you believe it and understand how unbelievably grateful I am for you and this… thing we have.”

Her submission was proof enough, to be honest.  The fact that she didn’t dig in her heels and ignore every damn thing he said in favor of what her wounded pride wanted to do was plenty proof – but Jon was a man known for making the most of an opportunity. 

“You want a chance to prove it?  Like, right now?”

“Yes.”

He adored the fact that she didn’t even hesitate and smiled down at his feisty other half while gently brushing the hair away from her face.  “First, go in there and fight for your daughter.  Fight with her, too, if you have to, but don’t stop until you’ve got your girl back.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”  Tender lips grazed her forehead.  “And move into the new apartment with me.”

“Move in?  What?  Are you craz-?”

He dipped in to swallow the protests, taking it as a positive sign that she struggled only briefly against the kiss.  It wasn’t a long one, but it did the trick in quieting her.  When Jon withdrew, it was only silvery eyes that loudly questioned his sanity.

“No, I’m not crazy.  It’s not like I proposed.  I just like living with you and prefer to have a little more space than what you’ve got in Queens.”

“But-“

“Stop,” he instructed gently.  “We can debate it later.  Just know that it’s what I want and think about it after we get through this with Zoi.”

Her expression went from stupefied to dour in an instant.  “Zoi.  That’s something else that makes me mad.”

“One step at a time, baby,” was Jon’s soothing advice when placing both hands on her shoulders and twirling her toward to door.  “One step at a time.”

Delaney twisted the knob with a deep breath. 

He was right, as he seemed to be about most things.  The name thing was a minor detail that might work itself out with time.  She still had unanswered questions and would focus on those instead of the anger stemming from her hurt feelings, she vowed when striding into the room.

“If you’d never taken drugs, then where did you get them?” she fired off, gripping the back of her vacated seat and leaning on it instead of sitting. 

She felt Jon sigh as he stopped just behind her, but he didn’t try and tone her down.  He merely pushed hands into his pockets to watch the rest of the story unfold. 

“You don’t want to know.”

“Penelope Cressida, the time for secrets is over.  After what you’ve put me through, I deserve to know everything.  Now spit it out.”

“Mom, no.”  The words themselves were defiant but her daughter’s eyes were as much a plea as her quiet, “Don’t make me.”

Delaney considered relenting, but she’d already been left way, way out of the loop.  Her pride was wounded and she needed to know she wasn’t the only idiot still floundering in the dark with that remaining mystery. 

“Does your dad know?”

“No.  Just Oliver and my therapist.”

“And now me,” she insisted with dogged determination and a selfish bit of relief.  “Tell me.”

Gray eyes locked on gray, one begging for the truth while the other pled for leniency. 

“Please don’t.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

The first crocodile tear slid down Penelope’s cheek, and it almost broke Delaney’s heart.  Would have, if she hadn’t been so determined to get the answer. 

“Tell. Me.”

“Zoi,” Oliver quietly interjected as Delaney’s grasp on the chair threatened to splinter wood.  “She has a right to know.”

For a moment it looked as though she would defy him, too.  It was painfully obvious that she wanted to, but Oliver’s opinion carried more weight than Delaney’s.  Penelope knuckled away the tear and ran the same hand through her hair, pinning the waves away from her face before releasing them with a broken sigh. 

“Uncle Max.  I got it from Uncle Max.”

Delaney reeled as though the girl had slapped her, taking a step back and bumping into Jon.  Max?  Her brother Max who had grieved as fiercely as anyone? 

That was impossible.  There was no way she could buy into that story. 

“Max isn’t a drug dealer.”

“I didn’t say he was,” Penelope countered with resignation.  “You remember his story about the old man with the Crown Victoria?”

“Yes.”  It was one of Max’s favorite “cool” stories to tell, and the fact that it made the six o’clock news only added to the fun for him.  “He brought it into Max’s garage because it wasn’t running right, and it turned out…  Oh, holy Mouseketeers.”

“Is this the guy that had like a dozen kilos of coke in his gas tank?”  Jon inquired with stabilizing hands at her waist.  “Whose grandson turned out to be a drug runner?  I heard Max telling Dave about it on Saturday night.”

Coke.  Cocaine.  The car relinquished to the police was full of cocaine not heroin.  What did that story have to do with this story? 

She would’ve asked had her daughter not flawlessly pre-empted the question.    

