I bite my lip, thinking of him.
“He’s good.Thriving, actually.Spain’s become a second home for him.”
Lydia nods, satisfied but a little wistful.“I was really hoping he’d be here for the wedding.I guess he needs to do what’s right for him.”
I nod too, quietly agreeing.
“And you?”I ask softly.“How are you holding up?”
“Well, since your mom and Nick decided to surprise us with an engagement and a summer wedding, I’ve been consumed with making their day perfect,” she admits.
There’s pride and love in her voice, but a flicker of exhaustion too, almost invisible.
“Honestly, it’s the one thing keeping me sane while the rest of life feels like it’s unraveling.”
Her shoulders sag just a little as she pours tea, and I see her carefully maintained cheerfulness slipping.She tells me about her divorce proceedings, the endless court dates, the weight of a family’s dysfunction, the patterns she tried to outrun and couldn’t.Her voice is low, weary.
“I was young.Alone.Abandoned by my own alcoholic parents,” she says, staring into her cup as if the porcelain might hold answers.“If it wasn’t for your mom, I wouldn’t have made it through high school—or past twenty-five.That’s why I want her day to be everything she could dream of.Second only to her wedding with your dad.”
Part of me wants to feel betrayed that Mom’s happiness doesn’t erase Dad’s absence.But the larger, quieter part knows love isn’t finite—Nate’s absence, Mom’s new joy, Dad’s memory—they can all exist at once.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t tea talk,” Lydia says, catching herself.
“No, it’s fine,” I tell her.“It’s good to just listen.”
She continues, telling me about toxic love, fairy-tale beginnings gone wrong, the Sullivans, her mother in-law, Moira’s venom, and how she’s tried and failed to protect her own.
I listen, letting her words sink into the quiet spaces in my chest, reminding me that every heart carries invisible scars, even Nate’s.
“You know,” she says finally, her grip firming on my hand, “Nate’s capacity to love people who hurt him—it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.Strength and vulnerability at the same time.I don’t know where he gets it from.”
“You,” I whisper.“He gets it from you.”
She gives my hand a light squeeze, and for a moment, the weight of everything feels lighter.
“Okay, let’s talk wedding,” she says, straightening.
Before Lydia can launch into her wedding-planning tangent, the front door opens and closes with a muted thump.
Jake walks in carrying two grocery bags.His shoulders tense the second he sees me at the kitchen table.It’s barely perceptible, but I feel it like a gust of cold air.
“I got everything you needed,” he says, directing the words strictly at Lydia.He sets the bags on the counter—carefully, but with a stiffness that betrays how tightly he’s holding himself together.
“Thanks, honey.Come sit, Nora just got here?—”
“I’ve got things to do.”
Short.Final.
He doesn’t even pretend to glance my way.
He’s gone an instant later, leaving the room feeling oddly hollow, like he took something with him.Or maybe just left something unresolved behind.
Lydia exhales, weary.“He hasn’t been the same since he started working for Scott.I hope being here reminds him who he is.”
But I know some of the distance in him has nothing to do with Scott.
Later, after circling the hallway twice trying to work up the courage, I knock on his bedroom door.The sound feels too loud in the quiet house.
