Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes Read Free Book Online Page B

sympathetic ear to lament that David’s words had ripped open the wound that had never quite healed. That I again felt his rejection every bit as raw as the night he told me he didn’t love me. But I’d long since learned to live without the comfort of my parents. I used to talk to God, but He’d never seemed as far away as He had in the weeks following my diagnosis.
    Isabella was the only one who could give me what I needed at that moment—love, acceptance, and as many sweet hugs as it took to smother my pain. Nothing in the world brought me more comfort than to feel her warm breath against me, her soft cheek against mine, and to hear the only words in the world I could trust without question: “I love you, Mommy.”
    My sandals clacked against the hardwood floor as I walked farther inside and called for her. Mama Peg’s bodiless voice shushed me from the kitchen. Following the raspy sound, I found her sitting at the table, a Bible and notebook set open before her. The breakfast plates had been washed and put away. The scent of lemon dish soap still hung in the air.
    Looking up at me, she laid her pen on the table. “She’s taking a nap.”
    “She stopped taking naps two years ago.”
    “I think this morning upset her.”
    I grimaced. As I considered how the morning’s altercation between my father and me must have sounded to my little girl, I felt shame for the second time in an hour. I wanted to ignore the voice in my head chiding me, but regret is not an emotion that whispers. “You think I should check on her?”
    She shook her head, making the oxygen tubing jiggle from her ears. “Just did. Snoring away.”
    “She sounds just like Dad when she sleeps.”
    “He used to drive me crazy when he slept between his father and me.”
    I slid a chair from the table, making a scraping sound against the floor. Mama Peg frowned at the scuff mark I’d left behind.
    With my foot, I rubbed it away and sat across from her. “You let him sleep with you? You gave me such a hard time about that.”
    “Jack refused to sleep on his own until he was six. Why do you think I tried to warn you?”
    I grinned. “Is that why he’s an only child?”
    She tugged on the hem of her blouse to straighten it. “You laugh, but it’s true. And see? So is she.”
    “That’s not why she is. I thought if I ever did it again, I’d do it right.”
    Her thin lips curled downward at the mention of what would never be.
    I pulled a ragged edge of paper off the notebook and rolled it between my fingers. “I hate that she’ll never have any sisters or brothers.”
    “Builds self-sufficiency,” she said. “Besides, you don’t know she’ll be an only child. David might give her a sibling.”
    I worked the paper between my fingers, bunching it into a tiny ball, not daring to meet my grandmother’s gaze.
    “Did you find him?” she finally asked.
    I nodded slowly.
    “And?”
    I laid the paper ball I’d made on the table and ripped off another corner of paper. I worked this scrap, too, into a ball and placed it beside the first one.
    She took a long, deep breath. “By the look on your face, I’m guessing it went over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl.”
    I wanted to cry but figured I’d let my pity party go on long enough. It was time to put my daughter first. Her future depended on the decisions I would make. The actions I would take.
    “You guessed right. He’s a total jerk,” I whispered.
    “Runs in the family,” she said matter-of-factly. “Hard to believe that sweet angel has Preston blood running through her veins.”
    I ripped off another corner, not answering. I balled it up and added it to the pile I’d begun.
    I was reaching to tear off another piece when a warm, shaky hand grabbed mine. “So did you tell him about Bella before his father did?”
    I looked up into my grandmother’s foggy eyes. “He still doesn’t know.”
    She scrunched her face, giving her the appearance of a fleshy prune. “What? Why