In All My Dreams, page 10
His eyes scan the photo again, then they turn serious as they meet mine.
“When do you plan on telling that boy he’s her father?”
My blood stops cold, and my vision goes blurry. I stare at my father, opening and closing my mouth repeatedly as I try to come up with a lie.
But I’m tired of lying.
“How did you know?” I whisper, looking back at the door to make sure Ian hasn’t come back.
Dad lets out an offended snort. “I have eyes, Georgia. The boy puts all the stars in the sky for you. Always has. I also know that six years ago I told him to go find you,” he says matter-of-factly. “He came back even more broken than I was. I knew something horrible happened between the two of you, but I never knew what. Auden filled in some of those holes for me when the two of them came down to the lake the other morning. The moment I laid eyes on her, I knew. She was yours, but she was also his.”
Silent tears slip down my cheeks as my father rips my lies apart.
“Ian didn’t seem to know, though. Maybe he has an idea. But I don’t think so. Whatever lie you told him, he seems to believe. I can see that it’s eating him alive, wishing that he hadn’t messed up. Whatever he did, or you did. I don’t know. I don’t really care to know. I just want you to be happy, and I know that silly boy makes you shine brighter than all the constellations in the sky.” He squeezes my hand again, patting it with his other.
I wipe my tears away with my free hand. “I don’t know how to tell him. He’s going to hate me, Dad. There’s so much I’m hiding from him. So much I’m hiding from everyone.” I sniffle, taking a deep breath, grabbing my mom’s locket like it can keep me from sinking into the abyss.
“Georgia,” Dad says sternly. “Nothing that happened to Irene was your fault.”
I look up in shock. “What—how do you know about that?”
He gives me a sad smile before looking down at the locket. “Did you find her diary? I left it in her desk, along with that locket and Ian’s watch when Lydia said she was going to make that room up for you.”
“You knew about it?” I gasp. “You want me to read it?” My heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest from all these new revelations.
“You need to read it, Bug. It has all the answers.”
The door opens behind me, and Ian walks in with a brown paper bag and a smile on his face. His expression falters when he sees the tears in my eyes, but I give him a reassuring smile.
“I managed to snag some bagels, cream cheese, and a cobb salad. I know it’s not the bacon burger you want, Link. But as a doctor, I can’t recommend that to someone who just had a heart attack,” Ian tells us as he brings the rolling desk over to the bed for Dad, placing the bag on top before turning and flashing me another smile.
The door opens again a moment later, and we are all greeted by Nurse Olivia, who is already sporting a scowl. “Visiting hours are over. You need to leave so my patient can get some sleep.”
My father rolls his eyes dramatically, making Ian and I both chuckle. “You two go. I’ll be home soon. Give that granddaughter of mine a kiss for me. You can even give the demon cat an ear scratch or two.” I stand and lean over to give my dad a kiss on his cheek. “Read the diary, Georgia. It’s important,” he whispers. I nod, and Ian comes over to shake his hand. “Treat them well, son.”
“Always,” Ian responds.
The two men I dreaded coming back to see, shaking hands. This is the life we should have had. Ian, Auden, and I, a real family. My father, a doting grandfather. Lydia, a grandmother to a little girl who reminds us both so much of Irene, I know she would love Auden with her entire heart. Even the thought of Ian’s father being a part of Auden’s life doesn’t terrify me as much.
Ian and I walk hand in hand back to the car. He opens the door for me, making me feel silly until I look up at him and everything about him is screaming at me to tell him the truth.
The short drive back to the house is filled with silence, both of us lost in our thoughts again as Ian’s hand is on my lap. His fingers drum lightly against my thigh, sending all sorts of electric pulses throughout my body.
“Let’s go sit under the willow tree for a while,” I tell him as he puts the car into park behind the manor. “If that’s okay?”
His smile threatens to undo me. “That sounds perfect. I’ll go grab the quilt from the couch and some wine and meet you there in a few minutes. I’m pretty sure Mom made some banana bread today. Do you want some?”
