Placing my hand on his, I shared his grief. “Patricia loved you, too. You guys were a perfect example of a happy marriage when I didn’t have any role models. She helped me and Della so much.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” Letting me go, he stood with a weary sigh. “I suppose we better get to the wake, and then…you should probably tell my daughter that you and Della are no longer just siblings before she figures it out like I did.”
Standing, I coughed harder than I had in a while. My eyes watered as I cupped my mouth, waiting for it to pass.
“You okay?” John asked, worried.
I smiled, shoving the episode away. “Yeah, sorry. Damn cough just keeps lingering.”
“You were sick?”
“A while ago. Need some good ole’ home cooked meals to get my immune system back in working order.”
John’s face fell. “Well the cook of the family has gone, so you’ll be stuck with chargrilled things on the barbeque from me, I’m afraid.”
I winced. “God, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t. I know. Let’s just keep talking about other things.” He waved his hand as we slipped back into a walk. “So, when are you going to tell Cassie?”
“Della thinks we should wait.”
“Wait?” He shook his head. “No, waiting doesn’t work in this world, Ren. She’ll be shocked, I’ll admit, and maybe a little hurt, but she’s in a good place now. Her and Chip are giving their relationship another chance, and little Nina will be coming in a few days. You can meet her. She’s adorable. Patty loved that little tyke.”
Following him through the graveyard, I asked, “Nina?”
“Cassie’s daughter.” He raised another eyebrow. “Her and Chip share custody right now while they figure things out. She’s six, almost seven.”
I froze, my inability to do fast math once again my downfall.
How long had Della and I been gone?
When was the last time I’d been with Cassie?
John must’ve understood the sudden whiteness on my face as he held up his hands. “She’s not yours, Ren.”
To go from shock to relief so quickly made my knees liquid. “Oh.”
“I will confess, I did ask her. She got pregnant not long after you guys left. But she said you two hadn’t been together in a while. That you’d pulled away from that part of the friendship, and had always used, eh, protection.”
“Protection doesn’t always seem to stop such things,” I muttered, thinking of Della’s complications.
“That’s true but rest assured, Nina isn’t yours. Even if Cassie didn’t do a paternity test, you can see for yourself she’s Chip’s, purely thanks to the flaming red hair of her father.”
Clasping an arm around my shoulders, he guided me into the church as if he were the one consoling me and not the other way around.
I let him be the patriarch—the role he played so well, for a little longer, but once we got to the wake, I stayed close by, monitoring his drinking, doing my best to change the subjects when his face grew blotchy and tears streamed silently down his face as he hung in the shadows.
He might have his own children, but if he let me, I would be there for him as much as they were.
We hadn’t discussed if we should stay or go or what the Wilsons expected, but by the time nightfall smothered the farm and the wake was over with a fridge full of casseroles and leftovers, Della and I cut across the driveway, pushed our single beds together, undressed without speaking, and reached for each other.
We were too emotionally exhausted to talk.
Too physically drained to do anything more than hug.
We returned to an age of innocence, where skin on skin contact was purely for comfort and nothing else.
We fell asleep in our old room, entangled and entwined.
Just as before.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DELLA
* * * * * *
2032
DEATH IS NEVER easy.
And it wasn’t any easier just because we hadn’t seen Patricia in a while or that we weren’t truly her children. Patricia had been a large part of our lives, and Cherry River didn’t feel the same without her.
Being back in that place…I wish I could warn myself.
Wish I could whisper what was about to happen.
It’s so obvious from where I sit in the future, but of course, with the complications between me and Ren, the residual childhood jealousy toward Cassie, and the overwhelming aura of grief on the farm, all of us were preoccupied with other things.
Things like accepting John’s invitation to stay and for Ren to resume his role running the fields.
We had no place else to be and no rush to leave and really, Ren had been searching for an answer to our future, and found a temporary one by brushing off his skills to work the land.
That first afternoon when he cleaned the rusty tractor from its cobweb jacket, greased ancient gears and cranks, and kicked her into a growling, diesel-coughing start, my heart fluttered with so many memories of him. So many memories of so many different Rens. Child Rens, teenage Rens, early twenties Rens, right to the thirty-year-old man I adored.