“Good.”
I gave her a pat on the arm before I left her bedroom. I shut the door behind me, and the second I heard it click into place, I closed my eyes. An avalanche of emotions hit me, forcing my chest to gasp for air, for my eyes to smart despite how tightly I shut them. My hand was still on the doorknob, but I wished it were a gun—and Forneus was at the end of it.
A hand moved to my arm, the touch delicate. Fresh-cut flowers on a summer day entered my nose. The fingers moved up my arm, to my shoulder, and then cupped my neck.
As if she issued the command with her words, I opened my eyes and met hers.
Her expression was identical to mine…in every way.
The toll made her eyes glisten with unshed tears. Her eyes weren’t shallow and superficial like most people’s. They were deep and cavernous, like there was no bottom to their depths. They went all the way to her heart, which was shattered into pieces like mine. As her hand cupped my neck, she moved closer to me, the connection between our eyes raw and infinite. Her other hand found its way to my bicep as she cradled herself closer to me.
Farther and farther, she inched, our faces so close together.
She dropped her head slightly, her forehead pressing against my lips as her arms circled me. Before I knew what was happening, she embraced me, our chests together, her body cocooned in mine.
My mind didn’t override my body this time, and my arms circled her waist as I brought her close. My chin rested on her forehead, and I got a deeper inhale of her smell. The other times our bodies had been in contact with each other, it was mixed with heat and sweat. In the hallway outside my daughter’s bedroom, I held her as she held me, the only person in the world who truly understood my pain.
Not just understood it—but shared it.
Three
Constance
I walked Claire to school the next morning, and she was quiet.
That was unlike her. She usually splashed in the puddles with her rain boots, pointed at the clouds and said they looked like frogs and sharks, and asked me questions about everything that came to mind.
But now, her head was down, her hands on the straps of her backpack.
“You doing okay, honey?”
She kept her eyes on the sidewalk as she continued forward. “I’m fine.”
“You’re awfully quiet.”
She gave a shrug.
I tried to cheer her up. “What if we get some gelato when I pick you up later?”
“Yeah?” That got her to look up, some light in her eyes. “That’d be fun. Will Daddy come?”
“I’m sure.” After I dropped her off at school, I stopped by the bakery Benton liked and picked up his usual list of items. I went to the store every other day because he liked his food fresh, so nothing lasted long. All the items on his list were things that belonged in the fridge, not the cabinets or the freezer. Cooking had never been my strong suit, as Claire had pointed out on multiple occasions, but I was rising to the challenge.
Juggling all the bags, I made it home and put everything on the counter. The house was quiet with Claire gone. Benton must still be asleep in his bedroom. I put everything away and noticed that the leftovers in the pan were gone.
Then I heard his voice. “I don’t have time for this shit. Just get it done.”
Once everything was put away, I made my way to the second floor where his voice came from. I hardly ever went up there. It had Beatrice’s old bedroom, his weight room, and a study. I made my way down the hallway then took a peek inside.
Shirtless, he sat at a large desk. His chair was pivoted toward the window, and with one elbow on the desk, he stared through the part in the curtains, the overcast light blanketing his face. He must have just showered because his jaw was cleanly shaved, and his hair was flat as if it was still damp.
I would normally speak the moment I spotted him, but I chose to stay quiet and stare.
Blanketed in the morning light, the veins down his arms were pronounced, like thick ropes that secured ships to a dock. His skin was tight over his bulky muscles, so the outline of each one was distinct. He must lift trucks to look like that. His only soft feature was his eyes—which were still pretty hard.
It was difficult not to stare. Devoid of emotion for everyone except his daughter, he was one of the most heartless men I’d ever met, but he somehow made my heart full. I’d never felt such affection for any man in all my life. He was the light in the storm. The umbrella in the rain. The summer after the winter.