Shambles

Chapter 24: Gabe

"Hey, long time no see. How are you and the Mrs?" I walk around Stone's trailer on Old Country Road by Lake DeGray. He's sitting on the back deck drinking a beer.

"We are alright. How have you been holding up?" I ask Stone sitting down in the chair next to him on the deck.

"I'm good, I'm still trying to get a few things together." Stone had moved up North for a while to be with his wife he met while on a cross country trip with the biker gang he's in. She ended up leaving him and divorcing him when she fell in love with a man she went to high school with. When she left him she took his daughter and moved to another state.

"Have you seen Ashley?"

"Yea. That's where I just came back from. I stayed up there for two weeks before she started summer camp. It's just hard seeing that bitch. She's always so smug. Talking that shit like I won't kill her or that chump she's with. She's lucky my little girl loves her because I would have taken her ass out by now."

"That brings me to what I'm here for." I rub my hand over the top of my head. "I found out a few months ago that I have two kids with a woman I had two one night stands with. Since finding out about my children she has since left her abusive and possessive boyfriend." Stone passes me a beer after opening it. "He recently found out where I moved her because of her stupid ass sister. I feel he's going to be a problem. And I may need to get rid of that problem."

"First I want to say congratulations on becoming a father, and secondly how do you want to handle this problem?"

"Like we've done before. I just need to know that you can get it cleaned up and disposed of."

"I can do that."

"I will let you know when I'll need you, and I will transfer the money into your account."

"Sounds like a plan."

Finishing up my beer I fist bump Stone and get up and head to my car. I feel better now that I have gotten that put into motion.

♾

"Savannah told me she's been seeing the recommended doctor," my mom says. I'm sitting in the kitchen with her while she is rolling out the dough for her homemade dumplings.

"Savannah wants to have kids to fit in some club I guess her friends are in. She feels left out."

"I don't know why people think so much about what other people are doing."

"I'm not sure if she really wants kids because she wants to be a mom or because she wants to impress her friends. When we were at the football camp we ran into Ginger Kendricks. And she let this woman think that Bash and Pea were her kids. Then she told me that she wanted to be invited to playdates and I was keeping her from that. Does that sound like a person who genuinely wants to have a baby?" I sigh. "I'm just not sure she will be a good mother."

"Well, I feel like this is our fault. We wanted to make sure you ended up with nice girls like our parents did. But we should have let you and Michael pick who you wanted to be with."

"I understand why you did it, but I've never felt for Savannah what you and dad feel for each other...I mean I love her because I've known her forever and don't want anything to happen to her. I just don't see myself spending the rest of my life with her."

She doesn't say anything to my words she continues to roll out her dough. "Do you think these feelings have something to do with Ember?" She asks after being quiet for a few minutes.

"Yes and No. The night I found her unresponsive in the bathtub I told her I didn't want children. It was just too much, and then she wanted to act like it wasn't a problem. Then after I found out about Sweet Pea and Bash I was like; here are my children I wanted, by a woman who is a great mother." Sitting back on the stool I breathe out a long breath. "And to be honest I've thought about Ember almost every day from the first time I've met her. It has to mean something that we kept running into each other."