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Kiara never got to tell him she was pregnant.
She found out late, when she was already out of the first trimester, and grief had been consuming her. Excuses flew by, one by one, as she made sense of her missing periods, of her weight gain, of the roundness of her stomach, until she no longer could.
Sarah was by her side when she broke into pieces, four months further along than Kiara was.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t something she’d ever talk about.
Her friend held her as she crumbled to the floor, bawling her eyes out, screaming her dead lover’s name. She never wanted to have kids and if he did, he hadn’t told her so, and the reality of it was blow after blow.
Sarah cleaned her up. Talked her through the heartbreak, through her own tears.
‘You don’t have to keep it,’ she whispered.
’I do,’ Kiara said.
Before he died, they’d never made it official like Sarah and John B had. There was never a ring, or vows, or a plan for a future that would make them feel like they were last. Their moments were too fleeting, too ephemeral, and Kiara had nothing to hold onto. Nothing to call his.
Until now.
She told the rest of the group a few days later. It was shock—how could that be? he’d been gone for months—but they held her so she wouldn’t break again, and she could see the fear in their eyes.
The fear for her.
Kiara went home at the end of that week. Her parents no longer had a reason to keep her away, with him gone, and they even accepted the situation after initial arguments against.
She was their daughter—they loved her, at the end of everything—and they’d be by her side.
Months passed. Kiara grew bigger.
Sarah gave birth to a boy. They wanted to call him after him, but held back, in case Kiara wanted to do it instead. She didn’t want to know the gender, picked out names, and she appreciated it. She wanted the freedom. She wanted to have every bit of him she could.
Often, she’d stand in front of the mirror, watching the bump. Her skin was full of stretchmarks and sore bits, but in there was something that was hers and his, and Kiara loved it more than she’d loved anything.
Almost.
On par with him.
She’d look into the mirror and see herself, big and bloated and exhausted, but she’d imagine him behind her shoulder, hugging her like he’d used to. She’d imagine his hand on her belly, taking the weight off of her for a few moments, and relaxing into him. She’d imagine what he would’ve been like if he’d gotten the chance to be a dad, and she knew there’d be no better one.
A lot of her time was spent between home and Sarah. She stayed at the house they’d bought, he’d bought, and watched her friends look after the baby boy. She cradled him and loved him as an aunt, wondering how it was possible that something so sweet, so innocent, could come from people like them.
She had nothing but hope for her own.
When the day came, Pope and Cleo drove her to the hospital. Sarah was the one by her side, holding her hand through it, guiding her through the process she’d gone through herself only months before. It was the most excruciating thing Kiara had gone through, but the moment the bundle ended up in her arms, she knew it was the only thing in the world that mattered.
It looked nothing like either of them, but babies take a while to grow into their faces.
She told herself she could see traces of him in her already.
Jackie Jones, she called her, and gave her his surname. She looked like a rascal, screaming and crying and looking, watching, absorbing everything. She was curious and adamant and beautiful, and Kiara began to cry.
He’d never see her. He’d never lay his eyes on her.
It was all she had of him and she begged the world, universe, god, anything, to let him be a part of her life.
Kiara brought her home, and raised her with the Pogues. Her parents came over nearly every day, checking in, but Sarah and John B’s boy, Wilson, became like a brother to little Jackie. People joked about the kids growing up and getting together, someday, but nobody liked the idea – they thought of the kids as siblings. They raised them as siblings.
Kiara couldn’t raise her alone.
Pictures of him were all over the house. At first, she brought them down because the memory was too much to bear, but Jackie deserved to grow up knowing that despite everything, her dad was loved. Her dad was the backbone of the group and it was his memory that held them together – existing in a house he’d reclaimed from the man he called Dad, living because rather than in spite of.
When Jackie was three, and Wilson held her hand in the park, she asked the question.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
John B and Sarah were in the distance, hugging, and Kiara felt her heart clench. ‘He’s away.’
‘He’s on the walls,’ Jackie said. ‘In the pictures.’
‘Your Daddy’s watching over you,’ Kiara said, stifling tears. ‘He’s looking after you.’
Wilson nodded, even though she wasn’t speaking to him. ‘My mum says angels watch over us. Is he an angel?’
Yes, Kiara wanted to say, he’s an angel.
But kids wouldn’t understand that.
‘No,’ she said instead. ‘He’s just away.’
Jackie nodded. ‘He will come back?’
