Haven

Chapter Forty One

Alex

Getting Madison's distress call at 4.30pm was probably the high point of my shit show of a day. Not.

I still had a meeting at 5pm and that was pretty much out of the question since my daughter was rejecting my calls and had apparently fled the house with $1000 cash.

I didn't know who to be mad at. Jaida or Madison. Or myself. I was kidding myself thinking I could expect Jaida to get on board with Madison taking a more active role in her life. And I was kidding myself with thinking Madison was up to the task of that role.

It would be easier to have Jaida come straight to HQ after school and wait for me to finish meeting while doing her homework and keep my private life separate from her.

I knew she was struggling with the death of her mother. And I pushed her too far. That was on me.

My only focus was on finding her, and making sure she didn't do anything insane in the mean time. I had no idea where she'd go, which is what lead me to where I am now.

Intimidating the life out of a 16 year old who was doing a decent deer in headlights impression.

Ella was probably one of my favorite people I'd ever met. She was unapologetically herself all the time, and she didn't go around self destructing or trashing other peoples lives because she'd had a hard upbringing.

"I really don't know!" She insists for the 10th time, and I was about out of patience with her.

"Ella I swear to god himself, I am about to lose my shit with you and I really don't wanna do that, just throw some ideas out there, where would she go?" I plead, desperately trying to not lose it with a child.

She sighs deeply, paling at the sound of my raised voice which only makes my guilt worse. "Try her moms, and the cemetery, and try Jazz," she says, i was going to check both places and I had spoken to Jasmine who had no clue. "She'll probably have convinced Jazz not to say anything to you, but I don't think she'd go there, she knows Jasmine owes you one for the condo thing so she'll probably have bypassed that option to go to the city." She rambles on, though to her credit she was trying.

I had made of point of having her mother buried outside the city, to avoid the possibility of her trying to go there unattended. I was aware my kid was 16 and I had to allow her some freedom but the thought of her in the city alone was downright frightening. Even more so now that had a lot of cash and not a lot of rationale.

"She is really hurt, I don't know what was said or what happened but there's more to Jaida than a bad temper and a loud mouth," she tells me, eying me cautiously. "She's stormed it with all these changes, but you have to try and understand how difficult it is to grieve something you never had. She grew up in a million different homes hoping upon hope that her mom would show up and save her, or that anyone at all would show up and save her," she pauses, trying to articulate whatever wisdom was coming next. And to be fair to her, she was wise for a 16 year old.

"Nobody ever did Alex, she doesn't know how to be vulnerable or how to communicate that she's extremely worried that you have the option of having a baby," she holds her hand up to silence my interjection. "If you have another baby, she thinks that she'll be pushed aside because you will naturally fall in love with a little baby, you missed that stage with her," she pauses again, and looks at me as though she's trying to see if I understand. Or as though she's about to drop a bomb on me. "As bad as her mom was, she didn't miss that stage and she probably, unbeknownst to herself, knew she had that fall back. Her mom loved her, she just didn't know how to put her and Jazz first, but she loved them from birth. You have to try and understand that she feels like that's missing between you and it wouldn't be if Madison pulled the baby trap on your ass, and she will, if she isn't already pregnant."