My heart hurt for the boy and Evie, and judging by the sad look on Naomi’s face, she felt the same way. See, neither of us had ever had to worry about someone else having custody of our babies. It was just us, and that was all we needed for them, too.
Seeing Cody after he’d run away from his dad’s house in the middle of the night and hearing the things his dad had said to him, I couldn’t help feeling beyond lucky I’d never have that problem with Nemi. But he’d been through it, and so had Evie, and the emotional impact of it must have been devastating.
Evie and I had one thing in common, though, and it was that neither of us had fought for even a small amount of child support from our kid’s dads. Some people might think this was wrong or that we were dumb for not doing it, but our children, our choice.
There was a lot of pride in being able to support your child by yourself, plus I was the only parent on Nemi’s birth certificate, and payments would lead a paper trail for the ‘mother’ to follow if she felt inclined to investigate. Joel had also given me money before she was born, so I’d had more than enough to buy things for her and put a down payment on a nice home for us after I’d relocated from New York to Piersville.
For Evie, though, it was different, and all boiled down to letting her ex make his own bed. At some point in his life, he’d have to admit he’d never paid a cent toward his kid after the marriage dissolved, and there had to be a modicum of karma stored for situations like that.
Still.
Leaning forward and feeling stunned by the revelation, I asked, “He didn’t argue it at all?” When Evie shook her head, I almost lost my shit, but then the full impact of what this meant for them hit me. “Oh, my God, you get peace now.”
“Yeah,” she replied softly, smiling over at where Cody was standing next to Alex and his son, the sheriff, Dave. “He gets peace and security now with nothing to rock the boat if he doesn’t want it.”
“It’s Neil’s loss,” Naomi snapped, glaring at the table. “Some kids lose their dads through tragedies. Cody lost his through the guy being a total fuckwit. Hopefully he trips and his dick gets bitten by a rattlesnake or stuck in a cactus. Karma!” She finished it, making a rattling noise and pretending to be a snake striking out at an imaginary penis.
We all raised our glasses to that, and I couldn’t help smiling at the mental image of her ex getting the karma I’d just been thinking he was due. Not every ex was a nightmare, a lot of them just disappeared and went on to live their own lives like Joel had. But sometimes, you came across a monumental asshole, and when they couldn’t even bring themselves to give a shit about their child like Evie’s ex did, yeah, it was a moment where women could chuckle and come up with life karma lessons, like witches in a coven.
“Amen!”
We spoke for a while longer, but then the familiar sound of a kid crying got my attention.
“Shit, that’s Nemi,” I hissed, putting my glass of pineapple juice down and standing up.
To be honest, I’d expected to see her lying on the ground or holding her knee, but instead, what I saw had my mouth dropping open with surprise. Bond was picking up a distraught Nemi, and she was holding onto him like he was her lifeline. With her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her legs around his waist, he straightened and began making his way over to us.
“Did I just see that?” Jacinda breathed. “The second that baby started crying, he ran over to her like she needed 911 or resuscitation. And seeing him cradling her like that…” she trailed off, biting down on her fist.
Sure enough, he had one hand around the back of her head while she bawled into his neck, and the other one was around her waist, holding her securely to him as he spoke to her.
“I think my ovaries just went into distress,” Sayla mumbled.
I couldn’t be mad about it, seeing as how mine had sent out an SOS.
As he got to us, he went to put her down, but she shook her head and tightened her limbs.
“I saw her fall and thought it’d be less painful if I brought her over. I hope that’s okay?” he told me as he stopped next to me.
“Thank you so much for doing that,” I said as I stood up and walked around to see my daughter’s face. She wasn’t a crier, never had been, so when she did do it, it broke my heart into pieces. “What happened, baby?”