“Mrs. Foster’s famous banana bread? Absolutely, yes. I just need to grab a few things from upstairs,” I tell him before following him into the dark kitchen. I’d like to check on Auden, and I need to grab my mother’s diary from my bedroom before Ian and I head to the willow tree.
I sneak through the house as quickly as I can so as not to wake Mrs. Foster, who is asleep on the sofa bed in the living room. I should buy her some flowers tomorrow for watching Auden. I told her that she could take Auden to their house near the back of the property, but she declined that idea quickly and offered to just stay here with her for the night.
As I’m walking up the stairs, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Someone, or something, is watching me.
I stop midstep, my breathing slowing as my heart races, my mind urging me to run while my body stands frozen.
Deep breath in, Georgie girl.
Forcing my body and my mind to get on the same page, I turn around slowly. To face whatever, or whoever, is going to be standing behind me, waiting to steal me into the shadows for all the sins I’ve committed.
I gasp loudly when I see Ian standing right behind me, only a step away, holding a quilt and a small bag.
“What the fuck, Ian?” I hiss. “You nearly scared me half to death, you asshole!”
He chuckles, making me seriously debate pushing him down the rest of the stairs.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to notice me,” he says with a smug smile.
When we were little, before Irene passed away, we used to play this hide-and-seek game called Black Widow. We would turn all the lights out and essentially play hide and seek in the dark. When it was mine or Irene’s turn to search, Ian would sneak up behind us and follow us through the house until we finally noticed him. Every time the game ended with one of us crying and Ian laughing before the lights were turned on. My father eventually banned the game because he was tired of hearing us scream all night at each other.
I shove him playfully before heading up the stairs to check on Auden. “How long were you standing there?” I ask as we hit the top of the staircase.
“Only a moment. You were already stopped in the middle of the staircase like a weirdo by the time I snuck up on you.”
So it wasn’t Ian that was watching me. My mother, perhaps? Waiting with another warning to protect and not trust someone?
I look over at Ian, worry and unease washing over me as I gaze at him. Then, he flashes that crooked smile of his at me, and those thoughts dissipate in a cloud of smoke between us. Ian is the one person in this house besides Auden that I know wouldn’t betray my trust.
I tip-toe into Auden’s bedroom, leaving Ian in the hall behind me. Auden is curled up on her side, the pink duvet pooled at her feet. One arm is tucked under her pillow, and the other is wrapped around Horton, who is taking his guard-cat duties very seriously tonight as he snoozes right next to her, completely unaware of my presence. I carefully pull the duvet up and cover her little body, placing a soft kiss on her forehead before tip-toeing back into the hallway where Ian waits for me at her door.
“She looks so peaceful when she sleeps,” he muses, a soft smile playing on his lips. “Much unlike her drooling mother who hogs all the blankets,” he teases.
I love this playful side of him. I feel like I haven’t seen enough of it since we’ve been back.
I wonder if he’ll still be this content with my company once I tell him all of my secrets.
“I’ll be right out. I’m just going to grab the diary from my room,” I tell him before rushing across the hall and into the guest bedroom.
The couch is still a mess from our sleepover, and I can’t help but smile as I recall the way we fell asleep together, wrapped into each other's arms.
Safe from the ghosts and secrets of our past.
I quickly grab the blue book from the nightstand and head back out to meet Ian in the hall.
Only, he’s not in the hall anymore.
I start to head toward the stairs when I hear low whispers from Auden’s room.
When I peek my head in, the small lamp on the bedside table is on, and I see Ian sitting on the bed next to Auden, who is very much awake now.
“What if the bad one tries to hurt Mommy again?” Auden asks Ian, her tone worried as she tugs on the duvet.
Ian chuckles and reaches forward and tucks a stray lock of her behind her ear. “Nobody is going to harm you or your mom, not while I’m here to chase all the bad things away.”
Auden chews on her lip, clearly unsatisfied with Ian’s answer. “But what about Papa? The bad one hurt him already, and you were there,” she argues, causing Ian to shake his head in defeat.
“You’re right. I was there. But the bad one that hurt your Papa is inside his body, already making him sick. Your mom isn’t sick, and if something tries to get her, I’ll fight them off. I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to her, or to you.”
Auden holds out her pinky. “Pinky swear?”