“Yes, and Uncle Max once told me and Violet that he kept a souvenir from the glovebox.  He figured the heroin was for the grandson’s personal use, because there was so little of it, and that nobody would miss it.  So he kept it hidden inside one of his tool boxes as a memento.”

Dumbfounded, Delaney realized aloud, “That’s where you stopped on the way to the party.  Max’s house.”

“He and Aunt Renee weren’t home, but I had the code to the garage.” The tear that leaked out this time was smaller, but it came with friends, and Oliver curled a protective arm her.  “I didn’t keep it from you just to be selfish.  I was protecting Uncle Max.” 

“Max knows, and he didn’t tell me, either?”  This was supposed to be the end of a nightmare, not the beginning of a new one.  How could her brother keep this to himself?  How?

“He didn’t know it was me.  I never told him.”

Leaving him to assume it was Violet, and also leaving him with the burden of responsibility for Violet’s death.  No wonder he was the moodiest of them all when it came to the twins’ birthday.  He was consumed with guilt, too.

Oh, Violet.  When I asked you to send me answers, I had no idea. 

“So, it wasn’t just me you made suffer for years.  Your uncle had to deal with a guilt that he doesn’t deserve, either.”

“I…”  The sniffling young woman desperately wanted to deny it, but she averted tearful eyes with a quiet.  “Yes.”

“Oh, Penelope.”  Delaney bowed her head into one hand as adrenaline and anger fought for dominance, only to give way to exhaustion when she hit the figurative wall. 

She didn’t have the strength to do this.  She had every right to be raging mad and should be, but too much lost time robbed her of the desire to scream about the immature handling of it all.  She didn’t have it in her to hate the child who obviously was – or had been – just that.  A child. 

Not when she had to find the strength to console and apologize to her brother. 

Not when all she wanted to do was curl into a fetal position and cry.

“Why now, Zoi?”  This question came from the warm wall of man who tucked her into his side and to act as her strength.  “Just because I came to Chicago and asked?”

Accepting the napkin Oliver pushed at her from the table, Penelope wiped away the weeping mascara and blew her nose before snuffling, “No.  I’d already planned to come home after graduation.  I miss my family, especially now that…”

“Go ahead,” Oliver prompted when she hesitated.  “Your mom’s right.  No more secrets.”

A sheen of tears blurred the make-up smudged eyes that sought Delaney’s. 

“Oliver and I…  We’re having a baby.  Your granddaughter’s name is Evangeline.”

Evangeline.  Violet’s middle name. 

Nothing would ever replace her lost child, but knowing that her name – and maybe some of her personality – would again grace the world brought a crushing wave of emotion.  A strangled sob pushed out hot tears, in a display so pitiful that Jon immediately tried to pull her closer.

She loved his unwavering support, but just this once, he wasn’t the part of her soul that Delaney needed to hold close.

“Penlope.  Baby.”

It only took the slightest tug to encourage the girl to her feet, and they came together in a fierce hug.  Slight shoulders heaved with the release of a burden that Penelope should’ve never carried alone. 

“I’m… sorry Mama.  I love you so much.  Missed you… so much.  Please… forgive me.”

Those were the words.  Those were the words that put the biggest missing chunk back into Delaney’s broken heart.  It was a jagged piece that hurt like the devil going back in, but it was there.  

“Oh, baby,” she choked softly into her daughter’s ear, through a throat clogged with too many feelings.  “I love you too much not to forgive you.  We’ll work it all out.”

Mother and daughter clung to one another, weeping tears of pain, healing, grief, guilt, happiness, relief and promise until they were both drained of everything they’d been holding onto.  Only then did they reluctantly separate to reach for more take-out napkins.

Dabbing at her eyes, Delaney asked, “Can I call you Poppy now?”

Swollen eyes flashed with regret as Penelope scrubbed away the mascara dripping from them.  “Heroin comes from poppies, Mom.”

Oh. 

And Zoi meant life.

“I can get used to Zoi,” she decided. 

Her daughter was alive.  She may not be perfect.  She was, in fact, one-hundred percent wrong in her handling of this whole situation, but she was alive and carrying a baby that linked the future to the past. 

The road ahead of them might not be a smooth one, but it was lined with violets that would remind them the journey was worth a few potholes along the way. 

To paraphrase a famous songwriter, they had each other and that was a lot.  For love, they’d give it a shot.