A tear escaped. Sarah and John B came over just in time, scooping the kids up, as and they were giggling, laughing, screaming, as if the conversation never happened.
Sarah came to her side and Kiara cried in the privacy of her shoulder.
It never got easier.
Not when Jackie was a blonde little thing, with dimples, and that wicked little smile Kiara used to love. Not when Jackie was a smartass, reckless, too curious for her own good, too hotheaded. She was nothing if not her father.
It was another two years before Jackie found out.
Kiara didn’t mean for her to – it was the unsaid thing, that she didn’t have a dad, but they never spoke much about it. There was no right way for Kiara to explain death to a kid, and even when she tried, the words would get stuck in her throat.
Pope’s dog brought them a dead crow.
Jackie was there, and Jackie learned about death, and she looked at her mother with those innocent eyes and asked, ‘Is Daddy dead?’
All Kiara could do was nod.
She began telling more stories about him, after that. Every night when Jackie was going to bed, Kiara would tell her stories abotu her father. About the brave boy who stood up to bullies; the boy who helped them find gold; the boy who found El Dorado.
‘My Daddy’s a hero!’ Jackie said.
‘He was.’
Pictures of him still lined the walls, but Kiara looked at them with fondness, now. She saw traces of Jackie in him rather than him in Jackie, and the world began shifting. Never away form him – just to a world where grief wasn’t an enemy, but an acquaintance.
A friend to walk with.
Jackie started school. She was a Maybank, but she was a Carrera, too, and she was wicked smart and did everything but what she had to. She was causing ruckus, but kids loved her, and teachers did, against their will.
She was ten when she got her nickname, from someone at school.
‘You don’t have to let them call you that if you don’t like it,’ Kiara told her.
Kiara’s hands were on the wheel as she drove them back from school. Wilson was away for football practice, and Jackie would have lacrosse tomorrow.
‘I don’t mind it,’ Jackie said. ‘It’s what they called Dad.’
‘It is.’
‘I like it. I think it suits me.’
The mother smiled, and knew he’d be proud. Even thought she’d had to raise her without him, the Pogues did a great job with her and Wilson. She was grateful she had them, and Jackie turned out ever the Pogue they knew she would, with Wilson watching her back. They were inseparable, like John B and her father were, and she knew it was the best she could’ve done for the kid.
For him, too.
At fifteen, nobody called her Jackie anymore. She was the star lacrosse player, slumming it with Wilson Routledge, ever the troublemaker, and they had their own little friend group. Pope and Cleo’s kid, ten years younger than them, was the baby of the group and they looked after him like no other.
Wilson even took her to prom, when she punched her planned date in the nose after she caught him kissing another girl. It was a whole night of dealing with it, telling her violence wasn’t the answer, but she had enough of her father’s blood to believe otherwise.
Still, Kiara was proud. She loved her as she was, and everything that she’d inherited from her father, the good and the bad alike.
That summer was the best summer of her life. The kids were seventeen, about to leave for college, and little Terrence latched onto them every moment he could, and they adored him. They were drinking beers and going to parties, but Kaira never judged them for it.
‘We did a good job,’ Sarah told her as they watched the bonfire.
Cleo kissed her teeth. ‘Crazy to think something so good came from us.’
The kids gathered around it, in the backyard, and the adults sat on the porch. It was a beautiful summer day, lazy after they’d spent the most of it surfing. They were a lot of things, but nothing more than a family.
John B chuckled. ‘It feels like yesterday we were their age.’
‘I’m just glad they’re not as stupid as we were,’ Pope said.
Kiara scoffed. ‘Don’t speak too soon. That one’s every bit her father. I’m just waiting for the call.’
The mention of him still weighed down conversations, but they’d gotten used to it. There was a lighter tone when he was brought up, but his absence never went away. There was always one spot that felt too empty, the one nobody sat in. There was the lack of rashness, of impulsivity, of things that would get them into trouble.
Kiara’s heart never stopped aching.
But she looked at the kids now, at the next generations of Pogues, and felt pride swell in her chest in place of grief.
She couldn’t have given their child a better life if she tried.
Somewhere, if there was heaven, he was watching them from above. She hoped he was happy, too. She hoped he’d still be waiting for her when her time came.
For now, she watched Wilson Routledge and Terrence Heyward and JJ Maybank and thought, it wasn’t all worth it, but they made it.
They’d be alright.