And with the silence came the crumbling of walls she’d maintained for three long years.
Tears welled up in her eyes without warning. She slapped her hand over her mouth to stop the sob that wanted to escape. She couldn’t break down here. Not in the hallway where someone might hear. Where Gran might come looking for her and ask questions Jane couldn’t answer.
She rushed down the hall to her bedroom, her hands shaking as she turned the doorknob. She got inside and bolted the door behind her. Safe. Finally safe.
Jane slid down the door and collapsed onto the floor, and all the grief she’d been suppressing for the past three years finally spilled out.
Three years of holding together the pieces of a shattered heart. Three years of pretending she was fine, she was healing, she was moving forward. Three years of telling herself the pain would fade, that time healed all wounds, that she’d be okayeventually.
All of it came crashing down.
Sobs wracked her body, and she couldn’t stop them. Didn’t even try. Darren’s face flashed through her mind, the way he’d smiled at her on their wedding day. The way he’d held her when they’d first learned about Taylor. The plans they’d made, the future they’d dreamed about.
Taylor. Her baby girl. Five months along. Not quite viable. Not quite a person in the eyes of the world. But real to Jane. So achingly real.
And tonight had added new pain. Fresh reminders of what could have been. The warmth of Maddy’s weight in her lap. Trinity’s easy adoration. Gabe’s understanding eyes that saw too much, that recognized the grief she carried because he carried his own.
All the things she could never have. All the futures that had died in twisted metal and hospital fluorescent lights and the devastating words “I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do.”
Because when you lost everything once, you learned. You learned not to want. Not to hope. Not to open your heart again. Because if you did, if you let someone in, fate would take them too. Better to be alone. Safer to be numb. Easier to survive when you had nothing left to lose.
But tonight had cracked something open inside her. The careful walls she’d built. The numbness she’d cultivated. The safety of keeping everyone at arm’s length.
And now she couldn’t stop the flood.
Jane sat on the floor in the darkness of her room, let the tears come, and let the grief have her completely. Tomorrow, she would rebuild the walls. Tomorrow, she would be strong again, would put on the mask of competence and capability that everyone expected.
But tonight, just for tonight, Jane let herself break.
Because sometimes breaking was the only honest thing left to do.
8
CHRISTOPHER
Christopher settled behind the wheel of Charlie’s sedan, adjusting the seat to accommodate his longer legs. Isabella climbed into the passenger seat beside him, and the proximity sent his pulse racing in a way that had nothing to do with the evening’s earlier chaos at the Seaside Inn.
Trinity and Maddy piled into the back seat, their excited chatter filling the car before Christopher even turned the key in the ignition. They were comparing favorite parts of the day, voices overlapping as they discussed the carriage ride and the hot chocolate and the snow globes they’d purchased.
“I loved when the driver told us about the Spanish settlers,” Trinity said. “Did you know they celebrated Christmas here in the fifteen hundreds?”
“I liked the lights best,” Maddy countered. “Everything was so beautiful and sparkly.”
Christopher caught Isabella’s eye as he pulled out of the inn’s parking lot, and she smiled at the girls’ enthusiasm. Something soft crossed her expression. Maternal and warm and utterly beautiful. His chest tightened at the sight.
He’d spent most of the evening at the Seaside Inn helping Isabella manage their dinner rush, and it had been surprisingly enjoyable despite the chaos. Working beside her in the kitchen, taking direction, learning her rhythm. The easy way they’d fallen into sync after the initial awkwardness of him not knowing where anything was kept.
Now, driving through the evening darkness with the girls’ happiness bubbling in the back seat and Isabella sitting beside him, Christopher felt something settle in his chest. Something that felt dangerously close to contentment.
“So what movie are you going to watch first?” he asked, catching the girls’ eyes in the rearview mirror.
“We’re thinking Elf,” Trinity said. “Or maybe Home Alone.”
“Both!” Maddy declared. “We can watch both if we stay up late enough.”
“Your mom might have something to say about that,” Christopher pointed out, glancing at Isabella.
Isabella laughed softly. “As long as they’re reasonable about it. Tomorrow is a holiday, so they can sleep in a little.”
