I need to see her.
Finally, I reach her bedroom and knock. “Frankie? You in there?”
There is no response but I can hear shuffling from the inside. Against my better judgement, I open the door and what I see makes my stomach roll.
Bags.
She’s packing bags.
Not just a bag.
Bags. Plural.
She’s leaving.
My voice sounds that of a scared little girl. “What are you doing?”
Her lips quiver; her cheeks are tear-stained. She doesn’t even look up at me. She doesn’t even answer me.
I take a small step into her room, mouth gaping. “What are you doing?” I repeat, louder this time.
But she ignores me. And it hurts. It also makes me angry. “You’re taking off? Just like that? Like a goddamn coward?”
This gets a reaction. She turns her bright eyes up at me and hisses, “You don’t know shit, Cat. Fuck off.”
I shake my head, jaw steeled. “You’re pregnant and you’re running. You’re a coward.”
She looks as though she wants to say something but she bites her tongue.
I push further. “Go ahead. Leave. We don’t need you.” I force myself to say something I don’t mean. I need her to react. “I don’t need you.”
Rather than make her angry, she chokes on a sob. “You’re a bitch.”
My lips quiver. “Get angry. Fight me. Don’t run away with your tail between your legs.” She continues to throw things into her duffle bags. My voice shakes, “Don’t leave.”
I watch on as the first of my tears fall. In a desperate attempt at forcing emotion, I rush forward, take the fuller bag and dump its contents all over the floor. Clothes and framed photographs lay strewn on the ground.
Silent, painfully so, Frankie’s body shakes in silent sobs as she kneels to pick up her belongings.
My legs give out. I fall to my knees and croak, “Talk to me, dammit.”
Slowing her packing, Frankie mutters in eerie softness. “I have to go.”
My chest aches. “No you don’t. We’ll protect you. I’ll protect you. The church is a safe place.”
She scoffs, “A nun with a kid. Really, Cat?”
Okay. So it doesn’t look good.
“We can say he was an orphan. Like me. We can raise him like you guys raised me.”
Frankie’s eyes flash. Before she can think, she blurts out, “I don’t want him raised like you! He’s going to be normal!”
We both kneel on the floor in silence, unmoving.
She opens her mouth again and again, but gapes like a fish out of water. She finally utters weakly, “You know what I mean.”
I do, but it doesn’t make the statement any less hurtful.
She packs the last of her things off the floor and stands. “I know this is hard but I have to leave. I can’t stay here. It’s not possible.”
I want to argue but hurt and sadness have left me mute.
Her mind is made up.
I stand and ask softly, “Will you at least come visit?”
Frankie smiles a watery smile. “Yeah.” She hugs me. “Of course.”
I smile back and don’t respond to her blatant lie. Sniffling, I help her load her bags into one of the Kompressors and hug her for a few long minutes, quietly crying all the while. We clutch at each other, trembling through our mourning.
This is the hardest goodbye of my life. My best friend is leaving me. I love Ari. I love Bob and Clark. But they aren’t Frankie.
She drives away without looking back. Not ready to deal with human interaction right now, I sit on the bench under the large oak tree.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply, taking in a few calming breaths.
“I know you’re upset, but I’d like to talk to you if you can tolerate me a minute.”
Bob.
I don’t open my eyes but let my shoulders sag in defeat.
The bench creaks under our combined weight and he sighs, “I never wanted kids, Cat.” My shoulders stiffen. He adds, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
I hate myself for feeling the warm fuzzies from his open admission.
“You were a surprise to me. A surprise to us all. I’ll admit that I only agreed to keep you until someone suitable came forward to adopt you. But you stayed with us. And that was all me.” He turns to me with a cautious smile. “Did you know that I fought to keep you?”
My brows bunch. I did not know that. I shake my head lightly.
He nods. “They wanted to take you away from us. I had to prove we were a good fit for you.” He chuckles, “And that was surprisingly hard to do. I had to get papers forged all over. I had to prove we had the money to provide for you. I had to prove we could school you, clothe you, feed you and a f**k of a lot more.” He places his hand over mine. “But you were worth it. All the headaches of the world and more. You were worth it.”
My fingers twitch under his and he grips my hand tight. “Want to know the exact moment I knew I loved you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Frankie was just a kid. A runaway. She was a baby herself, and from the moment you arrived, she never left your side. Ari was in charge of feeding you, changing you, basically being a mom to you, but one day both of the girls were out which left me to look after you for the first time. So I was thinking that babies were messy, noisy things and I was already dreading it.”
I cut in with, “The beginning of this story sucks.”
He shushes me. “So I took you into my office and watched you while I worked. Before I knew it, I’d done everything I needed to. And it only took me two hours to realise that I hadn’t heard a peep from you. I look over and you were staring up at me with those big doe eyes.” He grins. “And you were smiling a toothless smile. So then I had to feed you, and I didn’t know which end was which. I tried to open the jar of food and I ended up splattered with apple sauce.” He chuckles. “And you laughed at me.”
I lower my face to hide my smile. Bob never talks about me as a baby.
This is a gift. A rare treat.
He sighs, “After I fed you, I had to bathe you and, boy, were you a little mermaid or what. Splashing around, squealing, laughing and kicking your little legs out. Every time you laughed, I did too. I dried and dressed you in your pink fluffy sleep suit and warmed a bottle. You fell asleep in my arms, and as you did, you reached up and touched my cheek with your little fingers.” His voice turns soft. “As I was watching you sleep in my arms, I knew I would do anything to keep you. And from that day on, you spent most of your days with me in my office. Keeping me company.”