Finding Eden(98)

"Daddy?" a little girl called, getting out of the back seat of the car and walking toward us."

"Kelsey, honey," Ryan called, "I'll be there in just a sec. Get back in the car, okay?" He turned toward us. "Sorry, I was just taking my little girl to the park when I saw you pull in. My news station had me camping out here for weeks." Color moved up his neck. "I saw you and it seemed like fate or something."

The little girl, not having listened to her father, joined him and looked up at us shyly. Her blonde hair was in braids, she wore a pink jacket, and she was holding a kite in her hands. She clearly had Down Syndrome. She blinked up at Calder, instant adoration in her expression. When I looked at her sweet face, it brought tears to my eyes. She looked so much like Maya, and her trusting smile must have melted Calder's heart, too. He gently got down to her level and looked her right in the eyes.

"Hey there," Calder said reaching out his hand to her, "I'm Calder. This is Eden." The little girl glanced up at me, her gaze innocent and direct, and then back at Calder. She took his hand and squeezed it and I watched as Calder's eyes widened.

She held up her kite with her other hand. "You like to fly, don't you?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, his voice gravelly and filled with a note of wonder. He cleared his throat. "I do." She grinned at him as if she'd known what his answer would be.

Ryan smiled down at his daughter and said, "So we won't keep you, and I wasn't stalking you, I swear. I mean, I was stalking you for a while," he grinned an embarrassed grin, more color moving up his face, "but I wasn't today." He shook his head and I couldn't help smiling. "Anyway, I had to stop and ask if you'd be interested in doing an interview."

Calder stood and I glanced at him, something unspoken moving between us. Calder looked back at Ryan. "Yeah, I think we'd be okay with that. I don't know how much we'll be able to talk about. Some of it is still an ongoing investigation."

Ryan's eyes widened. "Right. Yeah, of course. People really just want to hear your story, you know?" He paused, his brow creasing. "I have to be honest with you though. We're a small station. You'll get better offers from the big ones. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't mention that. I know you're a young couple, just starting off." He ran a hand over his daughter's head. "My wife and I are in the same boat. And I'd totally understand if you needed to take a bigger deal, we—"

"We'd like to go with you," Calder said. "You're right. Something about this feels like fate." He smiled back down at Kelsey and then over at me.

"Yeah," I said. "I couldn't agree more."



**********



A few weeks later, Calder and I called my mom into her living room to tell her that we had rented a small house just ten minutes from her. She looked crestfallen, and truthfully, I was a little sad, too, because the environment in her house had been a hundred times better since we'd returned from Indiana. And I finally felt like our relationship was moving forward. Molly had told me about her conversation with my mom about embracing Calder and Xander, and it seemed she had really taken it to heart. But it was time. And soon, we'd need at least a little extra space.

Calder stood up to retrieve something he'd been working on up in the guest room using supplies we'd gone out and purchased when we first got home.

When he returned, he handed my mom two wrapped paintings and glanced at me nervously before sitting down.

"What is this?" my mom asked, smiling as she opened the one on top.

Neither one of us answered, just watched her as she tore the last of the brown paper off and brought her hand to her mouth, gazing down at the painting of me when I was fourteen, a small, secret smile on my face and a morning glory in my hand. She stared down at it, tears coursing down her cheeks. When she looked up at Calder, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. "Thank you," she mouthed, standing up and going toward where he sat. He stood up, too, and hugged her as she cried. I wiped the tears from my eyes as well and laughed when she pulled away, laughing and fanning her face as if that would stop the tears.

"Open the other one," I said, nodding my head at it and biting my lip.

"Another one? I don't know if I can handle another one." She laughed softly and stared at the one of me again, a small, joyful smile on her face. But she tore the wrapping off the second painting and sat staring down at it, confusion in her expression. It was her, holding a baby wrapped in a white blanket, his or her dark hair just barely peeking out.

"The first one was the past . . . that one's the future," Calder said, his voice gravelly, a note of nervousness in it.