Ian wraps his pinky around hers, and they shake on it. “Pinky swear,” he promises her with a smirk. Her answering smile is enough to light up the entire planet. “Now, go to sleep before your mom catches you awake at this hour. She might not let us go get milkshakes at the fair tomorrow if you don’t go to sleep.”
“I love milkshakes!” Auden yells excitedly. “Oops, I’m not supposed to yell. Mama might catch us.” She giggles before tucking herself back into the pink duvet.
Ian turns the lamp off before leaning over and giving her hair a playful pat. “Good night, Auden.”
“Good night, Ian. Don’t break our promise. Okay?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, kid.”
16
Ian
Now
Georgia and I make our way down to the willow tree in silence. She nearly gave me a heart attack when I turned and saw her watching Auden and me. She didn’t say anything, but the smile she gave me said enough as she held her hand out for mine.
Auden may not be mine, but she’s wrapped herself right next to her mother in that small, unbroken chamber of my heart I reserve for them.
I know I need to come clean and be honest about my true feelings. I’ve already told Georgia that I fucked up by leaving her all those years ago; she knows that much at least. But she doesn’t know that I’d give up just about anything to have her and Auden both in my life.
A week isn’t long enough with either of them, and each strike of the clock leaves me feeling hopeless and restless.
Hopeless because I know there’s no world where Georgia would opt to leave her life and choose to stay here.
Restless because I know there’s no world where I watch her leave without me again, especially now.
“Can you read another journal entry or two?” Georgia asks once we get settled underneath the tree on the quilt I carried out for us.
The willow tree fronds sway in the breeze around us as the lake makes small waves that crash against the dock in the distance. The frogs and grasshoppers sing their midnight song around us.
I pop open the wine cork and pour us both a cup, using coffee mugs instead of wine glasses so they stay upright on the uneven earth underneath us. Handing her a mug, I take the diary from her.
“Here. I’ll turn my phone flashlight on,” Georgia says, and the small clearing under the tree lights up as she places her phone face-side up. “Can you read the words, or should we turn yours on, too?”
I open the diary, squinting slightly as the words come into focus in the muted light. “I can read it,” I reassure her.
We both take a long swig of our wine, and she leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder as I begin to read her mother’s words once more.
Dear Georgia,
Today was a better day. It’s the first time in a long while I didn’t feel like I was failing you as a mother for being so lost in my grief. I know you can tell when I’m sad, and I wish I knew the magic fix to take all the pain away and just be there for you. Yesterday, I yelled at you for trying to come into my study. I regretted it as soon as your beautiful face fell and you left without a word after placing something on my desk. When I saw the photo you drew for me, the one with the three of us having a picnic under the willow tree, I knew I was the worst mother ever. Your father held me all night as I cried myself to sleep, silently vowing to do better for you.
For both of you.
So today, your father and I took you and the twins to the fair in town. I’ll never forget the way your face lit up when you saw the colorful lights, the tactfully decorated booths with cotton candy of every flavor, and all the rides you’d only seen in movies until today. The fair only comes to town every couple of years, and before now, you and the twins were too little for all of the rides. This year, though, you got to go on all but three of them. I promise to take you back the next time it’s in town so we can conquer those last three pesky rides with their height restrictions. Ian, the tall sweetheart that he is, chose to only go on rides that you and Irene could ride too. I’d be lying if I didn’t have this secret wish for a much, much older version of you two getting married and having your own babies to take to the fair one day. Irene being the perfect maid of honor and best auntie to your children, of course.
You make him work for that future, my littlest love, if it’s meant to be.
I asked you what your favorite part of the fair was, and you told me the Ferris wheel. That was my favorite part, too. You said that you loved that we went together, holding hands the entire ride up and down. When we stopped at the highest peak of the ride, your whole face lit up with wonder and awe as we gazed into the stars. I hope you never lose that. The ability to love everything the way it was meant to be by our creator. The stars, the trees, the flowers.
You find such beauty in the world, Georgie girl. Never lose that. Always choose love, happiness, forgiveness. Life is too short to be stuck living in the ugliness of it all.
Choose love, always.
