Torn [SHAWN MENDES]

~16~

Shawn pulled into his driveway and parked in front of the house. He carefully removed Piper from her car seat and carried her inside without waking her, which was no small feat. They'd just spent the afternoon at Manning Park, and she'd fallen asleep the second the car started moving on the short trip home. She loved the swing set at the tot playground, and he couldn't get enough of her peals of laughter as he pushed her in the bucket swing.

After he lowered her into the crib, he turned off the light, gently shut the door, and went down the hall to grab the monitor from the master bedroom, taking it outside to the patio with him. He opened up his texts and read over what Aaliyah had sent him while he was driving.

Earl's service was in three days. Finding convenient last-minute flights might be tough, but he could always charter a plane to Toronto, stay there for twenty-four hours, and then fly home. Yasmin wouldn't be back for another week, which meant he'd have to make arrangements for Piper if he were to go. The Chesterfields would probably leap at the idea of watching their granddaughter for two days, but Piper could have serious separation anxiety. It was one thing to leave her with a sitter for a few hours on date night; forty-eight hours would feel like an eternity to a baby. He couldn't do that to her.

He texted his sister back and explained his situation, asking her to please pass on his condolences to Taryn, Patricia, and Earl's family. In the link she'd sent him, it stated that in lieu of flowers, donations could be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He planned on making a hefty contribution, though he wished there was something else he could do. A sympathy card was the obvious choice, but he knew he'd struggle with finding the right words. He could write beautiful lyrics, but coming up with something meaningful to express how sad he felt, and how his heart was with Earl's loved ones, was a much more difficult task.

He sighed and set his phone down before leaning back in the lounge chair and closing his eyes. Taryn's face popped into his thoughts and he could vividly picture how she'd look while coping with grief, since he'd seen her go through that before. He was very familiar with the way her blue eyes looked like tiny oceans when they were watery with tears and how her bottom lip trembled when she tried to hold herself together.

His right hand instinctively went to his chest and touched the six tiny red hearts that were tattooed there. Taryn had never seen this tat, which he'd gotten soon after Piper was born, but it was a permanent link to her. He went to his favorite Los Angeles body artist to get his daughter's tiny newborn footprint on his bicep and couldn't leave without a tribute to the others. Yasmin cried when he showed her his new ink, but she was very hormonal post-birth and cried at everything for days. If it bothered her that he'd added the tattoo for the losses he'd experienced with his first wife, she never told him.

He texted Yaz to let her know he wasn't attending the services, and she replied back that it was probably for the best.

Was it, though? It felt wrong to not be there given how much he loved Earl and Patricia. He also wanted to be there for Taryn, which perhaps wasn't his place anymore, but the pull to go to her and offer comfort was strong. He knew someone else was there for her now, and she probably wouldn't want her ex-husband around anyway, but he had a nagging feeling that on some level she needed him.

He'd found out that she was engaged three months ago when Aaliyah sent him some photos of Hendrix. The pics were taken in the kitchen of the house Taryn bought after selling the one they once shared, and along the wall by a door was a set of hooks with a man's coat hanging on one of them. Underneath the coat, right next to the dog, was a large pair of boots. Maybe they were Jordan's, but his gut told him they belonged to someone else. He called his sister a few hours later.

"Thanks for sending those. Hendrix looks great. He's not aging at all, eh?"

"I swear, he still thinks he's a puppy! The twins played with him for hours and he never got tired," she said with a light laugh.

"Your whole family was there?"

She hesitated a moment. "Yeah, we were invited over for a barbecue. Taryn hadn't seen the kids in awhile. She's still their aunt, even if you're divorced. It's not fair to them to lose both of you."

Ouch. That hit him hard. "They haven't lost me."

"You never come home anymore, Shawn. I'm glad you're happy in California, but when you moved out there, none of us thought it meant you were gone for good."

"You've got three children, so you know better than anyone that it's hard to travel when your wife is pregnant or when the baby is small. Yasmin and I would love to visit, but it's too much right now," he explained.

"When Jordan and I lived in Vancouver, we traveled with Micah several times a year. Eventually we moved back to Toronto because we couldn't stand being so far away from our families."

"You're obviously the better Mendes child." He couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Look...I know that you have a new life, but I don't want you to have regrets years from now. I love you and miss you. I want to get to know your baby, because she's my family, too."

He was already feeling horrible, so he decided to ask the question that was on his mind when he'd called her, since he couldn't feel much worse. "So...um...is Taryn seeing someone?"

His query was met with silence.

"Aaliyah? Are you there?"

"I feel weird talking about this, but yes, she is. In fact, she's engaged."

His heart sunk into his stomach. "Engaged?"

"You're married with a baby, so don't sound so shocked. His name is Julian and he's a fantastic guy. She deserves this happiness after everything that happened."

"Yeah, of course she does. I want her to be happy." This was the truth. He wanted Taryn to have everything good in life.

He groaned in frustration as he contemplated what he could do to let Taryn know he was thinking about her without crossing whatever line there was when you were divorced and both of you were with new people.

He picked up his phone and found her name buried deep in his texts. Aaliyah said the other day that he shouldn't call Taryn, but a text couldn't hurt. He read through their last exchange, which was just before news of his engagement to Yasmin had broke in the tabloids. She'd sent him an update about Hendrix, along with some photos, and he then recorded a video for her to play for their dog. It was mostly him telling Hen that he loved him and saying that he knew he was a good boy in the soft voice he always used with him. The final text was from her saying that he should stop by the next time he was in town.

He'd gone to Toronto with Yasmin soon after that so that his parents could meet her. While his wife-to-be slept late one morning, he had coffee with his mum and mentioned going to see Hendrix. She'd shaken her head and told him he needed to give Taryn space, without going into specifics about why, and they hadn't had any contact since those texts.

He closed up his phone. Texting her now, after all this time had passed, felt wrong.

Everything felt wrong.