She rushed to finish before she lost it. “I need to say goodbye to Sarah. I don’t want her to be upset about this. Maybe in the morning I could stop by the B and B while you…I don’t know…fuel up the car or get breakfast or something.”
He nodded, the movement jerky. He was holding back as much as her. “Of course. I understand.”
There was so much more to say, but it would all just end with the same two words, and she couldn’t speak knowing they were coming up. Knowing they had to say them.
“Goodbye, Remy.” Leaning in to kiss his cheek, she didn’t let herself look at him.
She ran into the house and locked herself in her bedroom. The pain of losing him was too big to face any other way. She hugged her pillow and cried, wishing she’d been the kind of woman who could make him smile again.
Chapter Nineteen
No wonder Sarahhated Miami.
Remy had been back for four weeks and was already considering putting their home on the market. What the hell had made him choose a city where just driving home from work required the aggression of an Indy car driver and was guaranteed to elevate his blood pressure? He hung his keys on a hook in the kitchen as he entered their apartment. A hook Sarah had installed, now that he thought about it. It was shaped like a daisy with a ladybug on one petal.
Since he’d returned from Tennessee, he’d noticed a lot of stuff she’d taken care of in the past two years. These days, his eyes were open to all the ways he’d put his head in the sand for too damn long. Knowing Erin had shown him how narrow his world had become. Meeting her had been like an electric shock to the senses, zinging him alive after he’d walked through too much of his life in a daze.
He missed her so badly he ached with it. Too bad he hadn’t been able to give her the kind of happiness shedeserved. But each day, he was trying to do better. Be better.
He’d taken Sarah back to Louisiana the weekend before to visit her mother’s grave. For the first time, it hadn’t ripped his heart out. His counselor had suggested it might be a good thing to do. And it had been really…important. They’d brought flowers and arranged the blooms on the grave site in the rough outline of Liv’s cypress tree painting. Remy had photographed it and put the photo with the others—his original photo of the tree and Liv’s painting of the photo. He’d felt a new sense of peace ever since he’d been able to say goodbye in a way that was meaningful.
Permanent.
Now, laying his jacket over a kitchen chair, he switched on a light above the stove and pulled out a pan to make dinner. That was one of the ways he was living in the here and now—he’d divided cooking duties with his daughter. His nights sucked more—obviously—but he was proud to have expanded his repertoire to include poached eggs. He could grill salmon. And there’d been a time when he didnotburn a roast, although that dish was far from mastered. Tonight he would Cajun fry some speckled trout his brother had overnighted him, packed in ice.
Fresh caught in bayou waters, the fish was an old favorite, the recipe something he could make in his sleep. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t Cajun fry.
When he’d first returned from Tennessee, he’d been primed to return to his therapist and work harder to make progress. Get through those grief stages. Find a way to be a better father and maybe—just maybe—be the kind of man who wouldn’t hurt Erin Finley again.
But it had been slower than he’d hoped. His “one step forward, two steps back” theory seemed like a big fat jokethese days. At first, he’d stepped so far back he’d actually had a day where he’d been speechless at work. Stuck in a meeting and unable to pull his thoughts together to form a coherent sentence. But then, the guys in the meeting hadn’t known that discussing home renovations would put him over the edge. Just the words “air nail compressor” damn near sent him into a meltdown with missing Erin.
Things had gotten better recently. Especially after the visit to Liv’s grave. He could feel new hope brewing inside him.
His phone rang while he seasoned the fish.
“Armand,” he answered, looking at the caller ID. “You are the hero of the dinner table tonight. I’m cooking the trout as we speak.”
Sarah would be home from graduation rehearsal any minute. Mathilda had driven her and—bless that girl—she was helping Sarah with some application essays for late registration.
His daughter had applied to some schools in Tennessee and a few in Louisiana, inspiring Lucas to send out a few last-minute applications himself. The kid was obviously crazy about Sarah, and who could blame him? Remy had been keeping a close eye on that situation, but he had to admit, the guy made Sarah smile a lot. Hard to begrudge her the daily Skype time with Lucas when the boy made his girl laugh so often.
“I only sent the fish to make you come home. The bayou, she misses you.” Armand was the most colorful net maker in all of Houma, his stories as prized as his good knots. “I heard her calling out for you while I reeled in the trout, and I said I would try to lure you back with the taste of the delicacies you love best.”
“You’re not lying about that part anyway.” Remy coated the trout in black pepper and red pepper mixed together. “All the rest of your lines might work on the tourists, but not on me.”
“That’s because you gave your heart away to the gods of money and you forgot about the sea, you old dog.” Armand must be approaching the dance hall because the sound of accordion music swelled until Remy could almost see the skirts swaying and the old-timers sipping their one beer for the night.
Remy turned down the heat under the pan. “Did you put Mom on the phone while I wasn’t looking? Cuz you sound just like her, brother man.”
“Funny how the parents get smarter as we get older, no?” Armand chuckled before he called out greetings. “Enjoy the trout, Remigius. I keep your boat ready.”
Remy hung up the phone, surprised how much the last bit had gotten to him—a whole lot more than accusations of selling out to money.
I keep your boat ready.
It made him wish he’d gone fishing that day Erin had given him directions to a nearby river. The place where she’d dropped a line as a girl. For that matter, why hadn’t he taken her with him to see the water again?
Maybe frying the fish made him nostalgic. Or maybe it was that old zydeco tune, “Quelle Étoile,” that had him thinking about things he hadn’t shared with Erin. He’d bet she’d love to dance to “Quelle Étoile”in a sweaty dance hall. Or fish for speckled trout. Hadn’t she said she wished he’d done something more romantic than install a home security system?
