"Foster care doesn't exactly teach tenderness," he continued, more serious now. "You learn to read rooms for danger, not for comfort. You learn to need nothing so disappointment can't touch you."
"That sounds incredibly lonely."
"It was efficient." He shrugged like it didn't matter, but his eyes said otherwise. "Kept us alive. When they handed me Sarah, she was a tiny redfaced new born, I knew how to keep something alive. I'd kept Rebecca alive through all those homes. But the warmth part, the emotional part..." He shook his head slowly. "Still figuring that out. Probably always will be."
"You're doing better than you think, Cole."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true. And because you keep not believing me." I leaned forward earnestly. "You showed up to that craft event absolutely terrified but you showed up anyway. You threw her abirthday party with decorations, cake, and guests. You're here, on my porch at eight in the morning with wildflowers that you picked yourself because you wanted to say thank you." I held his gaze firmly. "That's not pragmatic, Cole. That's warm. That's exactly what she needs."
He stared at me for a long, searching moment, something shifting in his expression. Then, quietly: "What about you, Emma?"
"What about me?"
"The sadness." His gaze was too perceptive, seeing too much. "I see it sometimes, underneath everything else. When you think no one's watching."
The question should have felt invasive, too personal. Instead, it felt like relief, of being truly seen by someone who recognized the weight because they carried their own.
"My sister," I heard myself say. "Lily."
"Tell me about her."
So I did. The words came easier than they had in over a year, spilling out like water finally finding cracks in a dam.
"Our mom died when I was sixteen. Cancer, in the beginning it was slow but rushed us all near the end. Lily was only eleven." I wrapped both hands around my mug, needing its warmth. "I basically became her parent overnight. Poorly, probably, but I tried my best."
"That's an enormous burden for a teenager."
"I managed. We managed together." I smiled despite the familiar ache. "Lily was wild, though. Fearless in ways I never was. She loved the mountains the way some people love the ocean. Completely, recklessly, absolutely in love with her whole heart."
"These mountains?"
"Mountains everywhere. But especially here, actually. She'd visited once and fell in love." My voice softened. "She'd drag meon hikes, and I'd complain the entire time about my feet and the bugs and the altitude. But I always went."
"To keep an eye on her."
"Someone had to. She never looked before she leaped." The old wound opened as I reached this part, familiar and sharp. "The last time, I told her not to go alone. The weather was shifting. I'd checked the forecast obsessively. I had this terrible feeling I couldn't shake."
He waited, patient and present.
"But Lily never listened to warnings. She said the mountain was her church. That she needed it like breathing." My voice dropped to barely a whisper. "They found her two days later."
Silence settled between us. Heavy, but not oppressive. Shared weight.
Then Cole reached across the table. His warm, calloused hand covered mine completely.
"Sometimes love isn't enough to keep people safe."
I looked up, meeting his eyes. No judgment there. Just recognition, the kind that comes from carrying the same impossible weight, knowing the same corrosive guilt.
"You couldn't have stopped her," he said quietly, firmly. "Any more than I could have stopped Rebecca from dying in that hospital bed. We do everything right and people still leave. That's not failure, Emma. That's just life being cruel."
A tear escaped, tracing down my cheek. I didn't wipe it away. He saw it, didn't flinch, just squeezed my hand gently before slowly letting go.
"Sorry," I managed, embarrassed. "I don't usually fall apart on people."
"Don't apologize. Not for grief. Never for that."