And remember that I love you, most of all.
Love always,
Mom
I place the book on my lap, leaving it open to where I stopped reading. “Do you want me to keep reading?”
Georgia stirs, pulling her head off of my shoulder, sniffling quietly next to me. “I just can’t wrap my head around any of it, Ian.” Her shoulders slump as she starts to cry silently beside me. “How could that be the same woman who tried to kill me?” She looks up at me, her gray-blue eyes filled to the brim with tears.
I place my hand gently against her cheek, wiping away the few tears that have managed to escape. “Your mom loved you, Georgia. So much. We may never know why she did what she did, but I do know that she loved you.”
She leans into me, and I wrap my arms around her as she cries into my chest, stroking her back in gentle motions, wishing more than anything that I had the answers to all the questions that haunt her.
“My dad doesn’t think she did it,” Georgia mumbles into my chest.
“What do you mean?”
She pulls out of my arms, bringing both her hands to her face and angrily wiping away her tears. “He doesn’t think she tried to kill me.”
I open my mouth in surprise, then close it again. It would change everything for Georgia, and Lincoln, if there was some type of proof that Caroline wasn’t responsible for her own demise and destruction of her own family.
“Who would have done it then?” I ask her.
She lets out a defeated laugh. “I have no fucking idea. Up until today, I never gave it much thought. Her death was a cut-and-dry suicide case. Poisoned by her own hand, with the cup that should have been mine. I never gave her the benefit of the doubt. I just believed what everyone told me. Until today, I never thought twice about it being a murder.”
“Murder?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, if someone else tried to poison me, it’d be a murder, right? Or someone wanted my mother dead. Either way, murder. Or she was stuck in the throes of depression and didn’t realize what she was doing? I don’t know, Ian. My stomach is twisted up in knots, and I don’t know what to believe or who to trust anymore. Now Auden is talking about ghosts and bad things. I shouldn’t have come back.”
I look up into the swaying fronds of the willow tree. Before we came out here, I had every intention of telling Georgia how I felt about her, about us, about Auden.
But she has so much on her plate already. I can’t add my shit to that.
I sigh, grabbing my cup of wine and finishing it in three gulps before picking the diary back up. “Let’s keep reading then and see if this diary has any answers. Shall we?”
Georgia nods as she continues to wipe at her tears. I open my arm for her, and she leans on me with no hesitation. Just like when we were kids, huddled together. Too young to understand why we lost Irene and Caroline the tragic and horrific way we did.
Dear Georgie girl,
Last night you had one of your sleepwalking spells again. Lydia woke me up in the dead of night screaming like a banshee from across the way. When your father and I looked out the window, you were standing at the end of the dock wearing your baby-blue nightgown and holding your stuffed bear, staring into the lake. Or at least, I assumed you were. The shadows of the night made it hard to see. We both went running down the stairs, racing to get to you before you took that last step into the dark waters below. By the time we made it to you, Lydia was already there, tugging you away from the ledge, but you wouldn’t budge. It was like you were superglued to the spot. A forklift wouldn’t have been able to move you. I remember your father reminding us not to touch you. You aren’t supposed to touch a person who is stuck in a dream like you were. But how could I not reach for you? Protect you? You’re my entire universe. Of course I had to get you away from the gaping monster that the lake looked like. But even I couldn’t coax you into moving. You looked right through me. It wasn’t until Ian came running out of his house, screaming that he could help you. Your father and I stood back next to Lydia and watched Ian whisper something into your ear, and like magic, you returned to us again. Your eyes landed on mine, huge and afraid, and you ran right into the comfort of my arms, sobbing. Five years old and you experienced so much fear in your tiny body. If I could hold you close to me forever and keep you safe from the monsters and dangers of the world, I would, my sweet girl. I would hold you and never let you go. Ian held one of your hands all the way back to the house while I clung tightly to the other. Your protectors, keeping you safe from the monsters of the world. If only I knew how to keep you safe from your own self and the scary things that haunt you in your dreams, driving you to put yourself in dangerous and terrifying predicaments. Until I learn, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe from your nightmares. I love you, my Georgie girl. To the moon and back.
